No, it's not. Most of my extended family is in Brazil so my wife and I decided to work remote from Brazil for a couple months this fall. It's hard to really understand how crippling the culture of bureaucracy and corruption is until you experience it.
Internet. $200/mo USD for a theoretical 1MB connection. That's assuming the power stays on. Lots of people use the internet (mostly at cafes) but it's only for games and social networking -- nobody thinks of it as legitimate way to make money.
Crime. In many parts of Sao Paulo and Rio people don't even stop at stoplights because the risk of getting shot and carjacked is too real.
Education. Completely broken. Cheating is so rampant most teachers don't even try to prevent it from happening. That's at the private schools where my cousins have attended-- public schools are apparently far worse.
Entrepreneurs. Most people literally don't even have a mental category for this. At best they make vague negative associations about you being a "capitalist." The dream job is either working for the government or getting an engineering position at some multi-national corporation.
All of this is unfortunate because the Brazilian people are really delightful and quite creative. My wife is a designer and she says some of the best design is coming out of Brazil right now. Unfortunately corruption and regulation has completely driven out the spirit of innovation and that is unlikely to change anytime soon.
American, although mostly Argentinian (long story!) living in Brazil here.
To be honest, I can't see much of what you say, but then I live in Southern Brazil (Santa Catarina) which is, at least on average, a much more developed part of the country.
Sure, internet and electronics are still expensive but it's very safe when compared to Rio/São Paulo and the schools some of the best in the country. A very good place, generally speaking.
The only point where I have to strongly disagree is your statement about entrepreneurs in Brazil. In fact, when compared with other countries I know (Argentina, the UK, et al.) Brazilians are the closest to the American entrepreneurial soul I've seen. Sure, you have a bunch of people that want to work for the government because of the stability that provides and loyalty for 'the company' is still very deeply ingrained, but in general every Brazilian dreams of having their own business and the government is doing the best it can (short of cutting taxes, unfortunately) to make that dream come true.
(Lastly, and off-topic, I'd like to point out that the perception of 'regulation' as something bad is a very American concept. 'Regulation' is what keeps 'us', the consumer, safe from 'them', the faceless and impossible to sue corporations. Not the oppressive force the American free market pundits make it out to be. Corruption is a bitch though.)
This masquerades as a sincere personal connection to the country when it is simply a short sighted rant. Brazil is coming into its own on the world stage, but not following the same paradigms as India and China. Goldman Sachs and other investment banks are moving hi-freq shops into the country because the margins are exponentially higher than in US. This information alone bodes well for the country as the government and these global corporations cooperate in developing the necessary infrastructure to support their operations especially i.t.o. internet pipelines.
The advent of Rio as host for the olympics is further evidence of restructuring that the Brazilian government has achieved. And despite the inevitable cost of the infrastructure development outweighing short term gains, the long term gains (see Shanghai Expo 2010) will catapult Rio into the same stratosphere as an India or a China.
On entrepreneurship, I'll be honest I am not up on details, but there have been significant articles about particularly financial start ups, which confirm the rapid evolution Brazil is undergoing.
The issue is in the culture itself, where corruption happens everywhere (top and bottom of the chain). This leads to a corrupt police, corrupt government and everyone trying to gain advantage on top of the others...
The public schools are really bad, but the private ones are ok. But the issue is not education, but this terrible culture of corruption.
I see a marked change in Rio and Sao Paulo when I visit. People in Rio seem much more relaxed, I see women using $1000 smartphones openly on the buses and subways.
Every single cab driver I talk to is positive about the war happening on the German Hill, which every here I've talked to agrees is simply to clean up the city before the World Cup and Olympics.
My point is not that everything in society has improved. It is just that there is a significant shift, and there is an immense opportunity for Internet businesses here that was not there before.
I don't agree with you about your take on entrepreneurship. I personally know many entrepreneurs here, and they are in the same boat as many of us in Portland: limited access to capital and mentorship.
American, been following Brazil since I studied there in college. I am cautiously optimistic about Brazil's prospects, I believe a lot hinges on how quickly they're able to reduce their inequality and fix education. Bolsa familia is an innovative step and education, though terrible, is improving: http://www.economist.com/node/17679798. Right now most of their GDP growth is based on China's commodity demand so a lot depends on how stable that remains.
I see the corruption issue largely as a result of the massive inequality-- which, like the U.S.'s inequality, tends to fall along racial lines-- and politicians have been great at exploiting it to their advantage with help from the monopolistic mass-media. Ideally a shift towards internet and social media will increase transparency and reduce corruption and the social programmes will smooth out inequality in the long run. IMO the Brazilian culture of jeitinho, taking advantage of opportunity where it arises, is very close to the America entreprenuerial spirit but adapted for an environment with a weak rule-of-law.
