Major steps in the evolution of early organisms

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We have come to take for granted the idea that organisms possess genomes. A huge scientific effort has been put into the sequencing the genomes of human and many other species. The field of genomics is the study of organisms at the level of whole sets of interacting genes and proteins. A cell is envisaged as a complex system in which chemical reactions happen, molecules are broken down and resynthesized, cellular components move about actively and passively, and structures assemble and disassemble. As a result, a cell lives, grows and multiplies. In contrast, the genome is somehow special. It remains in charge of the proceedings without doing anything directly. It is the molecular elite, attended to by a variety of other molecules designed to keep it undamaged and to allow it to be accurately passed on to the next generation with nothing but a few minor mutations here or there. How did the genome rise to this supreme position?