Customers don't care about your cool technology, they pay you to solve a real problem they have. That has always been the case. If you see a successful company with cool technology, it's because it ALSO solved a real pain the customer had. There's plenty of startups doing "cool stuff" but it doesn't solve a problem, and therefore it doesn't go anywhere.

So I'd reframe the question: it's more about solving real problems. If you can solve it with cool new innovation/code, great. I assume the goal we're talking about here is to build a for-profit business.