When did innovation become something we buy instead of something we…

When did innovation become something we buy instead of something we think our way through?

The latest edition of Technology Bytes explores a question that feels increasingly relevant in the age of AI:

Has innovation shifted from ingenuity to compute?

For decades, innovation was shaped by constraints. Teams solved hard problems through creativity, efficiency, and thoughtful engineering. Today, especially in software and AI, innovation is increasingly measured through more compute, more tokens, more infrastructure, and more spend.

In this issue, I reflect on:

• Why earlier innovation often achieved more with less
• How abundance may be changing the way we solve problems
• The hidden environmental and economic costs of compute-first thinking
• Why efficiency and thoughtful design still matter in the AI era
• What it means to return innovation to its roots

A reflection on whether scale is enhancing innovation, or quietly becoming a substitute for it.