I've read the Mythical Man Month, and it has no bearing on what I'm talking about here. The problem is that "building Shenzhen" isn't a "project", and never can be a "project". The key feature of an industrial ecosystem like this is its enormous diversity -- hundreds of thousands of companies, large and small, doing complementary and competitive and most importantly different things.

That is not something that can ever be matched by a monolithic "project". But it is something that absolutely requires large number of both bodies and brains. STEM graduates is, as I say, a poor proxy, but I can't think of a better one. Feel free to suggest.

(Hint: it isn't GDP or anything like that, otherwise China would never have been able to do this in the first place.)

>The key feature of an industrial ecosystem like this is its enormous diversity

A bunch of engineers all graduating from the same Chinese school system under the same censorship regime != "diversity".

>and most importantly different things.

Some are doing different things, but that has nothing to do with the number of STEM graduates. Your incorrect presumption here is that a STEM graduate is magically innovative and entrepreneurial, which there is no evidence of.

>STEM graduates is, as I say, a poor proxy, but I can't think of a better one.

So don't use it at all. If STEM graduates were enough, why do you think that China hasn't displaced Silicon Valley in the software game?

>Feel free to suggest.

Incentives, market conditions, and government support. In other words, stuff that can only partially be controlled. Silicon Valley is a direct product of research into military technology driven by the Cold War. No number of STEM graduates can replicate that.