> [!abstract] > Andy and Bill's law is a statement that new software will always consume any increase in computing power that new hardware can provide. The law originates from a humorous one-liner told in the 1990s during computing conferences: "what Andy giveth, Bill taketh away." The phrase is a riff upon the business strategies of former Intel CEO Andy Grove and former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates (Wikipedia, 2024). I wonder how much of that is driven by (i) legitimate growth in software complexity, (ii) complacent coding and use of poor practices (such as the Electron apps that were prevalent at one point), and (iii) planned obsolescence (in the form of a deliberate software-induced slowing down of aging hardware, especially in walled-garden ecosystems like Apple's where the OEM controls both the hardware and the software). ## Variants ### Wirth's law "Wirth's law is an adage on computer performance which states that software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware is becoming faster. The adage is named after Niklaus Wirth, a computer scientist who discussed it in his 1995 article 'A Plea for Lean Software' (Wikipedia, 2024). ### Gates' law "The speed of software halves every 18 months" (Wikipedia, 2024). ### May's law "Software efficiency halves every 18 months, compensating Moore's law" (Wikipedia, 2024). Sometimes also referred to as Page's law (after Google cofounder Larry Page). >[!related] >- **North** (upstream): [[Moore's law]] >- **West** (similar): — >- **East** (different): — >- **South** (downstream): —