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A Swede Returns to Silicon Valley from China

• mathattack 10y ago
  The report echoes a lot of positives I've heard about Beijing. And some of the negatives about San Francisco. I think the author misses some of what's happening in the valley. Supercomputing smart phones requires deep tech. The AI and pushing of Moore's law behind these devices requires deep tech. So do autonomous cars.
• daemonk 10y ago
  Is this a case of emphasizing aspects of each environment based on some kind of personal bias? The article describes a lack of moral compass in Silicon Valley and an enriching hacker spirit in Beijing. What about the other way around? If you apply a standard of morality to Beijing, is it better or worse? If you judge the hacker spirit of Silicon Valley, is it better or worse? Are you holding Beijing up to less scrutiny compared to Silicon Valley? This is a genuine question. I haven't lived in either places, so I really can't say.
  • mathattack 10y ago
    Entrepreneurs are very positive people by nature. As a result we accentuate the positive. It comes from the same place as, "Come work for me - we're going to disrupt this industry! Please don't look at the legacy code in the corner." (And I mean this in a good way) There's a large group of "grass is greener" people, but they're not starting companies or moving to Beijing to write about it. They work at the cable company in the middle of nowhere.
  • TorKlingberg 10y ago
    I enjoyed reading the article, and I must assume the author is very good at Chinese language and culture if can run a startup there. That said, people seem to find it easier to ignore social issues in a culture very different from their own. For a European, the problems in SF fit a familiar pattern and you can pick up a local paper and read all about them. In an Asian country the social situation is different enough that it doesn't trigger your moral unease. Also very very few westerners can just pick up a Chinese newspaper and casually read it. So even ignoring censorship, you are shielded from the problems and conflicts of locals that you don't directly meet and talk to.
  • analyst74 10y ago
    One's view of a place depends highly on which circles he or she belongs to. There are definitely a lot of corruption and bad things happening in Beijing, but in some circles, like ones the author experiences, people are apparently more up to doing good. This is definitely a naive view of Beijing, but if you look past the generalization, it shows a rarely exposed part of Beijing and highlighted some problems in the Valley.
• justsaysmthng 10y ago
  That was an interesting read. I can also subscribe to the image of San Francisco - with homeless and ill people on the streets - it was what made me decide against moving to Silicon Valley, although the offer was very attractive. Beijing I've never visited, but now Nils made me curious - maybe I should take a trip there someday soon ...
  • rahimnathwani 10y ago
    If you or anyone else reading this visits Beijing, contact details are in my profile.
  • eitally 10y ago
    Just so you know, SF isn't "Silicon Valley". It's SF. The peninsula is the valley, and although lots of people live in SF and commute down, lots of people also live up the east bay and even further south (Morgan Hill, Gilroy, Santa Cruz, ...). You absolutely don't need to live in SF to work at an SV company, and in fact, the commute from SF to anywhere south bay is really unpleasant.
    • inestyne 10y ago
      I rented in Milbrae because it was as far as I could get from SF, still be on the peninsula, and still have access to Bart. Every useful part of SF has a Bart stop nearby. Perfect!
  • bogomipz 10y ago
    San Francisco is not the same as "Silicon Valley." Also ill people on the streets although very prevalent in certain section of S.F. is also not a problem unique to S.F. Nils oversold Beijing, it is not that crazy or futuristic if you have been to other large cities - London, New York, Tokyo etc.
• unixhero 10y ago
  Interesting and engaging writing. I had similar history; harsh winters, Norwegian summers and access to computers meant staying in with friends learning every bit about our computer overlords at home and at demo-parties. At age 14 I was interning at a technical university college doing Linux work. Eventually I made it to Silicon Valley, all starry eyed. Because of moronic immigration laws I was never able to try my luck there. The only off-putting things were real estate prices, and all the schmoozing which in the Nordics we call lying. Now I am a corporate drone and have accepted this fate. No more illusions and aspirations of grandeur, only the long hard road awaits. As it happens it is pretty sweet and I'm happy. Skål mine nordiske venner. EDIT: Structure EDIT2: Pics or it didn't happen!? Me outside a Hewlett Packard campus building I particularly liked: http://i.imgur.com/pWtoVpm.jpg http://i.imgur.com/pWtoVpm.jpg Our product: http://i.imgur.com/VL1UQVF.jpg http://i.imgur.com/VL1UQVF.jpg Company story [now defunct]: http://imgur.com/a/6l1kl http://imgur.com/a/6l1kl [I'll be writing an obituary on it later.]
  • hkjgkjy 10y ago
    Go south to Berlin for a year. Move into a room in a flatshare in the east, go to meetups and you'll find someone who wants to start something with you. Your money will last long there, but your boredom will not. // skål och vänliga hälsningar
  • tbassetto 10y ago
    After graduating from college, I spent a few months in San Francisco. I was not looking for a job, and what I saw (same issues describe in the original article) convinced me that I did not want to work in SF anyway. After that, I worked for several startups in Paris. Tired of living in France, I joined a startup in … Oslo :) Unfortunately the startup died, and I joined Cisco because several years of startups were enough. I do enjoy Norway actually. Skål!
    • makapuf 10y ago
      as a matter of fact, what did you think of Paris/France ?
• tomkinstinch 10y ago
  To those operating in Beijing: is the language a significant barrier? Can you get by as an English speaker? If you've leaned enough Mandarin to be functional, how long did it take you?
