United States and Japan

Available for over a year

You might think the high tech quirkiness of Silicon Valley in the US is on the wane. That sooner or later all companies, however original at the outset, inevitably become part of the establishment as they grow. But do they? Orin Gordon goes in search of sustainable smallness. Anthropologist Kate Fox purposefully tried to bump into people on the street to see which nation apologized most when you bump into them. She hypothesized that the title of most polite nationals would go to either the English or the Japanese. But she found it difficult to test because Japanese people proved so adept at politely sidestepping her as she launched herself at them. Alex Marshall has reason to believe that that skill could become a thing of the past.