15 ms·
China's rising tech scene threatens US brain drain as ‘sea turtles’ return home
- Ancalagon 7y ago> “Wang said the salaries of his 40-person team for two years cost $700,000.” Good luck with that. If you’re averaging $10k per employee per year over the long term, I guarantee anyone with the ability to be a good engineer is still going to come to the US where they can make orders of magnitude more.
- cronix 7y agoMaybe in terms of total dollar amount, but what happens when you take into consideration the cost of living in each country (including subsidies, etc)? I don't know the answer...just talking out loud. I have no idea how far $10k will take you in China.
- whatshisface 7y agoA lot of people make a tricky mistake when adjusting for COL: investment power. Because people can save up and then move, being able to save 10% of a big salary is worth a lot more than being able to save 10% of a small salary. That's why people in California can still beat tech workers in other places in the long run even though the local COL depresses their standard of living down to almost nothing (next to what their pay could buy them elsewhere).
- matz1 7y agoOr maybe US engineer is overpriced.
- creaghpatr 7y agoYeah, but not by that much, not even close.
- 420codebro 7y agoYeah and maybe Uncle Chang steals everything. "Maybe"
- gscott 7y agoConsidering companies will only hire an engineer from a top college, with top scores, with huge student loans the pay should have to match.
- akmarinov 7y agoWell, they kind of contradict themselves later on > The pay discrepancy between Silicon Valley and China has narrowed since he launched in 2014, especially at top-tier firms. Wang’s engineers now make 70 percent to 80 percent of what they could get in America. So it was 700k in 2014, but now it's 70-80% of what US people would make.
- Andhurati 7y agoWith Chinese cost of living. So, no reason to stay in the Bay Area if you were raised in China.
- suyash 7y agoThere are several other reasons for not living in China, have you ever been there? Freedom, Privacy, Pollution, Corruption, Healthcare etc.
- ClutchBand 7y agoThere are many who know and understand that decision, and still move back, so they must (at least some) be factoring things like this into the decision to move back. Perhaps they feel that they can make a difference or perhaps some other reason, but the numbers in the article show that they are going back.
- asdfman123 7y agoIt's probably because there is a healthy tech industry in China and it's home. If could take classes in China and possibly get a job making 50% more there, I'd probably come back to the US instead. A 50% raise isn't enough to justify being half a world away from my family.
- roboys 7y ago4 times less likely to get murdered in China than in USA. Sounds like a better place to raise a kid too.
- mtw 7y agoIf it was just salary, they'd stay here. What's new is the general anti-Chinese climate, where they're suspected of working for Chinese interests, with people reviewing your research and trying to find anything hinting that you might have send files or blueprints to China. I'd also move back if I worked in such conditions. Plus you'd have family and friends back home.
- o8347ov 7y agoIf 80% are returning to China, then they are working for Chinese interests.
- otoburb 7y ago"Wang Meng Qiu, a startup founder who graduated from Stanford University with a doctorate in computer science, held jobs at Facebook and Twitter in Silicon Valley before he moved to the outskirts of Shanghai to launch his own drone company, Zero Zero Robotics. Wang said the salaries of his 40-person team for two years cost $700,000." Generously assuming that the full 40-person team didn't onboard until year 2, that's an annual average salary of only 17,500 USD per person. I know the software development labour is cheaper in China, but quick comparisons indicate that something is off with this figure. Maybe most of the 40-person team are on an assembly line?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- devy 7y ago> that's an annual average salary of only 17,500 USD per person. That is realistic and in line with fresh out of college Computer Science graduate market rate. I know that because I went to an undergraduate CS degree in China. Developers are working harder in China too. The famous 996 work schedule has been prevalent in Internet software startups in China.[1] Hence the anti-996 movement. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoOnly from a third tier university. You aren’t going to get a tsignhua, pku, or even beihang grad for that price.
- wesleyfsmith 7y agoThe most concerning quote: "About 80 percent of Chinese students who get degrees abroad now go back — up from about 33 percent in 2007, according to China’s Ministry of Education. Some 15 percent take jobs in China’s booming tech sector." Attracting top global talent has always been a competitive advance for America, and it's not a good sign for our economy if we can't retain people that we are educating here.
