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The New Argonauts: Regional Advantage in a Global Economy
Like the Greeks who sailed with Jason in search of the Golden Fleece, the new Argonauts--foreign-born, technically skilled entrepreneurs who travel back and forth between Silicon Valley and their home countries--seek their fortune in distant lands by launching companies far from established centers of skill and technology. Their story illuminates profound transformations in the global economy. Economic geographer AnnaLee Saxenian has followed this transformation, exploring one of its great how the "brain drain" has become "brain circulation," a powerful economic force for development of formerly peripheral regions. The new Argonauts--armed with Silicon Valley experience and relationships and the ability to operate in two countries simultaneously--quickly identify market opportunities, locate foreign partners, and manage cross-border business operations. The New Argonauts extends Saxenian's pioneering research into the dynamics of competition in Silicon Valley. The book brings a fresh perspective to the way that technology entrepreneurs build regional advantage in order to compete in global markets. Scholars, policymakers, and business leaders will benefit from Saxenian's firsthand research into the investors and entrepreneurs who return home to start new companies while remaining tied to powerful economic and professional communities in the United States. For Americans accustomed to unchallenged economic domination, the fast-growing capabilities of China and India may seem threatening. But as Saxenian convincingly displays in this pathbreaking book, the Argonauts have made America richer, not poorer.
432 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 26, 2013
Shame on me! How is it possible I review so late AnnaLee Saxenian's book, as well as the importance of migrants in entrepreneurship? I had shortly mentioned Regional Advantage in Silicon Valley - more of the same?, but this was more about the openness of Silicon Valley culture and why it did a better job than the Boston area. In her second book, published in 2006, The New Argonauts: Regional Advantage in a Global Economy Saxenian analyzed the importance of migrants in high-tech entrepreneurship, both for the USA and for the countries of origin of these migrants.
In a related paper, she had written: "In the United States, discussions of the immigration of scientists and engineers have focused primarily on the extent to which foreign-born professionals displace native workers. The view from sending countries, by contrast, has been that the emigration of highly skilled personnel to the United States represents a big economic loss, a brain drain. Neither view is adequate in today's global economy. Far from simply replacing native workers, foreign-born engineers are starting new businesses and generating jobs and wealth at least as fast as their U.S. counterparts. And the dynamism of emerging regions in Asia and elsewhere now draws skilled immigrants homeward. Even when they choose not to return home, they are serving as middlemen linking businesses in the United States with those in distant regions." [Brain Circulation: How High-Skill Immigration Makes Everyone Better Off - 2002] In the end, she added: "Essentially, the new argonauts are people who have learned the Silicon Valley model, usually by doing graduate work in the U.S. and getting absorbed into the Silicon Valley boom. They marinated in the Silicon Valley culture and learned it. This really began in the late `80s for the Israelis and Taiwanese, and not until the late `90s or even the beginning of the `00s for the Indians and Chinese. They began to realize that they could take advantage of their own personal networks in their home countries to provide skill that was scarce in the Valley, and that they could even go home and start businesses there that would tap their old networks. Usually, they were going home and tapping their undergraduate colleagues or their friends from the military, in the case of Israel. They knew and they understood how to work the institutions and the culture of those places, often the language too, better than anyone else in the world."
From the New Argonauts, I will take only two small paragraphs: "Graduating classes from the elite engineering program at National Taiwan University, for example, came to the United States in the 1980s, as did a majority of engineering and computer science graduates from the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology. Technical universities from smaller countries like Ireland and Israel also report large proportions of graduates leaving to study in the United States, although their numbers are too small to show up in the aggregate data. [Page 50]
Now the depressing argument! "The technical elite in countries like France and Japan move automatically into high-status positions at the top of the large corporations or the civil service. They have little incentive to study or work abroad, and often face significant opportunity costs if they do. As a result, relatively few pursue graduate education in the United States, and those who do often return home directly after graduation. Those who end up in Silicon Valley for a period are not likely to gain access to capital, professional opportunities, or respect when they return home." [Page 333]
Saxenian has a long history on the topic. She began in 1999 when she published Silicon Valley's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs. In two related studies, Saxenian and colleagues had a much deeper quantitative analysis. These were America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs in 2007 by Vivek Wadhwa, AnnaLee Saxenian, Ben Rissing, and Gary Gereffi; it was updated in 2012 in America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs: - Then and Now written by Vivek Wadhwa, AnnaLee Saxenian and F. Daniel Siciliano. There are interesting data for Europeans migrants and not only the onews from Asia. Europe has many Silicon Valley migrants also. But we have not been capable (yet) of using them fruitfully as Asia did. We only begin... Europe sees the value of migration (still only one way, attracting talent) and hopefully we will benefit from accepting the lessons...
In a related paper, she had written: "In the United States, discussions of the immigration of scientists and engineers have focused primarily on the extent to which foreign-born professionals displace native workers. The view from sending countries, by contrast, has been that the emigration of highly skilled personnel to the United States represents a big economic loss, a brain drain. Neither view is adequate in today's global economy. Far from simply replacing native workers, foreign-born engineers are starting new businesses and generating jobs and wealth at least as fast as their U.S. counterparts. And the dynamism of emerging regions in Asia and elsewhere now draws skilled immigrants homeward. Even when they choose not to return home, they are serving as middlemen linking businesses in the United States with those in distant regions." [Brain Circulation: How High-Skill Immigration Makes Everyone Better Off - 2002] In the end, she added: "Essentially, the new argonauts are people who have learned the Silicon Valley model, usually by doing graduate work in the U.S. and getting absorbed into the Silicon Valley boom. They marinated in the Silicon Valley culture and learned it. This really began in the late `80s for the Israelis and Taiwanese, and not until the late `90s or even the beginning of the `00s for the Indians and Chinese. They began to realize that they could take advantage of their own personal networks in their home countries to provide skill that was scarce in the Valley, and that they could even go home and start businesses there that would tap their old networks. Usually, they were going home and tapping their undergraduate colleagues or their friends from the military, in the case of Israel. They knew and they understood how to work the institutions and the culture of those places, often the language too, better than anyone else in the world."