So the optimism is because all the fundamentals are there -- a growing, young, tech savvy population that loves social media & open source and a government using a commodities boom to invest in education and social programmes. There are plenty of startups-- http://www.predicta.net, for instance, or follow this blog: http://startupi.com.br/
Obviously it's all very fragile but I remain hopeful, the people are amazing and there's nothing I'd like more than to be able to go back.
I agree wholeheartedly with your point. China and India are in a similarly precarious position especially in regards to inequality. The urban centers and their peripheral regions in all three countries are lightyears ahead of the rural countryside. China as many before has pointed out has approx 200 million migrant workers. They have no permanent employment prospects in the cities they are migrating to and they are coming out of abject poverty to begin with.
India is in the same position. Cheating is of no consequence when they aren't enough schools to accomodate the population. And the disparity is not minor, it is catastrophic.
These middle income countries are all in a precarious position, so writing any one or all of them off is uneducated and foolish.
Blaming a country's problems on its "culture" however you are defining that is a cop out. India has these exact problems at 5 times the scale. Have any of you tried to start an education company there, all the government officials I spoke to wanted a minimum 1 million dollar bribe, yet it would be idiotic to say that India is doomed when their rapid development is staring you in the face.
Brazil doesn't suffer from novel and "culturally" inherent problems. You would never say that Brazil is culturally inferior to another country because that is bigotted and ridiculous. The country is suffering the same developing bottle necks that others have and continue to face. Look at where the country has come from, look at where it is now, and I implore you to actually compare Brazil to the other (B)RICS etc. since they offer the best contextual comparison.
The most incredible thing about Brazil is that despite the insurmountable odds whether it is the wheels of capitalism, passionate people, or government involvement - or perhaps a hybrid - Brazil is not lost.
Cynicism has its place too, but in an objective analysis of Brazil's prospects on the world stage, leave it out. I respect your experiences and what you have contributed, but the points of information you have provided are without the global context necessary to understand Brazil's place.
Will Rio offer the world the next Silicon Valley?
Only time will tell, but its clear to me that it has a damn good shot.
Brazil has a lot of positive things going for it, but when you have a cultural background that's as rotten as Brazil's one is, you can count on everything to fail stupendously.
Though, I have to wonder if it is actually that hard to change a culture of corruption as the critics on this page say it is. I'm not Brazilian, I'm Indian. At one point India had the same culture of corruption that Brazil does today. Yet, thanks to the efforts of a few far-seeing government officials (e.g. Manmohan Singh) a significant amount of corruption has been eradicated. Sure, there's a lot left, but the trend has shifted decisively in the right direction.
I'm wondering if the same thing could work in Brazil. A leader that decides to pursue anti-corruption almost to the exclusion of other duties could do a lot if the people are sick of having to deal with the extra hassle that corruption imposes on everyday life. The question is, are the Brazilian people ready?
I'm seeing a lot of (justified) negative feelings towards Brazilian culture, but I think dismissing the tech scene in Brazil outright is a bit like talking about the american redneck stereotype and forgetting about this little place called Silicon Valley.
I recall seeing an article a while back about some successful entrepreneurs from Brazil and I know a guy that is trying to get a VoIP startup off the ground there. If anything, I'd say that technology is Brazil's best chance at becoming the eluded "country of the future". I mean, voting machines and Lua came from there, so it's not like there isn't potential.
The techs are alright. Both things you mention are two prime examples (I'm still flabbergasted how well the voting machines thing worked out, because it had all the reasons in the world to fail).
But when you need to invest 4x more on hardware and software to have something that is 2 years older than standard hardware and software, all inside a bureaucratic state that adds dozens of legal impediments or delays to anyone who wants to make some honest money, it's easy to see why any potential entrepreneur has to tread much more dangerous waters in Brazil than it would anywhere else.
Sure, if the US wanted to destroy five sixths of its economy to match Brazil's $8000 per capita GDP then I'm sure that would reduce US energy usage considerably. I'm not sure it would be a worthwhile tradeoff.
There's also the fact that Brazil has a great sugar cane growing climate which the US lacks... I'm not actually sure whether ethanol production is a significant enough factor to cancel out the fact that US oil production is nearly twice Brazil's.
I don't really see why we should try to be indpendant in energy rather than copper or cars or anything else. Trade and specialization are important and its only nationalism to want to try to produce everything in one's own country. Now if you're saying that we shouldn't be dependant on the the particular countries that now produce oil I might agree, but what would be wrong with the US being dependant on Mexican solar energy or Brazilian sugarcane?
