Next 'Steve Jobs' will probably be Chinese.
But, the article isn't about who will be the next Steve Jobs - it is about who is going to fund the next Steve Jobs. Given China's economic growth, there is a good chance that the next Steve jobs could be funded by investors from/in China.
But the Steve Jobs that counts for is Steve Jobs circa 1978, the Steve Jobs that was making cheap ugly boxes that plugged into your TV. (And of course it was really Woz, but let's leave that aside for the moment.) The point is that Apple started and became big by being a low-end company, and only turned high-end once they were already huge.
The closest analogue I can think of in recent years is the Eee PC, which interestingly comes not from China but from Taiwan. (Support for the notion that innovation comes more easily in democracies? It's only one data point, but still...)
The (production) Apples you refer to have never really been ugly nor cheap. If I remember they had sleek design with easy to get at insides so you could add slots. They always seemed to be on, around the magical $2-3K dollar mark no matter what country you lived in. Who needs monitors when you could use a spare tv? I remember getting my first PC and asking if they had a card to support TV and got blank stares... "no you need a high quality CGA screen instead or an EGA for $$$ more"
While America is having problems in the housing and financial sectors, it still has the best environments for fostering innovation. Can you name any new industries created in China in the last 20 years?
China's main advantages are a huge (and increasingly skilled), labor force, excellent infrastructure, an eroding cost advantage, a great environment for foreign investment, and a government that can get things done. Which one of those things is critical to creating a revolutionary company? And which of them are unavailable to entrepreneurs in the US?
If I had to be on the next big industry to be created outside the US, I'd bet on India rather than China.
India does not have as much middle class as China so I don't think you will have have a big rise in India as we'll see in China.
BTW, Are we talking about two different things? The article was talking about venture investment in general (which you seem to be talking about) but the title (and your original comment) was about "Who will fund the next Steve Jobs?". While I think China's rise in wealth, middle class, political influence, etc are nearly unstoppable, I doubt that the next Steve Jobs will come from there (or if he is Chinese, he will work in the US).
My interpretation of "the next Steve Jobs" is:
1) starts a many billion dollar company
2) that company creates (ie Apple and the PC) or matures (Google and search) a big, new industry
3) retains control of that company and is the global face of that company (ie Jobs, Ellison, Gates, Phil Knight, Oprah, Larry + Sergei, Buffet, Bezos, heck even Astor, Carnegie, JP Morgan, Hughes, etc)
I can't make any useful predictions about where someone like that would come from because I can't predict the new industry, but the safe bet for those criteria would still be the US.
4) success of personality and company make them widely known and recognized outside of their industry and their country
Also, working for Microsoft or Google, you can make very very good salary (perhaps multitude more than your folks), so if you're a capable young hacker, the typical path is going corporate or study abroad for grad school.
Before we can get a Chinese Jobs, we need a Chinese PG to insulate the potential Jobses from the legal mess, provide key connections and offer validation to family and friends.
Actually he uses the phrase "Mother of All Bubbles" elsewhere.
Uncritical optimism is a sure indicator.
You need to go there and see it with your own eyes... I was skeptical too but not anymore. China is rising and they will eclipse us all.
So you have a very large market that continues to grow(unlike USA), of people who are willing to spend the extra money for Apple like status symbols, who are VERY nationalistic, and who have no problem buying U.S. knock offs. And since chinese have no problem copy pasting ideas/products, it would make sense that the uPod, uPhone, uNextProductFromApple will be copied, which will then fly off the shelf, and will make the chinese version of Steve Jobs rich.
In the US, for instance, you'd need to earn at least, say, (picking a random number without wanting to start arguments and well-it-depends-where-you-live threads) $35,000 a year to be 'middle class', whereas China's per capita income is still less than $2000.