What's More Important: Information or Stuff?

In the room, the people come and go talking of “bits” and “atoms.” Digital and tangible. Information and stuff.

Peter Thiel sums up our age as one heavily skewed (for the worse) to information: “We wanted flying cars and all we got was 140 characters.” Too much focus on bits, not enough on atoms.

But is the debate new?

The cultural pendulum between manufac…