
Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor - z3t1
http://www.recode.net/2016/5/13/11592570/china-startup-tech-economy-silicon-valley
======
supster
It must help Chinese startups that many SV companies are blocked from
competing in China. For example no competition from Facebook, Messenger,
Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Youtube, Gmail, Dropbox, Vimeo, SoundCloud...

more info:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Websites_blocked_in_mainland_C...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Websites_blocked_in_mainland_China)

~~~
api
I've been told that the great firewall is actually more about protectionism
than censorship. They know they can't really contain information, but they can
block or degrade foreign services to favor their own. Of course this does
serve a state censorship and surveillance agenda indirectly since home grown
services can be more easily controlled.

As much as I can't stand Trump and could never vote for him, I do think he's
one of the few candidates raising the issue of how unfair our trade relations
are with China. The WTO limits tariffs but the Chinese have found tons of
indirect ways to implement protectionism: the great firewall, manipulating
their currency, making it hard for US firms to take payments in China, etc.

~~~
bnegreve
Interesting point, but to be fair China is not the only one to find ways to
implement protectionism. The F35 program or even Nasa contracting SpaceX could
be seen as examples of the US implementing some level of protectionism.

~~~
argonaut
Every nation has protectionism. _Every single one_. _What 's important is the
degree of protectionism_. So pointing out examples of a nation engaging in
protectionism contributes little to the discussion unless you _compare_ it to
other nations.

~~~
sangnoir
> What's important is the degree of protectionism

The US complaining about China's protectionism is hypocritical. Let's talk
about America's farm subsidies. How is that not competing unfairly? It leads
to American agricultural produce being dumped on foreign markets at subsidized
prices, destroying entire countries' agricultural base. What would you say is
the _degree_ of protectionism here?

~~~
golergka
Farm subsidies is not only about business, it's about national security: you
subside food industry so that when you suddenly find yourself in the big war
with trade routes cut, your population doesn't starve.

I'm not saying that these subsidies are necessary; I'm just saying that they
should be analyzed with a different framework.

~~~
gbog
That's true but even more so when applied to the computer network. Nowadays,
in case of a war, closing emails or zombying all Windows pcs could do more
harm than food supplies.

~~~
golergka
And that's why for countries who aren't US closest allies it makes total sense
to base military infrastructure on open-source operating systems and software
(because let's be honest, Russian or Chinese military most likely won't be
able to produce their own modern OS of comparable quality from scratch).

However, software and hardware on one hard, and internet on another, aren't
the same thing: I don't see how one can seriously make the same argument in
favor of great chinese firewall. It's only effective against general
population, and doesn't seriously negate any cyber-threats, as far as I
understand.

~~~
gbog
Why only military infrastructure? Image a war between, say the USA and Russia,
and imagine that the USA manages to shut down or cripple all Windows machines
in Russia, this will probably put the enemy on the kneels, even more than
weeks of airstrikes. And it may also be better PR as it do not directly "kill"
anyone. I have always thought that Microsoft holding 95% of PCs in the world
is extremely dangerous, and can't get why American, with their admirable
foundness of personal freedom and security, do not decide to put a stop to
this anomaly. (Imagine, if 95% of world's oil was provided by one company?)

~~~
golergka
Because unlike oil, computers running on different OS create difficulties for
users and developers. Apart from the point of national security, I think it's
reasonable to assume that in an alternative world, where 20 operating systems
competed on desktop market with more-or-less equal market shares, everybody
would suffer from neverending compatibility problems, we would have worse
applications, a lot of businesses would never succeed and a lot less value
would be created in IT industry overall.

Hell, we don't even have to imagine — remember testing JS on every browser
around 2007?

~~~
gbog
20 different operating systems would have shown the necessity of a common open
protocol for the filesystem being it, and would have given much more space to
creativity on the computer.

------
kyledrake
Funny, I gave a tech talk at the Chekku (Garage) cafe a few years ago, and
even then it had a pretty impressive energy in the place. The host that set it
up expected maybe 15 people to show up, over 150 did.

China was and still is lacking some very important infrastructure for
successful business development: a stable legal and contracts system, strongly
enforced property rights, institutional access to capital, investment focused
on demand rather than supply (see also ghost cities), and a well regulated
stock market more based on revenue than pure speculation (not that the events
of the last 10 years in the US stock markets haven't shaken my opinion on
their strength).

Chinese entrepreneurs make up for these business problems the same way people
that lack resources do in the states: through hard work and sheer tenacity.
They're hungry for progress, and at the end of the day, that's what builds an
economy.

