
Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel in China [video] - fitzwatermellow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIj8rRBknAs
======
kmonad
I am underwhelmed by this presentation. It feels pretty shallow and
spontaneous. The advice on how to spot a promising team seemed fair, whereas
the run down of Japan's economy was cringy to say the least. Question #1 was
simply great though:

    
    
        ...you cannot go and just copy stuff."
    
        Q: Are you not just copying LinkedIn here in China?

~~~
wozniacki
Perhaps this will quench your thirst, A Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen debate
from a different forum, the Milken Institute.[1] Some profound insights in
there.

[1] Copy of In Tech We Trust? A Debate with Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtZbWnIALeE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtZbWnIALeE)

edit: Appended

~~~
cma
Over and over Thiel cites wages, mean wages, stagnating during the period
while Andreessen counters with GDP growing. Both are true. Women entered the
broader workforce en masse. Wages were down because of oversupply of labor,
nearly doubling the workforce without doubling consumption.

Thiel really comes off dishonest, trying to make a big deal that it wasn't
just median wages, mean wages stagnated--as if that proves it wasn't just a
change in wealth distribution.

In actuality, there was a change in wealth distribution and median wages fell
and mean wages stagnated, _and_ the economy still grew because "wages" ignores
people who aren't employed (or seeking employment?), and a hell of a lot more
people became employeed during the time period. Really one of the most
frustrating talks I've watched.

------
contingencies
Ironically being on Youtube this is a pain in the ass to view from here in
China. Could someone issue a summary?

~~~
myth_buster
[https://www.techinasia.com/thiel-hoffman-china-
talk/](https://www.techinasia.com/thiel-hoffman-china-talk/)

~~~
contingencies
The actually China-focused portion seems fairly small and self-evident.

~~~
myth_buster
I think the title of the post gives an impression that the talk is about China
but it's infact about entrepreneurism.

------
myth_buster

      Does China need to do anything new or is it good enough for
      china to simply copy things that have already worked. ~ Thiel
    

Wow, that was quite blunt and critical! I think what defines individuals and
societies is how they react to it.

~~~
gozo
If you're late to the party of course you are going to "copy" others, that's
what all the big SV companies did to get started. They go on and on about how
innovative they are, but in reality the secret of SV is rather
commercialization. Which is exactly what China is doing. Chinese companies are
already beating SV on some fronts, like drones. He's just upset because China
is challenging the exceptionalism of SV.

~~~
dang
This comment sounds interesting at first, but on closer reading just makes
grand claims without backing them up.

The tell is at the end: "He's just upset because China is challenging the
exceptionalism of SV." You couldn't possibly know such a thing, therefore
you've made it up, and that boomerangs on the rest of the comment as wishful
thinking. That's not what we're looking for in HN comments. We want solid
critique, not cheap shots.

~~~
gozo
It's an opinion. It would be very tedious to preface everything with "I
think". It seem very common here to ask that everything be backed up if you
don't agree with it, but don't ask the same thing if you do. Instead of
dismissing comments, it would be better to ask for clarification or state why
you are disagreeing. Especially as a moderator.

The accusation that my comment is "made up" is unfair, not only because it's
only as made up as any opinion, but because you make that conclusion based on
your disagreement with one of my statements. That is a fallacy if anything.

My opinions both about copying and commercialization in SV is well founded on
texts like "A General History of Silicon Valley" [0]. That China is doing the
same thing SV did in the beginning, is based on my experiences in Shenzhen.
The example of drones is based on the great interests in drones in the US[1]
and the success of DJI[2]. My last opinion is based on conversations I've had
with people from SV, who quite often judge China by very different standards
than the US. "ageek123" made a fair argument opposing this.

If there's anything that is frustrating on HN, it's not accepting that people
have a difference of opinion, background and experiences. Things aren't given
the benefit of the doubt to the extent they should, but instead downvoted,
flagged, spammed into "controversy" or moderated. This creates an environment
where discussions end up being about the "lowest common denominator".

I also find it somewhat strange that after more than five years on HN with
essentially no interaction with moderation, a couple of days after I e-mail
about moderation you make this comment which seems more "aggressive" than
usual. Instead of things like "makes grand claims without backing them up",
"couldn't possibly know such a thing", "you've made it up", "wishful
thinking", "not what we're looking for" and "cheap shots" how about you either
disagree[3] if you disagree or do moderation on point if you're doing
moderation. "Please substantiate your critic so people have a chance to reply
on something other than opinion" seems quite apt. Not that this is a common
standard on HN, but at least it would be making HN better.

