Yeah, but only technically. His parents were foreign-born, he was a British citizen, his university-level education happened in Oxford and apparently he never worked in Brazil.
But Chile's two Nobel Prizes are for Literature, which is cool but not very relevant to the author's point, so we're even.
In any case I'm not sure if even science Nobel prizes or top universities' rankings are very relevant indicators regarding web startups. Germany and Japan both have loads of Nobel prize winners and several excellent universities, but we don't see startup hubs in those countries comparable to Silicon Valley or even Israel (proportionally).
Well, if you were to assemble a small, elite team of programmers, arguably you'd have better luck in Brazil, or possibly Argentina, than in Chile, based on sheer numbers alone. On the other hand, I believe the average education in Chile is much better: for instance, literacy rate is 96.5% compared to Brazil's 90% (much less if we count functional literacy).
Overall, though, I believe Brazil probably is still the best place for investing in startups in South America. See 500 Startups for instance:
This article did not really mention that he found too few entrepreneurs, just that he didnt get on with the investors. Community needs to be there first, and investment cannot create it. Not sure that someone deciding they cant make enough money is an indication of anything about the potential.
> Nothing will change without emphasis on science, and this is true all across Latin America – actually, Chile is even in better shape than other Latin American countries. Do you know how many Brazilians have received a Nobel Prize? Zero. Compare that with Israel, and you’ll see the difference: education.
But I agree with you, I don't think one investor giving up on Chile means anything definitive about the country's potential.
The problem with Argentina is doing business there. Education could be better, and the country is gorgeous, but their business practices are terrible. And the government really doesn't help.
Anyway, the problems he describes are very real here in Chile, but at least we're outgrowing that. There are big bottlenecks in the way (not enough people is english-literate and not-elite education is terrible) but the will to change is there.
But Chile's two Nobel Prizes are for Literature, which is cool but not very relevant to the author's point, so we're even.
In any case I'm not sure if even science Nobel prizes or top universities' rankings are very relevant indicators regarding web startups. Germany and Japan both have loads of Nobel prize winners and several excellent universities, but we don't see startup hubs in those countries comparable to Silicon Valley or even Israel (proportionally).
Well, if you were to assemble a small, elite team of programmers, arguably you'd have better luck in Brazil, or possibly Argentina, than in Chile, based on sheer numbers alone. On the other hand, I believe the average education in Chile is much better: for instance, literacy rate is 96.5% compared to Brazil's 90% (much less if we count functional literacy).
Overall, though, I believe Brazil probably is still the best place for investing in startups in South America. See 500 Startups for instance:
http://www.quora.com/Why-did-500-Startups-choose-Brazil (I don't completely agree with the top answer, which is a tad too generous to Brazil, but it is instructive.)
http://brazilventurecapital.blogspot.com/2011/09/dave-mcclur...