I met some great people at Garage cafe that night, and they left a strong
impression on me that Chinese entrepreneurs are going to do some really
impressive stuff over the next ten years.

If you're ever in Beijing, I highly recommend spending an evening there. It
was the highlight of my trip.

~~~
50CNT
It's cool to see Cheku mentioned on here, they just celebrated their 5 year
anniversary a month or so ago. Does seem like a lot of the cooler projects
have left for greener pastures though, and the people that are left, ah well.

~~~
kyledrake
There's an endless supply of people to fill in those that leave.

Mind you, the greener pasture might just be Shanghai. Shanghai looked a lot
more developed than Beijing, but I was only there for the day, so I didn't
have time to really explore the city. It reminded me a lot of Hong Kong in
many respects. I'd love to spend a month deep diving into the tech scene
there.

~~~
50CNT
From what I've heard the more mature startups with interesting end up moving
to Shangdi for cheaper office space. That kinda leaves the has-beens and
never-will-be's behind, but I guess that's to be expected. Even the founder of
the place has started another venture a bit down the street.

We met some interesting people during their anniversary party, but then we met
an equal share of idiots, so my guess it's 50/50 right now. The was this one
guy drilling us on the market for phone cases in the US/Europe (f..k if we
know, you're trying to compete with local retailers or something?), who didn't
understand the concept of stealth mode, for example.

Not to say that there aren't promising founders out there, they just don't go
to the events. Probably better that way, since the C2C attitude isn't just
restricted to copying from abroad.

~~~
kyledrake
> We met some interesting people during their anniversary party, but then we
> met an equal share of idiots, so my guess it's 50/50 right now.

Oh there was plenty of that when I was there, but that was part of the fun for
me. Easy to write off the dude I spent half an hour talking about Chinese punk
rock bands with as a goober, but maybe he's the one that kicks off the Chinese
version of Sub Pop records.

I gave up a long time ago on the idea of ever knowing who's going to do the
awesome stuff. Almost more often than not it's the people I thought were the
idiots and the lunatics.

Actually what I really liked about the people I met was that they were real
characters with a lot of personality. I expected a lot of blank faced
marketing pitch lameness but didn't get much of that (I'm sure it's there
though).

------
iveqy
Actually, if we count unicorn companies per capita, the number two after
silicon valley is stockholm.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/knowledgewharton/2015/11/11/how-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/knowledgewharton/2015/11/11/how-
stockholm-became-a-unicorn-factory/#1a4c8944634b)

~~~
uola
Stockholm has produced a few successful startups, but it's not a competitor to
SV. It's is a global competitor in telecom systems and games (though I guess
many game companies are now owned by US companies). Spotify is basically the
same service as when it started, just with more users. Stockholm has no real
momentum in building something of their own.

~~~
dschiptsov
There is a huge difference between the valley - home of the whole industry and
Stockholm, which hosts a few niched companies.

Compare the hiring. In Sweden there is no demand for CS skills, there is no
immigration programs for techies, etc.

Also, which is also important, Sweden is traditionally a consumer of
technology, not producer (with exception of Ericsson, of course) - MS land
where Linux is frowned upon outside academia and almost nonexistent in the
market.

There is not even a dim analogy to what is going on in the valley.

------
sandGorgon
the title is clickbait. If we are looking at Asia then India is the more
relevant competitor. With a huge Valley-returned entrepreneur community as
well as being open for Silicon Valley to do business, I am betting that India
will grow faster. Indeed Ola and Flipkart's senior management comes from
Facebook and Google at this point ... and were forced to innovate faster and
harder when Amazon and Uber entered India. This happens across all categories
of startups. Sure China has a larger customer segment than India at this
point, but that is not something that is going to continue for long.

Oh and fundamental freedom and democratic rights go a long way to attract
talent. Its not for nothing that talent chose to settle in the extremely
vibrant and tolerant San Francisco area. Pretty much the exact same reason why
Delhi and Bangalore drive most of the tech ecosystem in India.

The biggest problem I see with India is lack of infrastructure at the same
level as China. That I admit, is going to be a make or break.

~~~
jasim
Valley-returned entrepreneur community doesn't mean anything in terms of
innovation. App-powered logistics companies are no longer innovative; the wave
was in the realization that commerce can be driven through smartphones and the
internet, and that logistics can be massively improved by a combination of
location-aware devices with abundant cheap labour from under-privileged
population (not a value judgement). We are still a long way from doing ground-
breaking scientific research. Innovative business models can only take us so
far; fundamental progress has always been driven by the courage to think new
thoughts, and that typically comes from the scientific community, not the
business world.

