Ask HN: Why is the US the center of the tech industry?

Is it the historic innovation, American culture in general? There are so many other countries with brilliant minds, we live over the internet. Yet foreign companies are ignored for Google, Apple, and Amazon, Microsoft, and Oracle. I dont hear anything elsewhere, China being the only exception. And they're feared, to the point where Huawei's banned.

Do you think another country will take its place? Will growing internet adoption lead to growing patterns of geographic decentralization in the industry? Is it possible cryptocurrencies will cause a rise in an internet centered tech industry?

Read Steve Blank’s blog. He has several articles outlining how Silicon Valley started, why it continues, and why it isn’t easily replicated elsewhere.

My 2¢ in taking to people from other countries, it's the American attitude. Americans for better or worse think we can do anything, and they will try incessantly. They will start a business with far less experience and qualifications than others, pull themselves up by the bootstraps and potentially fail spectacularly - just to get right back up and do it again.

I do not get this sense taking to people from other countries at all, largely in part Canada and the UK. They aren't trying to change the world.

The same reason it's the current largest economy.... a happy accident of history and geography.

Every other major economic power was devastated after WW2. Because the US was geographically isolated from the major theatres of war, it was in a good position to capitalise on the investment in technology at the dawn of the transistor age.

Since the big Intel cash out, it's been venture capital.

Europe & Asia is private equity territory, which is a fundamentally different attitude and approach to high-risk, high-growth business (as in they rarely do it). VC firms expect to make their money on IPOs & exits which encourages innovation and experimentation, while PE firms expect to make money from operations and interests on obliged loans which favors smart operations and good margins.