
Silicon Valley’s Culture, Not Its Companies, Dominates in China - JumpCrisscross
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/04/technology/china-silicon-valley-culture.html
======
ChuckMcM
For a long time if you asked your Android phone or Google Maps to take you to
Silicon Valley California it would take you to my house. I had nothing to do
with that, it was presumably the result of some geometric mean calculation of
the borders of Silicon Valley where the push pin in the 'middle' happened to
land on my back deck where we cook the occasional steak or burger.

It did lead to people driving down our street, stopping, and taking a picture
of my house and the houses around it. And asking, usually in broken English,
where Silicon Valley actually was. When I answered I would suggest they put in
the names of famous places in Silicon Valley. For a while I pondered a side
business selling Chinese language maps to the valley from the front yard.

Eventually Google recalculated, or they realized it was annoying their maps
users to land in what seemed like a random neighborhood, and moved where the
push pin hits to an intersection of two fairly busy boulevards. Thus taking
pictures and asking for information has become significantly more risky for
map users, and our little cul-de-saq has less clueless traffic as a result.

It also crushed my dreams of selling my house to some billionaire who wanted
to live right in the center of Silicon Valley and was willing to pay over
market for the privilege to do so :-)

~~~
derickr
See also: [http://fusion.net/story/287592/internet-mapping-glitch-
kansa...](http://fusion.net/story/287592/internet-mapping-glitch-kansas-farm/)

------
Animats
The tour groups are funny. Hacker Dojo used to get them, back when they were
more open to visitors. Silicon Valley tours are kind of lame. The high spots
seem to be a few museums (Intel, the Computer Museum) and Stanford. Driving by
Google HQ, Intel HQ, and Facebook HQ is usually included but not very
interesting.

Hacker Dojo used to get some very attractive Asian women who were very
interested in the details of what people were working on, and understood the
technology. They had business cards with vague titles. They disappeared,
presumably after the Second Department of the PLA had found out whatever they
wanted to know.

~~~
stcredzero
_They disappeared, presumably after the Second Department of the PLA had found
out whatever they wanted to know._

Or determined that Hacker Dojo had very little to offer in the way of valuable
intelligence. (In the geopolitical, not IQ sense.)

------
gumby
Looks more like they are copying the syntax (surface structure) of the valley
rather than the substance. Which is a problem in the Valley too (e.g. I've
heard people worry that they haven't pivoted "yet" since their first plan is
working out.)

~~~
herval
What is "the substance" of the Valley?

(legitimately curious, please don't take my question wrong)

~~~
gumby
nradov nailed some of it -- cultural stuff which is hard to replicate. In
addition there's a dense web of lawyers who understand startups (which are
different from established companies and different from, say, a retail store
or simple service business), landlords who can deal with renting to a tenant
that might not be around in a year, lots of possible employees who are
comfortable with something interesting but quite risky and who bring their own
experiences and networks into the effort, and in general a really large
tolerance for risk.

There's a lot of visible froth about the valley available in the press, most
of which is useless bull. Folks are starting companies, getting funded, and
shipping product to customers without bothering to make a single press mention
or crunchbase entry. Many of them working with folks they've worked with
before. None of that culture is visible from outside the valley.

------
stcredzero
The practice of some Chinese companies with IP has been compared to the loose
attitude towards patents and copyright in the early USA. I wonder if there's
another analogy with the Silicon Valley ethos and the Enlightenment that
inspired the American revolution? When I first got to the Bay Area four years
ago, I met a young Chinese woman who told me that there was an embedded nation
within China of about 200 million educated people who aspired to the same kind
of semi-utopian worldview that seems to float around Mountain View. She told
me that in some ways, they feel they are more like people here than some of
their countrymen.

EDIT: s/worldview/world/

~~~
fullshark
Do you mean area surrounding Mountain view is a semi-utopian society or the
people surrounding Mountain View have similar ideas? Cause if area surrounding
Mt View is a semi-Utopia...

~~~
stcredzero
Whoops. I typed "world" when I mean to type "worldview." I would agree that
the world around Mountain View isn't utopian!

------
johansch
In my experience: Yes, they are emulating at least parts of SV startup
culture. Except that they hire hundreds of people where an American or
European company would hire 20-30 people.

My guess is that the thinking is that they'll be able to do it even quicker
than their western counterparts merely by numbers.

A couple of years ago I worked with a team of about 35 in Europe that made a
global product that had 250M global monthly users.

Meanwhile in China, the team that had been set up to adapt our product there
ended up being about 150 people. 90% of what they published there was made by
those 35 people in Europe.

~~~
jackcosgrove
How much of a that is poor or inexperienced management hiring too many or not
reading the Mythical Man Month, and how much of that is cultural or political
pressure to hire people even if their jobs are make-work? I would be surprised
if Chinese managers were not aware of these inefficiencies, but justified them
as part of a social contract.

~~~
johansch
They had very smart but quite junior engineering management.

