[carleverett]

A few of the more significant American innovations in the last 15-20 years:

  -CRISPR, gene editing
  -iTunes, iPod, iPhone, iPad, etc.
  -re-usable space rockets (Spacex and Blue Origin)
  -IBM's Watson and Deep Blue, Google's AlphaGo
  -LIGO's detection of gravitational waves
  -MIT's improvements in lithium ion technology
  -NASA's exploratory discoveries on Mars, Mercury, Pluto, Saturn, etc.
  -Google
  -Wikipedia
  -Facebook
  -Tesla
  -Uber

It's hardly been a drought.

[haldean]

How does Uber always make these lists? It's a taxi app. You can hold it up as a well-done business, but you can't call it a technological breakthrough.

[msabalau]

If you think you can't use technology to innovate on the business model, you don't understand innovation.

[pmontra]

Actually AlphaGo is British. DeepMind was well ahead on that road when Google bought it. All the rest is American AFAIK even if other countries have similar technologies and successes for space exploration and detection of gravitational waves. If you go back more than 20 years, space exploration was USA vs USSR with an early Soviet advantage.

[clort]

Also, Elon Musk came from South Africa and did not become a US citizen until 2002.. I don't know that that makes anything that Tesla or SpaceX have invented to be not completely American, but if he is considered the driving force, then .. there could be a doubt

Hey, immigration is great! Steve Jobs was also the son of an immigrant..

[techterrier]

AlphaGo was a brit thing :P