I am saying that the US was already playing the pick the cream of the crop game. It was playing it in two ways. First it identified obvious talent (math Olympia

I am saying that the US was already playing the pick the cream of the crop game. It was playing it in two ways. First it identified obvious talent (math Olympiads, etc...). Second, the people who were the most driven got to Silicon Valley by any means necessary, showing tremendous grit. Examples: former boss's family got out of Russia, had guns pointed at them on the way to the airport coworker who got an H1-B, was desperate to get out of Russia, we found him because a product he was working on was exceptional several coworkers from other countries that were math or computer science olympiads btw these people end up in American colleges as undergrads or grads