I was going to say "scale" just like every other terse response on why the US can't do anything from universal healthcare to ultra-high speed (like Korea and Japan levels) broadband Internet, to interstate public transit, and now energy independence. There's just too damn many people in the states for it to compare favorably to any other country.
Then I saw that Brazil has 200 Million people. So there goes that argument?
Moreover, I also tried to argue about it on geographic size, only to find out that the US is only nominally larger in land size than Brazil.
So, maybe it's because of culture? As in, we have so many different races and religions and creeds, all with their own individual thoughts and beliefs, and all of them can't _possibly_ get together as one and get stuff done. I know, pathetic excuse, right? I've heard that so many times about why Asia gets fast bandwidth, cheap mobile voice/data and bullet trains and universal healthcare and why we can't.
[+] [-] oldgregg|15 years ago|reply
Internet. $200/mo USD for a theoretical 1MB connection. That's assuming the power stays on. Lots of people use the internet (mostly at cafes) but it's only for games and social networking -- nobody thinks of it as legitimate way to make money.
Crime. In many parts of Sao Paulo and Rio people don't even stop at stoplights because the risk of getting shot and carjacked is too real.
Education. Completely broken. Cheating is so rampant most teachers don't even try to prevent it from happening. That's at the private schools where my cousins have attended-- public schools are apparently far worse.
Entrepreneurs. Most people literally don't even have a mental category for this. At best they make vague negative associations about you being a "capitalist." The dream job is either working for the government or getting an engineering position at some multi-national corporation.
All of this is unfortunate because the Brazilian people are really delightful and quite creative. My wife is a designer and she says some of the best design is coming out of Brazil right now. Unfortunately corruption and regulation has completely driven out the spirit of innovation and that is unlikely to change anytime soon.
[+] [-] bioinformatics|15 years ago|reply
check and check, when I was 17 and 20.
Your whole assessment is perfect, enumerating most of the reasons that made me leave.
[+] [-] dguaraglia|15 years ago|reply
To be honest, I can't see much of what you say, but then I live in Southern Brazil (Santa Catarina) which is, at least on average, a much more developed part of the country.
Sure, internet and electronics are still expensive but it's very safe when compared to Rio/São Paulo and the schools some of the best in the country. A very good place, generally speaking.
The only point where I have to strongly disagree is your statement about entrepreneurs in Brazil. In fact, when compared with other countries I know (Argentina, the UK, et al.) Brazilians are the closest to the American entrepreneurial soul I've seen. Sure, you have a bunch of people that want to work for the government because of the stability that provides and loyalty for 'the company' is still very deeply ingrained, but in general every Brazilian dreams of having their own business and the government is doing the best it can (short of cutting taxes, unfortunately) to make that dream come true.
(Lastly, and off-topic, I'd like to point out that the perception of 'regulation' as something bad is a very American concept. 'Regulation' is what keeps 'us', the consumer, safe from 'them', the faceless and impossible to sue corporations. Not the oppressive force the American free market pundits make it out to be. Corruption is a bitch though.)
[+] [-] ryetoasthumor|15 years ago|reply
The advent of Rio as host for the olympics is further evidence of restructuring that the Brazilian government has achieved. And despite the inevitable cost of the infrastructure development outweighing short term gains, the long term gains (see Shanghai Expo 2010) will catapult Rio into the same stratosphere as an India or a China.
On entrepreneurship, I'll be honest I am not up on details, but there have been significant articles about particularly financial start ups, which confirm the rapid evolution Brazil is undergoing.
[+] [-] jj-sucuri|15 years ago|reply
The issue is in the culture itself, where corruption happens everywhere (top and bottom of the chain). This leads to a corrupt police, corrupt government and everyone trying to gain advantage on top of the others...
The public schools are really bad, but the private ones are ok. But the issue is not education, but this terrible culture of corruption.
[+] [-] xrd|15 years ago|reply
I see a marked change in Rio and Sao Paulo when I visit. People in Rio seem much more relaxed, I see women using $1000 smartphones openly on the buses and subways.
Every single cab driver I talk to is positive about the war happening on the German Hill, which every here I've talked to agrees is simply to clean up the city before the World Cup and Olympics.
My point is not that everything in society has improved. It is just that there is a significant shift, and there is an immense opportunity for Internet businesses here that was not there before.
I don't agree with you about your take on entrepreneurship. I personally know many entrepreneurs here, and they are in the same boat as many of us in Portland: limited access to capital and mentorship.