~~~
sandGorgon
That is where you are wrong. There is already fundamental work happening
around vernacular linguistics, robotics (especially Grey Orange) and fintech.

People misunderstand how much technology needs to be built to be able to
reconcile something like cash on delivery.

We are definitely far away from valley level innovation, but having people
germinate the ecosystem with management styles and culture is extremely
important.

What is fundamentally broken is somewhere else - the investor ecosystem.
Indian investors are young, barely out of college and are professional MBAs
without a lot of experience in a startup. It is very hard to explain the value
of technical debt, innovation etc...when we can chase copycat business models
without innovation. It's been extremely hard finding bthe right culture fit in
investors. Combine that with the fact that most entrepreneurs have not become
billionaires in India...so you don't have that savvy, experienced angel
investors with deep pockets (the Paul Grahams or the Peter Thiels of India).

That is what needs fixing. China already has a couple of Jack Ma who are being
the second wave of investors.

------
igravious
Interesting article but I feel it's light on actual hard data comparisons.

One fact is wrong though.

> Startups can achieve massive scale quickly, because the domestic market is
> 1.3 billion people, which is four times the U.S. or European population.

I don't know what definition of Europe (Western maybe?) gives you 300 million
people. Demographically Wikipedia says Europe had 70 million people in 210 so
presumably it's over 3/4 billion now.

I feel like people don't appreciate that Eastern Europe / Russia is Europe too
for a lot of definitions of Europe. The E.U. includes a lot of Eastern
European countries and Balkan states and Slavic states but not all. Ukraine
and Russia _are_ European in many respects, be it ballet, opera, classical
music, theatre, cinema, religion, architecture, you name it. Arguably modern
Turkey is the least European _culturally_ because of the influence of Islam
and Arab culture but geographically Istambul is closer to Rome than London is
and when the Western Roman Empire fell the seat of power shifted to
Constantinople and continued on for another, I don't know, more than _500_
years anyway.

Wikipedia say Europe had 300 million people in _1916_ , midway during the
First World War (sorry world!), exactly one century ago.

