Do those people really believe they're the most intellectually superior to the rest of the world? If a job can be done purely remotely, what stops the employer from hiring someone who lives in a cheaper place?
I've worked with remote workers from around the world. Let me preface by saying there are of course exceptions but:
What I've found is that most often Americans exhibit self-starting and creativity. What I mean by that is non-us workers are great if you give them a specific task, even a really hard task.
But if you give them a nebulous problem, or worse, a business outcome, they tend to perform much more poorly. And I rarely see non-americans say something like "I think our customers would like it if we added X to the product, can I work on that?".
I don't think it's because Americans are better at this -- I think it's cultural. America has a much higher risk tolerance than the rest of the world. Failing is considered a good thing in the USA. And the USA is much more entrepreneurial than the rest of the world.
These two things combined create a culture difference that makes a business difference.
Additionally, what I've found is that the exceptions tend to move here because their risk taking is much more acceptable here (or they are risk takers willing to move across the world, hard to say which way the causation goes).
I'm going to counterpoint somewhat. I think those attributes are evenly spread into all countries, but equally I think they are uncommon in all countries.
I don't live in the US. I have traveled there and elsewhere. I would agree that there are lots of cultural differences between places, even places as nominally similar as say the UK, Australia and the US.
Of course who you interact with in various places matters. If you go to India and visit a remote-programming-company you'll meet a specific kind of person, one well suited to providing the services they offer.
Dig a bit deeper elsewhere and you'll find some very bright, very creative, engineers in every culture. In some cases those folk are doing remote work for US companies. In a few cases they're building the software (creatively and all) that the US company is selling.
In countries that are isolated for one or other reason creativity thrives. Israel, South Africa, Russia, all have (or had) exceptional engineering abilities developed because international support was withheld.
Yes, it is hard to find good talent. It is hard to develop and nurture it. But it exists everywhere. And more and more I'm seeing folks outside the US take American jobs, precisely because American workers are so keen to explain how portable those jobs are.
I understand that the American psyche is built on exceptionalism. And that does exist in some areas. But unfortunately it also acts as a filter blinding you to both exceptionalism elsewhere and inferiority at home. By the time you realise someone else has the edge, it's too late. We've seen this in industry after industry. Programing is no different.
I understand also that shooting the messenger is easier than absorbing the message. Let the down-voting begin.
The data does not support your statement. From a startup report just four days ago:
The United States alone generates 46.6% of all startup activity worldwide, nearly half of the global total. Together with China (9.2%), the United Kingdom (5.6%), and India (5%), these four countries account for 66.4% of the absolute global startup activity.
I will give you that Israel in particular has a strong risk taking culture, as does Singapore and Estonia. And there are a lot of startups coming out of there.
But overall the US has way more risk taking.
And like I said at the very beginning, there are of course exceptions. Yes, every culture has some brilliant risk takers. But at least until recently, many of them came to the USA after they got successful.
This is art, mr white!
I think it's read as passive aggressive when people realise they've been holding a silly opinion don't want to admit it.
> thought terminating cliche
The irony.
> that might as well be saying "I know better than you".
Sometimes people do know better than you. I think I should reflect on that.
The former is a passive-aggressive way to say the latter. I aim to, and encourage others to say what they mean.
> The former is a passive-aggressive way to say the latter. I aim to, and encourage others to say what they mean.
I suppose you don't see the irony?
Re: the irony, I don't see it, but I'm happy to hear your explanation of it. For what it's worth, my own interpretation of my words isn't passive aggressive, it's (charitably) pretty direct, or even (less charitably) plain old aggressive-aggressive.
So yeah thanks, in the sense that I am not going to say this phrase now realizing it, Not sure how I even found it professional, man I am cringing.
But maybe the context OP used that was really maybe a good roast and I liked the use of this word in that context but yeah good point.
For what its worth, I also don't see the irony. And I also didn't see that it was passive agressive untill you told it and then I saw it..., So uh yeah.