  • seanmcdirmid 10y ago
    I took a semester in 2002 of intensive mandarin at PKU just for fun, and it has gotten me by for the last 9 years working in the Chinese branch of an large Redmond software company. Most foreigners do less chinese than me and still get by. Of course, you'll miss a lot of the open office chatter, negating the point of that, you'll get uninvited to meetings that they want to hold in Chinese. Microsoft is worse than this than other foreign companies, my Chinese wife worked for SAP which had more foreigners and less language issues as a result. But there are plenty of reasons not to come here beyond language, and a few to come if you are at a restless point in life.
  • rahimnathwani 10y ago
    A few months to get good enough for daily stuff and short casual conversations. A couple of years for work meetings with friendly colleagues. Much longer to be able to deal with negotiations with outside parties. It requires significant and sustained effort. Most people stop studying when they're ok with the situations they care about. What level that is depends on the person. If you are considering Beijing, don't worry that language will be a problem for everything. But many things will be a lot harder. Selling to Chinese businesses and consumers is the obvious example. Many foreign-run companies sell to foreigners or foreign-owned businesses in China.
  • dangrover 10y ago
    I lived in Guangzhou for a couple years, recently moved back to the valley. Passed 5/6 levels of language certification, was enough to communicate with co-workers and deal with my projects and get around. The biggest obstacle I found was that often my ability to communicate with someone had less to do with my level and more with the person's preconceptions of "foreigners". So there would be some people where I would speak Chinese and they'd have a stunned "Whoah, a talking giraffe!" reaction, and with others it was totally normal and fluid. The concept of "internationalization" as it exists there is "more people should learn English to communicate with the outsiders", not the sort of melting pot ideal in the US. Chinese do not distinguish between race, nationality, and language, they are all one thing. It is for some reason inconceivable to 99% of people that any (white-skinned) foreigner could learn Chinese, even though most of us do. Whereas it's a real head-scratcher for them if, for instance, an American of Chinese ethnicity who grew up only with English came to visit and didn't magically know the language. There were many situations where I found myself excluded from things or where people refused to communicate with me directly at all about things that concern me, which may be as much language as cultural. So I'd say learning the language is a good investment if you spend any period of time there, but being of non-Asian ethnicity will be a giant road-block to any real sense of integration, in spite of overcoming the language issues.
• CPLX 10y ago
  "I was confused by the sheer amount of narcissistic Ayn Rand followers. What's the point of innovation if you're not building a better society?" Indeed.
  • nolepointer 10y ago
    I don't understand this meme. If this were true, SV would not be deep blue. I don't live in SV, but I'm an admirer of Rand and her ideas. "Narcissist" is the probably the last word someone would use to describe me.
    • Kurtz79 10y ago
      I don't see it necessarily as a paradox, the fact that the majority of SV is progressive doesn't mean there cannot be a sizable and vocal minority having opposite positions.
    • CPLX 10y ago
      I agree with you that it's not necessarily a good description of an average rank and file valley engineer, but there is obviously a large and visible founder/investor class that has some dubious libertarian-ish views and is very, very impressed with itself. It's odd that this point is anything but obvious.
      • pop8row9 10y ago
        For people who live as far West as you can be (politically), bordering the Pacific Ocean, who believe themselves to be at the forefront of a Science Fiction-esque reality that molds the world, this very-impressed ideology makes psychological sense. Serenity, wealth, agency, and a pioneering spirit. These speak to vitality and placement. Sexual `fitness'... Winners... the psychology writes itself. It will likely be consistent as long as the four factors I've mentioned hold.
    • lagadu 10y ago
      It's worth pointing out that "deep blue" in the US is very much to right by European standards.
• bogomipz 10y ago
  This whole post is very self-aggrandizing and naive, to the point of amusement. "Far from the expected glass towers of a technological utopia, what I found was a surprisingly run down city that reminded me of traveling in Eastern Europe." Why would you expect that? A cursory bit of online research would have informed you otherwise. For such a self-professed online junkie, this strikes me as odd. "I was told not to discuss religion and politics, which is really all we talk about in Sweden, and I was confused by the sheer amount of narcissistic Ayn Rand followers." What?! Told by who? SF is and has historically been one of the most politically vocal places in the US! Ayn Rand followers? What? I'm sorry but this is just laughable. What is an Ayn Rand follower? Really, was Market St filled with people clutching well-worn copies of "The Fountainhead." Total nonsense. "Beijing was dirty, gritty, and wild .." Beijing is actually one of the most orderly cities I've ever been to. One of the safest as well. The only grit is the air pollution. "Beijing was an insane mix of history and futurism" Beijing is actually pretty intent on systematically erasing its architectural history. There are very few hutongs(traditional neighborhoods) left in Beijing. Most of them were destroyed prior to the Olympics. Also for every one Rem Koolhaus designed glass towers there are 10K nondescript glum tower tower blocks, spreading outward from the ciy to the hinterland. Beijing has some of the worst air pollution on the planet, people regularly wear respirators outside on bad days, it also has some of the worst traffic on the planet, these go hand in hand of course. The future is in moving away from that model of everyone should own a car despite their being viable alternatives(Beijing has a fantastic subway system.) "I fell in love with Beijing before I had even stepped out of the taxi from the airport." I don't even understand how this would be possible, that drive recently(2 months ago) took me an hour and 45 minutes to get from the airport to the ring road and there is nothing interesting along that route. The drive from SFO into the city is actually far more interesting by comparison.
  • arcticbull 10y ago
    I think you missed the point.
    • bogomipz 10y ago
      What was the point then?
• BigDaddyD 10y ago
  Does anyone else find it ironic that he came to America because he bought into a false promise from a liberal and then was disappointed to find that the very liberal California was depressing. Sounds like he has an issue with the US politically. Maybe go to a different part of the country.
