People go after positions; positions seek people to fill them.... With summer here, schools have graduated their old students and are preparing to matriculate the new, while in the business world impatient people jump from job to job. This month's cover story is a special report by Deputy Editor-in-Chief Teng Sue-feng and photographer Chuang Kung-ju on one of the fonts of the Taiwan tech industry's competitiveness--workers from Silicon Valley in the United States.

Their interviews revealed that Taiwan's situation is dire. Institutions of higher learning are high-tech industry's incubators, but Taiwan's brain reservoir in the US is threatening to run dry--the number of young Taiwanese pursuing advanced degrees there has fallen precipitously, while scholars in their middle years are fading from the academic scene. Within a generation, India (which has more scholars and students in the US than any other nation) and mainland China (which ranks second) will account for the large majority of the "international brains" working in the US. This should be a warning to Taiwan, which for the last 30 years has had such a "brain surplus" that it has been able to export large numbers of skilled engineers and scientists to the US, Hong Kong and the mainland.

Taiwan is a small island with few natural resources besides its people. The ebb and flow of its human resources are therefore intimately linked to its long-term national power. Academia Sinica's Convocation of Members early in July also happened to address Taiwan's academic competitiveness. The biennial meeting recommended that Taiwan treat its scholars with greater respect, provide them with higher salaries, institutional support and career development opportunities, and create a better research environment.

Next, this issue looks at one of Taiwan's ten major international brands, D-Link. The article again addresses the issue of staffing, but this time at a company that is adept at attracting foreign talent: D-Link has established four international R&D centers, has resellers in countries around the world, and ensures that its foreign operations are run by locals. Even strategy is completely localized, with the objective of creating a company that is "even more native than a native company."

A recent article on Lee Kai-fu mentions that Lee went to Google himself seeking a job. The writer asked Lee if it wasn't humiliating for someone of his stature and renown to have approached a company asking for a job rather than waiting for it to come to him. Lee responded that he hadn't wanted to wait for Google to come to him, so he went to them. Clearly, when all is said and done, it's the people with ambition who get jobs.

A paradox of the knowledge economy is that while firms regard their personnel as their most prized asset, they nonetheless treat their people as if they are completely disposable. Over the last few years, transnational corporations have been posting record profits while ruthlessly reducing headcounts. And stock prices have soared as a result! The brightest people at major firms must, on the one hand, sacrifice their health and family lives by running themselves ragged for their bosses, while on the other bear in mind that they could be downsized at any moment. They must constantly remind themselves, "I'm doing this for my career." And if they should happen to lose their jobs, they cannot beg pitifully for its return, but must offer a jaunty, devil-may-care goodbye.

This issue also addresses the topic of work with stories on the nature filmmaker Liu Yen-ming and the hunter Chen Hsu-huang, on the Jyou-tian Folk Drum and Arts Group, and on deaf sculptor Lin Liang-tsai, all of whom have poured their lifeblood into careers that earn them next to nothing. Are they fools to have done so? None are hoping for a "good job" in the standard sense of the word. Instead, they have created something of their own, winning for themselves unique positions from which no boss can ever fire them. Their hard work and dedication are surely equally deserving of our applause.