Professional Documents
Culture Documents
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 To comment on this report, visit mygengo.com/talk/blog/e-g8-report. Views expressed in this
Unported License, is a free download from mygengo.com/going-global and may be distributed, report are those of the individuals quoted and do not represent the views of myGengo or any
quoted, stored, translated as long as you include this notice. other corporation or body. myGengo is not affiliated with the e-G8 Forum.
About myGengo
myGengo is a Tokyo-based technology startup that delivers human translation at scale. Our work is about breaking down global barriers, and as part of
this initiative we produce research and analysis on worldwide Internet usage and global considerations for business.
Contributors
Aki Sano Founder and CEO of Cookpad.com, the Japa- Hiroshi Asaeda Founder of Tokyo-based web consultancy Melt-
nese recipe website that went public in 2009. ingdots and expert on virtual worlds.
Benjamin Joffe A leading expert on Asia’s digital and mobile Jared Goralnick Founder and CEO of Silicon Valley-based email
space and an angel investor. and availability startup Awayfind
Chris McCann Founder of StartupDigest, the weekly email Jeff Bonforte CEO of based email information startup Xobni
newsletter for startup news, events and jobs
now in 27 countries. Matt Firth Freelance Creative Director at London-based
Digital Marketing and Technology Agency LBi
Cory Doctorow Science fiction author, activist, journalist and
blogger. Co-editor of Boing Boing and author of Mike Williams Partner at London-based digital creative
bestselling novel “Little Brother” agency Ubermore.com
Daniel Lewington Head of Strategy and User Experience at Lon- Osuke Honda Japan Partner at venture capital firm DCM. DCM
don mobile innovation startup Apsmart. has offices in Silicon Valley, Beijing and Tokyo.
Dave McClure Venture capitalist, angel investor and founding Paul Papadimitriou Japan-based startup advisor, mentor and VP
partner at 500 Startups, a seed and accelerator and principal analyst at Constellation Research
fund based in Silicon Valley.
Pawel Chudzinski Co-founder and partner at Germany and
Elizabeth Yin Entrepreneur and founder of Boston-based Poland-based European seed-stage fund Team
startup guidance service LaunchBit. Europe Ventures.
Felix Miller Co-founder and former CEO of Last.fm, the Rahaf Harfoush Social Media Expert; Member of Obama’s New
social music networking website. Last.fm was Media Team; Assoc. Director of the Global Coop-
acquired by CBS in 2007. eration Initiative at the World Economic Forum.
Flo Heiss Executive Creative Director at London-based Steve Blank Eight-time entrepreneur and now teacher of
digital marketing agency Dare. entrepreneurship at Stanford University, author
of Customer Development bible “The Four Steps
Francine Hardaway Serial entrepreneur, self-described “geek-to- to the Epiphany”.
human translator” and co-founder of Stealth-
mode Partners Takahito Iguchi Founder and CEO of Japanese startup Ton-
chidot, makers of Social Augmented Reality
Gagan Biyani Co-Founder of Udemy, a website that enables Mobile Location-based Service “Sekai Camera”
anyone to teach and learn online; columnist for
MobileCrunch.com. Tamas Locher Founder of Vienna-based disruptive fashion
startup Garmz.com
Hiroko Tabuchi Tokyo-based business, economics and technol-
ogy reporter for The New York Times. Hiroko is Teresa Lunt Vice President and Director of the Computing
from Kobe, Japan. Science Laboratory research organization at
PARC, a Xerox company and innovation center.
Hironori Maeda Co-director of Tokyo’s incubator & accelerator,
Open Network Lab. Wenceslao Casares Argentinian technology entrepreneur, founder
of the country’s first internet service provider,
currently CEO of the startup Bling Nation in
Silicon Valley.
The Internet & social media
have empowered people around
the world, most recently and
spectacularly in the Middle East.
What should G8 leaders do to
foster this kind of openness
and transparency?
The Internet & social media have empowered people around the world, most recently and spectacularly in
the Middle East. What should G8 leaders do to foster this kind of openness and transparency?