  • bogomipz 10y ago
    Not ironic just naive.
  • jernfrost 10y ago
    I lived in the conservative part of America, but I've also visited so called liberal cities. Believe me to Nordic like myself nothing in America is liberal. It is first and foremost a conservative society from my perspective. Facebook is supposed to promote liberal values and yet if you post a painting of a nude women or breastfeeding you immediately get into trouble. It betrays the religious conservative mindset dominating America. Actually it is hard to talk about this with an America because you got your labels all wrong. You label things liberal and conservative in ways nobody else does which confuse more than clarifies. The economic policy by e.g. the republican party is primarily liberal. Their social policies are conservative. The democrats are generally socially liberal and somewhat less liberal in economic policy. But neither follows what we normally associate in the rest of the world with left wing economic policy. That would be labeled socialist or social democratic.
    • BigDaddyD 10y ago
      I didn't think my terminology was confusing. In fact, just using the context you were able to figure out I was talking about America and therefor meant the American meaning of those words. Also, my labels aren't "wrong" they are different. For example, I wouldn't call your label of conservative wrong but would just say European conservative.
• arcticbull 10y ago
  After 6 years in SF, 2 at a big company, 4 at a startup that's not one anymore, it's time for me to move on also. The exodus section of the article hit on a lot of the same things that have been bothering me about SF. The individualism, the disrepair, the pee, the needles, the homeless, the mentally ill, public transit from the 60s (BART), busses that I routinely out-jog -- and that it's never anyone's problem. And that's just SF, let alone the state and federal level issues. I had the chance to apply for a green card (just got PERM certified) but have decided that now's a good time to take a break from the valley instead. The biggest feeling of relief is that I can now take a job that isn't my primary employer (!!), found a company, build things and not face deportation as a result. It's been 6 years since I last had that opportunity -- and doing it in the US is at least a year away. Not dealing with US immigration is worth not having a concrete plan :) Like the OP I'm also an EU [and Canadian] citizen, so I'm not lacking for places to go. Beyond those, there are so many countries that actually welcome people looking to build with open arms. Like the OP, I'm sure I'll be back someday. For all it's faults, it's still Silicon Valley.
  • Kurtz79 10y ago
    My experience in SV is limited to a few months stay, already a few years ago, but it's hard for me to conflate San Francisco and Silicon Valley proper (San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Mountain View etc...). Where San Francisco is a proper city, plagued by the many problems you mention, the actual Valley is basically suburbs, with a majority of spotless single family homes, lots of strip malls and tiny (but mostly spotless as well) city centers. As a European, like you and the OP, I mostly felt out of place in both environments (less in SF, to be honest), I could picture living there for a few years at most, but not forever.
    • arcticbull 10y ago
      > Where San Francisco is a proper city, plagued by the many problems you mention, the actual Valley is basically suburb city, with a majority of spotless single family homes and tiny (but mostly spotless as well) city centers. That's true, I completed a few internships in Cupertino and Sunnyvale, and they are different. They had too little going on for me, though, which is why I moved up to SF. And I also felt less out of place up in SF. > I could picture living there for a few years at most, but not forever. I've heard that from a lot of people, actually.
• fitzwatermellow 10y ago
  What's the point of innovation if you're not building a better society? It may be that the inherent American modes of self-reliance, personal responsibility and individual liberty create natural frissons with innovators trying to implement the betterment of society via "liberation technologies." Whereas Asia, with a deeper cultural affinity for familial duty over individual desire, and an inherent necessity to rapidly raise standards for the millions that still live in agrarian lands, would provide more fertile ground for "sharing economies." In the near term, it may seem like all the excitement is occurring across the Pacific. But if we can recall the original mission of the PC Revolution: to empower and enhance our natural capabilities, that humans with machines are substantially better equipped at survival and the optimal pursuit of life than either alone can ever be. We may ultimately stumble into that New Jerusalem here in the West. Where "Man is his own star; and the soul that can render an honest and a perfect man, commands all light, all influence, all fate!"
• Fuxy 10y ago
  Very enthusiastic and passionate writing but I can't help the feeling that Beijing is viewed with a measure of rose coloured glasses. I'm not saying it's not what the author considers it to be it may well be a great place for him but is it really as great for everyone there? I've never been there so I can't say but from what I have heard from various source including a very sarcastic you-tube new show[1] I'm not a fan China regardless of how welcoming it may be. [1] https://www.youtube.com/user/NTDChinaUncensored/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/NTDChinaUncensored/videos
• gbin 10y ago
  The article describes pretty well the shocking reality Europeans discover moving in San Francisco and honestly I absolutely concur for the most part. But wait, he glorifies his past alternative life but does feels comfortable in a place where Internet is openly censored and spied on to track and torture activists ? Didn't he just say he loves talking about politics ? People don't get killed by their government for putting Bernie Sanders stickers on their cars here... Even this aside, on the business side and as a foreigner I would be very scared there: from gutter oil to copycats, it feels totally lawless. What's gonna happen to him if he is successful?
  • nilspihl 10y ago
    Yeah... I did call it a frontier, and I meant that with the good and the bad. -Nils
  • seanmcdirmid 10y ago
    The gutter oil is a thing, but don't eat at very cheap restraunts and you'll be fine. Copycats are only a prob if you are successful enough to be copied. As a foreigner, or anyone for that matter, you are free to express your opinion until people start actually listening to it, so feel free to put Bernie sanders on your car. The censorship sucks, but you probably aren't getting tortured unless that's your thing. Beijing is a third world city with first world aspirations. The most annoying thing about it is just propaganda and the outright lying about what the situation really is. China cares way too much about faces and Beijing has nothing going for it beyond its government top-down mandate (other cities in China are much more appropriate as tech hubs).
