Why are entrepreneurs leaving the U.S.?

But I think personal reasons play a huge role in this decision. A majority of the people tend to only leave when the situation becomes unbearable (or not even then).

What would it take for you to leave your home country/area?

I guess it's hard to say until it actually happens. One reason for me to leave would be an oppressive government, I guess.

I'm an immigrant. I'm considering heavily to go back home and start a business there (online, offline, doesn't matter). Reasons? cheaper workforce, more power, more connections, cherry picking, bigger pond, more people (consumers), etc.

I'll be using North America to include both US and Canada for the rest of my comment.

Here are a few more detailed examples (all of them are of course anecdotes to me):

Managing westerners that believe that they're entitled for everything such as perks, private offices, their choice of programming languages, their choice of best practices are often a time consuming activity. Back home, I can drive the workforce to do the best practices that I believe without having to have long discussions. Give them laptop, give them work, they're happy. This is because their mindset, perspective, and standard are different than here in North America. They're also cheaper.

After working with many programmers throughout my careers, I kind of grow a belief that I can train the less "creative" developers back home to be at the same level at most of the programmers in North America. They might not reach the level of superstar engineers, but they will reach the level of more than good enough at where I will be.

Connection is a big thing. It's harder to have a connection in N.A., especially when you're an immigrant (maybe it's just me). Where I come from, hooking up with people who have excess money is very easy. Especially when you graduate from a pretty good N.A. university (doesn't have to be Wharton or Harvard, UC Berkeley, UC Irvine is enough). They look at you as someone who has something "more" (whatever more that is).

In Iowa, you're nobody. In the [Capital City of your ancestor's land], you're something. Imagine that.

Overall, I find that the majority of large Asian cities are probably more alive than some well-known (but not necessarily large) N.A. cities.

Again, all of these are anecdotes.

But this where you may be missing out on the value of a worker. In this day in age, someone who just cranks out something to a mold or specification is not as valuable to an organization. I'd much rather pay someone 5 times as much if they can think on their feet and not always have to rely on me to figure out how they should be working. Constantly having to define practices for a team of lemmings is a typically exhausting full time gig when you're the only one to take initiative and guide. The other problem is that we all make bad decisions from time to time and it is important to make sure we have competent people around us to correct our course when that occurs rather than a bunch of yes-men.

These best practices are just the foundation, not necessary the long-term solutions. Once you have a set of standard, there's always room for improvement or changes.

The biggest problem with N.A. workers is that they can be categorized into 3 types when it comes to "Do Things":

- Do as they pleased (cause they think they know it all)

- Follow the best practice

- Follow the latest and greatest best practice and create some sort of work revolution in the middle of directing the ship toward the goal

You kind of need a "Yes-Man" if you're on early stage of startup inventing your own dream (I'm sure this is going to open a can of worm but hey... it's your startup).

I'm not discussing whether this is the best way or the worst way. I'm focusing on the "why" people chose culture that prefer "Yes-Man". It could be a way for them to exploit human psychology for all I know.

That's the thing. You need to be there to see how things are happening/working. It's totally different in there (Asia) than in here (US).

Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmare advises won't work in Asia while it may work in US or UK.