>It isn't the business itself.

Neither is lawyering, that's his point. Lawyers do not (usually) create value, they protect it, same as the hackers he is talking about.

>Cyber attacks are unfortunate, sure, but they're hardly all that damaging to the core operations of the organizations they affect, unless, of course, it's something like Stuxnet, where physical damage is done.

The Sony hack: http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/02/sony-hacking-set...

Bangladesh Bank hack: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Bangladesh_Bank_heist

It's too early to tell about the Bangladesh Bank hack, but in the Sony case there weren't any long term consequences as far as I'm aware. Which goes to my point: business value isn't in technology for the most part. Attacking technology doesn't do much to change the underlying value of a business.

Additionally, software is eating much of the enterprise. By and large software makes companies more efficient. Lawyering makes them less. Adding hackers doesn't just protect the enterprise, it improves it.

The point of lawyers is not to make companies "more efficient," so that's a strange criticism of them.

I'm not criticizing them, just pointing out another reason why Hackers are replacing them.

> I think this greatly overestimates the importance of IT and high technology in the modern economy.

On HN? Inconceivable.

Absolutely. One just has to look af the Global 2000 list to see how little tech and software make businesses directly. It's usually indirect as you say, even minimized in many.