Innovation and Wealth (II)

Somewhere along the line, whether it was the Mexican farmers who 6,000 years ago began genetically engineering the precursors to corn, or Bill Hewlett and David Packard, who transformed semiconductors into calculators, business machines, and laser printers, it is innovation that has created the products that enable us to live like no other species on earth.
And although it is unlikely that many of the long-dead creators of corn got rich, many of the richest people in the world are that rich because of their innovations. Even among the merely prosperous people of the world, innovation often plays a key role in creating their prosperity.
Although wealth is obviously passed down from one generation to another, when we look at the standard of living of individuals, very little of that standard of living is determined by the financial inheritance they received from their ancestors. Instead, current living standards of people are primarily determined by the incomes they have earned for themselves. These incomes are chiefly the result of what they have produced in the workplace. 2 And most often, very high levels of workplace productivity are the result of innovative activity by those productive individuals.