But information technology is where the wealth and power will be concentrated. On a business level, the transition to an information economy has wide-reaching implications. It's more than the local automobile assembly plant shutting down to be replaced by a semiconductor fabrication facility. The information economy is characterized by continuous and rapid changes in technology, extremely short product cycles, and great specialization that demands that companies form alliances to fully exploit their products. People with the training and the appropriate talents command huge compensation in the form of both salaries and stock options.
Financing comes from venture capital.
Companies are formed, mature, go public or are bought out at a breakneck pace. On the Israeli business scene, all of this has quickly evolved over the last decade and is almost taken for granted. Europe and Japan are the home to multinational electronics companies, but in the main they operate on the old industrial model. The effervescence of innovative technology created by small, young companies that sits at the heart of an information and technology economy is so far uniquely American and Israeli - Silicon Valley and Silicon Wadi. In fact, creating an Israeli equivalent to Finland's Nokia may prove to be irrelevant in a technology economy.