First, Second, Last. . .(Dead Last)

A few summers ago we were touring in Venice. Someone asked our guide a question and she said something like this: “Well, you have to realize that I consider myself a Venetian first, a Catholic second, and an Italian third.”

I was floored by the comment and thought, “That sure is a tough way to build a country.” In fact, modern Italian history bears some of this out.

For all our “amber waves of grain,” however, Americans are hardly immune to this kind of thinking.

I’ve done an awful lot of reading about Thomas Jefferson over the last few years, much of it coincidentally but spectacularly unflattering. There’s a part of me that wishes Jefferson had written the Declaration, acquired the Louisiana Purchase, sent Lewis and Clark on their merry way and then gone home to Monticello and just shut up. (Maybe a recipe all American Presidents should follow, for that matter.)

After he left the presidency, Jefferson was wrong on just about every important issue facing America. He opposed the Erie Canal—perhaps the most important project of its time--mostly because it wasn’t being dug in Virginia. He opposed the Monroe Doctrine. He founded a university conceived as a bastion of southern sectionalism. He supported the party that destroyed Hamilton’s financial regulatory system. And, worst of all, he sought to expand the institution of slavery and left a legacy of writing that included things like hideous instructions to his son-in-law on how to preserve the economic value of “breeding women.”

As frosting on the cake, Jefferson--born one of the richest men in the colonies—died a bankrupt. This, of course, forced the sale of his slaves, breaking up many families and causing tremendous hardship on black and white alike.

Ned Sublette (in The World That Made New Orleans) reminded us that Jefferson “owned over six hundred other people during his lifetime, between one and two hundred of them at any one time, including four who were probably his children. He lived his entire life dependent on the income from slave labor.”

All of which leads me to believe--were we to catch Jefferson in an unguarded moment of truth--that he might indeed sound an awful lot like our Venetian guide: “I am a Virginian first, a Southern slaveholder second, and an American third.”

This kind of thinking, which was hardly relegated to Jefferson (though particularly unbecoming to the primary author of the Declaration), would result in the creation of not one, but two very different countries—and civil war.

These examples came to mind when I read the recent (11/21) column in Scott Kirsner's Innovation Economy, "Sparks fly over Silicon Valley vs. Bay State." In it, Kirsner refers to an essay by entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa, the title of which makes its point: “Why Silicon Valley Left Route 128 in the Dust.” (If you're having trouble with the link try this: http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2009/11/23/sparks_fly_over_silicon_valley_vs_bay_state/)

I won’t take you through the entire debate (though it’s worth a look).

I’ve read enough about innovation economies to know that competition is absolutely essential to their health. But sibling rivalry is not, and tends to be distracting and destructive.

Americans know that China is an innovation tsunami. India is on the move. Israel is hopping (see Dan Senor and Saul Singer’s new book, Start-Up Nation). We used to have to worry about what was going on in the garage down the street and now have to worry about activity in garages all over the world.

If American technology leaders choose to answer the question, “Who am I?” by saying: “I am a Silicon Valley (or Rte 128 or Research Triangle) innovator first, and an American entrepreneur second,” you can be sure of thing.

We’re cooked.

Posted by Entrepreneur Generations