> Western, sure. American, not really. The thing is that I am not sure what american - that is not software services and some PC hardware - is even sold outsid

> Western, sure. American, not really. The thing is that I am not sure what american - that is not software services and some PC hardware - is even sold outside of USA. Coca Cola and McDonalds? But aside that I haven't see much american stuff even in Europe. It is usually german home appliances, local food, nestle (swiss) etc. > True, but there needs to be a middle path between being selective but also attracting the cream of the crop. Take a look at the placement statistics of IIT graduates nowadays (2017 onwards) - barely 5-10% choose to immigrate abroad now, ad it's a similar trend in mid-tier Indian programs as well. The problem is that even 5% is a lot. Like Indian's population is probably 2-3 times bigger than the whole europe. My own country has less than 9m people and my friend got his USA passport after 5 years only... > America's innovation ecosystem only worked because we were able to attract the best and the brightest from Russia, India, China, etc. Without that level of openness, we fall to the same pit of stagnation that Mainland Europe, the UK, and Japan fell into. One of the reason for western stagnation is just the amount of regulations. That's why heavily regulated industries are usually quite successful in Europe (like pharmaceutical companies), but garage startups? Not really. Sweden is basically the only exception. And UK (every 10 years lol). > Oppenheimer, Lawrence, Fermi, von Neumann People like this are exceptions really. Though there are always trends over the years when some countries produce more talents than the other. It is like there is a beacon shining at one point and a lot of talents are born close to each other.