Are you a Digital Revolutionary?

Study Notes

The Disappointment of the Digital Revolution

In 2011, Marc Andreessen declared that software is eating the world, but recent events have shown that this euphoria may have been misplaced.
Most of the value in the world is still created by making physical things that we live in, wear, eat, and ride in.
Silicon Valley's way of doing business got its start in 1968 when venture capitalists began to decide which technology companies got funded.
While traditional industrial companies were subject to diminishing returns, software companies with negligible marginal costs could achieve increasing returns powered by network effects.
However, many came to believe that the Silicon Valley model could be applied to any business, leading to an underlying myth that software would eat the world.
A longstanding productivity paradox existed throughout the 1970s and 80s, where business investment in computer technology increased while productivity growth diminished.
The trend reversed itself in the late 90s, and productivity began to soar, but this trend has since disappeared.
Pundits tout the new rosy scenario of platform-based businesses, but they have three inherent weaknesses: lack of barriers to entry, "winner-take-all" markets, and high costs due to rabid competition.
Platform businesses eventually need to invest in real assets to become profitable, as seen with Amazon.
The digital revolution has been somewhat of a disappointment, with less than ten years of elevated productivity growth since personal computers first became available in the 1970s.
Information and communication technologies only make up about 6% of GDP in advanced economies, not enough to swallow the world.
The future will not be digital, but rather, we will need to learn how to integrate a diverse set of technologies to reimagine atoms in the physical world.

Description

Test your knowledge on the digital revolution and its impact on the world with this thought-provoking quiz. From the origins of the Silicon Valley model to the disappointment of platform-based businesses, this quiz will challenge your understanding of the role of technology in our economy. Explore the productivity paradox, the limitations of network effects, and the future of technology integration. Don't miss this opportunity to delve deeper into the complexities of the digital world.