, Columnist
To Get Good Ideas, Pay for Them
The fact that Japan's Nobel Prizewinner lives in Silicon Valley illustrates what's gone wrong with the country's culture of innovation.
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Earlier this week, Japan's media were exultant over a Nobel Prize in Physics award to three native sons. So it came as a shock when, rather than pop another champagne cork, co-honoree Shuji Nakamura poured cold water on the fete.
From his perch at the University of California at Santa Barbara, the 60-year-old scientist unloaded to a pack of giddy Japanese reporters about how Japan stymies the kind of innovation for which he was honored by the Nobel committee. In Silicon Valley, where he moved in 1999, "everyone has a chance to dream the American dream," he said. "Everyone has the chance if you work very hard."