1980s High Hopes for High Tech

TOYOTA WAS IN THE FAST LANE, and so was high tech--Apple, Compaq, and Microsoft joined IBM as household names. Telecom was "everyone's favorite growth business," but a 1984 question was, "Did it make sense to break up AT&T?"

On the darker side, the stock market took a sickening dive. There was anxiety over America's ability to compete and even about the quality of its human capital--and the goods it produced. By 1983 the trade deficit with the rest of the world was our "hidden problem."

It was the era of Mike Milken, LBOs blazing--and of the executive as celebrity (remember Leona Helmsley?). Biotech generated new hopes. McDonald's was building its own global McWorld. And perhaps the two most important words appeared on a 1985 cover: "Information Power."