Spreadsheets are the universal language of work.

They’re familiar. They’re flexible. They make us feel productive the moment we open a blank grid and start typing. For many teams, spreadsheets are where ideas are born, plans take shape, and complexity feels manageable.

And that’s exactly why we keep using them—even when they’re quietly failing us.
Spreadsheets work beautifully when one person owns them. They break down the moment work becomes collaborative, dynamic, or time-sensitive. Multiple versions appear. Someone forgets to update a cell. Another person downloads a copy and edits that one. Suddenly, no one is quite sure which version reflects reality.

The problem isn’t the spreadsheet itself. The problem is what we’ve asked it to become.
Spreadsheets are incredible thinking tools. They help us explore scenarios, organize ideas, and sketch possibilities. But they were never designed to be living systems—systems that change in real time, serve many audiences, and act as a shared source of truth.

So we end up with a strange emotional contradiction: We trust spreadsheets because they look authoritative.

We distrust them because experience has taught us to double-check everything.
That tension creates anxiety. It creates late-night edits. It creates meetings whose sole purpose is reconciling different versions of the same document.

Spreadsheets aren’t the enemy. But treating them like an operating system for complex programs is asking too much of a tool that was never meant to carry that weight.