Businesses worldwide—and particularly in the United States—have wasted billions of dollars believing the big lie of the Information Age. For almost two decades, that lie has encouraged a massive spending binge, absorbing over half of every dollar that U.S. business has invested in itself. And it has governed the ways in which both entrepreneurs and global juggernauts seek competitive advantage. The big lie is pervasive, and it offers a seductive logic that actually makes it believable.
A version of this article appeared in the September–October 1997 issue of Harvard Business Review.