- liberte82 7y agoIt's difficult to blame Chinese students for not wanting to stay when they're being met with outright hostile rhetoric from the political establishment. Economic considerations completely aside, no one wants to live and work in that kind of environment.
- asdfman123 7y agoNo want wants to live in that kind of environment? In the US, Trump says mean things about certain types of immigrants. In China, you can be jailed with no due process for speaking out about human rights abuses. Also, better hope you're not in a religious minority. Don't say anything bad about the government, because they're watching you!
- hakka-nyu-su 7y agoThe hostile environment for ethnic Chinese people (especially academicians) in the US is about more than, and predates, Trump's tweets. https://supchina.com/sinophobia-tracker/ https://supchina.com/sinophobia-tracker/ It includes visa restrictions and harassment (e.g., computer seizures, pressuring your job to fire you) from agencies like the FBI and NIH. It also impacts people who have no connection to China, like the Taiwanese Wen Ho Lee.
- jhedwards 7y agoWhen I was living in China this didn't bother most of the Han Chinese I met. Most of them were so concerned about lifting their families out of poverty and providing for their future that if you said to them "but you can't speak out about human rights abuses" they'd just look at you like "why the hell would I want to do that".
- Causality1 7y agoWe're quite far from the scale tipping in that direction, but it makes me curious about whether the US government has the legal authority to say "educating foreigners is no longer in the national interest, therefore it is no longer a valid reason to remain in the United States" and decimate the foreign student population essentially overnight.
- pjc50 7y agoIt can almost certainly unilaterally revoke all the visas. Why the US wants to blow up its own higher education system would be beyond me, though.
- duxup 7y agoIs having someone as a student, and then they leave ... beneficial? I don't have a position on this, I'm just wondering.
- maximente 7y agolikely only for tenured professors and possibly universities. professors hold immense power and likely benefit greatly from someone motivated to finish + move back and earn massive sums relative to rest of population; the university i'm guessing benefits to some extent financially/prestige of said research group/professor. edit: losers are general public, whose taxes go to public universities who then train up a generation of students who won't contribute those benefits back to the country. private universities have different funding models of course, so not so clear there.
- AimForTheBushes 7y agoSure, Chinese nationals are returning home but who else is following? Living in China is about as attractive as being a character in 1984.
- boringg 7y agoAnd only those who don't value personal freedom. (read Tiananmen square, Uighur camps as your starting examples). Sure the US loses out on some talent, but that will always happen and once we move past the current administration we will pick up talent from elsewhere if need be.
- sct202 7y agoBaidu's founder was a sea turtle. He worked at Infoseek before returning to China to start Baidu.
- walamaking 7y agoProbably why Baidu is such a terrible search engine.
- Rch_East 7y agoIt doesn't make sense for America to educate its rivals. We should also be wary of Universities turning into backdoor immigration schemes - this has already happened in Australia and lead to a massive reduction in education quality. The focus should be on training Americans to fill American jobs - and any immigration scheme should be arranged with military, economic, and cultural Allies only (UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea).
- pinkfoot 7y agoIs that the full list?
- DiogenesKynikos 7y agoFor the sake of American cuisine, at least France should be added to the list.
- pinkfoot 7y agoFreedom fries? :)
- jorblumesea 7y agoIf China can continue this growth, this trend will continue. But China's financial system is a house of cards and it's unclear if they will make it out of the next recession without significant damage. There's serious strategic threats including opaque financial system, improper banking controls massive "market rigging" and government corruption. No one knows the true state of the Chinese economy, including China itself. I wonder how many of these employees will make it back to the West eventually. Big if obviously as there are many unknowns. https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/2173461/china-underestimating-its-us3-trillion-dollar-debt-and-could https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/2173461/c... https://www.brookings.edu/blog/ben-bernanke/2016/03/08/chinas-transparency-challenges/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/ben-bernanke/2016/03/08/china... https://www.ft.com/content/961b4b32-3fce-11e9-b896-fe36ec32aece https://www.ft.com/content/961b4b32-3fce-11e9-b896-fe36ec32a...
