We must be doing something right since we have Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc.
Not sure about Google and Microsoft, but it does say something that 50% of Google's founders were foreign born.
Anecdotally, in graduate school I have noticed a troubling trend. 10 years ago, foreign students would come to the U.S. to get advanced degrees and then stay in the U.S. to get good paying jobs. Today, many of those students are returning to their home countries for work...
In other words, the U.S. is riding a wave that was started by the educated class in the 1940s and 1950s and was increasingly supported by the immigrant class in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. When the immigrants stop coming, if the educated class is found to be missing...then, yes, the U.S. is screwed.
Here in India, Going to America is very fashionable and earns a lot of respect in society. A lot of friends went to America for further studies for just 'America returned' brand factor.
Indians have a lot of misconceptions about America. Some of the most ridiculous economic assumptions.
a. Everybody in America is ultra rich. b. There are no poor people in America, Everybody in America is a millionaire. c. Everybody owns a car in America. d. In America all houses have gardens, beautiful parks around them. e. If you are in America you are in heaven.
Thereby the mad rush to get settled in America, somehow. Some people take ridiculous loans to study there. Ultimately leaving no other option but to stay back in America work there even for throw away prices just to pay of the massive debt back home.
People back here in India, find it very difficult to believe that there are a lot people in America who have to work very hard just to make ends meet.
And let me put it this way, while we were hiring, the number of qualified candidates we saw was mostly foreign. In fact, the last 3 hires we made before I left was all foreign - not out of preference, but because that's where the supply sits.
I'm personally Chinese-Canadian, and something my folks said to me when I was younger has really stuck with me through the years: people who have suffered work harder. Much, much harder - not 20% harder, more like 1000% harder. Hard work pays off.
> Not sure about Google and Microsoft, but it does say something that 50% of Google's founders were foreign born.
I'm not sure it says anything beyond the point that brilliant people will be successful regardless of where they were born.
Unless by "doing something right" you mean "continuing to provide an environment where the already-successful can have successful children." :-)
That's not to say Apple hasn't raised the bar of industrial design (and made some folks very rich), but I'm not sure that Apple is a critical piece of Anerican's science landscape.