From the New Argonauts, I will take only two small paragraphs: "Graduating classes from the elite engineering program at National Taiwan University, for example, came to the United States in the 1980s, as did a majority of engineering and computer science graduates from the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology. Technical universities from smaller countries like Ireland and Israel also report large proportions of graduates leaving to study in the United States, although their numbers are too small to show up in the aggregate data. [Page 50]
Now the depressing argument! "The technical elite in countries like France and Japan move automatically into high-status positions at the top of the large corporations or the civil service. They have little incentive to study or work abroad, and often face significant opportunity costs if they do. As a result, relatively few pursue graduate education in the United States, and those who do often return home directly after graduation. Those who end up in Silicon Valley for a period are not likely to gain access to capital, professional opportunities, or respect when they return home." [Page 333]
Saxenian has a long history on the topic. She began in 1999 when she published Silicon Valley's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs. In two related studies, Saxenian and colleagues had a much deeper quantitative analysis. These were America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs in 2007 by Vivek Wadhwa, AnnaLee Saxenian, Ben Rissing, and Gary Gereffi; it was updated in 2012 in America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs: - Then and Now written by Vivek Wadhwa, AnnaLee Saxenian and F. Daniel Siciliano. There are interesting data for Europeans migrants and not only the onews from Asia. Europe has many Silicon Valley migrants also. But we have not been capable (yet) of using them fruitfully as Asia did. We only begin... Europe sees the value of migration (still only one way, attracting talent) and hopefully we will benefit from accepting the lessons...
March 23, 2014
The classic title and saxe author, combined with what to me is a fascinating subject, suggests that this is a romantic tale about tech professionals traveling to and from Silicon Valley engaging in heroic endeavors. It is nothing of the sort. If you get your rush from reading lists of Chinese and Indian professional organizations in Silicon Valley, with an excitement level comparable to the Book of Numbers, this is for you. Seriously though, don't read this book unless you're a policymaker or a researcher on the IT industry in Israel, Taiwan, India or China. This book is more descriptive and less theoretical as I imagined. It's rich in primary data. It is primarily about tech professionals in Silicon Vally returning to their home countries, bringing technical expertise, management know-how, and contacts. Some very interesting facts:
1. In the 1990s, Taiwan sent more graduates to the USA for PhDs in computer science and engineering than any other country in the world. It went ape-doodoo crazy; entire graduating classes from its four top engineering schools went to the states.
2. Taiwan ranks #3 worldwide in the number of American patents per capita, behind the USA and Japan. Only 5 percent of its patents are registered by multinational companies, compared to 56 percent in Singapore.
3. Acer founder Stan Shih said that in the 1980s most Taiwanese did not know what a microprocessor was. At sales appointments, potential customers thought he was going to sell gardening equipment.
4. Initial attempts to create a Silicon Valley in Taiwan's Hsinchu area failed. Then K. T. Li introduced venture capital, and it worked.
5. All Taiwanese tech firms engage in collaborative endeavors with American partners, never competing head-on with that. For example, computer makers outsource their components from Taiwanese firms. Recently, however this has led to some disruption, as the case with ASUS and Dell illustrates.
6. India cannot manufacture hardware because their infrastructure sucks.
What annoyed me about this book:
1. Saxe keeps conflating Taiwan and China.
2. No discussion about potential collaboration between Taiwan's powerful hardware capabilities and India's software capabilities.
1. In the 1990s, Taiwan sent more graduates to the USA for PhDs in computer science and engineering than any other country in the world. It went ape-doodoo crazy; entire graduating classes from its four top engineering schools went to the states.
2. Taiwan ranks #3 worldwide in the number of American patents per capita, behind the USA and Japan. Only 5 percent of its patents are registered by multinational companies, compared to 56 percent in Singapore.
3. Acer founder Stan Shih said that in the 1980s most Taiwanese did not know what a microprocessor was. At sales appointments, potential customers thought he was going to sell gardening equipment.
4. Initial attempts to create a Silicon Valley in Taiwan's Hsinchu area failed. Then K. T. Li introduced venture capital, and it worked.
5. All Taiwanese tech firms engage in collaborative endeavors with American partners, never competing head-on with that. For example, computer makers outsource their components from Taiwanese firms. Recently, however this has led to some disruption, as the case with ASUS and Dell illustrates.
6. India cannot manufacture hardware because their infrastructure sucks.
What annoyed me about this book:
1. Saxe keeps conflating Taiwan and China.
2. No discussion about potential collaboration between Taiwan's powerful hardware capabilities and India's software capabilities.
December 18, 2020
AnnaLee Saxenian in her 2006 book, The New Argonauts: Regional Advantage in a Global Economy, explores the globalization of the technology workforce that has occurred as the "brain drain" becomes a "brain circulation" with immigrant Indian, Chinese, and Israeli professionals taking the Silicon Valley entrepreneurial model to their home countries while also maintaining connections with the US.
June 14, 2024
续作，这次是硅谷区域经济的外溢了。
December 31, 2008
I head to read this for a geography class (migration and development) and feel the need to warn potential readers. The idea of the book is interesting and provides insight into the unique experience of Silicon Valley and its relationship (via migrant entrepreneurs) to Israel, India, Taiwan and China... But, it is so bogged down in minute details of individual experiences that you loose the larger story.
December 19, 2016
Someone recalled this book to the library before I could finish! So I only just got the gist, but it's a fascinating take on economic development that I really enjoyed.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews