Sorry to trot out an almost cliched expression, but when we talk about killing jobs, we need to remember the difference between creative destruction and, well,

Sorry to trot out an almost cliched expression, but when we talk about killing jobs, we need to remember the difference between creative destruction and, well, destructive destruction. I've destroyed all kinds of jobs with software, but fortunately in my case, the people doing the job were begging me to destroy the jobs. There's so much low hanging fruit in office automation. Just scratch the surface at almost any company, and you'll find situations where someone downloads a spreadsheet and then types the numbers into another system and then emails the screen from the new system to someone still using another system who types in the numbers... In creative destruction, you do create wealth by eliminating inefficiency and waste, but there is a short to medium term transition cost as the people who are no longer going to be paid to do the old thing find something new to do. Fortunately, in my case, all these people had oplenty of other things their organizations wanted them to do, so the creative side of the destruction was immediate. Hmmm... now that I think of it, David Heinemeier Hansson destroyed my old job. I used to get paid a lot of money to slowly type servlets, jdbc, and jsps. Fortunately, for me, the transition was not only quick but very pleasant - I'm a hell of a lot happier, and there's still more than enough software out there to be written. The financial crisis, on the other hand, was destructive destruction.