3 ms·

They don't understand it, because what you're quoting as a behavior is pretty standard anywhere in the world. That's why companies protect their secrets from lo

They don't understand it, because what you're quoting as a behavior is pretty standard anywhere in the world. That's why companies protect their secrets from low rank employees. Except if you're arguing that western companies are bound by stronger ethics, in which case I'd like to see some evidence.

anikan_vader 3y ago
Less so ethics and more so credible legal action against offending companies and individuals.
ipython 3y ago
If a low ranking employee in Cincinnati divulged corporate trade secrets, they'd be tried and convicted. If a low ranking employee in Shanghai did the same, what can the US company do? Not much. So it's a low risk activity, that is also actively encouraged and in many cases financed by the Chinese government. This is in no way intended to be disparaging of folks who are of Chinese descent, but rather a reflection of the reality of contemporary Chinese government politics and policies.
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  Would you get tried in the US for interning at a company and then go to a competitor with all your inside knowledge ? [edit: barring a paid non compete agreement] Then a step further from that, sure there are laws to prevent you from wholesale lifting corporate data and bringing them out as you leave, but as many laws it will be extremely difficult to detect and prove that happened in many low profile cases. That's why instead of just relying on the law you'll lock usb ports monitor network activity and get laptops returned when someone leaves. It's kinda like preventing shop lifting, you know it will happen at some scale. > US company / Chinese gov How much leverage do you thing a Chinese company has to if a three letter US agency spies on them and pass the info to US companies ? And would you argue that scenario wouldn't happen if a specific Chinese company had a decisive advantage that could severly hurt US interests ?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - lmeyerov 3y ago
    For the level of copying being discussed, the scenario to compare to is when Google waymo sued Uber for copying files for hundreds of millions of dollars. They were caught copying source files & design docs. Both for software products and manufacturing products, that's what is going on: exact copies of source code, assembly line configs, etc. Many folks write off selling to China for reasons like this. Initially that means underserving one big market for self-defense. Where it gets next-level painful and crazy is when cloners then take their derived works back to the international market to compete directly with the inventors. By then it has been tweaked, but the core is still the clone.
envsubst 3y ago
> western companies are bound by stronger ethics I wouldn't say people in the west are "better people in their hearts" but they absolutely follow more strict norms regarding honesty and theft. This is one of the main reasons why companies pay a premium for workers in the west when they could hire from other places. One example: accounting scandals in the US are rare. I don't think anyone trusts accounting figures for public companies from India or china. > in which case I'd like to see some evidence. The alternative to trust is enforcement. The evidence you are looking for is the prevalence of the latter principle in systems that deal with things of value.
- late25 3y ago
  >One example: accounting scandals in the US are rare. I don't think anyone trusts accounting figures for public companies from India or china. I work in accounting. You’re right, I trust the US more than India or China, but you’d be surprised at the liberties US companies make and how many individuals from India are auditing their work. Auditors (excluding partners and some senior managers) are just not equipped to deal with the technical accounting concepts and to challenge management. Remember, the company employs the auditors. You certainly don’t want to ruin a $1MM contract for your firm but pressing too hard.
  - envsubst 3y ago
    I agree. > You certainly don’t want to ruin a $1MM contract for your firm but pressing too hard. Only in the west would you get any push back at all. The auditor would feel some duty to bring up an issue even if it reflected poorly on the company and even their own managers. I agree they likely wouldn't push an issue beyond its welcome, but this particular value is unheard of in many parts of the world.
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  > This is one of the main reasons why companies pay a premium for workers in the west when they could hire from other places. By this token "other places" companies would also want to pay a premium to hire US workers outside of sheer competency. Yet we're not seeing Samsung massively moving institutional operations to US centers for instance. > accounting scandals Whait, what ? You're telling me that while the crypto bubble is bursting and they're going to prison for egregious fraud ? Also, scandals being few in number would probably be a sign of overcorruption and systematic rot or the controlling structure. I'm not sure that's what we want.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
concordDance 3y ago
The workers who make up the companies tend to have higher levels of honesty and fair dealing and lower levels of corruption and theft. Though I cannot provide evidence for this offhand beyond anecdote and the corruption perception index.

