Software in the unglamorous industries

The most interesting frontier in technology is not the one that gets written about. It is the slow, deep work of bringing good software to the industries that the last wave of technology skipped.

Everyone understands that software is eating the world. Less discussed is what it is eating now. Not consumer apps, but the unglamorous middle: distribution, logistics, specialist manufacturing, regulated services. The businesses that keep the physical economy running and still, in many cases, run on spreadsheets and phone calls.

Where the durability is

These industries are hard to enter, slow to change, and sticky once you are in. A piece of software that becomes the system of record for a specialist trade is close to impossible to remove. That is exactly the kind of moat a permanent owner values.

It is also where technology fluency and operating experience compound. Understanding the software is not enough. You have to understand the business the software serves, which is precisely the combination we try to hold under one roof.

Tech enabled, not just tech

We invest in pure software, and we invest in ordinary businesses that technology is quietly remaking from the inside. A distributor with a great logistics platform is a technology company wearing work clothes. Companies like that are undervalued because they are misread.

The glamorous frontier is crowded and expensive. The unglamorous one is where patient owners still find durable, mispriced, genuinely wonderful businesses. We would rather be there.