Success Quote by Ken Olsen

There is a smug, almost theological neatness to Ken Olsen’s line: treat hardware as the creation myth, and software will simply descend like grace. It’s the kind of statement a hardware-first executive can use to turn engineering reality into corporate destiny. The punch is in “comes from heaven” - not “gets built,” not “gets funded,” not “gets debugged at 2 a.m.” The phrase launders human labor into inevitability, suggesting that if you make the right machines, the programs will take care of themselves.

The intent is partly motivational (a rallying cry for investing in the box) and partly defensive. Olsen ran Digital Equipment Corporation, a company whose identity and margins were tied to physical systems: minis, terminals, architectures. In that world, software could look like a dependent variable, a necessary layer that customers and third parties would fill in once the hardware platform was compelling enough. It’s a platform strategy framed as providence.

The subtext, though, is a quiet underestimation of software as a product and a culture. “Good hardware” is measurable and sellable; software is messy, iterative, and increasingly where value accumulates. In hindsight - with Microsoft, Apple, Google, and open-source ecosystems defining modern computing - Olsen’s heaven metaphor reads like a period piece from an era when computing felt like machinery, not experience. The line works because it captures that old faith with perfect confidence, and because history politely, brutally disproved it.