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>Entire generations of Indian, Korean, Chinese, Canadian, and European origin founders and executives helped build the US tech industry. Yes, but they would no

>Entire generations of Indian, Korean, Chinese, Canadian, and European origin founders and executives helped build the US tech industry. Yes, but they would not have built such companies if they were stuck in their own countries. There's a reason they left those countries. Europe, for instance, is notorious for being extremely unfriendly to startups. >Look at Flipkart and Ola in India and ByteDance in China for example I've never even heard of the Indian companies here. As for ByteDance, TikTok is likely to be banned in the US and maybe elsewhere because it seems to be a tool for the CCP. It would be difficult to impossible for any Chinese tech company to achieve the status of Google or Microsoft for this reason. Companies in these countries may be able to do well inside their own countries, but they can never achieve real global dominance.

alephnerd 2y ago
> There's a reason they left those countries Pay and upskilling. But domestic tech salaries have risen across Asia now, and the US has gotten much harder to immigrate to. Most people who joined the tech industry in the US from China and India in the 2000s felt they were getting a bum deal at the time in those countries because of a lack of domestic options, but that's changed since 2008 - especially after the 2008-10 layoffs (I remember those - they were scary, lots of my middle school friends had to move back to China and India because their parents lost their H1B or EB1/2 sponsor). The next generation of Chinese and Indian startups are now being founded by former diaspora members after the hiring freezes during COVID. > I've never even heard of the Indian companies here. for ByteDance That's on you tbh. Not everyone is expected to follow every industry trend per country, but these are all unicorns or exited unicorns that were founded by cohorts in the late 2000s who had the option to move abroad but chose to remain in their own countries. ByteDance for example had PMF in China well before it entered America as "TikTok", and Flipkart generated $7B a revenue a year - which isn't shabby by Indian or even American standards. > Companies in these countries may be able to do well inside their own countries, but they can never achieve real global dominance First, Big Tech (FAANG) is not representative of the tech industry as a whole, and does not have strong PMF in plenty of markets and sectors abroad. Secondly, this also underestimates the fact that most tech companies have strategy and R&D making parts of their organizations abroad now. Plenty of NLP work that became LLMs came out of research done in Microsoft China and India, Google Pay's development org is largely in India, Apple's R&D labs in China and India played a major role in developing the manufacturing process and chip design respectively for the iPhone, etc.
- edm0nd 2y ago
  >First, Big Tech (FAANG) is not representative of the tech industry as a whole, and does not have strong PMF in plenty of markets and sectors abroad. It's not? Android is the most popular OS in the world with Apple and Microsoft making up the bulk of the rest. >As of September 2024, Android, a mobile OS that uses the Linux kernel, has 45.38% of the global market and is the world's most widely used operating system. This is followed by Windows with 25.61%, iOS with 18.39%, macOS with 5.53%, and Desktop Linux with 1.64%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_syste...
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    Depends segment to segment and sector to sector. Take instant messaging as an example. In the US, iMessage and FB Messenger are fairly prominent messaging services. Yet in Japan+Taiwan+Thailand it's Line, in Korea it's KakaoTalk, in Vietnam it's Zalo, in China it's WeChat, etc. Furthermore, the entire publicly listed tech industry globally generates around $6T in revenue, but FAANG represents only $1.4T in revenue. The other $4.6T are spread across multiple decently large companies globally. In addition, the stereotypical big tech companies are NOT market leaders in plenty of very large market tech sectors. For example, Cybersecurity, ERP, Payment Processing, CRMs, etc. Big Tech is big, but the world is big as well. There are plenty of markets where a regional competitor or a specialized player can outcompeting big tech. For example, look at Coupang and Flipkart decimating Amazon in SK and India. Big Tech is big, but it is not an end-all.
    - shiroiushi 2y ago
      >In the US, iMessage and FB Messenger are fairly prominent messaging services. >Yet in Japan+Taiwan+Thailand it's Line, in Korea it's KakaoTalk, in Vietnam it's Zalo, in China it's WeChat, etc. Notice how none of those companies in the second line have anything close to a globally dominant position? They're only popular locally. LINE is probably the best here since it's dominant in more than 1 country, unlike the others. Meanwhile, people all around the world use Facebook (though this is falling off lately admittedly). If you want to chat with friends in another country, FB Messenger is probably the go-to chat app for this; your friends in Europe or the US aren't going to be using LINE or KakaoTalk if you live in Japan or Korea, and pretty much no one outside the US/Canada uses SMS messaging (and thus iMessage) for talking to friends/family. >Furthermore, the entire publicly listed tech industry globally generates around $6T in revenue, but FAANG represents only $1.4T in revenue. MAMAA (because of Microsoft) builds the infrastructure most of the tech industry is built on. This infrastructure isn't going to come from China; no one in the western-aligned nations would trust infrastructure tech from there. >look at Coupang and Flipkart decimating Amazon in SK and India. Inside their own countries, sure, just like KakaoTalk dominating Korea. But just like KT, they have no exposure outside their countries. Amazon is huge not just in the US, but many other countries: Canada, various European countries, Japan, etc.
adastra22 2y ago
Israel is a definite exception. It is very startup friendly. Just a small market compared to Europe, let alone the US.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  I wouldn't call Israel Europe - it's a night and day difference from Europe, plus that undercuts the Sephardim, Mizrahi, Druze, and Israeli Arab contributions to Israel. Also, buses actually works in Europe :p But yes, the startup scene is strong in Israel, and that's thanks to the Israeli diaspora in SV and Boston funding startups in Israel in the 2000s - especially Nir Zuk of Palo Alto Networks and much of the team at Akamai.
  - adastra22 2y ago
    I was explicitly comparing against Europe. I wasn’t calling Israel part of Europe.
    - adastra22 2y ago
      Forgot to add: you add valid points to the conversation though, thank you!
    - alephnerd 2y ago
      No worries!