Dave McClure tax treatment for investors, can help companies launch
Don’t get in the way. Create reasonable tax policies, and new products. Because diversity is critical for a crucible
allow a quick incorporation process. of creativity, countries that do not raise barriers to the
Smaller countries should look to Singapore and Chile as free exchange of ideas and people will always have an
great examples of doing it right. advantage.
Larger countries — don’t be a pain! Liberal policies for
immigration foster innovation Steve Blank
Don’t have restrictions that make it costly for people to Build a culture where failure
fail early and often.
equals experience. Build a legal
Hiroko Tabuchi system where failure does not
If you look at Silicon Valley, the biggest source of in-
novation in our time, you notice two things that are very
require punitive legal processes.
different from many of the economies of the G8. First,
Hinori Maeda, Co-director, Open Network Lab
young people get heard. Second, almost everybody is
Nations should create tax incentives or subsidize costs
from somewhere else.
for those who are starting companies or investing in
To foster innovation, you need to give young people
them, allow a more flexible structure for shareholders
a place at the table, and open your doors to both people
of incorporations, and create a secondary market for
and ideas from beyond your own borders.
private companies - where shareholders can easily buy
and sell private equity.
Gagan Biyani
The best thing that states can do is to stay out of the
Osuke Honda, DCM
way of startups. Specifically:
Talent – Excellent education, flexible skilled immigration
Eliminate cumbersome paperwork and regulation sur-
and naturalization, appropriate stock option policy. A
rounding opening/closing businesses
safety net (healthcare, unemployment) to allow people
Limit government-imposed costs and fees associated
to take risks.
with operating as a small business / startup enterprise
Market Infrastructure – Domestic markets must be ready
Encourage investment by providing incentives (rather
for distribution and monetization. Internet access, pay-
than disincentives) to those who are willing to finance
ment infrastructure, and logistics must be inexpensive
early-stage startup ventures
and high quality.
Reduce the capital gains tax burden associated with
Create Start-up Heroes – Celebrate success and cel-
equity gains from startups
ebrate failure too. The best and brightest of a society
Foster a community of support (aka service providers
must be the entrepreneurs; there needs to be a culture
and educational resources) that help startups succeed
that encourages little boys and girls not to want to be-
come movie stars, but the next Bill Gates or Jack Ma.
Wenceslao Casares
Make it easy to attract cross-border talent. Have poli-
Rahaf Harfoush
cies that support venture capital development.
Access to mentorship programs, strong relationships
with local universities and favorable tax conditions are
Teresa Lunt, Xerox PARC
important elements to make it easy for people to bring
Nations that invest in research on a competitive basis
their ideas to life.
can create a fertile pool of ideas, technologies, and
Each country needs to look at the qualities that
people that new companies will draw on. Nations that
make them unique instead of simply trying to copy Sili-
provide incentives, such as small business research
con Valley. Support not just entrepreneurs, but creative
grants for technology commercialization, or favorable
What can nations do to foster innovation, ensure that startups succeed, keep and attract
innovators, and benefit from the success of their startups?
and academic types as well that can bring inspiration to To attract talent worldwide, a multicultural surround-
a community as well as provide unique cross-disciplinary ing plus a very transparent visa application process is
perspectives and insights that will feed into an innova- indispensable.
tion based ecosystem.
Jared Goralnick
Chris McCann Better economic vehicles for investment, corporate
Stop trying to do too much. Governments are notori- taxes, and payroll. The United States does a mediocre
ously bad at fostering innovation and I believe more of but passable job here, but countries like Brazil and
it should come from the private sector as opposed to the Argentina make it almost impossible to run a startup as
government. And there is a HUGE difference between there are so many economic barriers. More laissez faire
“high-growth” startups and small business startups. and longterm oriented policies would go a long way to
incentivize investment in innovation.
