The Financial Post reports in its Tuesday edition that for much of the past decade, software companies just focused on growing as quickly as possible. A Bloomberg dispatch to the Post says that changed in 2023. Profit and operating margin became the industry's watchwords. As interest rates climbed and corporate technology budgets got cut, hawking computer applications began to look less like an endless well of expansion. Investors grew tired of the growth-at-all-costs mindset that had dominated the software industry since the 2008-09 financial crisis. Companies responded by firing workers, offshoring labour, closing offices, ending speculative projects and scrutinizing software budgets. Broadly, they tried to replace cultures of abundance with ones of frugality. Microsoft and Adobe, mature companies that already have industry-high profitability, were spending heavily in new artificial intelligence capabilities -- and managed to avoid denting their margins. Microsoft poured $13-billion (U.S.) into ChatGPT maker OpenAI, while scaling back projects such as augmented reality goggles. Tech industry struggles last year fell particularly hard on start-ups. An unprecedented number went belly-up in 2023.