side note: I have to chuckle to myself when some point out that air pollution
in China will be a limiting factor. It didn't stop the industrial revolution
in the UK or US so why should it stop China? And it wasn't _that_ long ago
that air pollution was a real problem for London and LA, for instance. Judging
by history air pollution will be a thing of the past within one generation
(25/30 years) in China. You can quote me on that.

~~~
studentrob
> side note: I have to chuckle to myself when some point out that air
> pollution in China will be a limiting factor. It didn't stop the industrial
> revolution in the UK or US so why should it stop China? And it wasn't _that_
> long ago that air pollution was a real problem for London and LA, for
> instance. Judging by history air pollution will be a thing of the past
> within one generation (25/30 years) in China. You can quote me on that.

I can think of a few factors that make Beijing different from the industrial
revolutions of the US/UK.

(1) In 2016, the brightest can move to pollution-free zones which don't really
exist in urban China

(2) Environmental policies were spurred on by environmental activism which was
enabled by free speech. It's not clear this will happen in China. They keep
saying the air quality will get better, but each year is worse than the last,
and more and more rivers are no longer usable due to intense pollution. I
think there's something to be said for the whole country being responsible and
being able to protest about local conditions.

That said, I wish China luck.

------
joe_the_user
It don't know if the author noticed that the news out of China for the last
year has largely signaled the disintegration of the Chinese development model,
with the state relentless intervening basically everywhere to prevent the
collapse of the stock market, prevent capital flight, prevent the massive
bankruptcy of various firms, prevent worker unrest from economic dislocation
etc.

With contradictions of the Chinese economy now becoming visible to the rest of
world, even if the Chinese state continue to distort it's statistics, the idea
that the Chinese tech sector is oh-so-vibrant-and-healthy seems much less
plausible. The tech sector depends on the Chinese internal market and that
just doesn't look good or healthy or competitive - especially not competitive.
Western companies are shut out but it's pretty clear native companies need
connection to stay healthy too.

------
dhruvkar
I lived/worked in Shenzhen 2011-2012, and even then, young companies, founded
by westerners and locals alike, had started targeting the domestic market.
Companies in the hardware/manufacturing space had realized there was no need
to spend time and energy pursuing western clients when there was such a large,
underserved demographic locally.

------
tormeh
It has struck me that the real key to American tech dominance is NASDAQ and
the American stock market in general. It values tech and especially young
companies a lot higher. In biotech, an IPO on NASDAQ will be valued at 2-3x
one on Euronext. Frankfurt is even worse, which is why even German biotech
firms don't IPO there.

The value that the American stock market sees in tech in turn drives
investment in startups that can expect a more lucrative exit.

Ever wonder why so many European tech companies are bought by American ones?
It's because any young European tech company will be valued higher as part of
an American one listed on NASDAQ than it will be when listed on its national
exchange, even with the conglomerate discount.

So much in the world depends on funding.

------
bwilli123
A better title would be, "The unspoken dread of Silicon Valley". Or else ,
"Yes they're coming for your job also". Possibly why this article has no
previous comments

------
seanmcdirmid
Spend 3 weeks in China, and maybe it is clear that it is, but spend 8 years in
China, and it is overwhelming clear that it is not.

> Yes, they clone where they can. But cloning is starting to reach its max —
> there are just not enough successful ideas to clone. In addition, clones
> often fail in the local market due to different consumer behavior and needs.

China is still fairly closed, startups here in Beijing are 99% focused on the
local market. Release a product with Facebook integration? Who even knows what
Facebook is, is it like WeChat? Even in surrounding countries in China's
sphere of influence that are just ramping up on the Internet now, like
Cambodia, Vietnam, and Myanmar, Facebook and YouTube rule, while Chinese
services are completely missing. Business models in China are oriented at
copying business model X that has shown to work outside of China, and adapting
it to the local market. Not because Chinese lack creative (believe me, they
have plenty!), but because the VCs see it as low hanging fruit, a more
pragmatic reasonable investment, especially since many of the big players are
locked out.

Perhaps the low hanging fruit has been picked, but it is hard to see startups
actually pivoting towards innovation, especially in the Beijing scene (maybe
Shenzhen?).

> In China, there is a company work culture at startups that's called 9/9/6\.
> It means that regular work hours for most employees are from 9 am to 9 pm,
> six days a week. If you thought Silicon Valley has intense work hours, think
> again. For founders and top executives, it's often 9/11/6.5. That's probably
> not very efficient and useful (who's good as a leader when they're always
> tired and don't know their kids?) but totally common.

This. A colleague recently transferred to a big e-commerce company in
Hangzhou. They expect a lot of face time, in the office 12 hours a day, 6 days
a week, but this doesn't correspond to productivity at all. It is very
ridiculous. It isn't about "hunger or drive", but simply an old-fashioned
throwback to the pre-00s when 6 day work weeks/12 hour days were expected from
everyone, regardless of whether they were productive or not.

> The recent generation of Chinese entrepreneurs is driven too much by money
> and financial success ("get rich fast").

A lot of people are in it for the money, they aren't really technologist.
Additionally, engineers who are decent run to and are pushed into management
roles way too quickly, given that (a) your success is judged by how many
people are working for you and (b) China really lacks good
leadership/management. This means that practicing engineers are mostly very
junior, which has its own problems.

> Finally, Chinese startups lack clean air.

San Francisco/Bay area is attractive because it is a good place to live, and
was initially attractive because it was cheap (garage startups in the valley).
Beijing has none of that...the housing bubble means even a small apartment
costs $1 million, the air is incredibly horrible, the traffic...maybe if
Beijing cleaned up its act, it could be an international draw, but that is a
long way off. Beijing also has a shockingly low expat population, something
like 40K in a city of 20 million.

> And, yes, China has massive issues, from freedom of speech (The Great
> Firewall) to competition that can get out of hand in terms of business
> practices.

I always find it funny when people come to visit and expect to use Facebook
and Google docs. Even VPNs are seriously under seige lately, with the internet
situation has gotten noticeably worse over the last two years, which I didn't
think was possible.

~~~
Hondor
It's not clear if many of these things are good or bad or if they're any worse
than silicon valley. I wouldn't count any of them as serious obstacles for
Beijing tech success.

Focused on the local market. I often run into SV companies that I'd like to
use as a customer but can't because they only serve America. Either because of
IP restrictions, money transfer, shipping, or they just haven't figured out
other countries yet.

Having people in it for the money is a sign that something's really happening.
It's not just hobbyists doing it for fun. I'm sure most SV startups are in it
for the money too. Nobody really things a pick-up laundry service for rich
people is altruistic or fun.

