Why Asia Is More Innovative Than Silicon Valley

I grew up looking up to Bruce Lee, as does every Asian boy with a heart. He’s the quintessential modern-day Asian hero. And I’m going to take a page out of the master’s book:

I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.

That’s perfect advice for Asian startups. We’re not in a startup to live up to Silicon Valley’s expectations.

As you may know, I think Asia should embrace its own identity and stop trying to be Silicon Valley. Today, I’m telling you, Asia is just as innovative as the Valley – if not more so. And this can’t be ignored.

For more thoughts on this matter, I chatted with Yat Siu, whose latest venture is game developer Animoca, his seventh venture so far from Hong Kong. We chatted together about Yat Siu’s key thesis about Asia: that its time has come.

First, let’s remember, Asia is super innovative

The whole idea that Asia is copying Silicon Valley and that Asia needs to catch up to the Valley is outdated. Asia is not quickly becoming a great innovator, it already is. My favorite example from Yat Siu is Samsung.

Apple didn’t invent the GUI, nor the idea of a touch phone or a mouse. They licensed it, they innovated on the business model, the distribution, the app store, and so on. And in that same vein, Asia innovated on its supply chain, its production. Look at Samsung. Their innovation isn’t really just in a fantastic Galaxy phone. It’s everything around it. Being able to produce so many stock-keeping units like nobody else. Coming up with the best LEDs or LCDs. Or Chinese companies that can produce the quality at the pace and speed that the market of today needs. Nobody in the West can even hope to emulate that.

When we think that Asia is not innovating, we’re all missing something. Much of the wholesale innovations that we see in global markets are built on a foundation of Asian innovation.

Like freemium, it’s a distinctive Asian model, originally designed because pay-to-play didn’t work because of piracy. But now, that’s the principal source of revenues for any app that makes it globally.