I think it can be hard for people to appreciate the differences because the truly different things are those one takes for granted. To not make this too long I

I think it can be hard for people to appreciate the differences because the truly different things are those one takes for granted. To not make this too long I will go directly to what I think has made the difference: A relatively egalitarian society with a lot of trust between people and towards the government has made progress relatively effortless. When people don't feel the need to guard their own position because they might end up getting screwed there often isn't any good reason to be against development. A relatively large amount of excess time, security and knowledge that enable people to something else. Startups are ultimately about harnessing excess potential. If all the value are capture by some other industry or the housing market there won't be much left over for startups. Various cultural factors enabled by those things. Like being able to be independent (with the help of the government). Not being afraid to leave value on the table. An overall sort of generous, or at least non-petty, society. If you look at factors like these, you can actually draw a lot of parallels to somewhere like SV compared to the rest of the world. SV is to at least some degree a recreation of academic life at its best. Which is the area of US society that would be most similar to Sweden.