It's easy to get cynical about business and politics. But, sometimes people push for ideas not only because they can exploit the results, but also because they

It's easy to get cynical about business and politics. But, sometimes people push for ideas not only because they can exploit the results, but also because they might be good ideas for lots of people in general. 1) It is generally expected that the skills involved in software development will be increasingly important for high paying employment and the general advancement of the state of the world. That's not a claim that being specifically a "Software Engineer" is important. But, that already "Nearly half (49%) of all jobs that pay more than $58,000 require some coding skills" [1] The kid might grow up to have a job that involves analyzing a lot of data, or running a lot of simulations, or designing something that requires more aid than a pen and paper can provide (ex: synthetic biology). Either way, that kid is going to end up doing a lot of work that looks a lot like software engineering in practice --even if it doesn't say "That Kid - Software Engineer" on that kid's business card. Even beyond "some coding skills", it is recognized that the systems thinking, systems design and systems architecture that is inherent in software engineering is increasingly important for highly-paid technical work moving forward. 2) Very few actually "hire only the top 1%". If that actually was the case, 99% of software engineers would already be unemployed. The "hire only the top!" meme is more of a reminder that it's not often a good idea to go cheap and hire lots of low-cost warm bodies to fill out your project. Hiring cheap is the natural tendency of all management. So, they need a catch phrase to knock themselves out of that norm. [1] http://www.content-loop.com/why-coding-is-still-the-most-important-job-skill-of-the-future/ http://www.content-loop.com/why-coding-is-still-the-most-imp...