Why do we as a people hyper-focus on one opportunity out of millions.
Sometimes I wonder if we’re a tad hyper-focused on China. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to go a single day without reading an article about China, either as the up-and-coming industrial nation or as the future cure to all of our economic ills. However you swing it, China is the newsmaker of today. But China is just one fish in the pond. Sure, it’s a really big fish, but it’s still just a single fish.
Taken further, one of the major strengths of China, its growing middle class, is also one of its pitfalls: The size of the middle class is growing, but it’s not huge relatively to the size of the population in China overall.
Some countries come with a ready-go-go middle class, but have other issues as well. Russia is a prime example of this. I recently read an article on the Daily Telegraph by Emma Barnett which related comments by some of Russia’s “technology chiefs” on the direction of the technology market in Russia. Specific to that article, the Russian’s feel that they have the market and know-how to compete with the US, at least while on their own turf.
As a side note, think on the comments about Russia trying to build the next Silicon Valley: “However, with the construction of Skolkovo, an impressive-sounding large technology park currently being built in Moscow’s suburbs, with the full backing of Russia’s President Medvedev, hoping to take on California’s Silicon Valley, Russia’s tech industry shows no sign of slowing down.” So is Russia gearing up to be the next Silicon Valley? I have my doubts about whether Russia can keep its hands off a Silicon Valley-like technology park for long enough to let the market system do its magic, but I could be wrong.
But back to the main point, there is so much emphasis on maturing economies like China (and India) that I wonder if we don’t lose sight at how large the entire world market is for the best and brightest that the US has to offer. Russia and the entire post Soviet bloc would be an obvious region. Their laws are no worse than Chinas, they have a sufficiently educated and wealthy population (certainly more so than China in terms of per capita wealth), and many have ready access to technology.
This all comes up because I frequently find myself in the middle of conversations and new ideas, new businesses, and new opportunities, and I never hear about these existing markets. Why?
Do we, as an entrepreneurial nation, sometimes get tunnel vision on The Next Big Thing and forget that there are a ton more opportunities out there than we realize?
Final and unrelated note: It looks like the Tehran Times regurgitates technology news from the Daily Telegraph.
