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Comment by nmfisher | Hacker News Reader

> There's a reason why we have never seen a world leading tech company come out from anywhere except the US.

Probably the most ignorant comment I've ever seen on HN.

This sentiment crops up semi-frequently here and I find it really odd. The USA has a lot going for it, but they don’t have a monopoly on impactful tech.

Instead of calling OP ignorant, can you help us with world-leading tech companies that are not in the US?

I can think of Tencent from China in terms of company valuation, but my impression is that Tencent's dominance is confined to China instead of the world.

I’ll bite: Leadership in chip manufacturing is firmly in TSMC’s hands. Chip design is dominated by ARM and Qualcomm. Display tech by Samsung and LG.

Today, if you have an idea for a new gadget and you need fast prototyping, you’re far better off setting up shop in Shenzen than San Jose.

I’ll give you one thing: When it comes to software, by far SV has still the most influence. But when you include the whole tech space I think one should differentiate.

Not saying you're wrong, but isn't Qualcomm an American company?

you could say that, but certainly not an SV company.

I would even add that only a handful of companies out of SV did add real societal value and many of them with their dark engagement patterns are even detrimental.

Spotify came from Sweden. Not sure they’re a world leading tech company but they definitely fit the SV startup mould.

There's dozens already listed - but just to name a few off the top of my head - ARM, TSMC, Spotify, Sony, Nintendo, DJI, TikTok (ByteDance), Atlassian, Skype (pre-MS), Canva, Nubank.

And that's also ignoring the dozens of Chinese companies that dwarf their US counterparts but don't really do much outside China (Ant/Alibaba/Jingdong/DiDi/etc).

"Only the US can produce world-leading tech companies" is the type of thing you say when you get all your news from TechCrunch and have never been outside the US.

I agree completely with what you mean, but this was an unnecessary, extremely insulting way to say it.

What the OP wrote is considerably more offensive than what I responded with (and I also was originally going to respond with something FAR less polite, but decided against it).

Sugarcoating it any more would just dilute the message. I stand by what I said.

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