[hello_moto]

There are gazzilion reasons why people opted to do business back home as opposed to the U.S. and all of them are probably similar decision-making as to choosing your next programming languages: there's no one reason to rule them all.

I'm an immigrant. I'm considering heavily to go back home and start a business there (online, offline, doesn't matter). Reasons? cheaper workforce, more power, more connections, cherry picking, bigger pond, more people (consumers), etc.

I'll be using North America to include both US and Canada for the rest of my comment.

Here are a few more detailed examples (all of them are of course anecdotes to me):

Managing westerners that believe that they're entitled for everything such as perks, private offices, their choice of programming languages, their choice of best practices are often a time consuming activity. Back home, I can drive the workforce to do the best practices that I believe without having to have long discussions. Give them laptop, give them work, they're happy. This is because their mindset, perspective, and standard are different than here in North America. They're also cheaper.

After working with many programmers throughout my careers, I kind of grow a belief that I can train the less "creative" developers back home to be at the same level at most of the programmers in North America. They might not reach the level of superstar engineers, but they will reach the level of more than good enough at where I will be.

Connection is a big thing. It's harder to have a connection in N.A., especially when you're an immigrant (maybe it's just me). Where I come from, hooking up with people who have excess money is very easy. Especially when you graduate from a pretty good N.A. university (doesn't have to be Wharton or Harvard, UC Berkeley, UC Irvine is enough). They look at you as someone who has something "more" (whatever more that is).

In Iowa, you're nobody. In the [Capital City of your ancestor's land], you're something. Imagine that.

Overall, I find that the majority of large Asian cities are probably more alive than some well-known (but not necessarily large) N.A. cities.

Again, all of these are anecdotes.

[moocow01]

"Back home, I can drive the workforce to do the best practices that I believe without having to have long discussions"

But this where you may be missing out on the value of a worker. In this day in age, someone who just cranks out something to a mold or specification is not as valuable to an organization. I'd much rather pay someone 5 times as much if they can think on their feet and not always have to rely on me to figure out how they should be working. Constantly having to define practices for a team of lemmings is a typically exhausting full time gig when you're the only one to take initiative and guide. The other problem is that we all make bad decisions from time to time and it is important to make sure we have competent people around us to correct our course when that occurs rather than a bunch of yes-men.

[hello_moto]

It's not as bad as you'd think.

These best practices are just the foundation, not necessary the long-term solutions. Once you have a set of standard, there's always room for improvement or changes.

The biggest problem with N.A. workers is that they can be categorized into 3 types when it comes to "Do Things":

- Do as they pleased (cause they think they know it all)

- Follow the best practice

- Follow the latest and greatest best practice and create some sort of work revolution in the middle of directing the ship toward the goal

You kind of need a "Yes-Man" if you're on early stage of startup inventing your own dream (I'm sure this is going to open a can of worm but hey... it's your startup).

I'm not discussing whether this is the best way or the worst way. I'm focusing on the "why" people chose culture that prefer "Yes-Man". It could be a way for them to exploit human psychology for all I know.

That's the thing. You need to be there to see how things are happening/working. It's totally different in there (Asia) than in here (US).

Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmare advises won't work in Asia while it may work in US or UK.

[quanticle]

>You kind of need a "Yes-Man" if you're on early stage of startup inventing your own dream (I'm sure this is going to open a can of worm but hey... it's your startup).

Nonsense. You are not smart enough to run your company. That bears repeating: You are not smart enough to run your company.

In other words, you will face unexpected challenges and problems that you aren't smart enough to solve on your own. In a situation like this, being surrounded by "yes men" is the worst possible place to be. Employees that can't or won't think for themselves won't be able to help you get out of a jam. They won't be able to tell you that you're going in the wrong direction. Instead, your own workload will grow exponentially as you find yourself having to tell your employees what to do as opposed to having them figure it out for themselves.

Even worse, you'll find yourself cut off from vital information. You'll find that you don't receive news unless you specifically ask for it. In other words you'll be flying blind with faulty instruments. That's not a situation I'd like to find myself in as an entrepreneur. I would much rather have employees who can take initiative to fix problems and pounce on new business opportunities. I would much rather have employees who tell me that things are going badly without having to be prodded. A "yes-man" is the very antithesis of this.

[hello_moto]

It's hard to argue because I've seen many companies/businesses that start that way back home or in Asia.

Only later on when they're stable enough to hire smarter people then they start to delegate.

YMMV. As I said it before, it's one of the reason why people want to go back regardless whether I'm wrong or you're right.

It's the worst place for you but not necessary for other people.

Different culture but I haven't seen China nor South Korea fail so far :).

UPDATE: Since I can't reply any more (for whatever reason). Sure, innovation might be lacking, but meh, most people come back because they want to create a company/business. This isn't a debate about USA vs the rest of the world in terms of innovation. It's about "why" people left US.

[quanticle]

>Different culture but I haven't seen China nor South Korea fail so far :).

It's also the reason they haven't made any major inventions or advances. The yes-man culture is positively noxious to innovative thought, and if you look at Korea right now, they're trying to loosen up that culture so that they can innovate and don't get stuck in a role of constantly receiving secondhand innovation from the US/Europe.

[spitfire]

He might not be smart enough to run his company. But I've seen more than a few people who aren't smart enough to run a company, but are lucky enough to hit payday.

Sadly, this sort of failing upwards just reinforces their world view.

[quanticle]

>In Iowa, you're nobody. In the [Capital City of your ancestor's land], you're something. Imagine that.

Really? My experience (as an immigrant) has been quite the opposite. Here in America it's a lot easier to become "somebody". You work hard, develop your skills and learn to market yourself. Once you do that, you're either on a upward trajectory at your current firm or you have the prerequisites to find yourself a better position elsewhere.

In my native country (India) family connections still count for quite a great deal, and job switching is still somewhat frowned upon (though attitudes regarding both of the above have improved immensely in the past 20 years). Therefore, you can have skills and a hard work ethic and still find yourself stuck in a not-great situation.

[hello_moto]

My assumption/pre-requisite is that if you can become an immigrant, in a few situations, your family is rich already or successful back home thus you would have connections already and you're probably in mid to high economy class.

I think you can say the same thing too everywhere: Work Hard, Develop Skills, Market yourself.

Marketing seems to be the key point in developing countries probably because the average people are not exposed to certain kind of hypes.

[quanticle]

>My assumption/prerequisite is that if you can become an immigrant, in a few situations, your family is rich already or successful back home thus you would have connections already and you're probably in mid to high economy class.

That's not always a good assumption to make. Not everyone who makes it to the US is rich or well connected. In fact, the vast majority of immigrants to the US have not been rich or well connected back home, which is why they immigrated to the US in the first place.

[hello_moto]

Regardless what my assumptions are it's not a matter of "Right or Wrong" because if there are 100 immigrants, there will be 100 paths/experiences :).

Your path is different than the path of these people who come back home because they have better opportunities there than here.