The technology doesn’t matter
The technology doesn’t matter. While technology matters, the technology does not. In the grand scheme of things, technology is a critical ingredient, and any particular technology may matter for a set time horizon. More often then not, the technology is just a means to an end.
Most successful internet businesses have not succeeded because of the technology they use. They succeeded because of their vision, creating all the technology they needed in the process of bringing that vision to market. It is easy to mistakenly attribute their success to the technology they developed. Google didn’t succeed because of the technology they developed, they created that technology in order to succeed.
For those like myself involved in technology-related fields, this may sound like a harsh reality — we are expendable, easily replaceable, anonymous production units on an mass production assembly line (the best Orwellian analogy I could come up with right now — sue me if you don’t like it). But fret not, it is not so! If you are at the top of your game, you are not so expendable, not so easily (or cheaply) replaceable, and people tend to start knowing your name. Ironically, paradoxically, in order to be relevant in a field which deals with something that does not matter, namely the technology, you must be the very best at it.
At the end of a project I was recently involved with someone asked me if I had a copy of the software stashed away somewhere. I pointed my index finger to my head and said “it’s all up here.” A replacement system would be superior, leveraging everything learned building the old systems while being unencumbered by them. That’s why smart companies invest in people, not technology. It is skilled, creative people that build the technology needed for your business to succeed. The technology itself doesn’t matter.
