Danny Crichton

lang: en

In an article in Foreign Affairs, Ruchir Sharma blows apart the notion of the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) as the leading economic forces in the coming century. He emphasizes the demographic issues facing China, the rising concentration of wealth in Russia, as well as the slowing growth rates across all four countries to argue that the BRIC acronym should really be retired.

He moves beyond analyzing just the BRIC nations though, instead briefly noting the facts of development over the past 50 years. Sadly, despite some notable exceptions, Sharma notes that few countries have made any progress in their rise (in terms of real per capita incomes) in the past half century. Economic evidence demonstrates that countries can rarely grow at high sustained rates for more than a decade, since few countries have been able to adapt to the changing politics and technology that confront their economy. Sharma aggressively targets China in this regard, arguing that its bureaucracy simply cannot handle the combination of a changing economic landscape with the dual trends of urbanization and an aging population.

It is Sharma's comments on Korea that interests me most:

In the past, Asian states tended to look to Japan as a paradigm, nations from the Baltics to the Balkans looked to the European Union, and nearly all countries to some extent looked to the United States. But the crisis of 2008 has undermined the credibility of all these role models. Tokyo's recent mistakes have made South Korea, which is still rising as a manufacturing powerhouse, a much more appealing Asian model than Japan.

And this is something that I completely agree with:

Among countries with per capita incomes in the $20,000 to $25,000 range, only two have a good chance of matching or exceeding

lang: en

It has been two weeks since updating this blog (and an entire new election has come and gone in the United States!) I wanted to give a brief update on some of the stuff that I am working on so that it doesn't appear that I have entirely dropped off the face of the planet.

1. I am continuing to draft my research papers regarding my trip to South Korea last year. Right now, I am targeting about 6-7 essays about various topics, most of which will be independent of each other. I am hoping to finish them up over the Thanksgiving Holidays (the week of Nov. 18).

2. I am continuing to study Korean by reading Korean books. Right now, I am reading a book called 두 얼굴의 네이버 (you can read a book review of it in Korean here). It is a graphic novel depiction of Naver's corporate history, and is thus relatively bite-sized for learning a foreign language.

3. I just ordered Korea: the Impossible Country, a new book that was recently published from Tuttle. The book was been doing well in its reviews, and claims to give a more distinctive account of the culture of Korea than many other titles. We will see when I receive the book.

4. Finally, the leadership transition is underway in China as I write this. I am trying to catch up on all the news, but the best portal for it that I have found is Foreign Policy, which has a remarkable series of articles covering the transition.

Tomorrow is also 빼빼로 day, so definitely get in the spirit and eat some chocolate sticks for the holiday.

Back in October of last year, I wrote a blog post titled "What scares me about Mitt Romney" that looked into the business and educational background of the then future Republican nominee. My main concern with Romney came from his emphasis on data and analytics - his formative years were spent at Harvard Business School and Bain Capital, where he perfected the data-driven approach to private equity investment. While such skills are at the heart of business, the political world has generally been immune to such quantitative approaches.

So it is not without heavy layers of irony that Romney campaign staffers started blaming the team's approach to data as one of the leading causes of Romney's failed bid. BusinessInsider has one of the many accounts of Project Orca, a data and engineering centric approach to Get Out The Vote operations on election day. Rather than revolutionizing the campaign's activities, the program helped to suppress Republican turn-out efforts by preventing volunteers from accessing voter lists, and making it difficult to track who had voted and who had not.

Contrast the Romney campaign's maladies with the big data operation at the heart of the Obama campaign, as described by Time Magazine:

Get-out-the-vote lists were never reconciled with fundraising lists. It was like the FBI and the CIA before 9/11: the two camps never shared data. “We analyzed very early that the problem in Democratic politics was you had databases all over the place,” said one of the officials. “None of them talked to each other.” So over the first 18 months, the campaign started over, creating a single massive system that could merge the information collected from pollsters, fundraisers, field workers and consumer databases as well as social-media and mobile contacts with the main Democratic voter files in the

lang: en

Eunjin Kim (you can follow her on Twitter: @eunnkimm) has compiled an impressive map of the current start-up scene in Seoul. Not only is it a great example of how to use the FusionTables API available from Google, but it also allows us to get a wonderful sense of the geographical layout of Korea's innovation infrastructure.

Start-ups appear to be concentrated mostly in the heart of Gangnam, with another small cluster near Hongdae in Mapo-gu. This is somewhat interesting for several reasons. First, Gangnam has some of the most expensive real estate in all of Korea, as well as the highest cost of goods in the capital city. Much as how San Francisco is one of the most expensive markets in the United States, the high costs don't appear to be slowing the onslaught of start-ups coming into the neighborhood.