[0]
[http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/sv.html](http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/sv.html)
[1] [https://hackaday.com/tag/drone/](https://hackaday.com/tag/drone/) [2]
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2015/05/06/dji-drones-
fr...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2015/05/06/dji-drones-frank-wang-
china-billionaire/) [3]
[http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html)

~~~
dang
Opinions aren't a problem. The problem is the combination of dismissiveness
("go on and on", "he's just upset because") and lack of substance. Perhaps you
have a solid case that SV's early history is analogous to China today. That
would be very interesting [1]. And there's nothing wrong with just
summarizing; not every comment needs to be a treatise. But you expressed it in
the form of what pg calls a middlebrow dismissal. That's what I objected to,
not your opinions.

Taking potshots is easy and feels good, but degrades the discourse. This is a
tragedy of the commons and we all need to consciously work on reducing it, not
least me. This would also be excellent for the diversity of opinion you
mention, so I don't see any conflict here.

I didn't mean to pick on you personally. I'm not really following your more
general complaints about HN, but if you want to explain them further you're
welcome to email us.

[1] Out of curiosity, I took a look at the SV history website you linked to.
It gives rather an opposite impression to what you say. For example it says
that SV was involved in Farnsworth's invention of television in 1927 (I found
that quite surprising), that Stanford was a "major center of innovation" in
the 1930s, and so on.

------
seiji
paraphrased: "If you hear someone describe their startup with trendy buzzwords
(big data, SaaS, social, mobile, cloud), you should think _fraud_ and run
away. The fact you're using trendy buzzwords is an indication you aren't
differentiated. You're a buzzword, so many other people are doing the exact
same thing. Why are you special? Stop coping others."

 _If_ China were to start routinely cranking out highly valuable startups, you
know reporters would call them Dragoncorns or Unidragons or something.

~~~
rdl
Well, there are a lot of highly valuable tech companies coming out of China.
They're just not doing new things (0-1), but copying (mostly US) companies,
often making them better.

Baidu, Alibaba, WeChat, Qihoo360, etc.

Although, tbh, Alibaba is pretty unique, and a lot of the video companies in
China were dramatically different from stuff I've seen elsewhere. I think
"China just copies" is overblown.

The China cheap-hw-production ecosystem is kind of a novel thing just by
virtue of scale, too.

~~~
Garthex
I was under the impression that WeChat falls under the 0-1 at this point.[0]
Although to be fair, marketplaces have existed for centuries. I suppose
sometimes it's hard to tell where the line is. They're certainly innovating
though.

[0] [http://a16z.com/2015/08/06/wechat-china-mobile-
first/](http://a16z.com/2015/08/06/wechat-china-mobile-first/)

------
dkarapetyan
I've been wondering more and more lately why tall, rich, white guys in suits
have so many "insights". What exactly has Thiel done lately that warrants
treating his opinions any differently than some other tall, rich, white guy's
opinion? Other than just investing in companies is he really building
anything?

Given that he is so far removed from the actual making of things maybe we
should stop paying so much attention to him and folks like him in general.
Having money and investing is nice but as far as insight is concerned I'd look
elsewhere. In fact many of the points he makes just sound hollow, e.g.
Microsoft Windows is the last OS, Facebook is the last social network, Google
is the last search engine, Japan is not innovating, being contrarian is a
sound business strategy, short term iteration + long term vision is a good
thing, etc.

~~~
unfunco
And the same goes for Hoffman. He's partly responsible for LinkedIn, which is
in my opinion one of the most disgusting (in terms of their data collection,
creepy analysis, and overall recruiter-heavy membership) companies that has
ever been created, I don't understand why anyone (apart from the type of
people who join get-rich-quick pyramid schemes in Las Vegas conference rooms)
would want his advice.

~~~
dkarapetyan
Yup, linkedin from the perspective of a software developer is a pretty
horrendous product both in terms of usability (dark UI patterns) and recruiter
spam. I'm sure there is some value in having an account but I was not able to
find any value.

I think most recruiters rightfully assume that if you have an account then you
secretly want to be contacted and I'm sure most programmers feel like
rockstars for being wanted so badly and being spammed with "opportunities". I
closed my account a while ago for philosophical and practical reasons. I have
yet to find a good professional network for programmers but given the state of
the programmer job market I'm not feeling left out for not having a linkedin
account.

------
lvs
I'm just going to make it a policy to flag pointless posts like this. They add
nothing to the discussion here. This is not "content" by any reasonable
definition.

~~~
dang
That is a sure way to lose your flagging privileges. Assuming we're talking
about the same video, it's plain as day that this is relevant content for HN.
You may not like it; that's not an acceptable reason to flag it. Flagging is
for stories that don't belong on HN in the first place.

I'll give you that the title "The Secret of Unicorns" was asinine, but that's
just the usual linkbait and fixing it just the usual moderation.

~~~
lvs
No, it's my opinion that it doesn't add any intellectual content of any kind.
You can disagree, of course, but flagging is supposed to be for that purpose,
just as you say. You think your opinion is plain as day, but others disagree
and very few upvoted this. Yes, the title is what set me off initially, but
you seriously need to put effort into ensuring the discourse here does not
degrade into a spiral of fluff. Just read the other comments in the thread. I
wasn't alone.

