I strongly encourage anyone and everyone to read the above referenced article. It's fantastic.
Marc Andreessen is a pioneer in the technology space. He founded one of the first internet browser companies (Netscape) and went on to invest in numerous other successful technology ventures (including Facebook, Skype, Twitter, Zynga, and Foursquare).
The truly fascinating points made by Marc are that in several industries software (and software companies) are emerging as the big winners in today's economy. Take for example the following list: Amazon (software) is the world's largest bookseller; Netflix (software) is the world's largest video service by number of subscribers; Apple (hardware and software), Spotify (software), and Pandora (software) are the world's dominant music companies; today's fastest growing entertainment companies are video game manufacturers such as Zynga (software); Pixar (software) is one of the best new movie companies; etc., etc., etc. Seriously, read the article and you will be shocked by how many software companies are pioneering and dominating multiple industries.
I really enjoyed this article for many reasons. One of them is that about a month or two ago I decided I wanted to join the technology revolution currently taking over the world. It's interesting to find an article like this that does an incredible job of pointing out the many reasons why such a move made sense for me. Thanks, Marc.