Gilder, the quantum era

According to Gilder, the quantum era is still unfolding in a fourfold transformation of the world—in science, technology, business, politics—and even in philosophy. But all the changes converge in one epochal event: the overthrow of matter.
The change originates in the microcosm of quantum theory itself – which overthrew matter in the physical sciences.

At the foundation of the universe, Isaac Newton’s hard, inert, and indivisible solids gave way to a rich panoply of paradoxical sparks, comprising waves and particles that violate every principle of Newtonian solidity.

At the root of all the cascading changes of modern economic life—devaluing material resources in technology, business, and geopolitics—is this original overthrow of material solidity in the science of matter itself.
The second step in the overthrow of matter came in the use of quantum theory to overcome the material limits of weight, heat, and force in the creation of new machines. The industrial age essentially managed and manipulated matter from the outside, lifting it against gravity, moving it against friction, melting or burning it to change its form. The quantum era manipulates matter from the inside, adapting its inner structure to human purposes.

In the microchip, combining millions of components operating in billionths of seconds in a space the size of the wing of a fly, human beings built a machine that overcame all the conventional limits of mechanical time and space. Made essentially of the silicon in sand—one of the most common substances in earth—microchips find their value not in their substance but in their intellectual content: their design or software.

The third great manifestation of the overthrow of matter is the impact of this technology on the world of business. By overcoming the constraints of material resources, the microchip has devalued most large accumulations of physical capital and made possible the launching of global economic enterprises by one entrepreneur at a workstation.

With the overthrow of the constraints of material scarcity, gravity, and friction, large bureaucracies in government and business lose their power over individual creators and entrepreneurs.
The fourth phase of the overthrow of matter is the collapse of the value of natural resources and territory in determining the distribution of power among nations. The microcosms of science, technology, and enterprise have converged in a global quantum economy that transcends all the usual measures of national power and wealth.