  • paradite 10y ago
    > People don't get killed by their government for putting Bernie Sanders stickers on their cars here... That's an extreme exaggeration. I know human rights record in China is not good, but getting killed for doing minor things like that don't happen. And I am surprised that you brought up killing because U.S. does not do well in this area either.
    • zeveb 10y ago
• elgabogringo 10y ago
  Sorry, I can't take this post seriously. Some thoughts without trying to get too political: - I guess he was disappointed by Obama? Join the club. - "I moved to Silicon Valley" No you didn't, you moved to San Francisco. - The Bay Area is one of the most naturally beautiful metropolitan areas in the world. Beijing is one of the most polluted. You can have it. - "I was confused by the sheer amount of narcissistic Ayn Rand followers." Really? Where are they, I've been here 15 years and have yet to find this mythic horde All told, I'm getting really sick of the Euro-lectures-Americans schtick.
  • bogomipz 10y ago
    I have to question the perceptions and judgement from anyone that managed to live in SF and mentions one of the salient characteristics of its citizens is being an "Ayn Rand follower". Did he mistake the Giants logo for something else? Ditto for someone who equates San Francisco as a place where political and religious discussions are to be avoided. Both of these are just bizarre.
    • gbin 10y ago
      I think he meant in companies. For example in France, you can openly express your political opinions at lunch with colleagues. By that, I mean you can totally disagree, yell at each other on touchy subjects and then resume your work as nothing happened in the afternoon. That will be the end of it. A political opinion is just that, an opinion and it is totally fun to argue, disagree bringing new points to the table etc. Arguing on something else than a purely professional matter at your workplace is the last place you want to be here in San Francisco: First it doesn't fit the local culture of non-confrontation; You'll have confused Californian eyes staring back at you: "You mean everything is NOT awesome ?!?" Then, you cannot offend anybody, even slightly. Unfortunately it is really easy to do from a French culture where you make points at extremes as examples, use sarcasms or dark humor. You can be sure they'll be taken at face value on the receiver end and reported to HR instantly.
    • jernfrost 10y ago
      As a European I got to say most of us have this experience with the US. I don't know southern Europe so well but in much of Northern Europe we talk about religion and politics all the time. You can always count on your American colleagues getting really uncomfortable about that. There as so many cases of people coming from the US and having stories of how they put their foot in their mouth because they did not realize the social conventions in America does not allow politics and religion to be discussed freely. I find that American very quickly get offended and visible angry if you aren't very careful about how you speak. As a nordic we are used to speaking quite bluntly and that is frequently interpreted as offensive by Americans.
• msvan 10y ago
  I'm also a Swede who has also lived in SF and Beijing. The social problems of SF are certainly a bit of a shock coming from Scandinavia, and I can understand the author's excitement about Beijing. But there are a couple of deal-breakers about China that would make it very tough for me to consider moving back: * You'll always be an expat. You can become an American both legally and culturally, but you cannot become Chinese in either sense. As someone who grew up surrounded by US culture, it makes more sense to live in the US than in China. * Your business is always going to be at a disadvantage compared to native businesses. I don't have any first-hand experience of this, but from what I understand, government connections are necessary to get anything going, especially in hyper-competitive China. * There's no public debate. The government has little oversight. The internet is censored. There are plenty of policies that I consider indefensible. The US has plenty of flaws too, but at least there is an open discussion about these flaws and a pathway towards fixing them. SF can be a bit insular and self-absorbed at times, but I felt more at home there than I did in Beijing.
  • nilspihl 10y ago
    That first point is a painful reality that can't be escaped, for sure. It can be hostile here, but again - it is a frontier.
    • flanbiscuit 10y ago
      What did you think of NYC? You don't really talk about it in your article, were you not there long enough?
      • nilspihl 10y ago
        I moved to New York "permanently", thinking it would last, but I found myself without a job a few months later and ended up on a flight to Beijing. I think my time in New York was negatively colored by having an office right in Times Square, but even so it was a really meaningful experience and a great place to be in. You definitely understand why it's the city that never sleeps, and it felt much more like a melting pot than California did. I enjoyed listening to and engaging with street preachers, I was grateful for all the talented musicians in the subway, and I never ran out of exciting new cuisines to try. On the negative side, though, I did feel that New Yorkers (and by this point in my life, Americans in general) could be hard to get close to - easy to approach, but hard to connect with. I don't know who I would have turned out to be if I had stayed in New York, but I imagine that would have been a great adventure of its own. Beijing feels similar to New York in many ways, and many expats that leave Beijing opt to move to New York. Facebook groups with hundreds of members help ex-Beijingers congregate in both New York and San Francisco, and I don't know that that's a coincidence. Maybe, if nothing else, I want to argue that Beijing deserves to be in the international spotlight and cultural consciousness the same way that New York and San Francisco and London are.
• grobaru 10y ago
  1) pollution 2) oppressive government 3) language barrier 4) too many people 5) twisted ideas of morality (not respecting IP) Well...unless all you care about is $$$.
  • goodplay 10y ago
    Morality does not make sense in the absence of common principles. I personally consider IP to be morally deplorable because it encourages rent-seeking; companies can stop innovating and use law to thwart competitors. I bet the lack of IP is what will give china and other countries the edge in the long run.
    • big_youth 10y ago
      China uses IP laws to their advantage all the time, here is a story where apple lost the case to a small phone company. The article goes on to say "Legitimate lawsuits are on the rise as Chinese companies build up their intellectual property through research and development". http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-20/apple-s-loss-in-chinese-patent-fight-seen-emboldening-rivals http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-20/apple-s-lo...
