Episode 606: Spreadsheets!
WikiMedia Commons
Note: This episode contains explicit language.
Spreadsheets used to be actual sheets of paper. Sometimes, a bunch of sheets of paper taped together.
Then, in the late '70s, a bored student invented the electronic spreadsheet. It transformed industries. But its effects ran deeper than that.
As one journalist wrote more than 30 years ago, "The spreadsheet is a tool, and it is also a world view — reality by the numbers."
Today's show was inspired by A Spreadsheet Way of Knowledge, a 1984 article by Steven Levy.
Music: Walk The Moon's "Tightrope." Find us: Twitter/ Facebook/ Spotify/ Tumblr.