Striking It Rich

Article in San Jose Mercury News about a Duke University study how 52 percent of the Start-Up Companies in the Silicon Valley are led by Immigrants. The article is called "Valley's New Leaders Coming From Overseas" and shows which countries Countries have recently struck it rich in the Tech Industry in California: India, China, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Germany, Iraq, Israel. I'm really thrilled that the United States is such a Land of Opportunity for others. But, I'm also sad that so many Americans have no opportunity and are living in poverty. The plight of the Immigrant becomes exhausting and sort of stupid. A week or so ago I believe I read an article about how the Silicon Valley is also tops or near tops for being the most miserly regarding philanthropy. All this money in California yet obscenely high drop-out rates in California Public High Schools. Opportunity, yes, but no Community.

Here's the list of the Winners in these catagories along with the birth dates of as many as I could find.

Vinod Khosla
co-founder of Sun Microsystems
b. January 28, 1955 Poona, (New Delhi), India

Alfred Chuang
co-founder of BEA Systems
b. (no date) Hong Kong

Sergey Brin
co-founder of Google
b. August 21, 1973 Moscow, Russia

Jen Hsun-Huang
co-founder of Nvidia
b. February 17, 1963 Taipai, Taiwan

Pierre Omidyar
founder of E-Bay
b. June 21, 1967 Paris, France

Jerry Yang
co-founder of Yahoo
b. Nov. 6, 1968 Taipei, Taiwan