7 ms·

China has surpassed Silicon Valley when it comes to the original vision of self-sufficient entrepreneurship and freedom from stifling bureaucracy. Mark my word

by pdog 10y ago

China has surpassed Silicon Valley when it comes to the original vision of self-sufficient entrepreneurship and freedom from stifling bureaucracy. Mark my words. Beijing is the biggest competitor to Silicon Valley in the coming years.

notyourwork 10y ago
I'm interested to see how this plays out since China has such a large user base compared to US.
- tormeh 10y ago
  Demography is destiny.
gumby 10y ago
Are you serious? Have you worked in both places? The regulatory burden is really quite light here in the states and in particularly in the Valley and in SF. Having lived and worked in the US, Australia, Asia and Europe (and in the US in Boston, Austin and the Valley) I have to say there is no better place to start a business than the peninsula.
- debacle 10y ago
  What would you say the reason continues to be for that?
- astrange 10y ago
  I wonder how this can be when SF has so many local regulations on construction, etc, and no space. Why aren't there more companies in SoCal? Weather's nicer and so many more people live there. Then we could use Santa Clara for prune farms again.
  - gumby 10y ago
    (Look for another reply I made in this discussion, not in this thread) SF has a different culture than the Valley; the peninsula is its own, highly technical world which SF has fewer tech businesses (though more than it used to). Sure SF has some crazy building constraints, but in the larger contexts (good universities, good laws, a much more "anything goes" environment) the whole region is really strong. SF has had a historical tolerance for crazy people since the gold rush (that kook might have $10K worth of gold in his pocket so if you send him away you won't get any of it) that few other places have had. So cal (both SD and LA) has a different culture, more extractive, and has a different mix (lower university density for example). Remember when the film industry fled the east coast patent monopoly they went to the Bay Area first, only moving to Hollywood because of the sun (they still had to film outdoors in those days as artificial lighting wasn't good enough).
    - scottlegrand2 10y ago
      I know of two largish companies based in SF that ended up opening offices in the south bay to get better quality engineers. And by that I would guess they meant younger and willing to work for less $$$ for more hours, but they can't come out and say that, can they?
      - astrange 10y ago
        I'd be surprised if that was the reason. Engineers in the South Bay are more likely to work at large hardcore tech companies, or at worst Facebook, and why would there be younger people in the peninsula?
brilliantcode 10y ago
> Mark my words. Beijing is the biggest competitor to Silicon Valley in the coming years. Been hearing that since 2009. Any day now. I'll believe it when Peter Thiel moves to Beijing along with other Silicon Valley VC. Obviously that isn't happening and why, the richest Chinese citizens are moving to SV permanently. Why would they permanently move all of their assets if they believed in China? There's an important distinction between imitation and innovation. What Chinese product have reached the scale American grown SV companies outside of their own borders where they won't have the same level of protection from their own government? I can't think of any. I don't know any white people using WeChat or Baidu because FB messenger and Google isn't good enough. It doesn't help the rest of the world speaks English while Chinese pumpers insist that eventually everyone will speak and write Mandarin, which is syntaxtually and linguistically a lot harder to learn and use. I'm certain Japanese thought the whole world would eventually learn Japanese...in 1989. It's hard to have an objective debate when the answer to everything is because China is big.
- kmicklas 10y ago
  > It doesn't help the rest of the world speaks English while Chinese pumpers insist that eventually everyone will speak and write Mandarin, which is syntaxtually and linguistically a lot harder to learn and use. I'm certain Japanese thought the whole world would eventually learn Japanese...in 1989. Okay SV has its advantages but this is just American imperialism at its finest.
  - brilliantcode 10y ago
    British imperialism. America inherited the groundwork laid out by the British but being a former colony themselves, it's uncomfortable with the idea. American imperialism is such an overused propaganda term from the Soviet-friendly bloc., it's actually quite laughable. The more accurate term is American economic hegemony. The rest of the world relies on American institutions that ensure trade between countries flourish because they have long understood that without economic activity and dependence, it has always led to conflicts. Without physical force you cannot act as the single source of truth for everybody trading on your platform. This is why America has the largest and most advanced military in history. They understand the fundamental coupling of diplomatic projection and enforcement of their economic policies. Is America perfect? No. Are they good in all intentions? No. But it works. There has been no world war 1 or 2 scale conflicts for quite some time now. Countries are now tightly ruled by multi-national corporations with backing by central bank that makes compromises and wins concessions according to American policy. It's very expensive and tough to offer an alternative, although China seems to have the right idea by starting AIIB etc., but everyone is wary about the strings that come attached with it, as they've inevitably always has been from American monetary foreign policies. The devil you know is better than the devil you don't. China is a big unknown for the rest of the world. Americans have been around and will be around for this century, unless China successfully manages to usurp their military power, which doesn't seem possible since their military complexes haven't even matched those of the Russia. For instance, producing a stealth fighter from stolen blueprints from Lockheed Martin but not able to produce a jet engine and relying on Russia (who are also wary of having their tech stolen) who sells them expensive crap. If America is an empire, great, because I shudder to think what a Russia or/and China hegemony is going to look like.