    • grobaru 10y ago
      Are you seriously stating me the obvious that stealing without punishment can give 1 party an edge over the other one ? Hello.. And that's the thing. I would not want to start a business in China just to see it destroyed in an unfair battle.
• dragonmum 10y ago
  As someone who has actually lived and worked in Shenzhen and Beijing, I'm surprised by this article. It doesn't reflect the reality I experienced. "Beijing might be of historical importance for the creative forces often associated with Silicon Valley" I note he never explained that sentence. No data was given to further that statement. Instead he makes points about cheaper engineers and cheap housing and food. " it offered us cheap housing and food, a network of experienced mentors that were happy to take the time to help, steady access to some of the world's greatest engineering talent at a sixth of the cost of a junior engineer in Silicon Valley " He also says: "Beijing seems to attract large numbers of truly driven, creative and interesting people". Yes, people here are truly driven. But creative? Nope, I didn't experience that. I won't mention how the drive people exhibit here is typically negative. In the US, negotiations are rarely zero-sum, in BJ/SZ it was always Walmart style: are we screwing the partner/customer/supplier to the max. "Beijing is a city with its eye on the future and a place that you can help shape." The whole of China is controlled by a small (percentage wise) elite. They and they alone decide the whole future. If you're not part of the future they determine would benefit "their" China then you're out. If they decide suddenly that whatever you've built is something they want, and they can get away with it, they'll take it. Creative people don't thrive here. Ask 100 creative people in China if they'd like to move to Silicon Valley, and you'll likely get an 75% migration rate. That's even higher than the percentage of rich Chinese who want to leave. http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/09/15/almost-half-of-wealthy-chinese-want-to-leave/ http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/09/15/almost-half-of...
  • paradite 10y ago
    > Creative people don't thrive here. Ask 100 creative people in China if they'd like to move to Silicon Valley, and you'll likely get an 75% migration rate. That's even higher than the percentage of rich Chinese who want to leave. Use assertion as some statistics and compare it with another statistics? That is not how to prove a case.
    • elbear 10y ago
      I'm always baffled when people are downvoted for asking for more than anecdotal evidence.
• myrloc 10y ago
  As a student in the US who wants to enter Beijing tech after school, where do I start? What are some things to know before making my way over there?
  • 50CNT 10y ago
    Speaking Chinese helps. You can get by with just English and rudimentary Chinese, but you're unlikely to make friends in tech. If you can do an exchange semester at one of the Universities here (Tsinghua, PKU, BIT), do it. Doing a Chinese course at BCLU will also get you a student visa. Stay out of Wudaokou for the most part, much as I love the place, you'll just be insulated in the expat circle. Same goes for Sanlitun. Don't party with the BCLU kids too much. Head over to Zhonguancun, there's this street called Innoway, you can hang out at Garage Cafe or something and get to know some Chinese tech people, practice some Chinese. The really talkactive people you meet are nice people, but they're usually a bit full of shit. Take the things they say with a grain of salt. Good practice talking about technology in Chinese though. Get Wechat. You need Wechat. There's a group called Beijing.py on there, they do tech meetups, which might be your beer (they also happen at Great Leap Brewery at lot, so there'll be actual beer). Get a Chinese bank account too, and a Chinese phone number. You can always teach English. If you teach at a school, it's about 200RMB/hour part-time. You can do this on a dodgy visa. You can rent a room at about 1500RMB/month in the Haidian area, where all the Universities and tech companies are. You can live off 2000-3000 RMB a month if you're willing to eat the cheap Chinese food. Bring Immodium. There is a new regulation that allows people on student visas or with a University degree to work or found a tech company in the Haidian area. It came into effect this March. Costs about 6000RMB in registration costs. Be aware of the air pollution, you might want to get a home filter for it, and wear a filter mask outside. They cost about 20RMB each and last 2-3 days. Get a smog alert app, but after a while you can tell PPM levels from the sky. Blue is 100odd, grayish brown is 200-300, if it looks like Silent Hill you're up in the nice 500s. Winter is hellish, Summer is hellish. You get strong, cold winds during December, and Beijing turns into a humid baking pan in the Summer months. Heating is centrally controlled, and usually turns on 15 days after it gets really cold. So make sure where you live has an AC. Traffic is hell, subway is cuddly, but it will get you where you need to be. Chinese have an interesting idea of what crossing the street looks like. When in doubt, walk over with a Chinese person standing between you and direction cars are approaching in. If haggling is your thing, they're charging you 10x markup. If you're prepared to haggle for 4 hours, you might get the actual price. If not, order off taobao or jingdong instead. For taobao, if its tmall its legit, if its regular taobao look at the ratings and number of transactions. Get a VPN before you arrive. AFAIK Viper is the preferred choice, and Astrill the most commonly used one. Their websites are blocked in China. Don't do drugs. If they catch you, you're looking at being barred from the country for 10 years. They're not even good drugs either. Be wary of cheap foreign liquor. Assume it was made in a bathtub. If you want to get really really drunk, buy cheap Baijiu at 7/11(12RMB for a .33 bottle) and chase it with Milk-tea (5RMB/bottle) to cut the burn. You won't remember the evening. Don't carry drugs on you when you do that. cf previous point. Don't drink the tap water. If you must drink the tap water, boil it first. Otherwise, have immodium at the ready. Laobeijing (Old Beijingers) have their own complex social customs. If you pour tea, you're supposed to hold the jug at the bottom if you're pouring for someone older, at the spout for someone your age, and at the top if you're pouring for someone younger. If you're being poured tea, you are supposed to tap both index fingers on the table. And that's just one thing. If you master the art, they'll appreciate it, but still look down on you for being a foreigner. They look down on Chinese migrants too though, so don't feel too bad about that. Cabs are cheap and plenty, but Didi is cheaper. Don't get black cabs, they'll rip you off. When hailing a cab, stand at the side of the road, look at the direction of traffic, hold out your arm, and make a motion as if you're tapping a small child on the head. Airport cab ride is about 150RMB to Haidian. Airport express is about 20RMB, then you need to switch to the regular subway, which is another 3-6RMB. Carry toilet paper on you if you're moving around. Toilets have about a 30% chance of providing toilet paper. Most toilets are squat toilets, though foreigner facing businesses may have sit down toilets. Stand on the sides and squat down backwards. Don't withdraw large sums from ATMs, go to the bank counter for that. ATMs don't always check carefully for fake notes, and may recirculate them. I know of people who withdrew 20 100RMB notes and had 3 fakes in them. Most places will accept WeChat and Alipay. This goes for small ruddy places too, they'll usually get you to send it to their smartphone. Do carry cash though in case they don't. Well, this is getting pretty long.