What is interesting though is what this tells us about the location Korean start-up CEOs choose for their companies. Gangnam is also the site of Samsung and NCSoft, some of the largest firms working in the software space in the entire country. Hongdae, the other innovation cluster, is a much younger environment that generally attracts college students with its extensive nightlife and eateries. The CEO's choices would seem to reflect a desire to be near talent rather than youth, and this may also indicate the kind of employees companies are looking to employ.

One should probably not take away too much from this split - both sites are accessible from the No. 2 line on the Seoul Metro and are about 25 minutes away from each other. Nonetheless, it is interesting to see similar dynamics work in Seoul as does Silicon Valley. Palo Alto/Mountain View and SF remain the hubs for new ventures in the Bay Area,

If you were paying attention to the press last week, you probably read a headline like this one from TechCrunch: "Not From The Onion: Minnesota Bans Stanford’s Unauthorized Free Online Education." Or this headline from VentureBeat: "Dear Minnesota, free online education is a good thing (yeah, really)." While the sarcasm is appreciated (really, all of us from Minnesota are quite nice about these things), it was the articles themselves that turned me from a bemused spectator to an angry commentator.

TechCrunch writes:

This story of government overreach is so outrageous that we have to re-iterate that it is, in fact, real: the State of Minnesota has banned popular free online education site, Coursera ...

and

... the silly incident underscores a widespread problem between government regulators and startups: 20th century consumer and worker rights laws are hindering innovation.

VentureBeat writes similarly:

That, of course, is as ridiculous as it is ineffective. Coursera is delivered by the free and open Internet, so unless the state of Minnesota wants to start censoring the Internet, good luck.

You would think the government passed a law banning puppies and chocolate.

Coursera today released a statement that clarified many of the issues related to students taking classes in Minnesota. As Coursera noted, "Some states, like Minnesota, have laws to regulate higher education dissemination, mainly in the interest of protecting their citizens from sub-par education." [emphasis mine]

It is important to emphasize that the law in question was passed almost 30 years ago, mostly in response to the burgeoning for-profit university industry that were quickly making headway across the country. Despite the conspiracy theorists of some members of the press, these laws were not passed to protect state universities from competition, but rather in response to an issue of concern: consumers

I just finished Edward Glaeser's book, Triumph of the City, on the history of urbanism and the importance of cities in the twenty-first century. The book covers an enormous amount of ground, although unfortunately, its breadth restricts an in-depth examination of many of the book's topics. Nonetheless, the book was filled with a number of insights that I thought were particularly interesting.

The value of in-person contact has increased while the cost of distance communication has decreased

With the advent of Facebook, Skype, and Twitter, Gleaser notes that it is easier than ever to engage with others from all the way across the world. Yet, the premium people are willing to pay to live in cities has only increased this past decade. It seems strange that we could live in the woods and telecommute, yet many of us instead choose to live in dense apartments with little greenery or sunlight.

Glaeser argues that the value here is serendipity -- cities provide random encounters that greatly increase our own human capital. He argues, mostly persuasively, that the rise of artistic movements came from the close (geographically) collaboration of artists in certain schools, and such agglomerations are typical of many of today's industries like internet start-ups in Silicon Valley. Such osmosis of new ideas is simply not possible with the communication technologies we have in our service today.

What I think is truly interesting though, is that people don't choose to live in the suburbs instead of the city, but rather move to other cities and telecommute. When I worked at Google, we had people from New York City and Tel Aviv working on my team, and we had fewer than a dozen members working on my product at the time. Communication technologies disproportionately benefit the urban dweller, and thus it is

lang: ko

블룸버그가 한국의 대학 졸업생들의 곤경에 대한 긴 기사를 썼다.

한국의 고등학생 네 명 중 거의 세 명은 – 재벌이라고도 알려진 – 주요 산업 그룹의 최고 연봉 직업을 얻기 위해 대학에 진학한다. 이에 따라 한국은 필요한 것보다 더 많은 대학 졸업생들로 넘쳐나고 있다. 한국에서 최대 규모의 상위 서른 개 회사는 지난 해 대학 졸업생 중 260,000명을 고용했는데, 이로 인해 채용되지 못한 60,000명이 지난 8월 청년 실업률을 6.4%로 – 전국 평균의 두 배가 넘는 수치 – 증가시키는 결과를 낳았다.

올해 초 박세훈 박사는 한국의 교육 시스템이 왜 기대에 부응하지 못하는 결과를 내는가에 대해 글을 썼다. 위 기사는 그 글을 잘 보완해준다.

본질적으로, 수년에 걸친 사교육은 한국 학생들을 대학 교육을 습득하는 데 대비시키는 게 아니라, 대학 입학 시험에 맞춰 준비시킬 뿐이다. 그 말인즉슨, 한국인들이 국제적인 시험에서 매우 우수한 성적을 거두는 이유가 이러한 시험들에 합격하기 위해 가르침을 받으며 지나치게 많은 시간을 투자하기 때문이라는 것이다. 그들이 대학에서 진짜 학계에 들어갈 때, 그들은 성공하기 위해 필요한 능력들을 가지고 있지 못하다.