[+] [-] jgalvez|15 years ago|reply
Brazilian here. That seems odd.
In Sao Paulo I pay ~R$150 (~US$90) / mo for 4mbit ADSL.
[+] [-] BoppreH|15 years ago|reply
But you forgot to mention the electronics from 2007 sold at 4 times the price of modern ones.
Now you can all see why we are in love with the internet. It's the greener grass.
[+] [-] evanlh|15 years ago|reply
I see the corruption issue largely as a result of the massive inequality-- which, like the U.S.'s inequality, tends to fall along racial lines-- and politicians have been great at exploiting it to their advantage with help from the monopolistic mass-media. Ideally a shift towards internet and social media will increase transparency and reduce corruption and the social programmes will smooth out inequality in the long run. IMO the Brazilian culture of jeitinho, taking advantage of opportunity where it arises, is very close to the America entreprenuerial spirit but adapted for an environment with a weak rule-of-law.
So the optimism is because all the fundamentals are there -- a growing, young, tech savvy population that loves social media & open source and a government using a commodities boom to invest in education and social programmes. There are plenty of startups-- http://www.predicta.net, for instance, or follow this blog: http://startupi.com.br/ Obviously it's all very fragile but I remain hopeful, the people are amazing and there's nothing I'd like more than to be able to go back.
[+] [-] ryetoasthumor|15 years ago|reply
India is in the same position. Cheating is of no consequence when they aren't enough schools to accomodate the population. And the disparity is not minor, it is catastrophic.
These middle income countries are all in a precarious position, so writing any one or all of them off is uneducated and foolish.
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ryetoasthumor|15 years ago|reply
Brazil doesn't suffer from novel and "culturally" inherent problems. You would never say that Brazil is culturally inferior to another country because that is bigotted and ridiculous. The country is suffering the same developing bottle necks that others have and continue to face. Look at where the country has come from, look at where it is now, and I implore you to actually compare Brazil to the other (B)RICS etc. since they offer the best contextual comparison.
The most incredible thing about Brazil is that despite the insurmountable odds whether it is the wheels of capitalism, passionate people, or government involvement - or perhaps a hybrid - Brazil is not lost.
Cynicism has its place too, but in an objective analysis of Brazil's prospects on the world stage, leave it out. I respect your experiences and what you have contributed, but the points of information you have provided are without the global context necessary to understand Brazil's place.
Will Rio offer the world the next Silicon Valley? Only time will tell, but its clear to me that it has a damn good shot.
[+] [-] whatever_dude|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whatever_dude|15 years ago|reply
Brazil has a lot of positive things going for it, but when you have a cultural background that's as rotten as Brazil's one is, you can count on everything to fail stupendously.
[+] [-] quanticle|15 years ago|reply
I'm wondering if the same thing could work in Brazil. A leader that decides to pursue anti-corruption almost to the exclusion of other duties could do a lot if the people are sick of having to deal with the extra hassle that corruption imposes on everyday life. The question is, are the Brazilian people ready?
[+] [-] bioinformatics|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lhorie|15 years ago|reply
I recall seeing an article a while back about some successful entrepreneurs from Brazil and I know a guy that is trying to get a VoIP startup off the ground there. If anything, I'd say that technology is Brazil's best chance at becoming the eluded "country of the future". I mean, voting machines and Lua came from there, so it's not like there isn't potential.
[+] [-] whatever_dude|15 years ago|reply
But when you need to invest 4x more on hardware and software to have something that is 2 years older than standard hardware and software, all inside a bureaucratic state that adds dozens of legal impediments or delays to anyone who wants to make some honest money, it's easy to see why any potential entrepreneur has to tread much more dangerous waters in Brazil than it would anywhere else.
[+] [-] quanticle|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexh|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dguaraglia|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BluePoints|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hugh3|15 years ago|reply
There's also the fact that Brazil has a great sugar cane growing climate which the US lacks... I'm not actually sure whether ethanol production is a significant enough factor to cancel out the fact that US oil production is nearly twice Brazil's.
[+] [-] Symmetry|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] muhfuhkuh|15 years ago|reply
Then I saw that Brazil has 200 Million people. So there goes that argument?
Moreover, I also tried to argue about it on geographic size, only to find out that the US is only nominally larger in land size than Brazil.
So, maybe it's because of culture? As in, we have so many different races and religions and creeds, all with their own individual thoughts and beliefs, and all of them can't _possibly_ get together as one and get stuff done. I know, pathetic excuse, right? I've heard that so many times about why Asia gets fast bandwidth, cheap mobile voice/data and bullet trains and universal healthcare and why we can't.