Young smart engineers getting management responsibilities. Sounds like every
startup with a 25 year old CEO.

Lack of good leadership? Maybe they're effectively doing flatter organization
structures. That's a cool trend in SV.

High cost of living. SV is famous for its wildly inflated house prices but
that's not stopping it.

Bad internet: Crippling if you're a foreigner and depend on foreign services.
Hardly noticeable for locals using Chinese services. American's equally have
no access to major Chinese internet services because of the language barrier
yet that isolation isn't stopping them.

Underhanded business practices. America has patent lawsuits which a big
company can use to stomp out pretty much any small software company they want.
Everyone's infringing somebody's patent but they mostly survive because
they're too small to matter.

Long hours and no time for family. SpaceX is famous for that and they're doing
pretty well.

~~~
argonaut
You're rebutting almost all of seanmcdirmid's arguments by essentially saying
"it's not a problem because some SV startups/companies do it too." But:

1) You don't become the next Silicon Valley through cargo-cult
entrepreneurship.

2) SV is successful _in spite_ of those things, not because of it, because SV
is starting from a position of strength and inertia. SV succeeds in spite of
its current problems because of the massive self-reinforcing feedback loop and
culture it developed decades ago when these things were not issues.

When SV was becoming a startup hub, most of what you and seanmcdirmid talked
about were not problems. Housing was cheap, software patent lawsuits were not
prevalent, many people were hobbyists, and so on.

~~~
Hondor
Well yes, I suppose you're right. I think I'm just a bit jaded seeing every
positive story about China filled with comments like "they'll fail because
they're not doing it like us". There are plenty of ways they're different and
most of them probably seem bad. Maybe most of them really are bad, but somehow
they're still doing pretty well. It must be a complicated combination of
factors. I don't think it's fair to predict failure just because some things
are worse. They do have much stronger protectionism provided by the
government, which is surely a massive advantage over American companies. They
also have a cheaper yet well educated workforce.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
This is how the Chinese press takes criticism: be insecure, claim it is an
instruction to do things like the west, be like the west, then handle the
criticism with some convenient what-about-isms. Everytime I go and read
chinadaily, it's the same technique over and over again, everyday.

At anyrate, the topic is inherently comparative (BJ is the only next SV!), and
no, it really isn't. Maybe you can just brush it off to "BJ isn't SV because
they aren't doing it like SV", but even then, al, the criticisms are valid
and, if improved, could make the city much better irrespective of any
comparison.

I guess then that is also it: they seem to be really good, the pollution
hasn't caused an economic implosion yet, people are somehow still alive, and
someone is willing to spend 1 million $s on that bland 90 sqm apartment. It's
like 2006, my friends are laughing at me because I'm saying real estate is
definitely in a bubble to the retort "if it's a bubble why hasn't it popped
yet?".

The companies are completely protected, yet China keeps wanting more access
into our markets, and we give it to them. Truth is, reform is all to China's
benefit, while the west benefits greatly from the messed up status quo where
China strives to be involved in global high value work but fails, and still
derives most of their income from low value production, basically destroying
their environment for our benefit.

------
flyrain
Unless there is no air pollution in Beijing. One of my colleague just moved
from Beijing to Bay Area because of the severe air pollution of Beijing.

------
turingbook
Native Beijing guy here. I'd like to answer any question about the city or the
startup ecosystem.

~~~
igravious
Is Beijing the biggest tech hub in China? Silicon Valley is really a long
corridor of tech between two cities, SF and San Jose. Is there something
similar in China? Would you say that China has multiple tech hot spots or is
Beijing it? Is Beijing more like New York in this respect? Do you see what I'm
driving at?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Beijing is more like the DC area, but even then the comparison is flimsy. As a
long time Beijing resident, I would say Shenzhen and Shanghai have more to
offer. Beijing's importance is mostly driven by the government.

~~~
turingbook
Beijing's importance is not driven mainly by the government (although open-
mindedness of the government definitely contributed to this), but by the
ecosystem: best universities (Peking University and Tsinghua University among
dozens of others) and best research institutions (the Chinese Academy of
Sciences and research centers of big companies), most big VCs, IT
communities/media, and most important, entrepreneurs.

In Beijing, if you have time, you can attend some interesting IT meetup
everyday. It is what you can not see in Shanghai or Shenzhen.

Talk to somebody in Shanghai or Shenzhen startup community. You will have the
insights.

