Is Apple one of the most innovative companies in the world? Most people would think so (so-so iPhone 5 specs notwithstanding). Google? Ditto. Baidu? Sure. Tencent? You know jack about Chinese companies if you don’t think so. All these companies made the recently published Forbes’ “The World’s Most Innovative Companies.” The authors of this study, Jeff Dyer and Hal Gregersen, based the rankings on what they called, innovative premium, which they detailed in their book, “The Innovator’s DNA” (co-authored with Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen). Noticeably, Facebook is not on the list, because it has not yet established a track-record. Some may scoff at the fact that this “innovative premium” is based more heavily from an “investor’s” perspective, but as the authors contend, perception based on people’s wallet is hard to beat. Baidu and Tencent ranks #5 and #11 respectively. Google and Apple? #24 and #26. As Mr. Unknown argued in the prior post, political freedom doesn’t really correlate with innovation. Well, for the “freedom” loving nuts out there (the religious types), the Forbes’ list should hopefully make them question their faith.
[Update 9/18/2012]
Of course, Ray, in the comments below is absolutely right:
YinYang,
I think you really need to define what political freedom really is? Is China politically really “less free” than the US or Russia? Is a suffrege system a prerequisite?
How come important world body such as the UN, World Bank, IMF, WTO not based on a suffrege system?
Where I previously left off, I may give the impression that China is somehow “less free” politically compared to the U.S.. As Allen has said a number of times in the past, the U.S. is more ‘free’ because of her unique circumstances allowing her to feel less threatened by certain political action. In that context, America is more free. America is repressive in many ways too. Actually, I prefer our readers to continue discussion at Mr. Unknown’s recent thread, because in this short post, I only wanted to show couple of examples of what Mr. Unknown was talking about.
Anyhow, for convenience, I’d prefer to define political freedom as how truly responsive a government is to its citizens. Now, a polity by itself can be too selfish and too warmongering. So, we should remind ourselves that the logical conclusion to “free” may very well mean a group of greedy people consuming everything on this planet before other people get to have an equitable share. A warmongering public may want to invade and kill everyone else on this planet or relegate them to second-class status. Political ‘freedom’ has its limits.
So, “less free” or “more free” is important, but not everything. The notion that ‘freedom’ is everything is a Western narrative. It’s a religion other peoples frankly don’t have to pound their chest on. The rest of the world should also consider what Eric Li concludes not so long ago in The Christian Science Monitor, “China’s political system is more flexible than US democracy:”
In this season of political change around the globe, in China, in the West, in Japan, and the Arab world, is water carrying the ship? Is water overturning the ship? What kind of ship does the water truly want to carry? A little less ideological bias and a little more intellectual honesty might tell us some simple truths: Electoral rotations do not necessarily produce flexibility or legitimacy; one-party rule does not mean rigidity or lack of popular support.
I highly recommend a read by following the link above.
Zack says
i’m actually surprised that baidu beat google in terms of innovation mainly because i keep hearing so much about how ‘freedom loving/selective censoring’ Google is so uber kewl and super innovative and how dirty godless communists can only copy, never innovate.
i think an honourable mention ought to be Huawei, considering how many patents they file every year.
jxie says
Then there is the evil Huawei that is hellbent to take over the world. Huawei isn’t a public tradable company, which means it can’t be measured in their innovative premium.
Ray says
yinyang,
I think you really need to define what political freedom really is? Is China politically really “less free” than the US or Russia? Is a suffrege system a prerequisite?
How come important world body such as the UN, World Bank, IMF, WTO not based on a suffrege system?
Zack says
@jxie
i am absolutely disgusted and ashamed at the way the Australian government is handling the entire Huawei ban in the NBN affair. The Australian government has relied on nothing but innuendo, 19th century era yellow peril, and a conspicuous lack of facts and research to support the ban.
It’ for these reasons that even Kerry Stokes, the head of Seven Group has said that Australians had better pull their heads from their arses and smell the roses:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/stokes-slams-australias-china-policy-20120914-25xbe.html
jxie says
@Zack
To those who know the industry, today Huawei is quite possibly the worldwide leader in telecom innovation. Often they provide the best technologies at reasonable prices. The Australian government might’ve offended the Chinese, but first and foremost they will likely be stuck with inferior technologies at higher prices.
Mister Unknown says
@YinYang
And on a largely unrelated note, you’re apparently more innovative than I am, for you can get more shares & tweets from a one-paragraph note than I can with a lengthy diatribe. 🙂
Zack says
@jxie
certainly doesn’t please me as an Australian, knowing i now have to put up with even shoddier infrastructure because some dickhead in Canberra is stuck in the frickin’ 1950s.
YinYang says
@Ray – good point. I’ve updated post.
@Mister Unknown – ha, every once in a while, I like to find examples of what we write about. Your article has the intellectual depth, while mine simply showed examples. Heh, don’t worry about the stats. 🙂
@jxie/Zack
Huawei is going on the offensive. It is publicly challenging the accusations laid against the company. It’s inviting U.S. media to it’s headquarters. It is teaming up with the UK government to open a security certification lab.
Huawei may realize it needs to work the Chinese media and give Cisco a hard time in the Chinese market.
Protectionism through propaganda and defamation – that seems to be the name of the game in recent years.
Zack says
@YinYang
awesome news, about bloody time Huawei went on the offensive; here’s another interesting piece on the rather naked effort at trade protection of the Senate, especially given that the senate seems to rely not on info from the NSA or the FBI (who would be harged with monitoring such breaches) but rather on “reports”.
I also expect Huawei to challenge the Australian government as well; perhaps even take them to court over discrimination, and yes, i say this as a taxpayer of Australia. Perhaps it’ll be a lesson for some of us Australians about racial discrimination.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/09/14/huawei-and-zte-is-this-about-national-security-or-trade-protection/
Zack says
btw, what’s this? google not acting up to its ‘done be evil’ rep?
shock, horror!!
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerkay/2012/09/14/google-cant-have-it-both-ways/
aflame says
@Zack
There are already statements from both Alibaba and Google that Forbes didn’t update.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57513651-94/alibaba-google-just-plain-wrong-about-our-os/
Zack says
@aflame
aye, google sure does look stupid now, especially with the paternalistic censoring of middle eastern news to suit geopolitical interests
colin says
@aflame
Only fools believed that a corporation would Do No Evil. Morality has nothing to do with making money, just ask all the corps since the first british one that have exploited and pillaged the world. It is ridiculously anyone took google’s line seriously.
And again, the western media totally is anti china on the recent island disputes, despite the clear fact that japan initiated the action. Also, there is an article headlining how the artic melt is leading to competition for resources, but the body of the article is much about how china is trying to muscle in. Sheesh, any clear headed person would realize the main decisions would be mainly made by the artic nations, but nyt chooses some little actions to string together the false narrative of china as an aggressor barging in on the helpless artic nations.
colin says
I wonder what Panetta thinks whenhe says everyone should calm down over the island dispute, when he very well knows it is US pivot wedge politics that is driving all of it. Talk about lying with a straight face.
Zack says
@colin
such cognitive dissonance never dawns on the incredibly arrogant such as the US elite; Obama of “bailing out the auto industry’ fame, just filed a WTO lawsuit against China for the exact same thing. IS he aware how stupid it makes him look to the entire world?
Mister Unknown says
Lol… I’m still jealous. 😛