That's the point though. Van Rossum, Stroustrup and Torvalds made their name early on in their careers or even at college, while still in Europe. Sure, later on

That's the point though. Van Rossum, Stroustrup and Torvalds made their name early on in their careers or even at college, while still in Europe. Sure, later on they emigrated to the US for the money, but that was on the back of their accomplishments. Of course Nokia was eclipsed by foreign competition (mostly due to terrible management), but it was still innovative in its time. Just as US companies today face competition from Asia. > Although useful, HTML isn't a very technical accomplishment. Anyone could invent this, including most CS undergrads. Yes, but they didn't, did they? It's easy to look at something with 20/20 hindsight and say "anyone could have done this". Back in 1989 Berners-Lee had that insight.