I sort of disagree… the first thing I really noticed and appreciated about Taiwan is how creative people could be. I first came to Taiwan in 2000 and was in the semi biz (support engineer) and sort of marveled at how those TSMC/UMC engineers could come up with creative solutions/challenges.
Seems like everyone here wants to be an entrepreneur, nobody wants to work for someone else. I think the whole risk aversion perception is from those Taiwanese unlucky enough to be working for someone else and is afraid of pissing off the boss.
But then, I guess that many things could’ve changed in the past 20 years as I don’t really meet that many “new” people anymore (retired)