- m3kw9 7y ago700,000$ for 40 people for 2 years? 4 ppl here make that much in 1 year, why would they go back other than do startups?
- tzakrajs 7y agoIt must be that the cost of living in China is less than $0 per year.
- fatjokes 7y agoMore than that: the US gov't has declared their own tech giants a threat. Meanwhile, the Chinese gov't is supporting theirs as a potential goldmine on all fronts: national security, foreign policy, economic.
- wobblegong 7y agoGood point, I've never thought about it that way. We usually see US tech firms supporting the govt (and the resulting protests from their employees). But I wonder how the climate were to change if the govt was proactive in supporting the local tech firms instead.
- natalyarostova 7y agoIt's slightly concerning that in the US there is increasing pressure to force tech companies to not support our government in its military needs, but the Chinese military is fully supported by theirs.
- robbrit 7y agoDoes anybody know how hard it is for non-Chinese citizens to live and work in China? One of the competitive advantages of the US has been its ability to draw top talent from all over the world and not just its own citizens. Chinese citizens leaving the US is not a good thing, but it is just one nationality. If China manages to draw talent from everywhere, then the US has a real problem ahead of it. For example, my team in the US only has a few US citizens on it, most of us are foreigners who moved here for the opportunities. While a few are Chinese, the majority are from countries other than China and the US.
- deogeo 7y agoVery hard, especially for non-ethnic Chinese, as there is about 1 million immigrants in China, total (that's 0.07%): > He said the policies, much like those of Japan and South Korea, were “predicated on a very strong nation-state that defines itself as the home of a particular ethnic and cultural group that wants to maintain its purity and wants to let in only what it really, really desperately needs.” [1] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/world/asia/china-green-card-stephon-marbury.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/world/asia/china-green-ca...
- FreedomToCreate 7y agoIts very difficult to get any type of semi-permanent/permanent work visa for foreigners in China. A lot of foreigners who go to Shenzhen to work on a hardware start-up, are doing it illegally in technical terms. They are all on business visas on which you can't start a business in China. And beyond just work, civil liberties are extremely limited in China. You are good as long as you don't get the government looking at you.
- robocat 7y agoAnd to add, Shenzhen is a special economic zone (SEZ), which has relatively less harsh attitudes towards enforcing visa rules. It felt like an extremely capitalist city when I visited a few years ago - everyone is trying to make a buck. I did see hundreds of cops get bused in to deal with some sort of street vendor fight (which at the time reminded me of when I visited South Lake Tahoe one night).
- xxxpupugo 7y agoDid I read it correctly? Threatened 'brain drain'? So 'brain drain' to US is being viewed as a positive thing? I think the idea is to send people back to build their countries, not to stay here to build America. This is indeed a good news that we are spreading the talents and knowledge and eventually prosperity more evenly across the globe. US has enjoyed this monopoly over talents for too long, and that is probably not a good thing and definitely shouldn't be taken for granted.
- president 7y agoQuality of life (e.g. security, stability, happiness) for the average citizen in the US seems to be on a downward trend. I imagine that is a big factor for foreign tech workers leaving the country. It's not all about money.
- allthecybers 7y agoEven a highly compensated US tech worker can be bankrupted by medical costs. Seen it happen.
- xmly 7y agoThe president is asking the congresswomen to go back.
- havetocharge 7y agoTalent will follow opportunity, so this shift in sentiment may reflect the relative outlook on the level of opportunity that US provides relative to China, at least for those who are able to work in China. As an aside, the American immigration system leaves a lot to be desired in terms of its efficiency, and may be a contributing factor.
- SubiculumCode 7y agoI am sure that this is part of it. However, I speculate that China may also be pressuring students and their families at home...just as they've been reported to do to expats and exiles. https://www.businessinsider.com/china-uses-family-members-to-silence-criticism-2018-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/china-uses-family-members-to...
- mericantest 7y agoI think america is putting more money on trying to have natives fill these jobs over making the immigration policy more efficient. There is tons of potential being wasted in America and we really should focus on our native citizens. Its been a while since america has been dominant in the strength of our workforce and much of our current wealth is because of past generations not the current one. We should focus on changing that before relying on other nations to provide us with skilled labor. It a national risk short and long term.
