Innovation will see Apple pull through

If ever the peculiarity of stock markets was ever illustrated, it may have been this week when, fresh from posting the highest quarterly profits of any company in history, Apple slipped from its perch as the world’s most valuable company.

It has long been known, however, that perception wields more power in the world of technology valuations than a profit and loss account ever can — even one as healthy as Apple’s.

As Michael Lewis outlines in his latest book, The New New Thing, serial technology entrepreneur Jim Clark founded three separate billion-dollar companies before flogging them to the public for ever-increasing returns on the back of ever-diminishing evidence of their potential success.