Who invented the spreadsheet ? Well, common internet knowledge right now says that Dan Bicklin, who created Vycal, created the spreadsheet , the modern online spreadsheet that we know of. However, that's not the case. That's not exactly the answer. I've put together an entire history of spreadsheets going beyond the normal internet online spreadsheet we know of as Google Sheets, Excel , Visical, Lotus 123. It goes far beyond that. I start in ancient accounting and talk about how basically we think of modern day spreadsheets as these sort of bookkeeping documents. However, what

really happened was that bookkeepers were running ledgers. And if we took what exactly accounting was doing and put it into modern computing, it would actually look more like Bitcoin or some kind of cryptocurrency, some kind of immutable ledger. But in fact, why the modern spreadsheet and online spreadsheet , Google Sheets and Excel look the way they look and do the things they look do the things they do is because of financial reasons and not just financial reasons of keeping books but by financial forecasting. The idea behind Vizycal was to actually look at forecasting ahead of time and say what would happen if I did different things today in my numbers. I and Dan

Bicklin wanted to see what would change if certain things were different in the numbers now. So in actuality, modern online spreadsheets are used for bookkeeping, but they're actually made because of financial forecasting. We go deep into this and I share with you the actual people across the world and across the different companies that actually ended up making spreadsheets what they are today, the modern online spreadsheets. And we go through Viscal, we go through Lotus, we go through Excel , and we meet those people here. Go check out bettersheets.co/history and see what actually survived over the course of all of these iterations. It wasn't one exact person. It was a

multitude of people, bunch of people in suits and ties and a bunch of people trying to make things better each and every month and each and every year. And we go all the way into actual AI now is coming for spreadsheets, but spreadsheets are almost stronger than ever. Two billion users of Google Sheets, a billion users of Excel . We have more. Oh my god. This was the uh diagram and chart of the original Vizyl. I think it I think it looks pretty darn cool. But yeah, we map the entire industry and over the course of who was it that was very influential. I think beyond

Dan Bicklin, I think Steve Jobs ended up loving spreadsheets so much and putting it on Apple 2 and getting it into the hands of people that I think Steve Jobs has one of the biggest hands in this and and he really loved the craft of the computer and the craft of using software and it was sold with the hardware. I think Steve Jobs had a huge hand in what [clears throat] modern spreadsheets look like and feel like and how they work in the modern workplace and for personal reasons like our personal use of spreadsheets. So yeah, we go from modern spreadsheets and we go all the way through. These are all the people. Here's the co-architect with Lotus 123, product manager Mitch Kapor. These people all had a hand in shaping what

modern spreadsheets look like and how they act and what they do for us. I think it's really cool and a lot of people had really really big hands in in all of this. And I think the modern spreadsheet now is not just a spreadsheet of rows and columns but it is absolutely cloud computing as well. And I think that's going to become a much much much bigger part with AI. I think doing things in spreadsheets that are not physically in front of us and looking at it I think it's going to become much much bigger. Yes, we have Air Table now and the way that Google Sheets are. It feels like Google Sheets today is not the Google Sheets that launched 20 years ago. It really feels completely different and we have little upstarts

that came around rows, kod, notion, smart sheet. We have glide softer app sheet who are trying to make frontends for the spreadsheets we use. By the way, you can check out better sheets.co/sites if you want a modern website version of your spreadsheet . But I think AI is changing spreadsheets, not just in how we interact with it immediately, but how it can operate without us. And I'm actually looking forward to the future of spreadsheets. I'm interested in seeing how spreadsheets continue to be used as a front end and a backend. But if we use cloud computing plus AI, I think spreadsheets are going to do some really, really incredible things. And there's some cool features that I think are still opportunities in the

spreadsheet scape. Yes, we have two billion devices with Apple and Excel and Google Sheets, but I think there's more. I think there's room for challengers. I think there's room for opportunities. I've mapped them all out here. If you're interested in spreadsheet opportunities, try to get to the end of this and I try to tell you exactly what I think could potentially be some pretty powerful stuff inside of spreadsheets that hasn't been built yet or people are working on it right now. Like we have this equals AI and we can access AI from our spreadsheets, but I like it's clunky. I feel like it's just the start. I feel like we could access AI in many many ways beyond just using it inside of our spreadsheets. I think if we flip it around and start having AI use

spreadsheets that we use alongside us, sort of like a pair programmer or a pair spreadsheet , someone alongside us who sort of acting on this spreadsheet along with us I think is going to be a much much interest much more interesting use of spreadsheets in the future in the near future. But yeah, we we should be able to access our spreadsheets on mobile, our laptops, desktops, big screens, small screens, but also have someone else working on it at the same time. I think that's the case. I think we're going to be there. But if you're interested in reading how I got to this point, check out this spreadsheet history over at Better Sheets. And imagine if my calculator had a ball in its pack like a mouse. And imagine if I had a heads-up display like a fighter

plane where I could see the virtual image hanging in the air in front of me. Sounds like Iron Man, right? I could just move my mouse and keyboard calculator around on the table , punch in a few numbers, circle them to get a sum, do some calculations , and answer. 10% will be fine. Well, this was actually what Dan Brickland had in mind. He was daydreaming 1978. That's why spreadsheets look the way they look now. But this sounds like the future still. I think we're still a long way. I think Iron Man kind of fighter plane uh UIs are gonna happen. I just think it's going to take a little bit longer than Dan thought. This was in 1978. I think we got another 10 to 20 years of this, but I think it's going to happen. It's

going to be pretty cool, right? You're watching Better Sheets here on YouTube. You have two options here for your next video. Before you go, comment down below if you have any question whatsoever, and I'll make future videos from those questions. But for right here, right now, one of these videos could be your next Google Sheet.