The conclusion overreached a little bit. And there was something disturbingly California centric about it.
In my opinion there is not such a huge cultural gap that's responsible for the different startup rates.
Few (if any) cultures are so deeply authoritative as to be anti-success.
The valley's lead is much more the result of rather simpler causes. People - a whole lot of smart ones, two recession proof large smart people producers (the universities), and funding lots and lots of funding.
That's where the lead comes from and it will be difficult to close it. Culture doesn't have anything to do with it.
"Few (if any) cultures are so deeply authoritative as to be anti-success."
I would argue that most cultures, even in California, are too authoritarian and inflexible to really cultivate productive, disruptive change. For all the talk about innovation, it is genuinely difficult to argue against the status quo. It is very, very hard to change one's frame of mind, and people tend elsewhere to defer to expertise and experience over ideas with are promising, make sense, but are not so fleshed out. In the Bay Area you will at least find an audience, if not easily convince them. Being anti-authority is obviously insufficient for startup success, though.
A good quote to keep in mind:
"...I would design my own, fresh, without knowing how other people do it. That was another thing that made me very good. All the best things that I did at Apple came from (a) not having money and (b) not having done it before, ever. Every single thing that we came out with that was really great, I'd never once done that thing in my life." -- Steve Wozniak
We are currently encountering much existing knowledge in engine design. Some of it is undoubtedly wise, but a lot of it is probably out of date. We have the chance to experiment. But it would be genuinely impossible to do such a thing in most auto companies today.
In my opinion there is not such a huge cultural gap that's responsible for the different startup rates.
Few (if any) cultures are so deeply authoritative as to be anti-success.
The valley's lead is much more the result of rather simpler causes. People - a whole lot of smart ones, two recession proof large smart people producers (the universities), and funding lots and lots of funding.
That's where the lead comes from and it will be difficult to close it. Culture doesn't have anything to do with it.