[nostrademons]

I think a lot is also the existence of role models, companies that were founded by engineers and grew up to become world-changing. Silicon Valley has Hewlett Packard, Shockley Semiconductor, Fairchild, Intel, Apple, eBay, Google, etc. all founded by engineers. When you think "world-changing company" here, you think of a couple of guys in a garage tinkering with technology. Meanwhile everybody knows a few "idea guys" who have to go out and beg to find an engineer.

Basically, if you do anything well enough you make it respectable. The difference between Silicon Valley and Sydney may be that we have a long history of engineers who go out and change the world, while it sounds like in Sydney there's a long history of idea & money men who hire people to change the world.