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Software

The layer where most modern failures actually happen.

11: in business
10:18: average
113 min: in total
20: across the network

Software across the network →

All briefs11

Bill Gates

Bill Gates didn’t build Microsoft by writing better code—he built it by defining what counted as theft.

Epic Games

Tim Sweeney · 1991

Epic Games is a vertically integrated software and entertainment company whose business model relies on cross-subsidising its store and engine through a hit game. Its self-portrait as a developer ally conflicts with its contractual terms and revenue structure. The gap between that story and its mechanics is where the real lesson lies.

Gabe Newell

Valve didn’t build Steam to disrupt — it built Steam to survive, then let it become the gatekeeper.

Infosys

Narayana Murthy · 1981

Infosys is a textbook example of policy-led scaling: no proprietary tech, no venture funding, no market creation — just disciplined execution on a regulatory opportunity.

Larry Ellison

Oracle didn’t win by building better software — it won by making exit costlier than endurance.

SAP

Dietmar Hopp · 1972

SAP is the world's largest vendor of enterprise software. Founded in 1972 in Walldorf by Dietmar Hopp and four former IBM colleagues, it built its first product—the RF financial accounting system—in 1973 for Imperial Chemical Industries in Östringen. Its technical distinction was real-time operation via local electronic storage and a common logical database, eliminating overnight punch card processing. It restructured from GbR to GmbH (1981), to AG (late 1980s), to SE (2014). Hopp led SAP from 1988 to 2005 and retained ~10% equity.

Tim Sweeney

A $100-a-day shareware game paid for the Unreal Engine — not venture capital, not a pitch deck, not a founder myth.

Apple Inc.

Steve Jobs · 1976

Apple Inc. was founded in 1976 to market Wozniak’s Apple I. It achieved early success with the mass-produced Apple II. It pioneered graphical user interfaces via the Lisa (1983) and Macintosh (1984), launching desktop publishing in 1985 with the LaserWriter. Internal conflict led to Jobs’s 1985 departure. By 1997, Apple was losing money and failing to deliver a modern OS — prompting acquisition of NeXT and Jobs’s return as CEO. NeXTSTEP became the foundation of Mac OS X. Apple’s revival was structural, not inspirational.

Microsoft

Bill Gates · 1975

Microsoft’s founding was not about building the best software first — it was about controlling the terms of distribution before the market existed. Its early success came from timing, contractual foresight, and treating software as licensable intellectual property — not a service or craft. The company established the template for platform leverage in computing: own the interface, not the hardware.

Shopify

Tobias Lütke · 2006

Shopify is a Canadian multinational cloud e-commerce management platform for retail point-of-sale systems, founded in 2006 by Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand, and Scott Lake. In 2024, it processed US$292.3 billion in transactions, with 5 million customers. Its software is praised for ease of use and reasonable fee structure, and it is described as the 'go-to e-commerce platform for startups'. Shopify went public in 2015 and uses a two-class voting structure that grants disproportionate voting control to Lütke despite his minority economic stake.

Stripe, Inc.

Patrick & John Collison · 2010

Stripe is infrastructure, not finance. It sells developer convenience — not banking services. Its $159bn valuation rests entirely on volume processed, not revenue disclosed, margins proven, or ownership of capital.