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about Asia Buzz
Asia Buzz: California Dreaming
Why
the road to Mandalay is not lined with dotcoms
By
TERRY McCARTHY
April 5, 2000
Web posted at 11:30 a.m. Hong Kong time, 11:30 p.m. EST
The climate is hot and arid. Schooling is a problem, and the native
population reads few books. People cultivate a laid-back lifestyle,
do a lot of drugs, and almost universally dislike their government.
Discipline is not a commonly shared concept.
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 ASIA BUZZ
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Strap yourself in NASDAQ-bound Netrepreneurs. It's going
to be a wild ride
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Where are we? We could be in a stereotypical banana republic in some
tropical hellhole, where annual per capita GNP is less than the cost
of a Sony Playstation and intermittent civil war causes the UN to
threaten to send Richard Holbrooke in to mediate -- but no, we are
in California, source of the Internet revolution, Marilyn Monroe,
avocado sushi and other wonders of American innovation.
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California
defies belief. Compared to the intensity of New Yorkers, Californians
are positively catatonic. Nobody shouts at anyone, and car horns are
optional accessories that are used as often as a Tokyo policeman's
pistol. (There is of course road rage on LA's freeways, but that supercedes
horns and is conventionally settled with a range of weapons, or, in
the latest technique, with vicarious pet assassinations).
So how do they do it? How do they keep coming up with all these great
ideas in aerospace, defense industries, computers, movies and Cabernet
Sauvignon production? Or, to put it another way, if California gets
it, why doesn't Burma -- which is also hot, full of mellow Buddhists,
any amount of drugs and has a universally hated government? Why is
the road to Mandalay not lined with dotcoms?
True, the Burmese junta in its wisdom recently decreed that the Internet
was basically against the law, which may go some way to explaining
the lack of venture capitalists at Rangoon airport. But there must
be more to it than that. A few government regulations never scared
off a true start-up enthusiast -- witness China, where the entire
cyber industry has been set up in direct contravention of government
regulations, only to see the government repeatedly retreat as it realizes
it cannot control the Internet revolution.
Why are 21-year-old's in California driving Porsches to their skiing
chalets around Lake Tahoe, while their counterparts in Burma are tramping
through malarial jungles chasing 12-year-old rebels in one of the
world's longest-running civil wars? Is this quality of life?
The answer, it seems, is the Californian ability to capitalize on
failure -- whether it be a defunct IPO (response -- ask for five times
as much money on the next attempt) or a less than optimal bustline
(response -- cosmetic surgery). Burma has achieved an admirable rate
of failure -- politically, economically, educationally (an entire
generation will miss third-level education because of closed universities).
But it hasn't yet managed to work out that renewal strategy that Californians
are so good at. So there is no upside of failure, no phoenix effect.
Forget the hot weather/cold weather paradigm for explaining relative
progress in human societies. Otherwise Mongolia should have a thriving
bioengineering industry. It is all about managing failure. California's
bounce-back time is measured in nanoseconds. Burma is counting in
generations. Which all goes to explain why Burmese investors were
not involved in backing Kevin Costner's movie Waterworld. Failing
to succeed -- an ambivalent notion.
Ticked off at Asia Buzz? Turned on? Talk back to TIME
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