> Honestly it’s hard to refute the fact that we need roads and houses more than we need cat videos.

If the software made by my company ceased to exist, every government in the US, federal, state, and municipal, every construction company, plus most governments worldwide would be unable to build roads or houses until they were able to cobble together a replacement.

The entire world runs on software. Software controls our banks, flies our planes, decides what happens when you press the brake pedal in your car. The bridges you drive, walk, or ride across were modeled in software and simulated to determine whether they needed to be built stronger. The power companies use software to route power across the grid. Software drives servos which determine how much natural gas and air get pumped into our power plants. Every day, power producers and power consumers bid on how much they will pay for electricity at certain times tomorrow, and all of that is automated by software. Judges and lawyers file motions electronically, routed through software. Two weeks ago, US President Donald Trump, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed a memorandum of understanding, opening the Strait of Hormuz. Trump was in Versaille, Pezeshkian was in Tehran, Sharif was in Islamabad; the agreement was signed digitally, with software.

If every computer on earth stopped working tomorrow, we wouldn't notice the lack of cat videos, but we would notice the complete collapse of civilization.