The Nordics create plenty of innovative companies, and that seems to be increasing. Here are some examples: http://www.demos.org/blog/3/16/16/nordic-innovation

The Nordics create plenty of innovative companies, and that seems to be increasing. Here are some examples: http://www.demos.org/blog/3/16/16/nordic-innovation-arguments-never-die http://www.demos.org/blog/3/16/16/nordic-innovation-argument... Just a few example companies: Skype, Spotify, Mojang Example technologies: Bluetooth, pacemaker, AIS (like GPS), first LTE system. More, just from Sweden: http://www.swedenabroad.com/ImageVaultFiles/id_19367/cf_347/Examples_of_Swedish_innovations.PDF http://www.swedenabroad.com/ImageVaultFiles/id_19367/cf_347/... As far as people coming to the US, there are totally understandable reasons. We have excellent universities, more people (which matters: bigger local market, larger talent pool, more companies to work for, etc.), and we also have legacy clustering effects (NYC for finance and ads, SV for chips and startups.) These advantages are obviously very significant. There's absolutely no reason we cannot combine those advantages, our highly entrepreneurial culture, and the best the Nordics have to offer to be even better; that's part of what the "Silicon Valley Democrat" idea is about, and influential people there support it (that's where the idea comes from, obviously.) Even YC is doing research into the GBI. This implication here wasn't about that, though; it was about what we'll be forced to do if we don't want to simply leave the masses unemployed and eventually storming the metaphorical--or literal--gates. That will require some or all of the above list.