------
lawyao
He needs to spend way more than 3 weeks in Beijing before jumping to
conclusions.

~~~
NnamdiJr
I'm curious, where exactly do you think his conclusions are wrong?

I lived and worked in Beijing for over 5yrs and I think his conclusions are in
general pretty accurate. Which is fairly impressive for spending only 3wks
there.

------
rememberlenny
I lived in Shanghai and worked in the startup community there from 2012-2013.
Im happy to answer any questions people might have. Very interesting space.
The government is taking a very active role at developing startup
"infrastructure", but it looks incredibly different from anything in the West.

~~~
epoxyhockey
_The government is taking a very active role at developing startup
"infrastructure"_

Could you elaborate on this statement? Are you referring to financing of
startups, or more? Thank you for the offer to answer questions!

~~~
50CNT
Investment into incubators, co-working spaces, government projects such as
tech parks, building office space, streamlining of company registration and
visa's, doing official visits (XiJingPing at Cheku, China's finance minister
at 3W Cafe), yeah, they're pretty involved in things.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I've heard about these places from colleagues. Every local government is
starting incubators, but many of them are like ghost malls. Which is funny,
because they are converting a ghost mall in Beijing Zhongguancun near my
office into an incubator space....

~~~
chw9e
I know someone who works at one of the government backed incubators in
Shanghai and he told me that a few of the companies they have are pretty
promising, but there are a lot of accepted companies who don't have much of a
shot. Startup solve a national problem of having too many college graduates
and not enough job opportunities, so some of the incubators just soak up some
of the extra graduates with the hope that maybe they could make something
useful with time. Of course, with continued government support the incubators
could improve and become more focused, but for now it seems at least a few are
a way to provide jobs to what may otherwise be unemployed college grads.

------
up_and_up
Can someone name one innovative or disruptive technology that has come out of
China in the last 20 years? Honest question.

I am admitting ignorance here. I have this assumption that many Chinese
companies just copy/refactor existing ideas and apply them to their protected
market.

~~~
contravert
Lower-priced but "lower-quality" is one of the quintessential properties of a
disruptive technology. You can probably apply this to all electronics
manufacturing, from smart phones to consumer drones. Could smart phones have
become so ubiquitous if each cost over $1000 to buy?

------
jgalt212
I know this may sound flip, but as far as innovation goes the Chinese* have
not invented anything since gunpowder. Of course SV, is much more than just
innovation: it's access to financing and technical and sales talent. Along
these dimensions, Beijing may represent a competitive threat.

*only those based in China. Chinese people freed from strictures of autocracy, colonialism, communism, and kleptocracy have made great innovations.

------
Supi-lee
I am pretty sure India would be building its own devices, OSes , search
engines, social networks etc if the govt gets more protectionist. There is no
reason this can't happen overnight.

It has an endless supply of cheap labor and high end talent.

It (protectionism) has worked well for them in the auto, pharma, telecom
sectors where the local companies are market leaders despite serious
competition from the west.

~~~
bayesian_horse
Labor in China isn't really that cheap and limitless any more. And the sheer
number of university graduates to select from slightly distorts the overall
quality of education in China.

------
dude3
Dude the air was clear the day you were wearing masks. Creadabilty lost.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Yesterday the air quality was yellow (i.e. Clean air), but I still ran into an
American Chinese girl wearing a face mask asking for directions. Weird....

------
fighting
Lack of clean air to breathe and rampant corruption and authoritarianism seem
not very conducive to a successful startup culture. There is a huge churn of
chinese money trying to find places to go and get a good roi. It is not clear
that this will last though.

Also, I find it unlikely that without a free/open software ecosystem like
linux or bsd they will get very far. Building a startup culture on a general
computing foundation of massively pirated windows os is just not going to
work.

~~~
50CNT
I've been proselytizing linux over here. Ubuntu Kylin is pretty cool to set up
for people, but the wifi cards on a lot of laptops don't take too well to it.

~~~
bx_
Why Kylin and not Xubuntu or Lubuntu?

~~~
50CNT
Well, the OS I'm running is Ubuntu, and Kylin is "Ubuntu for China", with
fcitx set up for Chinese already, and a separate Software Center that has a
delightful page that shows Linux alternatives for Windows software. Haven't
quite gotten around to playing with other linux distros to be honest.

~~~
bx_
Interesting. The Chinese devs I work with hate Kylin (probably because it's
approved by the Party) and seem to really prefer other Chinese-created
variants, particularly Lubuntu and Xubuntu. I've got no experience with Kylin,
so it's interesting to hear these points.