- magduf 7y ago>we really should focus on our native citizens Our natives can't do a lot of jobs because they don't have the educational background, and that isn't going to change any time soon with the way we fund schools. The other thing we don't do is provide low-cost high-quality healthcare to our citizens, and there again, there's not much effort to fix this, and instead the party in power wants to remove healthcare from poorer people.
- havetocharge 7y agoAs a three time immigrant, I have diametrically opposing viewpoints. My view is that immigration mostly benefits nations, and emigration always hurts them. Immigration increases the labour capacity, and nations that utilize this resource in a pragmatic manner are net beneficiaries. My earlier point was around the fact that US isn't very efficient at managing this resource (letting arbitrary people through the physical border, while holding up highly educated folks in immigration queues for years).
- m463 7y agoSilicon Valley has changed a lot in the last 20-30 years. The ability to physically design and create things has basically disappeared. I'm not only talking about chips, but mechanical, electrical engineering and all the miscellaneous disciplines associated with creating something in one place. That used to be the strength of the valley. If you want to do software, ok, but that's arguably less location dependent.
- adammunich 7y agoI agree but I think this can turn around, we've really only lost the quick-turn PCB manufacturing. The talent is definitely still here.
- magduf 7y agoIt is? Doing what? The hardware work has mostly left the area, and when that happens, skilled people either leave the area or go into different industries. They don't just sit around waiting for the jobs to come back.
- someguydave 7y agoThe reason that industry was lost was because China was willing to subsidize it in their territory and the US government enabled them because they thought it would bring democracy and freedom.
- kovacs_x 7y agoWorld has changed a lot in last 20-30 years, as cold war and USSR did end in 1991 and lot of things changed in Europe and Asia since then. Valley will never be what it was in terms of global influence, especially if we look 40-50 years back. It's, no doubt, still a boiling pot for next-big-thing companies, but world around the US has grown significantly, especially in the last 5-10 years and there's a big demand for a skills that was not there 10-20 years ago.
- tanilama 7y agoNothing to be surprised about. Hometown is almost more attractive if other factors considered to be irrelevant. You have your native language, your family around, the food and just familiarity of things, as comparing to be a foreigner in a country that constantly put your status at risk. Why America if it is hostile? What for?
- angarg12 7y ago> China’s tech sector has its own shorthand to describe the hours that employees work in the country: “9-9-6,” meaning from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. > “Our factories are still talking to us at 10 p.m. or 11 p.m., sometimes well into midnight. They’re working on weekends, so things get done much faster,” Gui said. “Whereas back in San Francisco, after 5 p.m. people won’t respond to your emails and you can’t get anything done until the next day.” If that is the price of fast innovation, I rather be a bit slow.
- binarysolo 7y agoEh, as a third culture kid with a US passport and 50%+ friends being international/TCK - it's honestly because the VISA process is appalling. Out of a sample of 10 international students I went to school with at Stanford 20 years ago (I just eyeballed my FB friend list and took 10, totally biased anec-data I know): • 4 are now citizens - all their green card processes took 7+ years, except the one person who got it via marriage • 2 are STILL in the green card process • 1 intentionally went home for opportunity • 3 left due to VISA expiration issues. 2 went to Europe, 1 went to Canada. 2 are CS grads, 1 has a PhD in ML. It massively sucks. We're talking about amazingly resourceful people who got raised at whatever sheep farm in Kenya and Uzbekistan, made it all the way to Stanford via merit-based scholarships and what not, and then got ejected from the US because national policy... and now some other country with friendlier VISA policies got 'em.
- magduf 7y agoI don't see why this "massively sucks". Obviously, the American people, and the government they elected, don't really want these smart people in their country contributing to their economy, so there's other countries (the ones with friendlier visa policies) where they're more welcome and they should go. You can claim that Americans are shooting themselves in the foot with these policies, and electing people like Trump, but if that's what they want to do...
