Excel used to be the poor schmuck’s database, with spreadsheets that just sort of sat there. You could create something more sophisticated with LOOKUP functions, but they were a huge hassle to set up.

I once made money moonlighting as a VisiCalc and Lotus 1-2-3 instructor before Steve Ballmer ever typed “=sum(Profits)” in an Excel 1.0 spreadsheet cell. And a friend and former colleague from my ...