The real wealth embedded in the microchip is in the intricate circuitry etched onto the chip, circuitry which is best seen using powerful microscopes. The great cathedrals represented wealth in the Middle Ages, and took decades to build. Today's wealth is often nearly invisible and cheap to replicate. Unlike Europe's cathedrals, the real wealth embedded in microchips can be replicated very quickly and very cheaply. The first chip may cost billions to produce, but additional chips are then replicated in the world's fabricating plants at a rate of more than one billion chips per week.
Software is a similar story, with huge development costs and trivial replication costs.
Consider also the biotech industry, which appears to be on the cusp of producing a torrent of new breakthrough of genomics-based medicines and therapies. At a cutting-edge biotech facility, Rip might currently see only modest facilities, some scientists and technicians in lab coats, and a lot of mice in cages. These mice represent real wealth in the form of tens of millions of dollars' worth of research that may be able to produce hundreds of millions of dollars of profits. Just as Rip had to get used to identifying new forms of wealth with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, he has to adjust his concepts again for the Information Age. After his travels through time, an astute Rip Van Winkle is likely to draw two major conclusions.