New Zealand’s tech scene is hotter than yours

“New Zealand is already utopia.” — Peter Thiel

“I would like to see New Zealand flourish.” — Kim Dotcom

Full disclosure: I left my heart in New Zealand while studying at Auckland University of Technology.

New Zealand may be kiwi country (as in the small bird, not the fruit), but the tech scene there reflects a native ancient bird much larger than the humble kiwi — the moa, also a flightless bird like the kiwi, but a 510-pound giant.

The theory that explains the moa’s oversized figure is called insular gigantism. It says that creatures on an island are generally larger than their mainland counterparts because of a lower amount of predators. I’m proposing that the same ‘island rule’ also applies to the New Zealand tech scene.

Tell Me Moa

New Zealand is bigger than you think, and here’s why. For a country that holds just 4.5 million people, the degree of innovation is unprecedented for a community that’s smaller than 50 of the world’s cities (each individual city, not cumulative).