- someguydave 7y agoTrump has said many times that he wants a more meritocratic immigration system. A combination of big business and pandering to minorities keeps Congress from changing immigration from chain-migration to merit-based immigration.
- vipbababd 7y agoThis is just as true with Indian students. Most people don't know how hard, how expensive, and how long it takes for someone to become a naturalized citizen. Combined with hostile rhetoric towards immigrants - and staying away from politics as much as possible, this is a big factor and not always precisely targeted to "illegal" immigration, the US is just not as attractive for knowledge workers as it was 5-10 years ago.
- HomeDeLaPot 7y agoWell of course they're leaving, I'm seeing firsthand how hard it is for them to stay here. Employment authorization takes so long that I've seen students lose the internships and job offers they have lined up. That's on top of all the culture/language differences and whatnot. I don't blame them one bit for going back home.
- mensetmanusman 7y agoHonestly, If the Chinese can be prevented from exporting their version of the prison state, this could be a good thing in the near-medium term. (The U.S. imprisons the most per capita) China needs smart people there to transition the economy. India has been massively slowed down by the brain drain to the U.S. The more people out of poverty, the better.
- panda88888 7y agoAn interesting tidbit for non-Mandarin Chinese speakers. The sea turtle doesn’t refer to analogy of grown sea turtles returning to their home when young, but it’s a homonym to 海歸 (same sounds as sea turtle 海龜), that roughly means “return from sea (ie. abroad)”.
- NTDF9 7y agoA lot of these conversations miss two aspects completely: 1. Smart STEM people are more inclined to having a family. Constant uncertainty is not conducive to family. That will cause a lot of smart people to be sea turtles. 2. The most significant drawback of smart people congregating elsewhere is that future American companies are fucked. There is just going to be a lot more competition for products globally. Future Apple will have to fight Chinese companies in India. Mariott will have to fight Oyo in China. Future Tesla will have to fight BYD in Europe. A LOT of our stock wealth is because other companies couldn't innovate as rapidly because the US was draining those countries of this talent pool. With this reversal, American companies will have a smaller pool of talent and will get whacked everywhere. Its super unfortunate.
- helen___keller 7y ago>1. Smart STEM people are more inclined to having a family. Constant uncertainty is not conducive to family. That will cause a lot of smart people to be sea turtles. Also, even for the well-compensated, it's financially very difficult to afford the 'ol house & car dream in what I would expect are top locations for immigrants (SF bay area, New York, Boston, Seattle, LA, ...). Certain parts of China also have absurdly expensive real estate (Shanghai, Beijing), but rent tends to be much more affordable and if you have family nearby the whole housing situation becomes much easier.
- dfeojm-zlib 7y agoAs long as people keep coming to the US to get an education, that helps the economics of academia; out-of-state tuition paid for by somebody else (usually, countries or rich families) is $$$$. Maybe the problem is the US isn't as welcoming socially, politically or bureaucratically (visa process) as it once was? That's a PR image problem that the current political climate tarnished through inept and ignorant messaging.
- spectramax 7y agoYep, we will have to wait until 2020 but if Trump ends his term, the next president has a huge task of rebuilding the PR and get it back on track.
- dfeojm-zlib 7y agoIMHO, there's no need to delay or wait.. contradict and break this undesirable image by demonstrating positive and welcoming actions towards visitors of all kinds at every opportunity. I hope and make the future better by taking as many actions now to ensure it as I'm able.
- magduf 7y agoNo, Trump is going to be there until 2024. There's very low likelihood that the Democrats will unseat him.
- helen___keller 7y agoCan you also tell me tomorrow's lottery numbers? Thanks
- magduf 7y ago>Maybe the problem is the US isn't as welcoming socially, politically or bureaucratically (visa process) as it once was? That's a PR image problem that the current political climate tarnished through inept and ignorant messaging. This isn't correct at all. It's true the US isn't very welcoming any more, but this isn't through "inept and ignorant messaging", it's not inept at all: the US voters clearly don't want foreigners here, and they proved it by the way they've voted, and now they have an administration that clearly reflects the wishes of the electorate. Stop trying to sugar-coat the reality of how American voters really feel.