• david927 10y ago
  My favorite quote is this: But let's be honest - Silicon Valley is often a parody of itself, and it has lost some of the things that made it great. Where Silicon Valley was once heavily subsidized to be a place of technical innovation, it is now an expensive but well-funded hub focused on business execution. There's nothing inherently wrong with that - good technology deserves good execution, and investors deserve to make money - but it is hard not to wonder what could have been. What if Silicon Valley stopped employing some of the world's greatest minds to make us click ads, and instead served a higher calling?
  • crazy_woo 10y ago
    This is such high fallutin BS. Innovation is driven by demand. Yes - creating click ads is not as satisfying as [insert sexy innovation from developing countries here] but it pays the bills. How about we quit telling people what they should be doing with their lives. Our erstwhile OP is working on data problems - not exactly nobel peace prize winning stuff. The hypocrisy is astounding...
    • david927 10y ago
      Don't take it personally; he's not saying you're wrong to make a living. He clearly says he understands that the companies of Silicon Valley want to make money -- there's no judgement about that. But the author is also clear about the distinction: there's technical innovation, planting seeds, and business execution, harvesting the fruit. Planting seeds is expensive but you get paid back (hopefully) when it bears fruit. Xerox PARC created technical innovation, and Apple and Microsoft made billions harvesting its fruit. The author is simply bringing up what others, like Alan Kay of PARC, bring up regularly: that we are running out of fruit and no one is working on investing in planting trees. Silicon Valley of the 70's was not about anything demand-driven. True innovation is too far ahead that people don't know yet that they will want it. Silicon Valley at that time made true technical innovation. Since then it's become all about business execution of making money off of that innovation, and yes that's very demand-driven. Again, there is nothing wrong with that. But at the same time, you should be able to understand if he (and others) might be disappointed by that turn.
• BatFastard 10y ago
  If you want the right to always have a job, go to Beijing. If you crave the possibility of creating something disruptive from scratch, go to SF.
  • jernfrost 10y ago
    You mean disruptive like SnapChat and Instagram? Sorry but too much Silicon Valley "innovation" is of no importance to the world.
• throw2016 10y ago
  I agree with a lot of what he says but can also see that its mostly non americans who will see his perspective on the soullessness of silicon valley. Americans tend to get defensive and start listing out flaws in other places the moment the focus is put on them. I think american exceptionalism and individualism has long made the concept of a caring society or building a better society irrelevant. Nobody cares about this beyond posturing. As long as the economic cycle can sustain growth it will be hunky dory but the moment things go wrong, the everyone for themselves frontier type economy can quickly unravel. You can already see the pretentions about human rights, freedom, liberalism, have long dissipated. The only thing that matters is making money and seen to be successful. The new world was based on a culture of plunder but at some point the population must stop and stabilize to build internal bonds. Building a genuinely caring society will by definition come at cost of individualism and economics. Most countries and people have thousands of years of history and culture and simply talking of freedom, democracy and human rights divorced from their context is completely insincere and irresponsbile. Democracy and human rights in the west was a slow steady evolution. China is more than 1 billion people, mess up the transition even slightly ignoring history and our own slow evolution and you are looking at a scale of human suffering not seen before, can anyone really be casual about issues like this. The sad reality is no one cares for these people beyond their own countries and human rights is just another tactic to beat others with. There are tons of problems in the US at the moment, starting with the politics that is destroying millions of lives in the middle east and creating a security surveillance state at home. Nearly all of the things that would be unthinkable just a decade ago from a western democracy have been confirmed and yet have met with little outrage and negligible civic reaction, which confirms the indifference to these values beyond posturing and this should be disconcerting for all.
• cs702 10y ago
  Reading this, I realized the US -- including Silicon Valley -- has many commonalities with the Free Software ecosystem. The US is more like a messy, disgusting, noisy bazaar than a pristine cathedral: * Strong disagreement and polarization on a lot of important issues: for example, in the US we can't agree on the role of government; in the Free Software world we can't agree on even a standard desktop interface. * Constant arguing about the best way forward: for example, in the US, we argue on how best to fix economic issues; in the Free Software world we argue on how best to evolve a really old init system. * Many important problems are ignored, seemingly forever: for example, in the US, a lot of infrastructure (electric grids, roads, bridges, railways, trains) are of subpar quality; in the Free Software world, many projects of extreme or critical importance are in disrepair and/or ignored (e.g., for years, PGP was maintained by a single developer who was broke). Anyone who comes to the US expecting things to work "as they are supposed to" and for everyone to be in happy agreement on important issues is in for serious disappointment. Yet, the messy "bazaar" model seems to work... over time. As Winston Churchill said, "you can always count on Americans to do the right thing -- after they've tried everything else."[1] [1] http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/winstonchu135259.html http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/winstonchu135259....
