Leave it to a VC guy to make a good point succinct. Excellent article over at Ventureblog about outsourcing. The article is a little old, but good nonetheless.
“there are two ways to make a car — you can either make it in Detroit or grow it in Iowa. You already know how to make it in Detroit. You get a bunch of iron ore, smelt it into steel, and have an assembly line of robots and workers shape it into a finished vehicle.
To grow it in Iowa, you plant car seeds in the ground (also known as “wheat”), wait until they sprout, and harvest them. Take the harvest and put it into a big boat marked “to Japan” and let it sail off. A few months later a brand new car comes back.”
Just a word of advice for those of you who only fly over Iowa.
If you plant car seeds in Iowa, they had better be called “corn” or “soybeans.” You plant the “wheat” seeds further west and north.