Pawel Chudzinski, Team Europe Ventures
Create a good environment for early stage investors (low Felix Miller
regulation, reasonable taxation) and startups (e.g. easier Immigration law is always a political red cloth. but the
labor laws / regulations for small companies) current system does not help innovation. For most really
Invest in education innovative ideas there is only a few handful of the right
Invest in infrastructure (e.g. broadband internet) people around the world. Not all nations can provide
everybody a company needs. So movement of people
Francine Hardaway needs to be assured. For a startup every day counts
Keep regulatory barriers low. For example, I am told so the sooner they can get the right people to work for
Brazil has a 100% payroll tax, and I know it has a visa re- them the better. Later on, this groundwork will translate
quirement. That means talent can’t go there easily, and into more jobs locally.
small companies are discouraged from hiring. The US
has similar problems with its immigration laws; immi- Jeff Bonforte, CEO, Xobni
grants can’t start businesses in the US. We lose talent For governments, the best way to promote innovation
that way. I think nations are going to have to recognize is to provide the foundations: a fair, open marketplace;
the fluidity of geographical boundaries and make it educated consumers and workers; the rule of law, includ-
easier, not more difficult, for talent to go where it is ing rational IP laws.
wanted or needed.
Paul Papadimitriou
Elizabeth Yin Pouring money at the issue with endless grants only
Create an ecosystem with funding: e.g. encourage/ ends up in creating more bureaucracy. Innovation is
incentivize investors/mentors from other places to come fostered by freedom. And freedom translates into frame-
and see top notch startup teams & educate local wealthy works that ease company building, fund raising, etc.
people on how to angel invest. Make it easy for foreigners
who want to start companies to stay (e.g. startup visas)
Let the people create and get out
Tamas Locher of the way. And, most importantly,
I believe the key to certain positive dynamics is critical
make it easier for people to fail.
mass. To achieve that we need to pick certain areas in
each economic region. The best way the state can lead
this selection is by building outstanding universities
that attract talent worldwide.
What are the best strategies for
creating innovative ecosystems
and clusters?
What are the best strategies for creating
innovative ecosystems and clusters?
Steve Blank
Outward facing universities that reward professors and
grad students for entrepreneurial activities outside the
university.
Foster and attract non-governmental Risk Capital.
Foster and attract entrepreneurs.
Elizabeth Yin
Once you create a startup eco-system, your top startups
that exit keep the mentorship/funding going. You have to
seed it initially: incentivize outside mentors and inves-
tors to travel and provide long-distance mentorship to
the top teams you do have.
Broadband, booming data,
video, the explosion of cloud
computing, storage. What’s
next for the internet?
Benjamin Joffe
Let a thousand flowers bloom :-)
Cory Doctorow
Start over. Obama, your election was made possible
by the net, and here you are playing games like ICE
domain confiscations, TPP negotiations and so forth.
Harper, Canadians can only be thankful that none of
your copyright bills made it to Parliament. Cameron,
you’ve talked about transparency and the open net,
but what you’ve delivered is more toadying to EMI and
IFPI. Practically to a one, the G8 has been a threat to
the net.
Tamas Locher
Consider changes driven by the internet always as
opportunities. The internet and the mechanics that rely
upon the internet will always win.
Dave McClure
Use the web! Don’t make policy without being a user.
Figure out what to do from people who know
The majority of internet users
do not use English as their main
language, and new internet
users are dramatically increasing
in China, the Middle East and
South America. How should G8
leaders react?
The majority of internet users do not use English as their main language, and new internet users are
dramatically increasing in China, the Middle East and South America. How should G8 leaders react?
Wenceslao Casares net companies, will be vital to not only the growth of
the sector, but to the harvesting of those gains by the
Eliminate barriers that made sense people and its governments.
in the world of trading physical
Hiroshi Asaeda
goods but that hinder commerce
English will still be a universal language, but people will
and prosperity in an age of trading keep their identity and dignity in their own country and
in information and digital goods. language.
To comment on this report, visit mygengo.com/talk/ Our thanks go to all those who contributed to this report!
blog/e-g8-report. Views expressed in this report are those
of the individuals quoted and do not represent the views
of myGengo or any other corporation or body. myGengo
is not affiliated with the e-G8 Forum.