[mistermumble]

Actually the "thousand flowers" metaphor is part of Silicon Valley culture going back 30 years.

At least I have heard this any number of times in relation to technology innovation, entrepreneurship, "lean startups", etc. I bet a lot of the people who use the term have no idea of its origins in Mao's China.

See for example, this article from Inc magazine in 1984, which begins as follows:

"Not too long ago, fortune 500 companies looked at small-scale entrepreneurial companies as fodder for acquisition -- if they were big enough to make the effort worthwhile -- and little more. The executive who dared to suggest that Goliath might learn from David was likely to be trampled by a herd of MBAs waving printouts on the economies of scale that flowed from a centralized and rationally managed organization... Then something happened...The micromillenium was born in a Cupertino, Calif., garage."

[excerpted from "Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom" http://www.inc.com/magazine/19840401/2895.html]