A Good Product Is Hard to Outgrow

At first glance, it is strange that Excel survived for decades. It is visually primitive. A blank grid of cells. No obvious workflow. No onboarding. Nothing about it suggests that investment banks use it to build billion-dollar financial models or that entire companies run on top of it. Yet they do. Why did this tool survive while newer, more polished, and highly capable products struggled to replace it? How can complex analysis happen inside the same tool that a child can use within minutes? Very few tools operate comfortably across such a wide spectrum of users. Beginners see cells and tables. Intermediate users see formulas. Advanced users see workflows, automation, and interconnected systems. Experts see infrastructure. The interface remains largely the same, but the user's understanding of it changes dramatically. That is one of the most remarkable qualities of great software. The best tools do not merely stay useful. They reveal deeper layers as users grow into them.…