Lucy Kellaway's column on the fact that many entrepreneurs face personal challengers - and it can be helpful not to be too happy - reminded me of my recent visit to China.

I think Lucy, quoting Rosabeth Moss Kanter on “misery as motivation” is correct about the need for individuals to be motivated to succeed. But this point applies to societies as well.

China envies the US entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley and its capacity to creating a steady flow of innovative, companies. It wants to ascend the value chain from being the “workshop of the world” to creating high-tech enterprises.

But China has the advantage of being an ambitious, growing society where young people are eager to make the most of educational and social advantages their parents lacked.

I saw that on display at Innovation Works, the Beijing high-tech centre established by Kai-Fu Lee, the former head of Google in China. Although executives express worry that the Chinese are not educated to be creative, there is clearly no lack of ambition.

That contrasts with western societies, including the US, which have become accustomed to wealth and comfort. The attitudes of Lucy’s “teenage boy I know” would ring a bell with many parents.

What struck me in China was that, although it has few immigrants compared with the US or the UK, the entire society (at least in coastal cities) behaves like a group of ambitious immigrants.

In time, that will produce entrepreneurship of the kind that flourishes in Silicon Valley.