A three-part series by Paul Hsiao on the agentic software shift forcing every software leader on the Airframe Register to reinvent themselves in the new era.
This register captures every enterprise software vendor founded between 1969 and 2026, valued above $500m today.
Across 75 years of the Software Innovators Leaderboard, 2,406 companies and $26T of combined value, one metric travels cleanly: value per employee. It just moved from $15M to $193M in seven years. Anthropic at $193M per employee. IBM at $0.7M. Microsoft at $15M.
The Software Innovators Leaderboard splits into four ownership cohorts. Public ($18T, repricing in plain sight). PE-owned ($1.1T, breaking on the Medallia mechanic). Private ($5.2T, trapped behind a velvet rope). Acquired ($1.8T, failed independence dressed as validated value). Three of the four are in a structurally different position than their owners realize.
Software has moved through eight technological waves over 75 years. AI is being built against a $5-50T services-labor wallet, not the $650B software market the prior eight built against.