  • saynsedit 10y ago
    No
    • hx87 10y ago
      Could you please elaborate?
      • saynsedit 10y ago
        It's a forced comparison. Comparing free software to the US only makes sense at a superficial level. For every successful comparison there are 10x contradictions. I could compare literally anything to the US in the same vein. For example: The US is a lot like a potato: * it's lumpy! Both the US and a potato are irregularly shaped! * it's brownish: the US is a mix ethnically * it's white on the inside: the US is controlled by mostly white people * it's high in carbohydrates: the US has a large GDP etc.
• 6stringmerc 10y ago
  I think on the author's micro level of China, his perspective is perfectly reasonable. He sees what he sees. Although, I do find it strange that for his talk of "Don't speak of religion and politics" being taboo in SV doesn't apply in China? I'd almost think the stakes are higher. In the US, one might lose some friends, but in China, one might lose the rest of their life. On a macro level, I'm skeptical of China from a cultural perspective.
• ting_bu_dung 10y ago
  lots of China propaganda pieces today on hacker news :) let's break down this particular piece. main points the author raised in order to support Beijing is more innotative than SV were: a.) less homeless/mentally unstable (what do you think an Chinese authoritarian government does to these people in Beijing, the capital?) b.) no discussion of religion or politics in SF. tons of ayn rand followers (did he really go to sf?) c.) lots of constructions in Beijing (lots of them empty, badly built, debt financed) d.) cheap stuff e.) creative people (what innovations came out of beijing?) f.) silicon valley is now just focused on business execution (again, what innovations came out of beijing?) no mention of Bejing's a.) crippling internet censorship. (you couldn't hit any foreign websites regularly unless via VPN, and even that fails frequently) b.) pollution c.) corruption d.) unease towards foreigners e.) 2-3 hour traffic jams f.) language barrier
  • heidar 10y ago
    > e.) creative people (what innovations came out of beijing?) I find fintech in China particularly interesting. Alipay and all the services around it are eons ahead of anything we have in the west.
• kough 10y ago
  > As a Swede coming to the States, I was disillusioned. I had, as I think many young entrepreneurs have, idolized Silicon Valley as a utopian vision of an idealistic but well-meaning band of technocrats building the foundations for a just and democratic society, but in its place I found vanity, pettiness and greed. Not only did the emperor have no clothes, but the naked corpus revealed was unappetizing to my Swedish quasi-socialist ideals. Ultimately, I felt alone in Silicon Valley... I left. Yup. Really weird place. Went through something similar and now I'm nearly certain I'll never go back there.
  • digi_owl 10y ago
    I find myself thinking about this when i compare US tech news and European tech news. More often than not, the US side have some quick buck angle, or "sugar water" consumption goal. Jump over to Europe and things seems to have more of a assistance angle.
• jbb555 10y ago
  " teaching myself how to pirate and use complicated software was just par for the course." So an article by a self confessed criminal. I didn't read past that.
  • cvik 10y ago
    Why do you assume this was illegal in Sweden in the late nineties? In Sweden, downloading of IP was illegalized 2005-06-01. Before that it was only illegal to spread digital IP...
    • jernfrost 10y ago
      Didn't you know, American laws are universal. It is by American laws we judge the acts of all the being in this universe.
• salmon30salmon 10y ago
  I can not disagree with this article more, and I do not mean with his experiences, that is fine, embrace your feelings. But to pretend that China _solves_ these social problems is a farce. China _jails_ these social problems. China _forces_ these social problems to work in mines and other forced labor industries. China _censors_ anybody who questions it. They have a god damn firewall blocking people from finding any information on their government's ills. Talk about a walled garden, or should I say a firewalled garden. He is in such a privileged position in China. He is a white man with money. He is the _elite_ in Beijing that he so quickly judges in San Francisco. Wake up man, you are the powerful in Beijing, you are the analog to the guy living in the million dollar apartment in SFO. San Francisco, and the United States has many surface problems, but many of these problems are due to being _liberal_ when it comes to homelessness and mentally ill. Can the USA do better? Of course, without a doubt. But it is such a false equvilancy to compare the laissez faire problems of the west with the oppressive problems of China.
  • jernfrost 10y ago
    Then you read another article than me. He acknowledged that China had real problems and was not any better than the US. His point was that China was moving somewhere. That is a point I can relate to, because it seems like America isn't even trying to solve its problems. Pollution is a great point. No doubt China is far more polluted than America today. So it is far worse. However China has a much grander goals and incentives for change. They put in place stricter emission standards for new cars. They invest very heavily in renewable energy to the point where most solar cells today are made in China. They acknowledge they have a serious problem. In contrast in America a large fraction of the population are disputing that there even is a problem to begin with. This attitude mirrors the other state affairs in China and the US. American conservatives blame poor people for their problems. They didn't work hard enough, didn't get an education, have the wrong attitude or whatever. China at least accepts that poverty is a problem. But they have to fight epidemic corruption and many other on problems on many fronts. China no doubt is a dictatorship. But it is also a developing country. I can't see the justification for America being a de-facto police state. No western nation has as draconian punishment, no nation locks up as many people or has as militarized police. So there is no reason to be smug towards China.
