
Start-ups: Would you take money from China?  $1.2 trillion in cash - gyro_robo

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gyro_robo
As reported by CNN, China is planning to launch the world's largest investment
fund. Sergey Brin said kowtowing to China's censorship demands was a mistake.
Yahoo was sued in the U.S. when they turned over the identity of a political
dissident to the Chinese government, for posts he had made on a Yahoo group.
China has an abominable human rights record and virtually no worker rights or
environmental controls. No freedom of speech.

Would you accept an investment you knew was from this investment fund?

<http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/05/14/100024842/index.htm?section=money_topstories>

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pg
It doesn't matter; a fund like this is not likely to be investing in startups.
Only a small fraction of investment funds are VC funds.

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gyro_robo
A trillion dollars can trickle down into quite a few crevices.

I think it's a given that China will want to invest in technology, including
start-ups of many sorts. They might dispatch a roving horde of state-appointed
VCs to tip the scale. With that kind of money, all bets are off.

They might also toss some billions into existing VC funds, so it expands the
pool.

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rms
I love China's capitalism/communism hybrid. One of the ways they manage to
pull it off by having free companies that are part owned by the Chinese
government. Did you know that Lenovo is 35% owned by the Chinese government?
It was originally a spin-off of a government think tank, so they still own
it...

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Prrometheus
The thing that works about the Chinese hybrid is that it's a step more
capitalist than what they had before. They could repeat that step and have
more, and broader, success still.

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rms
The Chinese government (and people) look towards Russia's economic collapse as
what happens when you move towards democracy too quickly. They are getting
there but it is a slow process. China could not stay united without an
authoritarian government. The Communist party will always rule China but maybe
in 30 or 40 years the president will resign and announce his successor will be
elected.

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Prrometheus
What does democracy have to do with capitalism? China (and hell, Dubai) is
proof that there is no necessary link.

