This article explores the profound impact of electronic spreadsheets, particularly Microsoft Excel, on American businesses and the economy. It traces the evolution from pre-spreadsheet management practices to the modern reliance on data-driven decision-making and financial engineering. The piece also touches on the implications for future technologies like artificial intelligence.

• About one-sixth of the world's population uses Excel, yet the tool gets little credit for how thoroughly it reshaped business.
• Spreadsheets shifted corporate focus from production toward numerical optimization and financial engineering.
• Before spreadsheets, managers tracked operations with columnar pads and typewritten memos, making real-time analysis of complex data essentially impossible.
• Dan Bricklin's classroom-inspired idea, developed with Bob Frankston at Software Arts, turned into the electronic spreadsheet that gave companies unprecedented speed and precision in analyzing their own operations.