by pdog 10y ago

notyourwork 10y ago

I'm interested to see how this plays out since China has such a large user base compared to US.

tormeh 10y ago
Demography is destiny.

gumby 10y ago

Are you serious? Have you worked in both places? The regulatory burden is really quite light here in the states and in particularly in the Valley and in SF. Having lived and worked in the US, Australia, Asia and Europe (and in the US in Boston, Austin and the Valley) I have to say there is no better place to start a business than the peninsula.

debacle 10y ago
What would you say the reason continues to be for that?
astrange 10y ago
I wonder how this can be when SF has so many local regulations on construction, etc, and no space. Why aren't there more companies in SoCal? Weather's nicer and so many more people live there. Then we could use Santa Clara for prune farms again.
- gumby 10y ago
  (Look for another reply I made in this discussion, not in this thread) SF has a different culture than the Valley; the peninsula is its own, highly technical world which SF has fewer tech businesses (though more than it used to). Sure SF has some crazy building constraints, but in the larger contexts (good universities, good laws, a much more "anything goes" environment) the whole region is really strong. SF has had a historical tolerance for crazy people since the gold rush (that kook might have $10K worth of gold in his pocket so if you send him away you won't get any of it) that few other places have had. So cal (both SD and LA) has a different culture, more extractive, and has a different mix (lower university density for example). Remember when the film industry fled the east coast patent monopoly they went to the Bay Area first, only moving to Hollywood because of the sun (they still had to film outdoors in those days as artificial lighting wasn't good enough).
  - scottlegrand2 10y ago
    I know of two largish companies based in SF that ended up opening offices in the south bay to get better quality engineers. And by that I would guess they meant younger and willing to work for less $$$ for more hours, but they can't come out and say that, can they?
    - astrange 10y ago
      I'd be surprised if that was the reason. Engineers in the South Bay are more likely to work at large hardcore tech companies, or at worst Facebook, and why would there be younger people in the peninsula?

brilliantcode 10y ago

> Mark my words. Beijing is the biggest competitor to Silicon Valley in the coming years. Been hearing that since 2009. Any day now. I'll believe it when Peter Thiel moves to Beijing along with other Silicon Valley VC. Obviously that isn't happening and why, the richest Chinese citizens are moving to SV permanently. Why would they permanently move all of their assets if they believed in China? There's an important distinction between imitation and innovation. What Chinese product have reached the scale American grown SV companies outside of their own borders where they won't have the same level of protection from their own government? I can't think of any. I don't know any white people using WeChat or Baidu because FB messenger and Google isn't good enough. It doesn't help the rest of the world speaks English while Chinese pumpers insist that eventually everyone will speak and write Mandarin, which is syntaxtually and linguistically a lot harder to learn and use. I'm certain Japanese thought the whole world would eventually learn Japanese...in 1989. It's hard to have an objective debate when the answer to everything is because China is big.

kmicklas 10y ago
> It doesn't help the rest of the world speaks English while Chinese pumpers insist that eventually everyone will speak and write Mandarin, which is syntaxtually and linguistically a lot harder to learn and use. I'm certain Japanese thought the whole world would eventually learn Japanese...in 1989. Okay SV has its advantages but this is just American imperialism at its finest.
- brilliantcode 10y ago
  British imperialism. America inherited the groundwork laid out by the British but being a former colony themselves, it's uncomfortable with the idea. American imperialism is such an overused propaganda term from the Soviet-friendly bloc., it's actually quite laughable. The more accurate term is American economic hegemony. The rest of the world relies on American institutions that ensure trade between countries flourish because they have long understood that without economic activity and dependence, it has always led to conflicts. Without physical force you cannot act as the single source of truth for everybody trading on your platform. This is why America has the largest and most advanced military in history. They understand the fundamental coupling of diplomatic projection and enforcement of their economic policies. Is America perfect? No. Are they good in all intentions? No. But it works. There has been no world war 1 or 2 scale conflicts for quite some time now. Countries are now tightly ruled by multi-national corporations with backing by central bank that makes compromises and wins concessions according to American policy. It's very expensive and tough to offer an alternative, although China seems to have the right idea by starting AIIB etc., but everyone is wary about the strings that come attached with it, as they've inevitably always has been from American monetary foreign policies. The devil you know is better than the devil you don't. China is a big unknown for the rest of the world. Americans have been around and will be around for this century, unless China successfully manages to usurp their military power, which doesn't seem possible since their military complexes haven't even matched those of the Russia. For instance, producing a stealth fighter from stolen blueprints from Lockheed Martin but not able to produce a jet engine and relying on Russia (who are also wary of having their tech stolen) who sells them expensive crap. If America is an empire, great, because I shudder to think what a Russia or/and China hegemony is going to look like.