이 두 이야기는 직접적으로 관련이 있다. 대학 교육이 단순 암기나 훌륭한 시험 성적을 거두는 것에 관한 것이라면, 전혀 가치가 없다. 대신에, 대학 교육은 반드시 생각의 실험실로 간주되어야 한다. 누구나 독립적으로, 새로운 것을 시도해보고 새로운 아이디어를 발견해내고, 자아에 대해 알아가고, 급변하는 세상에 필요한 다양한 기술을 발전시킬 수 있는 곳으로.

미국의 교육에 대한 요즘의 토론에서 흥미로운 점 중 하나는 우리가 지난 몇 십 년 동안 꽤 잘해왔다는 사실을 다들 잊는 듯하다는 것이다. 우리의 시스템에도 불구하고 말이다. 물론, 모두가 잘하지는 않았지만, 미국의 경제는 여전히 세계에서 선망의 대상으로 남아 있다. 어떻게 우리는 미국의 경제를 일반적으로 부진한 성적을 내고 있다고 여겨지는 미국 학교들과 조화시킬 수 있을까?

내가 생각하기에 핵심은, 미국 학교들, 특히 대학이, 많은 것을 올바르게 하고 있다는 점이다. 교육 실적은 놀랍게도 인간의 마음의 발전에 있어서 가장 중요한 요인들 중 하나가 아니다. 이단적으로 들릴 지도 모르지만, 아마도 훨씬 더 중요할 활동들을 생각해 보라. 독립적인 연구를 하는 것,

lang: ko

오늘 자 뉴욕 타임즈는 도쿄에서 불쑥 솟아나고 있는 ‘스타트업 살롱들 Start-up Salons’에 관한 흥미로운 이야기를 다루었다. 이 살롱들이 일본의 사업가들로 하여금 네트워크를 구축할 수 있도록 일종의 사회적 윤활유 역할을 하고 있다는 것이었다.

물론, 일본에는 (그리고 대부분의 다른 나라들도 마찬가지로) 새로운 벤처 사업을 조성하는 데 있어서 많은 문제들이 여전히 남아 있다. 기사에서 볼 수 있듯이

부진한 경제와 인구가 고령화되어 감에 따라, 일본은 UN에서 실시한 최신 글로벌 이노베이션 순위에서 25위로 떨어졌다. 2007년에 시작된 조사 이래 처음으로 20위 밖으로 밀려난 것이다.

...

그 어느 때보다, 많은 혁신들이 아주 느리게 증가하고 있는 것처럼 보이거나 아니면 그냥 이상해 보인다. 8월 파나소닉이 출시한 4,500달러의 “네트워크로 연결되어” 스마트폰으로 원격 조작이 가능한 세탁기는 일본 블로고스피어에서 조롱 거리가 되었다. “파나소닉이 길을 잃어버린 걸까?” 한 블로거가 묻는다.

나는 이러한 종류의 “언더그라운드” 커뮤니티들이 스타트업 생태계의 초기 단계에서 중대한 요소라고 생각한다. 형성된 커넥션들은 미래에 중대한 역할을 할 것이지만, 그보다 더 중요한 것은, 그것들이 정신적인 지원과 동지애를 제공할 것이라는 점이다. 커뮤니티가 어김없이 찾아올 어려운 도전들에 마주하는 것을 돕기 위해서 말이다.

그러나, 우리는 작은 변화에 너무 들뜨지 않도록 조심할 필요가 있다. 위 기사는 한 스타트업 인큐베이터가 “[…] 올해 최근 실시한 모집에서 100개 가량의 지원서를 받았다”라는 점을 언급하고 있다. 1억 명이 넘는 인구를 가진, 세계에서 세 번째로 큰 경제 국가인 일본에서.

분명히 해두자. 네트워크를 구축하는 것은 정말로 중요하다. 그러나 정말로 스타트업 생태계가 자라날 수 있도록 만드는 건 정책 변화이다. 조세 정책, 사업 규정, 경쟁 정책, 이민 따위가 바로 새로운 벤처 사업 형성을 용이하게 하기 위해 정부가 바로잡아둬야 하는 영역들이다. 이러한 소셜 네트워크들이 정부에 로비를 해서 이러한 정책들을 장려하도록 만들 수도 있겠지만, 그건 비현실적인 방법일 가능성이 더 높다고 생각한다.

그렇다면 일본과 같은 나라는 어디로 가야 할까? 몇 가지 다른 길이 있다고 생각한다. 첫째, 일본의 경제 안에서 확실히 자리를 잡은 인물들은 새로운 사업들이 활로를 찾을 수 있도록 지원할 막대한 필요성이 있다. 일본의 기업주들은 (심지어 몇 안 되는 수라 할지라도!) 앞장 서서 이와 같이 막