[hardwaresofton]

At which point in history was japan ever a huge entrepreneurial society? The business success that I hear about most from japanese companies is often taking an idea and making it better, not necessarily being the first to innovate.

Though I guess I'm conflating being enterprising with being innovative, when the vast majority of enterprises aren't neccesarily innovative.

Also, while I somewhat agree with the sentiment that japan should do more to spur people to innovate, I don't think that many other countries are much different, people just drive to work at the random job that doesn't really mean anything to them, rather than walk/ride trains. Also not sure that every single asian culture demonstrates this strong group think...