A Techno Renaissance

These guys came from no place in the world of commercial technology to this: "Israel has the highest density of tech start-ups in the world. More importantly, these start-ups attract more venture capital dollars per person than any country — 2.5 times the U.S., 30 times Europe, 80 times India, and 300 times China. Israel has more companies on the tech-oriented NASDAQ than any country outside the U.S., more than all of Europe, Japan, Korea, India, and China combined. But it’s not just about start-ups. Scratch almost any major tech company — Intel, Microsoft, Google, Cisco, Motorola, and so on — and you will find that Israeli talent and technology play a major role in keeping these multinational companies on the cutting edge." Rest of the interview: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/04/how-did-israel-become-start-up-nation/ The last bit, where he talks about the spark provided by immigrants, goes a little too far in its recommendations; he fails to differentiate between the cultures of the source countries. European Jews, the Ashkenazi, are a special breed and have repeatedly demonstrated that, given a competitive and properly financed environment (eg, prewar Germany or postwar America), they succeed in a variety of intellectually competitive fields of endeavour at extraordinary levels.  Silicon Valley has a heavy immigrant footprint throughout the hierarchy of power, but these immigrants tend to originate in just a few source countries: India, China, Russia, and a few others. What you do not see in Silicon Valley is even a modest number of Latins or blacks--and the former constitute, by far, our largest source of immigrants. In this matter, too, differentiation and discrimination must be understood and employed.