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Hmm. Aren't the East Asian CEO class off being CEOs in East Asia? Whereas, for jurisdiction arbitrage reasons, it's a much better environment for CEOs in India to leave India and work in the US than to try to build in India.

I'm always mindful of the quote "I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops" from Stephen Jay Gould. If we assume that CEO-ness, whatever that property actually is, is evenly distributed among people at birth, it becomes a question of opportunity. It seems that the business culture in Japan, Singapore, possibly Korea, post-90s China, and some other places is pretty good compared to India.



I don't think you have to assume that CEO-ness is evenly distributed.

I can even believe that kids born in Singapore have more CEO-ness in them on average than kids born in eg Indonesia or PR China. Even if for no other reason than that Singapore is the kind of place that's comparatively more tolerable / less horrifying for the kind of people with CEO-ness traits. (It's also pretty expensive, so only rich people can really afford to have kids here.)

(I'm assuming here that CEO-ness runs in families.)

In any case, the rest of your argument still makes sense, even if someone born in Singapore statistically has a 3% higher chance of becoming a CEO than someone born in Portugal or whatever.


This seems like the best explanation to me. Chinese CEOs can lead companies in the US, China, or even Taiwan.

Indian CEOs are choosing between climbing the ladder in India or the US, and all tech opportunities are much more plentiful and lucrative here.

We are brain-draining India to a greater degree than we are China.




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