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Because you have a deep base of technical skill, marketing capital, managerial skill that's been around, you also have an ecosystem of suppliers--everything from legal, design, banking, venture capitalists--so if you come up with an idea, like a new mobile media, you can pull together a team faster than any other place in the world. That's a product of learning in a community, and it's very hard to replicate.
In your mind, what comes close to Silicon Valley?
Saxenian: These new regions, Taiwan, Bangalore, Shanghai, they are extensions of Silicon Valley. This happens from people with deep roots in Silicon Valley, and then they take with them elements of the Silicon Valley business model--the start-up culture, the venture capital, the idea of minimizing hierarchy and creating more open organizations, which is often alien in places like India and China. Those economies have been dominated by family run firms or state-supported enterprises. And they're not creating head-on competitors to Silicon Valley; they're creating linked partners.
Those places look like hybrids, a cross between Silicon Valley and domestic institutions. They're similar, but they don't have the accumulated know-how and talent there.
We have tremendous assets here we overlook--like the U.S. capital market, which allows investors to exit from deals quickly, the U.S. legal system, which is more reliable than the rest of the world. The technology capital of leading-edge researchers is still far ahead of other parts of the world.
Why do you think developing countries like India and China shouldn't worry about brain drain, when their young people immigrate to the U.S. to study and work in tech?
Saxenian: What we've learned is that, today, for the first time in history, the brain drain doesn't need to be a one-way process, largely because the technology created in Silicon Valley allows for much cheaper communication. You could have a team half in Taiwan, half here, and they could talk real-time over IM and it's cheap. It's easy both to travel and communicate across great distances.
It's really opened up for peripheral economies like China and India because rather than simply losing their best and brightest--the old idea of brain drain--now those people come home to connect places like India and China to a global technology production network.
Doesn't technology globalization harm engineers in the U.S. by taking away their jobs?
Saxenian: There is certainly some displacement in this process. It means U.S. engineers need to have a more diverse skill set than they've had in the past. But labor markets in the last couple of years have tightened up again, meaning that now people who were displaced are being absorbed back into the market. That earlier job loss was not permanent.
All of the low-end processing has moved to places like India, but the United States has been able to hold on to its advancement by defining new technologies, new architectures and new markets.
What would you advise engineers starting out today in the face of technology work force globalization?
Saxenian: I would advise them to be sure to get a broader training than simply programming and engineering. They need to increasingly have an understanding of working with multicultural teams and be able to understand the social components of the products they're developing.
If you're building a search engine today, you need to understand the human interaction with that search engine. In the second half of the 20th century, there was a technology push, and people didn't pay attention to the user. Today, you need to understand how people will react to the products.
What would you advise entrepreneurs starting out today about where to set up their companies?
Saxenian: Entrepreneurs should start companies in the market that they understand. If an entrepreneur is staring a business that will provide low-end handheld devices that will be used in China, then they should set up in China, and maybe do some research and development here.
The classic example, which was best based in the United States, is the iPod. The price point is not accessible by people in developing economies. Doing the design, architecture and the customer interface is better near the final customers. But the components came from Taiwan, because there it's more efficient.
At Berkeley, you're helping to define and develop a new generation of information professionals. Who are these people?
Saxenian: It's not just about having technical skills anymore; it's about management and understanding customers better and developing products that meet and define new needs.
So the new generation of information professional understands software programming and back-end development, and they're trained in understanding the legal and business environment. They're required to take product management classes and social science, too. Ours is a very multidisciplinary program--with connections to computer science, social science and anthropology, as well as the business school and the law school. We believe those types of people will add the most value in the coming decades.
See more CNET content tagged:
Silicon Valley, Taiwan, region, India, talent
I'm constantly amazed at who blithe we are at the far-reaching consequences of te current manifestations of globalization, because we think we have to be. I think one area where the U.S. is practically in the dark ages is the ability to manage national affairs like competitiveness. We should learn from the Asian Tigers here and perhaps not make protectionism such a dirty word. It might not be such a bad thing if managed as effectively as they do in India, China, Taiwan, or Japan.
Take the right classes, spend your summers wisely and you will not only find work, but get a well paying job. Meanwhile, the people that put little effort in their degrees will be fighting over a few low end lobs.
and the jobs were baised on privledge.. and the east west palo alto.. it made me really question what the hell I was working towards...
being on honest kid from a clever blue collar town.. I could not take pride in artificial status.. it ripped off my soul.. and nearly destroyed my cause.. I am worth so much more than that..
I dont get off on greed... I just wanted to be at peace with the people around me and make some friends..
cant we build an empire of love? isnt that the american dream?
- Yet one must ask...
- by nick fortis September 2, 2006 11:56 AM PDT
- Along with all this innovative wonderfulness, is there a chance
- Reply to this comment
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(10 Comments)that, whatever braininess circulates, the ordinary middleclass
folk going to see some benefit? Perhaps the emerging mid-class
in India and China will see an increase in quality of life, but what
about our working class families? (One excludes the Silicon
Vallet/Route 128/Etc. tech and management elite, of course)
Nick f.