

Why Saudi Arabia Might Be The Next Silicon Valley - smanuel
http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/13/keen-on-why-saudi-arabia-might-be-the-next-silicon-valley/

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ignostic
Interesting, but I don't see Americans emigrating to Saudi Arabia to be part
of a "Middle Eastern Silicon Valley." There are just too many obstacles
culturally and politically. Here are some examples that came to my attention
recently:

-Saudi Arabia is one of the least welcoming countries in the world for foreigners.[1]

-Saudi Arabians are on average far less racially tolerant. Don't expect to see a SF-style mixing pot without conflict.[2]

-The religious laws conflict sharply with US culture and belief, and that goes twice for SF. Homosexual acts, for example, are punishable by the death penalty.[3] Non-muslims cannot worship in public, etc.

-Women cannothold certain jobs, including engineering jobs.[4]

Saudi Arabia _may_ be the next Silicon Valley, but only for people near the
Arabian peninsula who will have an easier time adapting. Westerners will
continue to avoid working there until conditions improve from their
perspective.

[1]2[http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_TT_Competitiveness_Report_2...](http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_TT_Competitiveness_Report_2013.pdf)

[2][http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15/a-fascinating-
map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-racially-tolerant-countries/)

[3][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Saudi_Arabia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Saudi_Arabia)

[4][http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/viewFile/183/309](http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/viewFile/183/309)

~~~
basicallydan
You would be surprised.

Between the 70s and 00s thousands and thousands of Westerners moved to Saudi
Arabia to work in these industries:

\- Oil \- Defence \- Aerospace

And they managed just fine for decades. In fact, there are still _loads_ out
there. Brits, Americans, Aussies, Italians, South Africans, Dutch, New
Zealanders, Canadians. All of these are common nationalities to have emigrated
to Saudi Arabia. Mostly, they lived in walled-off compounds which had some of
their own rules or ways of working.

Source: I was born there and lived there for 12 years. I am British. Maybe I
will write about this:
[http://helpmewrite.co/people/basicallydan/ideas/1787](http://helpmewrite.co/people/basicallydan/ideas/1787)

~~~
ignostic
About 100k westerners according to Wikipedia - not a large percentage at all.
Now correct me if I'm wrong, but those compounds basically hire their own
security and ignore several SA religious laws. SA isn't yet a business-
friendly environment for westerners, and that goes twice for Americans.
Rather, some westerners are doing business in spite of a hostile environment.
I would love to read about your experience and thoughts as someone who's been
there, though.

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EB5
Sorry, but Saudi Arabia being the next Silicon Valley is the second most
ridiculous thing I`ve heard today, (The most ridiculous being
[http://rt.com/usa/nsa-review-group-clapper-445/](http://rt.com/usa/nsa-
review-group-clapper-445/) )

Silicon Valley is what it is, because some of the most brilliant people from
all over the world migrate there in order to collaborate and built cool stuff.

I doubt that enough smart people would migrate to a region where they, their
wife or their daughters could be imprisoned for being raped.
([http://www.religiousfreedomcoalition.org/2013/07/18/norwegia...](http://www.religiousfreedomcoalition.org/2013/07/18/norwegian-
woman-sentenced-to-jail-for-being-raped-in-dubai/))

------
mark_l_watson
I have known people who worked in Saudi Arabia and enjoyed it. I had a
consulting job a few years ago: the customers were two university professors
in Saudi Arabia who paid me to remotely tutor their daughter who was a student
studying Java, semantic web, etc. I did everything remotely using Skype and it
was an interesting experience. BTW, the daughter spoke highly of their culture
and country - she was really proud of it. I don't like the idea of women not
having fully equal rights, but I kept quiet about that since there is no
reason to disrespect someone else's culture if they seem happy with it.

------
aaron695
Lol.

As Bill Gates puts it "Saudi Arabia [is] an example of why [he] believes
limiting the rights women can hinder economic growth"

"Education is bad in the middle east" so there's an opening, hmmm same in many
parts of the western world yet the real silicon valley has yet to crack this
one.

Most of his examples are copies of western ideas localised.

To me there real point here is there's a opening in localising software, once
silicon valley cracks this idea it'll really take off.

I'm also not sure he ever even mentions 'Saudi Arabia'

