The world’s best brands have not been averse to borrowing an idea or two, so why should you?

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In a recent videoconference, I gave Indian entrepreneurs some advice that startled them. I said that instead of trying to invent new things, they should copy and steal all the ideas they can from China, Silicon Valley and the rest of the world.

A billion Indians coming online via inexpensive smartphones offer entrepreneurs the chance to build a transformative digital infrastructure. The best way to do so is not to reinvent the wheel but to learn from the successes and failures of others.

Before Japan, Korea and China began to innovate, they were called copycat nations; their consumer products were knockoffs from the West. Silicon Valley excels in sharing ideas and building on others’ work. As Steve Jobs said in 1994, “Picasso had a saying, ‘Good artists copy, great artists steal,’ and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.” Nearly every Apple product has features first developed by others; rarely do its technologies wholly originate within the company.

Mark Zuckerberg built Facebook by also taking pages from MySpace and Friendster, and he continues to copy products. Facebook Places is a replica of Foursquare; Messenger video imitates Skype; Facebook Stories is a clone of Snapchat; Facebook Live combines the best features of Meerkat and Periscope. This is another Silicon Valley secret: if stealing doesn’t work, buy the company.

They call this “knowledge sharing.” Silicon Valley has very high rates of job-hopping, and top engineers rarely work at any one company for more than three years; they routinely join competitors or start their own companies. As long as engineers don’t steal computer code or designs, they can build on the work they did before. Valley firms understand that collaborating and competing at the same time leads to success. This is even reflected in California’s unusual laws, which bar non-competition agreements.

In most places, entrepreneurs hesitate to tell others what they are doing. Yet in Silicon Valley, entrepreneurs know that when they share an idea, they get important feedback. Both sides learn by exchanging ideas and developing new ones. When you walk into a coffee shop in Palo Alto, those you ask will not hesitate to share their plans.

Neither companies nor countries can succeed, however, merely by copying. They must move very fast and keep improving and adapting to changing markets and technologies.

Apple became the world’s most valuable company because it didn’t hesitate to cannibalise its own work. Steve Jobs didn’t worry that the iPhone would eliminate the need to buy an iPod. The company moved forward quickly as competitors copied its designs.

Technology is now moving faster than ever and becoming affordable to all. Advances in various fields make it possible to build new trillion-dollar industries and destroy old ones. The new technologies that only the West once had access to are now available everywhere. As the world’s entrepreneurs learn from one another, they will find opportunities to solve the problems of not only their own countries but the world. And we will all benefit in a big way.