[jyl]

Back in the day, many people viewed eBay, Google, Yahoo and so on as silly insubstantial things. Today those people think those older internet companies are the real deal, but they view the new internet companies as silly insubstantial things. Maybe that says something about the viewer's limitations?

I think if you are looking for the most dramatic, rapid, impactful innovation in the economy today, it is largely in two areas. Web businesses and biotech. The first aren't technology innovators, their innovation is in the business model. The second is hardcore cutting edge science.

Traditional technology hardware is, by comparison, kind of boring. Cisco has a new line of core routers, nVidia a new GPU, Qualcomm a new baseband chip, yeah okay. These are extensions of technology that is already rather mature. So those companies' stocks sell for valuations that are rather pedestrian.

Of course, the established companies make important, valuable things that we can't live without. But I wouldn't dismiss the innovators just because they don't make what you traditionally recognize as a product.