Neural networks have been shown to outperform a number of machine learning algorithms in many industry domains. They keep learning until it comes out with the best set of features to obtain a satisfying predictive performance. However, a neural network will scale your variables into a series of numbers that once the neural network finishes the learning stage, the features become indistinguishable to us.
If all we cared about was the prediction, a neural net would be the de-facto algorithm used all the time. But in an industry setting, we need a model that can give meaning to a feature/variable to stakeholders. And these stakeholders will likely be anyone other than someone with a knowledge of deep learning or machine learning.