the next big thing

It seems that Asia, China in particular, is undergoing amazing growth through innovation. Arguably there is more innovation coming from that region of the world than anywhere else right now. How does Silicon Valley stack up in terms of innovation currently? Where will the “next big thing” come from?Keith Thesing

Bill Gurley: Keith, that is an insanely insightful question. There are many reasons why Silicon Valley is an epicentre, and there have been death-knell calls before, as far back as several decades. What you see today is real however. Asia and Europe matter in innovation and will forever. Can the US keep up? I don’t know. I worry deeply about the lack of concern over our broadband policy. We are falling each year in terms of broadband per capita, and yet some want to pass laws that say cities can’t choose to rectify this situation. We will fail to innovate if we fail to recognise the importance of the technology infrastructure. The other equally important issue is education. China graduates 600,000 engineers a year, we graduate 70,000. And we just adjusted the SAT from 50/50 math to English to 33/67. Is that the right direction? I doubt it.

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