Crisis of Innovation

The digital revolution is diverting talent and attention from other industries that are ripe for innovation. Transportation is one good example. Significant progress hasn't been made for automobiles, airlines, and space travel for the past 3 decades. Pharmaceuticals are moving at a glacial pace. Cosmetics are no different. New architecture ideas are formed, but our construction materials remain the same. There's been a lot of talk in energy, but little action and even less traction. Venture capitalist Peter Thiel has said that we are not as innovative as the previous generations, contrary to what's being paraded in media. Our best minds are simply figuring out better ways to sell ads online. Or making phones thinner. Or cramming ideas  into 140 characters. We need more moonshots. The recent ones have been encouraging to see, particularly Google's self-driving cars and Project Loon. Entrepreneurs like Elon Musk understand this crisis, so even though he made most of his riches in Paypal, he's looking to disrupt transportation and energy. Digital is still a goldmine, it will continue to be, especially in its cross-pollination with traditional industries. But there's also a lot of gold to be mined in disrupting fields like construction, coming up with the new type of material for efficient building, or biotechnology in the form of artificial organs, or aeronautics through faster ways to fly. The digital space has enough innovators. There will eventually be diminishing returns on the talent coming in. It need not be so crowded.