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Comment by 6ren | Hacker News Reader

This is harsh: I visited a company town once, and it struck me that Australia is like a giant company town. Our wealth comes from mining and farming, and the owners share enough to keep things humming. Result: a good life, risk not needed, non-conformity not appreciated.

In comparison, US is more entrepreneurial and SV more so - but to be fair, it's more entrepreneurial than anywhere, and even it suffers from risk-aversion and echo-chamber conformity at times.

What do you think?

EDIT I don't think it's a question of tech or not (Australia is technically highly capable and advanced), but of entrepreneurial or not. Our idea of "entrepreneurial" is opening yet another mine, TV station or restaurant.

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I agree entirely.

And it pisses me off. I live in Brisbane, and I love the people and the city, but I will eat my hat (and film it for YouTube) if the Council/State Gov will ever pump money into building up a proper tech sector here.

Melbourne is a little better, with their "hipster"-styled outlook; I guess that's why it has a bit of hype in the start-up scene here in Aus (they have anti-conformism, to a mild extent).

Sydney, well, there is innovation coming out of there. A number of startups, and they do quite well, but it's a 5:1 ratio of B2B vs B2C startups, so you don't get to _see_ the work being done, unless you are in a vertical they target.

Maybe one day Australia will take tech seriously... until then, I'm biding my time and saving up my personal runway to chase dreams elsewhere in the world, like a lot of people my age.

> if the Council/State Gov will ever pump money into building up a proper tech sector here

Why is that the governments job?

Governments make investments in infrastructure and other things to encourage local business in particular sectors to come here. I'd like to see my city take the forefront in courting IT in Australia.

Because local industry in Queensland is focused on pulling finite resources out of the ground, which can only last so long before it must move somewhere else. They're not interested in conquering problems that the rest of society faces, and in my personal opinion, basing our state's long term future on the sector (even if it is GREAT temporarily; for ex. my dad is a Civil engineer working on the roads around the mines, makes over $1mil/yr revenue from his business), is going to bite us in the arse.

Because of that, if Queensland and Brisbane wants to stop playing third fiddle to Sydney and Melbourne on a local and world stage, then we need to start doing something in the future.

While I do believe that one of the functions of a government is to encourage a diverse economy, I do not believe that it is the role of government to create it. If there are people in (we'll use your example) Brisbane that are willing, able and capable to begin to build a tech industry, they should. After that has occurred, then the government is in a position to look at how it can best encourage continued growth.

However, it may end up that Sydney is where Australia's tech industry takes root and grows through natural activity and movement instead of Brisbane. This is normal and it will happen. Not every city is 'world class' at everything, it's really not possible.

The funny thing is, according to the ACS, 20% of Australia's workforce is in IT! Go figure!

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