One thing I find really interesting is how the move from industrial society to information society involved such small teams for new products. Look at the huge teams needed to make a new ship design or airplane or even things like washers and dryers and such. Its a lot of different roles. Some of these projects had hundreds if not thousands of people involved.

Meanwhile, some of our most amazing software came from groups under 150 people. The original Macintosh was just 125 people. The NES was a core team of 4 to 5 engineers. The original iPhone team was 200 people. The original Amiga team was 30 people. Windows 1.0 started with 13 people. Windows NT started with 12 people. Microsoft Excel was originally 5-7 people. Google launched with six people and its 1999 staffing level was around 40 people. Some classic video games from the 80s were made by 2 or 3 people, often just 1 person. A lot of 90s games had teams of 5-30 people.

You could drive past a sleepy office park with a tiny office and inside would be 50 people who would change our software world significantly. I find that really interesting and romanticized a bit.