5 ms·
>not necessarily pro-western To be honest I don't see how this claim can be compatible with your disagreement on funding. Startups are either SV-style (free ma
by lambdadmitry 10y ago
>not necessarily pro-western
To be honest I don't see how this claim can be compatible with your disagreement on funding. Startups are either SV-style (free market above everything, private VCs, fierce competition) or China-style (heavy government involvement at all stages, from funding to market regulations). So you are either "pro-western" or pro-govt-funded "VC". It is true that there are people with paternalistic view of the government, and all the talk about "import substitution" favors them, but that's exactly the point I was making: the future is gloom here for people with a classic startup culture.
- kushti 10y agoYou're mixing a lot of things altogether for unclear purpose. Russian internet was/is awesome about building profitable businesses without VC funding (at early stages of a company life at least). Also, there are many funding models alternative to VCs in 2016. Not to say VCs are different around the globe about their principles(e.g. in Finland most of funding linked with the government but I never heard that Finnish people are not pro-Western), this is not a binary choice. Also, many people in the West do not satisfied with VC model of funding (and that doesn't mean they anti-Western, in some sense many of them are more pro-Western than "startup" people in general), see e.g. "Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus" by D. Rushkoff. Sorry for the chaotic reply, but you're raising a lot of concerns at once.