anikan_vader 3y ago

Less so ethics and more so credible legal action against offending companies and individuals.

ipython 3y ago

If a low ranking employee in Cincinnati divulged corporate trade secrets, they'd be tried and convicted. If a low ranking employee in Shanghai did the same, what can the US company do? Not much. So it's a low risk activity, that is also actively encouraged and in many cases financed by the Chinese government. This is in no way intended to be disparaging of folks who are of Chinese descent, but rather a reflection of the reality of contemporary Chinese government politics and policies.

makeitdouble 3y ago
Would you get tried in the US for interning at a company and then go to a competitor with all your inside knowledge ? [edit: barring a paid non compete agreement] Then a step further from that, sure there are laws to prevent you from wholesale lifting corporate data and bringing them out as you leave, but as many laws it will be extremely difficult to detect and prove that happened in many low profile cases. That's why instead of just relying on the law you'll lock usb ports monitor network activity and get laptops returned when someone leaves. It's kinda like preventing shop lifting, you know it will happen at some scale. > US company / Chinese gov How much leverage do you thing a Chinese company has to if a three letter US agency spies on them and pass the info to US companies ? And would you argue that scenario wouldn't happen if a specific Chinese company had a decisive advantage that could severly hurt US interests ?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- lmeyerov 3y ago
  For the level of copying being discussed, the scenario to compare to is when Google waymo sued Uber for copying files for hundreds of millions of dollars. They were caught copying source files & design docs. Both for software products and manufacturing products, that's what is going on: exact copies of source code, assembly line configs, etc. Many folks write off selling to China for reasons like this. Initially that means underserving one big market for self-defense. Where it gets next-level painful and crazy is when cloners then take their derived works back to the international market to compete directly with the inventors. By then it has been tweaked, but the core is still the clone.

envsubst 3y ago

> western companies are bound by stronger ethics I wouldn't say people in the west are "better people in their hearts" but they absolutely follow more strict norms regarding honesty and theft. This is one of the main reasons why companies pay a premium for workers in the west when they could hire from other places. One example: accounting scandals in the US are rare. I don't think anyone trusts accounting figures for public companies from India or china. > in which case I'd like to see some evidence. The alternative to trust is enforcement. The evidence you are looking for is the prevalence of the latter principle in systems that deal with things of value.

late25 3y ago
>One example: accounting scandals in the US are rare. I don't think anyone trusts accounting figures for public companies from India or china. I work in accounting. You’re right, I trust the US more than India or China, but you’d be surprised at the liberties US companies make and how many individuals from India are auditing their work. Auditors (excluding partners and some senior managers) are just not equipped to deal with the technical accounting concepts and to challenge management. Remember, the company employs the auditors. You certainly don’t want to ruin a $1MM contract for your firm but pressing too hard.
- envsubst 3y ago
  I agree. > You certainly don’t want to ruin a $1MM contract for your firm but pressing too hard. Only in the west would you get any push back at all. The auditor would feel some duty to bring up an issue even if it reflected poorly on the company and even their own managers. I agree they likely wouldn't push an issue beyond its welcome, but this particular value is unheard of in many parts of the world.
makeitdouble 3y ago
> This is one of the main reasons why companies pay a premium for workers in the west when they could hire from other places. By this token "other places" companies would also want to pay a premium to hire US workers outside of sheer competency. Yet we're not seeing Samsung massively moving institutional operations to US centers for instance. > accounting scandals Whait, what ? You're telling me that while the crypto bubble is bursting and they're going to prison for egregious fraud ? Also, scandals being few in number would probably be a sign of overcorruption and systematic rot or the controlling structure. I'm not sure that's what we want.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

concordDance 3y ago

The workers who make up the companies tend to have higher levels of honesty and fair dealing and lower levels of corruption and theft. Though I cannot provide evidence for this offhand beyond anecdote and the corruption perception index.