alephnerd 2y ago

> There's a reason they left those countries Pay and upskilling. But domestic tech salaries have risen across Asia now, and the US has gotten much harder to immigrate to. Most people who joined the tech industry in the US from China and India in the 2000s felt they were getting a bum deal at the time in those countries because of a lack of domestic options, but that's changed since 2008 - especially after the 2008-10 layoffs (I remember those - they were scary, lots of my middle school friends had to move back to China and India because their parents lost their H1B or EB1/2 sponsor). The next generation of Chinese and Indian startups are now being founded by former diaspora members after the hiring freezes during COVID. > I've never even heard of the Indian companies here. for ByteDance That's on you tbh. Not everyone is expected to follow every industry trend per country, but these are all unicorns or exited unicorns that were founded by cohorts in the late 2000s who had the option to move abroad but chose to remain in their own countries. ByteDance for example had PMF in China well before it entered America as "TikTok", and Flipkart generated $7B a revenue a year - which isn't shabby by Indian or even American standards. > Companies in these countries may be able to do well inside their own countries, but they can never achieve real global dominance First, Big Tech (FAANG) is not representative of the tech industry as a whole, and does not have strong PMF in plenty of markets and sectors abroad. Secondly, this also underestimates the fact that most tech companies have strategy and R&D making parts of their organizations abroad now. Plenty of NLP work that became LLMs came out of research done in Microsoft China and India, Google Pay's development org is largely in India, Apple's R&D labs in China and India played a major role in developing the manufacturing process and chip design respectively for the iPhone, etc.

edm0nd 2y ago
>First, Big Tech (FAANG) is not representative of the tech industry as a whole, and does not have strong PMF in plenty of markets and sectors abroad. It's not? Android is the most popular OS in the world with Apple and Microsoft making up the bulk of the rest. >As of September 2024, Android, a mobile OS that uses the Linux kernel, has 45.38% of the global market and is the world's most widely used operating system. This is followed by Windows with 25.61%, iOS with 18.39%, macOS with 5.53%, and Desktop Linux with 1.64%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_syste...
- alephnerd 2y ago
  Depends segment to segment and sector to sector. Take instant messaging as an example. In the US, iMessage and FB Messenger are fairly prominent messaging services. Yet in Japan+Taiwan+Thailand it's Line, in Korea it's KakaoTalk, in Vietnam it's Zalo, in China it's WeChat, etc. Furthermore, the entire publicly listed tech industry globally generates around $6T in revenue, but FAANG represents only $1.4T in revenue. The other $4.6T are spread across multiple decently large companies globally. In addition, the stereotypical big tech companies are NOT market leaders in plenty of very large market tech sectors. For example, Cybersecurity, ERP, Payment Processing, CRMs, etc. Big Tech is big, but the world is big as well. There are plenty of markets where a regional competitor or a specialized player can outcompeting big tech. For example, look at Coupang and Flipkart decimating Amazon in SK and India. Big Tech is big, but it is not an end-all.
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    >In the US, iMessage and FB Messenger are fairly prominent messaging services. >Yet in Japan+Taiwan+Thailand it's Line, in Korea it's KakaoTalk, in Vietnam it's Zalo, in China it's WeChat, etc. Notice how none of those companies in the second line have anything close to a globally dominant position? They're only popular locally. LINE is probably the best here since it's dominant in more than 1 country, unlike the others. Meanwhile, people all around the world use Facebook (though this is falling off lately admittedly). If you want to chat with friends in another country, FB Messenger is probably the go-to chat app for this; your friends in Europe or the US aren't going to be using LINE or KakaoTalk if you live in Japan or Korea, and pretty much no one outside the US/Canada uses SMS messaging (and thus iMessage) for talking to friends/family. >Furthermore, the entire publicly listed tech industry globally generates around $6T in revenue, but FAANG represents only $1.4T in revenue. MAMAA (because of Microsoft) builds the infrastructure most of the tech industry is built on. This infrastructure isn't going to come from China; no one in the western-aligned nations would trust infrastructure tech from there. >look at Coupang and Flipkart decimating Amazon in SK and India. Inside their own countries, sure, just like KakaoTalk dominating Korea. But just like KT, they have no exposure outside their countries. Amazon is huge not just in the US, but many other countries: Canada, various European countries, Japan, etc.

adastra22 2y ago

Israel is a definite exception. It is very startup friendly. Just a small market compared to Europe, let alone the US.

alephnerd 2y ago
I wouldn't call Israel Europe - it's a night and day difference from Europe, plus that undercuts the Sephardim, Mizrahi, Druze, and Israeli Arab contributions to Israel. Also, buses actually works in Europe :p But yes, the startup scene is strong in Israel, and that's thanks to the Israeli diaspora in SV and Boston funding startups in Israel in the 2000s - especially Nir Zuk of Palo Alto Networks and much of the team at Akamai.
- adastra22 2y ago
  I was explicitly comparing against Europe. I wasn’t calling Israel part of Europe.
  - adastra22 2y ago
    Forgot to add: you add valid points to the conversation though, thank you!
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    No worries!