Australia is falling behind. Bosses are too much like Zog and not enough like Americans

June 30, 2026 — 5:00am

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Fans of Gary Larson’s Far Side comics will remember how often he features a neanderthal – usually named Zog – working on a wheel.

One of his funniest, and most attuned to the Australian economy, comics is simply entitled “early experiments in transportation”.

A man has been tied to the top of a stone wheel that his “friends” are about to roll down a grassy hill.

In another, a caveman stands back looking at his stone car. The only problem is that it is missing the four things it needs to move – wheels.

I’m not sure if Gianni La Cava, research director at independent think tank e61, is a fan of Larson and his wheel comics, but he should have attached one to his latest piece of work on a worrying trend that they’ve observed.

La Cava and his team at e61 have pinpointed a big issue that has afflicted Australia for way too long – and it goes to how most of our businesses are, like Zog, simply unwilling or unable to use technological breakthroughs to their advantage.

Technology, and its use, is at the heart of productivity.

From the water wheel to the steam engine to railroads to the light bulb to the internal combustion engine to powered flight to refrigeration to the telephone to the PC, advances in technology have been the driver of improved living standards for millennia.

If a business........

© The Sydney Morning Herald