In recent decades, innovation has become almost synonymous with digital technology. That wasn’t always true, of course. Long before the microchip was invented, we built an industrial economy based on electricity and internal combustion, harnessed the power of the atom and developed life-saving cures.
Nevertheless, lately everything seems to be digital. Entrepreneurs who create software apps and consumer gadgets can find themselves zillionaires in a matter of just a few years — or even a matter of months. Investors, not surprisingly, search far and wide to find the next Facebook or Google.
