the.com/spreadsheets
the only software where a typo can bankrupt a bank and nobody gets fired for using it.
means a grid of rows and columns that turns numbers into formulas, formulas into models, and models into decisions.
from born from paper ledger sheets accountants used to track columns of figures by hand, then digitized in 1979 by visicalc, the first killer app that made people buy a computer just to run one program.
first killer appvisicalc sold apple ii computers on its own
excel errorjpmorgan lost 6 billion partly from a copy-paste bug
still rulingmost companies still run budgets on excel, not databases
academic proofa 2010 reinhart-rogoff error shaped global austerity policy
for instance
visicalc — 1979, apple ii, the original spreadsheet that started it all
microsoft excel — released 1985, still the default language of business worldwide
google sheets — 2006, made spreadsheets collaborative and live in a browser
lotus 1-2-3 — dominated 1980s corporate pcs before excel dethroned it