
Tech Innovation in China - denzil_correa
http://www.wired.com/2015/12/tech-innovation-in-china/
======
Cookingboy
Two huge advantages the Chinese have over Silicon Valley when it comes to
innovation: Cost and Market Size.

Cost of innovation is at an all time low and is getting lower in China. VC
money is increasing, more talented engineers are on the market and more of
them are willing to try start ups. You wouldn't be renting office in San
Francisco (a 2nd rate city with 1st rate cost) competing for a small talent
pool against tech giants, and hiring/firing employees cost much less. You can
hire a great software engineer (great as in they'd have no problem passing
Google/Facebook interviews and successfully work there) for about $40k
USD/year.

Market size is also tremendous in China. I remember talking to a Chinese
engineer and they told me when they turn on A/B test for features, the small
percentage of users that gets hit with the test are numbered in the 10s of
millions. When you roll out a startup the adoption numbers are staggering, as
in even with low marketing effort it's not difficult to see over 100,000
downloads within a week. Silicon Valley started the "fail fast, try again"
mentality, and the Chinese has been perfecting it through practice.

One last thing that impressed me: The no-bs attitudes and pure capability of
these young entrepreneurs. Few of them are worried about generating PR through
the Chinese equivalent of TechCrunch, or super worried about upkeeping a
pretentious blog with periodic entries of psuedo-philosophical opinion pieces.
Many of these guys were super hard working students their entire life, and
passed the absurdly rigorous Chinese University Entrance Exam and got into
elite schools, and now believe in the hardworking + intelligence > anything
else formula.

We are going to see a lot interesting things from the Chinese tech scene in
the coming decade.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
The property market in China is extremely manipulated, so you could be asked
to pay SF rates in Beijing or Shanghai for space that isn't obviously worth
it. And if you want to go after the international market, you can't really do
that here: startups focusing on China work great, startups focusing on the
rest of the world fail compared to SF given a huge lack of perspective that
comes with a closed internet (e.g. what the heck is Facebook? Is that like
WeChat?).

Talent...if you can find it, great! But the discount is like 70%, not 50%,
that 40K USD/Year (20k RMB/month) dev is going to be junior/not that
experienced in a city like Beijing.

I haven't run into these young entrepreneurs yet, though I can totally believe
they exist! However, in the bigger companies, there is still deference to
authority, lots of face exercises, pretension blogs, and so on. Things are
totally moving here, but they are only posed to take over China; they aren't
in competition with the valley.

~~~
dangrover
Come to Guangzhou! Rents are sub-Boston/Portland/Denver, and the air quality,
weather, and food are better! Plus easy access to Shenzhen and HK.

Agree on the perspective issue. Even crappy US tech companies know more about
China than Chinese companies will ever know about the US. I mean, look in the
hallways of any US tech company and there are more people from abroad than in
a Chinese tech company. People here have a pretty sheltered, ethno-centric
outlook which is only an obstacle if you really are trying to launch something
international.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
The market is incredibly manipulated. You can find reasonable rents in Beijing
and Shanghai if you look hard enough. But it's this lack of transparency that
works against non-local companies wanting to do stuff in China.

------
thecosas
Another neat story from NPR on a specific piece of hardware tech from China:
the hoverboard.

[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/11/27/457404184/episo...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/11/27/457404184/episode-666-the-
hoverboard-life)

~~~
mc32
It's my recollection when they went down the rabbit hole on this one,
ultimately it was determined the most likely source was from a person of
Chinese descent in Portland Oregon who started a Kickstarter for something
very similar to a hoverboard and thus the direct precursor?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
From [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-balancing_two-
wheeled_boa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-balancing_two-
wheeled_board)

> Shane Chen, an American businessman who founded the company, Inventist, has
> made an early claim of inventing the device.[5] Chen started a Kickstarter
> for Hovertrax, in 2013. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Chen
> voiced his frustrations regarding patent rights in China. He claimed that
> Solowheel, his self-balancing unicycle, was copied by other manufacturers
> after it appeared in Happy Show, a Chinese television show.[6][7] In August
> 2015, Mark Cuban announced plans to purchase the Hovertrax patents from
> Chen.[7] Also in 2015, the American company, Inventist, claimed to hold
> patents and announced its intent to pursue litigation.[8]

> The fast pace of the Chinese manufacturing industry makes it difficult to
> pinpoint which Chinese company was the first to manufacture the device.
> According to Wired's David Pierce, the device was likely invented as the
> "Smart S1" by Chic Robotics, a Chinese technology company founded in 2013,
> and associated with Zhejiang University.[4] The Smart S1 was released in
> August 2014, and found success at the 2014 Canton Fair trade show. The
> company patented technologies associated with the board, but due to China's
> lax patent enforcement, the product was copied by several Chinese
> manufacturers.[4]

> As of June 2015, the board is made by several knockoff manufacturers in
> China – a pattern common in the country's technology and industrial
> sector.[9] The copies vary greatly in price and quality, and may exhibit
> various defects.[4] Most of the boards are produced in mass manufacturing
> factories in Shenzhen, China.[10] Some newer boards have incorporated
> Bluetooth speakers, allowing the driver to play music.[11]

~~~
mc32
That's an interesting rundown. It's sad the guy got essentially fleeced of his
inventions, but in a karma like fashion the outfit that would have benefitted
in turn got fleeced.

I'm going to guess Kickstarter is a decent place to mine for ideas in a place
with lots of line manufacturing plants and a loose regime with regard to
patents.

I'm wondering if Kickstarter isn't firewalled.

------
inesf
Lower opportunity cost makes Chinese young adults more willing to try new
things, including starting their own business. In developed countries,
salaries are much higher. In China, university graduates only get RMB3000/
month(less than USD500). They have less concern on what they have to give up.
This makes Chinese more willing to gamble on new opportunities.

