The thesis that software is merely one component of many is certainly true. The idea that we have too many software engineers however, seems false to me. Also

The thesis that software is merely one component of many is certainly true. The idea that we have too many software engineers however, seems false to me. Also the idea that everyone needs to orient their career to serve a larger societal good sounds like a prescription of goal oriented blindness. There are plenty of inventions made for amusement that lead to larger societal good. If someone feels passionate about aligning their life and career with larger overall goals, that's great. However if someone working at Zygna is passionate about games, perhaps they have an insight you don't and their contribution will make a bigger difference to the world you think. Wadhwa's claim that Andresson's portolio is 'unoriginal' seems irrelevant. Facebook is Friendster 3.0? From my point of view Facebook works, and friendster didn't. Isn't there value in building something that actually works?