I am not, we are not, pessimistic. We are realistic.
And the over representation of Jewish Nobel Prize winners is also completely because the insular Jews network and look out for each other, right?
The culture of the Jews is one that was created over a prolonged period of time during which they were, by and large, prevented from succeeding in any line of work that didn’t involve trading in ideas and dealing in intellectual capital. But being spread out among the world’s cultures, and having a highly literate populus, they did that well, and as a matter of culture learned to value the new idea, the new application of an old idea, and the better approach, more than many other cultures that had established places within their worlds and real resources to exploit.
Inventiveness, creativity, and the willingness to take a little risk with what you’ve learned, are very highly prized traits in the tradition. Which isn’t to say that they are not in others, but in the Jewish tradition a bit more so I think.
And yeah, when the world has proven itself as out to get you, a little paranoia is a rational response.
You meant to say, “It means special, but not in a “Better than everyone else,” sort of way. It means special in a “you must carry this burden,” sort of way”. This is correct and well said (except for the typo).
Me too. I don’t decide a damn thing until I’ve turned over every possibility in my mind.
There are actually a lot of similarities amongst the Chinese, Indian and Jewish cultures, the Chinese and Jewish in particular. These three cultures go back into pre-History and the fact that they’ve survived for so long has to be partially due to cunning and adaptability over the millennea.
The only Jews who actually believe that they are a “chosen people” in any significant sense are Orthodox Jews, not the sort of Jews who are on your friend’s hospital board.
The proportion of Jews who go into academic fields, or become doctors and lawyers, is even higher than the proportion who become entrepreneurs.
I think it really does come down to the idea that Jews, in general, value education extremely highly.
And as mentioned above they understand that “Chosen People” has a much different meaning than most people think.
The glass half empty is just a glass with some water in it, of course.
For my part, I’ve always been sensitive to a certain deadpan grimness that culturally Jewish people can draw upon, briefly and subtly, even in the most lighthearted moments. It could be a look in the eye or the mouth, a careful inflection or a choice of words, so considered and practiced it becomes a reflex. I see it as a psychic spit on the ground, a warding off of the evil eye, a reminder that being carefree and at ease is not their privilege to have - indeed, not even worth having, really.
You say Jews? I see something else:
Google: Larry Page and Sergey Brin - Stanford grad students
Paypal: Peter Thiel - Stanford undergrad and grad school.
Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg - backed by Peter Thiel
Yelp: Jeremy Stoppelman - Worked for Peter Thiel at Paypal
O-ho! So here we go again with the networking, hmmm?
I thought only Harvard people did that. I guess Stanford is the Harvard of the new media.
There has to be more differentiators than that because the Chinese and Japanese also highly value education – possibly even more so than Jews. However, the Asians with their scholarly advantage often end up in more “deferential” positions such as engineers or doctors. They don’t gravitate to confrontational/combative careers such as executive management or trial attorneys. Also, Chinese culture traditionally looked down on the merchant class; it was the scholars that passed government exams that were given the highest respect.
There is a high percentage of Asians in Silicon Valley but they are under-represented as CEOs, vice presidents, and founders of hi-tech companies.
(I stress that I speak of Asians in the USA and not of Chinese entrepreneurs running businesses in China.)
Getting straight A’s in school does not fully explain why Jews are over-represented and Asians are under-represented in the OP’s observations.
Isn’t more of an Ashkenazi thing? How many major entrepreneurs (of the same importance as those that were named in the OP) or Nobel winners are Sphardi? Even in Israel, every single prime minister has been Ashkenazi.
If you took the Scottish population and tried to kill them all in a way that gave wealthy educated urbanites a good chance of leaving while giving village bumpkins and such little chance of survival, you’d see average IQ, education level and net worth of Scots go way up.
You are correct, I made a typo. Being chosen doesn’t make Jews “better,” it makes them “burdened.”
This sums it up fantastically, actually.
Asian immigrant communities and Ashkenazi Jewish communities do have many similarities, including the family focus and the emphasis on education, but there are some key differences as well. Asian cultures place much less emphasis on individual success - the Japaneses proverb of “A nail that sticks up is hammered down.” captures much of the mentality. The value is placed on a being a useful memeber of the harmonious whole. In general you do not argue with the boss or have the hubris to believe that you could do it better on your own, if you were in charge.
And that drive to succeed as an individual, that hubris, arrogance even, that believes you could do it better, is what one needs to take the chance to go it alone and put all you’ve got on the line behind your ideas - and many fall flat on their face doing that too - but some make it and make it big. None who do not try to make it on their own, to prove that their idea is the better one, will.
I think this is patently untrue.
Although Jews may be over-represented in proportion to their numbers in the population as a whole, there are still far, far more non-Jewish high-tech CEOs than Jewish ones.
Stanford is the new Harvard, period. 
As for the OP, you’re supposed to post these topics right after sunset, Israeli time, on Fridays. Don’t you know?
Seriously, though, are Jews more represented in high tech business than in business in general?
Damn! I’ve got super-strength Jewdar!
No, really now. Thanks.
I’m a cynic myself, so I’m probably tuned to that frequency more than most of my people.
I’m mostly involved with the EDA business, and probably 50% of the startups I can remember are run by Asians. There are also lots in the senior Vice Presidential ranks of big companies, especially engineering ones, so it will happen soon.
See, I think that the high number of Jewish Nobel Prize winners, and the high number of Jews who go into academic fields, or become doctors and lawyers, can both be explained by the fact that Jews, in general, value education extremely highly.
What I think is not the case is that the fact that Jews value education extremely highly explains their success as entrepreneurs. Because, even if this trait is not as prevalent in other cultures, the fact that there are so many more non-Jews in the world than Jews means that the number of people from other cultures/backgrounds who value education just as highly as Jews should be at least equal if not higher than the total number of Jews in the world, and yet they are not as equally represented in the successful tech companies we all know and the ones featured daily on venturebeat.com, techcrunch.com, wired.com, etc.
Other factors must come in, such as what Todderbob mentioned was his way of thinking and planning and the fact that this way of thinking is much more ingrained in the Jewish culture than other cultures. Or what DSeid mentioned: “Inventiveness, creativity, and the willingness to take a little risk with what you’ve learned, are very highly prized traits in the tradition”
These factors are not necessarily tied to whether a culture values education or not. You can have a culture that values education, but does not plan ahead or encourages risk taking, and you can have a culture that does not value education, but does plan ahead and encourages risk taking.
Just because these traits coexist with a focus on education in the Jewish tradition doesn’t mean that they are part and parcel of any culture that focuses on education.
To summarize, I think that if we focus on the success at entrepreneurship (and not on the success in academic fields and Nobel Prizes), these other traits of Jewish culture (e.g. the method of planning ahead and encouraging a little risk) provide more explanatory power than what is usually provided as the explanation, which is the focus on education in Jewish culture.
It’s a phenominon not restricted to Jews. Certain historical factors (a minority group basically acting as a middle class in a traditional society split between a small elite and a mass of peasants, subject to periods of alternating persecution/pogroms and dependance) tend to create cultural traits that favour emphasis on education, reliance on family support, mobility & risk-taking types of behaviours - think of the overseas Chinese in Indonesia for another example; or consider the French Hugenots.
These traits evidently outlast the culture that created them (Ashkenazim no longer live in that sort of society).
If the usual explanation is inadequate, it’s probably because it looks at Jews as a culture rather than a religion. Now that most Jews are relatively secular, that’s becoming a kind of unacknowledged taboo - something one best be circumspect and even vague when talking about.