Lessons of Hollywood?

From The Economist:

... Film is an eccentric business, filled with egos and excess. For most of their history, studios have had neither the stunning returns of startups nor the steady profits of mature firms. ...

Film is an eccentric business, filled with egos and excess. For most of their history, studios have had neither the stunning returns of startups nor the steady profits of mature firms. ... Studios recruit a fresh creative team for each film, leaving its members to work intensely together with a minimum of interference, stepping in only when things are clearly going wrong. This gives team members a feeling of control and pride in their project; and to cap it all, everyone has their contribution duly acknowledged in the closing credits. ...

Like Hollywood, California’s other world-beating industrial cluster, Silicon Valley, has overcome the fear of failure. Films are like tech startups in that flops are tolerated because they are so common, even when the initial idea seemed promising. In both cases, the value of failure as a learning experience is well understood. ...

Almost inevitably, the Economist rolls out the example of Pixar, and the reparative powers of that studio's "brain trust". But let's be honest; Pixar's creative model is just a slightly modified version of Disney's Hyperion lot, or Schlesinger's Termite Terrace, or (before those studios), the production techniques of Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton and ... back in the dim mists of antiquity .. Mack Sennet's Keystone comedy factory.

Beyond the success of California film studios, there is the ongoing salability of American films in the global marketplace. But maybe all the commercial success is due as much to the United States being a multi-cultural behemoth capable of creating entertainment the global audience identifies with, as the power of it movie factories.