Technology

Having worked from Europe (London, specifically) together with US-based teams during my time in Investment Banking IT, they sure didn't seem to be lá crème de lá crème.

I've also worked in various parts of the Tech Industry, including Startups (never in the US, though at times with US-based colleagues or SV "refugees") and they weren't especially good, particularly at the more senior stages, probably because working long hours in a disorganised environment were most of your work ends up wasted due to mismanagement and lack of direction all for the very very low probability of making it big from stock options isn't exactly appealing for people with sufficient professional experience (professional experience in all senses, not just technical expertise but also the actual experience of being a professional at a senior level).

I think you're confusing the ability of - through throwing tons of money at it and trying countless times and in countless way, as well as due to good management mentoring networks - producing a few massivelly successful business ventures in Tech (and a trully gigantic list of failures nobody ever hears about), of the business, investment and social environment which is the Valley with actual competence in Tech: as far as I can tell they're great at attracting young, naive and trully brilliant (IQ-wise) people and throwing them all sorts of challenges which are great in the early professional growth stages, but are pretty close to incapable of supporting professional growth beyond mid-level.