I recently attended the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Istanbul. While enjoyable on many fronts, what I was most struck by is the great equalizing taking place in the global technology/start-up scene and how I feel other industries will start to follow.
Joe Biden, in his keynote address at the forum, rightly declared, "The next Steve Jobs could be a Turk or possibly come from the UAE." Granted this was a nod to the hosts but his point was right on. Barriers to the great minds throughout the world building the businesses of tomorrow are quickly disappearing.
Entrepreneurship by definition is a meritocracy: the best execution of an idea wins. Despite this, most “world changing ideas” continue to come from the West. My sense is that those days are coming to an end, in part due to the great strides a number of countries have made in creating environments conducive to start-ups.
Nonetheless, I think a greater, more simple reason is that the new generation of entrepreneurs grew up on the web, the global web. They interacted with sites and ideas in almost the same way as their Western counterparts. Having a global framework for best practice in User Interaction is perhaps the first truly global element of common culture. Turks and Emirates can compete because when it comes to the web, we all speak the same language.
For a while I have been contemplating on when will it be as easy to a start a business in Amman, Jordan [where I work and location I am cheering for] as Silicon Valley. The clustering of brain power and capital is of course the reason for the Valley's success, but can that clustering take place virtually?
Mark Zuckerberg recently commented that if he were to build Facebook today he would have stayed in Boston. Boston is fine Mark, but what about Amman or Istanbul [or Nairobi where we've recently opened a development center]. I am ready to argue that not only can start-ups launch successfully abroad, but that they could actually be more successful in the long run.