

Thiel-Schmidt Brawl - marshallp
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/17/transcript-schmidt-thiel/

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tagawa
"In places like China, India, Africa, Latin America, there's zero need for
innovation. All they need to do is copy things that work. But the part of the
world where technology is really necessary for things to get better is the
developed world, U.S., Western Europe, Japan." - Peter Thiel

What utter rubbish.

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tagawa
I'm confused by the downvotes without comment. Have I misunderstood something?
Or was he being sarcastic and I missed it?

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marshallp
(I didn't downvote) His point is that economic growth in developed countries
requires advances in technology (to get beyond the 0-4% gdp growth) while in
developing countries copying can do (that's why china has 10% gdp growth).
i.e. the average chinese can earn a living just by importing technologies (in
the short run), while an american need to invent new technology to earn a
living.

