Software historically digitized filing cabinets but didn't eliminate work—people still had to do the job—whereas AI can now do the work itself, which is orders of magnitude bigger than just storing information.
Alex Rampell distinguishes between traditional software (digitized filing cabinets that still required human labor) and AI (which can actually do the work), arguing this shift dramatically expands the addressable market. ✦ AI generated
Alex Rampell · a16z Podcast · 2026-07-30 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 7:00
I've given this whole presentation on the origin of software was basically take a filing cabinet and put it into a database... So software just kind of took things that were stored in paper format and then they made them available first on prem via green screen computers... but people still had to do the work. So I would actually argue that the world didn't get that much more efficient with software because all that software did was like take HR... nothing really got more efficient... But what you can now do with software is it can edit the filing cabinet, right? It's no longer just the dumb storage. It's actually like the smart implementation of changes against those things... It just turns out that the work is orders of magnitude bigger than the storage of information that the work is done on.
verbatim transcript · starts at 7:00
6:42building the tools and it and it's just that the intelligence layer wasn't that intelligent. Uh but for the first uh for the first job it wasn't that necessary like the the most basic kind of uh you know automation didn't require that much reasoning. Um but then as the models got really good we we had this kind of huge tailwind because we could uh we had all all this context already built uh all
7:04the tools already built and we could kind of you know as as the models got better just replace our intelligence uh and and the product would just get smarter over time. Um so in that way we we got a little lucky but I think the you know the the core vision hasn't really changed at all. It was always about automating the work and not uh not building tools for for them that they
7:22would have to use. I feel like as the models have improved, we are more and more seeing software do the job of labor, which Alex, I would say you were the first to argue and famously argue that that would be the case. Curious like how you think about that when you look at companies and maybe how it played into like the thesis around Lassie. >> Yeah. Well, so I've given this whole
7:42presentation on the origin of software was basically take a filing cabinet and put it in it to a database >> and kind of pick the uh the the time equals zero moment for that with this company the Saber Systems because airlines would just keep reservations and filing cabinets. Saber Systems was a joint project between IBM and American Airlines. That's why Saber is spelled with two A's, Saber. Um but then this
8:05kind of took wind everywhere else. So like there are HR filing cabinets and that became something like Peopleoft. There are legal filing cabinets and that became you know all of these Lexus Nexus products. There are accounting filing cabinets and that became Quickbooks and that became Netswuite. So every that was the origin of software. So software just kind of took things that were stored in paper format and then they made them
8:27available first on prem via green screen computers because that was a lot more efficient to book an airline ticket and change it if you didn't have to use an eraser anymore. uh starting with Saber and um but people still had to do the work. So I I would actually argue that the world didn't get that much more efficient with software because all that software did was like take HR like did
8:50Peopleoft and then workday make HR efficient make make HR departments more efficient like I don't think so because the same number of people worked in HR for the exact same size company in like 1950 as probably 2000 and instead of using filing cabinets that are you know that are guarded by Stein and Frederick you know making sure that nobody breaks into the HR files. Now you have an IT
9:12department and a CISO to make sure nobody hacks into the IT files or the you know the HR filing cabinet. So nothing really got more efficient. I I'm somewhat exaggerating for effect here. But what you can now do with software is it can do it can edit the filing cabinet, right? It's no longer just the dumb storage. It's actually like the smart implementation of changes against those things. So like if it's HR, let's
- ·Took paper storage and put it into databases
- ·People still had to do the actual work
- ·World didn't get much more efficient
- ·AI edits the filing cabinet, not just reads it
- ·Smart implementation of changes against data
- ·Work itself is now automated, not just recorded
- ·Doing the work is orders of magnitude larger
- ·Far bigger than storing the information
- ·Dramatically expands the addressable market