• mombul 10y ago
  It feels like the author reduces Silicon Valley to SF. What he was idolizing exists in Palo Alto or Mountain View. Redwood City also has that "trouble-free little city ran by geniuses" feel to it. Downtown SF is another story and doesn't show that shiny techs-wanna-save-the-world vibe.
• Joof 10y ago
  I can certainly relate to having grown up on the internet (I've said it myself before). It's sort of sad to see where I grew up become more of a marketplace than social center.
• rpgmaker 10y ago
  "But let's be honest - Silicon Valley is often a parody of itself, and it has lost some of the things that made it great. Where Silicon Valley was once heavily subsidized to be a place of technical innovation, it is now an expensive but well-funded hub focused on business execution." I wonder how different can Beijing really be in this regard. It sure sounds like it's more gritty but I doubt everyone there has more high minded ideals than your usual SV sort.
• HillaryBriss 10y ago
  I was surprised to read this: I had, as I think many young entrepreneurs have, idolized Silicon Valley as a utopian vision of an idealistic but well-meaning band of technocrats building the foundations for a just and democratic society ... This is isn't on my personal list of what SV is or might be. What could possibly be giving anyone this impression of SV?
  • GFischer 10y ago
    All the "we're going to change the world" startups? https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/changing-world-silicon-valley-style-reid-hoffman https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/changing-world-silicon-valley... Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn founder): In Silicon Valley few entrepreneurs and technologists dream of changing the zip code, or even the state. Here, the goal is to change the world" http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/05/27/change-the-world http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/05/27/change-the-worl... The phrase “change the world” is tossed around Silicon Valley conversations and business plans as freely as talk of “early-stage investing” and “beta tests.” ad for the University of San Francisco that I spotted on a public bus shelter south of Market Street: “Become wildly successful without becoming a jerk no one likes. Change the world from here.” https://medium.com/the-mission/silicon-valley-has-a-problem-problem-b34437a57e99#.4q24ad6cu https://medium.com/the-mission/silicon-valley-has-a-problem-... https://books.google.com.uy/books?id=eK52augjU98C&pg=PA97&lpg=PA97&dq=change+the+world+silicon+valley&source=bl&ots=1EFW_pmLB-&sig=16KlLCz2Rytnvaw6BYVRY97nF08&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjZ9dOZm6bOAhUK02MKHZbGDz04ChDoAQggMAE#v=onepage&q=change%20the%20world%20silicon%20valley&f=false https://books.google.com.uy/books?id=eK52augjU98C&pg=PA97&lp... ... and many, many more. It paint Silicon Valley as an utopian, idealistic band of technocrats wanting to change the world (which can be interpreted as building a just society, might be a stretch). I'm in Uruguay (South America), and that's very definitely the perception I have (I haven't been to the U.S.)
• jernfrost 10y ago
  While I have not had the same experience I recognize much of the same emotional responses. As a Norwegian I also had starry eyed grand delusions about America. A country at the center of innovation, with skylines made of glass high-rises. As a tourist in New York I maintained that illusion. Only when I moved to the US and got to deal with American society and American in an everyday manner did I get a needed reality check. A lot of people live materialistically very good lives in America. But the poverty and social problems so visible even in relatively small towns in America is hard for many Scandinavians to accept. And has the author mentions, it is perhaps not the poverty and social problems themselves but people's attitudes towards them which are most off-putting. While America offers many opportunities for talented people both in terms of jobs you can have, places and climates you can live I find it hard to put in my hard work into a society which has values so opposed to my own. There is this social darwinistic streak. Nobody seems to have any hope of belief that these sorts of problems can be solved. Problem solving seems to simply be about building a wall against the stuff you don't like and hide in your own gated community. It is also bizarre for a Scandinavian to come to the center of tech innovation and see so little usage of technology in everyday life and in the public sector. Frankly America seems extremely backwards when it comes to actually implementing technology in society. We are used to paying pizza on the door with a card reader, fill out taxes and pay them online or through an SMS message. Tax info is automatically collected and filled out so you only need to verify it. Many super markets use LCD displays to update prices across the aisles and people frequently do self checkouts. While things like certainly exists in pockets in the US, it is surprisingly common how manual many tasks are done, and how much paperwork is involved in both private and public sector. Visit a hospital in the US and you have to fill in all sorts of papers. Need a subscription, more papers. And then they got to count the pills. In Norway subscriptions are sent electronically from your doctor to all pharmacies. I can request a new prescription from an iOS app. I suspect a lot of this comes down to that there is no interest in America to improve society as such. One only things in terms of business which can make money and not in terms of how can government be modernized and work better towards it citizens. But in America there is zero faith in government. However that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. How can you expect quality government if you have already decided government is inherently bad? I wish it was different because I really want to live in the US. I hate Norwegian darkness and climate. I also enjoy how much more sociable Americans are. But values of American society is very hard to accept or stay indifferent to.
• bertiewhykovich 10y ago
  This dude talks at great length about the homeless problem in San Francisco and makes only the most token of nods towards the fact that China has profound social problems. The Chinese government is an oligarchic, nepotistic cesspool that violates human rights on a massive scale with absolute impunity: the author's extensively elaborated moral outrage about the presence of homelessness in San Francisco juxtaposes absurdly with his starry-eyed gloss over the sickening injustices of the Communist Party. I'd rather have a government that fails to effectively address homelessness than a government that blithely sells executed prisoners to Western roadshows. [1] [1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/1452542/Body-Worlds-impresario-used-corpses-of-executed-prisoners-for-exhibition.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/145...
• stevenwiles 10y ago
  People like this are always motivated by the same thing - money and fame. They like to hide it behind this whole "being a part of an exciting future" persona but its all a marketing gimmick to help them achieve their true goal - being rich and famous.