> how far behind the old world is, both in tech as in spirit

I always laugh out loud reading nonsense like that. It is only true if you extremely narrowly define "tech" as SaaS solutions. Just to mention a few examples: almost all Fortune 500 companies in the US run on "old world" (Germany7) SAP software. Almost all mobile phones run on "old world" (England) ARM designed chips. The worlds best Go player was beaten by "old world" (England) software. The largest airliner in the world (A380) was designed and built in the "old world". Do I really need to go on?