How I Accidentally Caused the Current 300 Billion Dollar Software Industry Selloff.

I know, you've seen the news. Blame me. But first, hear my story. A couple weeks ago, I needed to build a basic website with a blog. Web design is not my best skill, so I looked at some "on rails" options: Wix, Squarespace, etc. I set up a few free accounts and started playing with templates, but nothing quite fit what I had in mind. I also wasn't wild about yet another monthly fee.

Then it hit me. I opened Claude and, in summary, said this: "I want a website that uses these colors (screenshot a), but has a layout like this website (screenshot b). It needs five pages, with this content, and it needs a basic blog engine that lets me draft, publish, and delete posts."

Two minutes later, I had mockups. After a few adjustments, Claude Code built and published the whole thing on a server plan I already pay for. The net cost: zero. And unlike the template builders, I got exactly the layout I wanted, and a blog engine that does only what I need.

I sat back and thought: what does this mean for those website builder companies? If I just bypassed their entire product in under an hour, for free, they could lose a lot of business!

And then the news hit: a roughly 300 billion dollar decrease in software company stocks.

Clearly, someone had been watching. Word got to investors: if Tim can sidestep buying software and build exactly what he wants with AI, what's going to happen to the market?

I cringe every time the doorbell rings, but I have not yet been subpoenaed.

Ok, so I'm not actually deluded enough to think I caused the selloff, but this part is true: software stocks are plummeting because investors understand that millions like me are now empowered to build their own tailored solutions, quickly and cheaply.

It is exciting, and terrifying, like AI news so often is.