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Comment by discolemonade | Hacker News Reader

The British Empire lasted over 300 years. America as an Empire has been around for only around 100. The American Empire is like the British Empire squared because of its endless capacity for self-renewal. It's like a starfish that regenerates limbs. One of the things that makes it so dynamic is the great universities and their relationship with business. No Chinese university is even in the top 200 in the world. Of the world's top 20 universities, all but three are American. Of the top 50, all but 11 are in the U.S. And then you think about a concept like the "new economy". It's an American invention. Most of the best startups and the best software are made in America. In just about every measure of soft power, nobody compares.

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I'm not sure universities and start-ups matter that much.Israel is great at doing start-ups , probably better than the u.s.(at least at start-ups per capita). but usually the start-ups get bought by multinationals, so they get the job creation and economic power that comes with those innovations. not necessarily Israel.

While historically most big multinationals were centered around the u.s., this might be changing. The shift in multinational jobs to outside the u.s. is one datapoint. and the rise of strong non u.s. multinationals is another.just look at the Chinese green energy sector.

And take into account that change today is much faster then at 19 century Britain.

How do universities and startups not matter? They're incubators of knowledge and wealth creation. And regarding multinationals, most of the biggest multinationals are either Japanese, American or European. Places like China and Indonesia do a lot of the manufacturing for them, but most of the wealth still flows back to the countries where the knowledge for that technology is developed. Most of Apple's wealth is concentrated in the U.S because that's where Apple's knowledge creators are based. Same with Nokia or Toyota or any company. The world isn't totally flat despite what Tom Friedman thinks. Pockets of innovation will always exist. I think India is a better example of a developing power with a strong innovation base than China is.

1. while money flowing back to companies is important , job creation and unemployment are important components of economic power in my view. 2. There are several dozen Chinese companies that will eventually join the exclusive 500 club. That could happen within the next 10 years or even less. Currently, 15 Chinese companies are already in that club, including several telecom operators, four banks and State Grid, China Life, BaoSteel, and SAIC, the Shanghai based auto maker. They are all state-run. 3.The company who scales up a technology usually wins most of the money , not the inventor(Google didn't invent contextual advertising, just did it better and at bigger scale).And if the startup is in one country , and the big company in another as usually happens in israel ,most of the gains do not come to the inventing nation. 4. Chinese companies can buy startups if they want.Chinese companies recently surpassed Germany's to become the world's No 2 in terms of acquisitions, having spent $21.8 billion on such moves. I think there's less into software companies and more into other stuff.

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