This article was entirely alien to me. Why should I care about the work of people who don't even care about it themselves?

Then I thought I'd recast the situation into a more familiar setting. Apologies to OP. Make sure you read her version first. Does my version seem any stranger to you?

It was the kind of pitch I hate.

"I’ll do better," my software vendor told me, leaning forward in his chair. "I know I’ve gotten behind this phase, but I’m going to turn things around. Would it be OK if I finished all your uncompleted requirements by Monday?"

I sat silent for a moment. "Yes. But it’s important that you catch up completely this weekend, so that you’re not just perpetually behind."

A few weeks later, I would conduct a nearly identical conversation with two other vendors. And, again, there would be no tangible result: No make-up software. No change in effort. No improvement in time management.

By the time entrepreneurs are in the marketplace, habits can be tough to change. If you’re used to playing video games like "Modern Warfare" or "Halo" all night, how do you fit in four hours of customer revisions? Or rest up for a demo?

Building start-ups in this market, especially one with a large international population, has given me a stark - and unwelcome - illustration of how Americans’ work ethic often pales in comparison with their peers from overseas.

My failing entrepreneurs this semester are almost exclusively American, while my entrepreneurs from India, China, and Latin America have - despite language barriers - generally written solid software, excelled on prototypes, and become valuable business partners.

One woman from Shanghai became a fixture at Super Happy Dev House, embraced our coworking center, and incessantly e-mailed me questions about her evolving website. Her javascript is still mediocre: she frequently puts ";" everywhere (as in "x = y;y = z;z = a;") and confuses global variables with local variables. But that didn’t stop her from doing rewrite after rewrite, tirelessly trying to improve both syntax and performance.

Chinese entrepreneurs have consistently impressed me with their work ethic, though I have seen similar habits in entrepreneurs from India, Thailand, Brazil, and Venezuela. Often, they’ve done little server-side coding in their home companies, and they frequently struggle to understand my specifications. But their respect for customers - and for business itself - is palpable. The entrepreneurs listen intently to everything I say, whether on-line or at code reviews, and try to engage in the process.

Too many 18-year-old American entrepreneurs, meanwhile, text one another under their workstations (certain they are sly enough to go unnoticed), check e-mail, decline to take notes, and appear tired and disengaged.

Of course, it would be wrong to suggest that all American entrepreneurs are the same. I’ve engaged many who were hardworking, talented, and deeply impressive. They listened intently, engaged customer dialogues, and never shied away from code rewrites. At their best, American entrepreneurs marry knowledge and innovation, resulting in some astoundingly creative web apps.

But creativity without knowledge - a common phenomenon - is just not enough.

Too many American entrepreneurs simply lack the basics. In 2002, an O'Reilly survey found that most 18- to 24-year-olds could not find regular expressions, data base access, or sorting algorithms in a PDF document, ranking them behind counterparts in Sweden, Great Britain, Canada, Italy, Japan, France, and Germany. And in 2007 the American Institutes for Research reported that eighth graders in even our best-performing states - like Massachusetts - scored below peers in Singapore, South Korea, and Japan, while entrepreneurs in our worst-performing states - like Mississippi - were on par with eighth graders in Slovakia, Romania, and Russia.

We’ve got a knowledge gap, spurred by a work-ethic gap.

Which brings me to another code-challenged entrepreneur, who once sprinted across the office to talk to me.

"I’m really sorry I missed your targets," he said. "Do you have time to talk?"

"I have a meeting in a couple of minutes," I said. "But you can walk with me."

"OK," he said. "I really enjoy your challenge, and I think I can do better. How can I improve my site?"

I looked at him sideways. "Well, you might start with writing some code."

"Yeah," he grinned, looking at his shoes. "Sorry about that. There’s always stuff going on in my office late in the day. I have to learn to be better about time management."

Of course, he had it exactly right. Success is all about time management, and in a globalizing economy, Americans’ inability to stay focused and work hard could prove to be a serious problem.

Nowhere, sadly, is this clearer than in the marketplace.