CREATIVE ECONOMY

The turn of the millennium is a turn from hamburgers, to software. Software is an idea; hamburger is a cow.

There will still be hamburger makers in the 21st century, of course, but the POWER, PRESTIGE, and MONEY will flow to the companies with indispensable intellectual property. You can see it already.

At the end of last year, Microsoft Corp., with just 31,000 employees, had a market capitalization of $600 billion. McDonald's Corp., with 10 times as many employees, had one-tenth the market cap.

Or take Yahoo! Inc., a virtual place in a virtual medium, the Internet. Although far below its peak price, Yahoo trades at more than 40 times book value. If USX Corp.'s U.S. Steel Group traded at the same multiple to book as Yahoo, its market capitalization would be nearly $90 billion, instead of less than $2 billion.

Baca tulisan lengkapnya disini, Creative Economy, BusinessWeek.