These may be huge multinationals now, but they were not so at the beginning. I guess the question of "can they produce companies" is really (at least) 2 questi

These may be huge multinationals now, but they were not so at the beginning. I guess the question of "can they produce companies" is really (at least) 2 questions: the one pertaining to the initial creation itself of something like a Google, the other to surviving long enough and growing to become what something like Google is today. Arguably surviving and growing is "cheaper" in the USA than Africa -- but that doesn't make it impossible in Africa. I don't know that the "huge multinational" argument to sustaining growth, really holds water. By definition, a multinational has to rely on talent pools in multiple countries -- so does it really matter then where the multinational originated? Consider eg Naspers (mentioned elsewhere) which is a multinational in various of its interests, such as internet access, mobile phone networks and Pay TV. In fact, last time I looked (which was 5 yrs ago), their Pay TV interests was the fastest growing pay TV operation in the world, with interests everywhere including the USA (in fact it owned OpenTV for a while there, which it sold prior to embedded linux getting a foothold). An interesting comment from a gent at Naspers to me once, was that their experience with operating in the USA suggested that if Africans attempt to open offices / businesses there directly, this tends not to work nearly as well as purchasing an American company and essentially creating the impression to the casual observer that the business is in fact American.