There was a lot of political pressure from investors etc to match the effort
of a local competitor - who had sort-of (naturally they missed all the good,
non-obvious bits) cloned our product with a staggering staff of 600 people.

So probably a little bit of both.

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sjbase
It's refreshing to see a mainstream news article with a neutral-ish tone on
China. Usually any mention of China - regardless of political bias - is
wrapped in fear or degradation. Kudos to NYT.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
> Usually any mention of China - regardless of political bias - is wrapped in
> fear or degradation.

Most NYT articles on China have very neutral tones. It is only on
interpretation of the reader is subtle bias detected, usually as a defensive
reaction. Or do you have a good example in mind?

------
komali2
This can only be good. Despite some of the silliness of copying only surface
level things and massive busses of Chinese tourists, any challenge to the
status quo in China and Taiwan is refreshing. I'm no expert, from my layman
experience working in both countries, I feel there is an opportunity to
dominate industries in both countries by adopting a different work culture.

For example, a design firm I worked at in Taiwan _absolutely_ had the margins
to pay its employees better than it was, but non-technical junior employees
were making ~30,000TWD (~1kUSD)/month with 60-70 hour workweeks. The designers
made about 45K TWD, and the engineers about 60K TWD, each successively working
more sane hours, but still much more than their American and European
counterparts. Benefits were laughable. Not only were the hours absurd, they
were inefficient - people would stay in the office because the boss hadn't
left yet, the boss hadn't left yet because bosses should stay late. Meetings
were comically disorganized and useless. Lunches were considered "unpaid"
time. Holidays on Friday meant you had to come in on Sunday to make up for
"lost time." Inefficiency combined, painfully, with a boss's idea that more
hours = more work, and everyone suffered for it.

Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but I hope to one day move back to Taiwan,
pop open a company in design or hardware, pay 120kTWD/mo to my staff (that's
44k/year USD), focus on efficiency, employee retention, develop, and benefits,
and start poaching the top talent in the country. Efficient practices would
mean I'd be paying less people more and getting more bang for my buck as my
employees would be highly talented and still getting as much done as twice as
many subpar, overworked employees. It may not even cost me more, but if it
does, not having a bunch of old and useless middle and upper management
sucking up profit off the margins, and not having to funnel money to the
pockets of Mainlander investors would more than make up the difference. I've
developed the fantasy to the point that I've thought perhaps I'd catch media
flak over my "stupid" high wages, and the debates I'd cause would only
generate more interest and attention in my company and product - something
like Stratton Oakmont or Gordon Ramsay's first restaurant, where he kicked out
a food critic he didn't like and exploded in popularity for it.

I mean, I quit my crappy design job there to work 16/hour weeks as an English
Teacher and pulled in 60k TWD/mo for my efforts. It's totally fucked in
Taiwan.

EDIT: I'd like to add that when it comes to health benefits, they aren't
really a _thing_ in Taiwan because the cost of healthcare is shockingly cheap
- and that's _before_ you get national healthcare insurance, which is standard
for employment. I mean benefits more in the sense of sane lunch breaks,
vacation and personal time, options/stocks, bonuses, continued education,
commuter benefits, etc. These essentially don't exist in Taiwan.

~~~
bdavisx
Not to argue with the rest of the work insanity in your comment, but perhaps
teachers should be paid as much or more than software developers - they might
just have that part right.

~~~
komali2
I am more behind that idea that I can express!! In the USA especially, the
amount of money teachers make should be criminal. The rest of the world should
be laughing in our faces every day at how stupidly we treat our education
system. I am genuinely surprised we even _have_ teachers at this point, and I
come from a family of teachers.

That being said, I was a white, foreigner, part-time English teacher in
Taiwan. I had an actual Taiwanese teacher that worked full time with me
teaching the classes that made less per month. I had Chinese English-teacher
friends that made less than me. Foreign teachers typically teach in
"buxibans," or "cram-schools," a remarkably profitable industry that soaks up
_absurd_ tuitions from the Taiwanese upper class parents so that their kids
can be exposed to a native English speaker for a couple hours every day.

Chinese culture in general does have a much higher respect for Teachers, but
you'll still make more money as an engineer.

EDIT: I rant a lot. My actual reply should be - technically engineers _do_
make more than teachers in taiwan, just not more than foreign English
teachers. Foreign engineers pull the same salaries they would back home - i.e.
like 500% more than their Taiwanese counterparts.

------
johnwheeler
It's interesting China has analogues for tech that emerged in the West and
block services like Facebook and Google. Are there any other major industries
that have evolved like at? What was the outcome?

~~~
adrianN
Railway technology was developed independently in many countries. The result
is that now that we want to connect the different rail networks we have
trouble with incompatible systems. Trains that cross borders need to be
equipped with a superset of all the safety equipment used in the different
countries. Even the track gauges differ sometimes.

~~~
vram22
>Even the track gauges differ sometimes.

Do you mean minor but incompatible gauge differences?

In India there are two main gauges (last I checked, which was a while ago),
broad and meter gauge, but there is a lot of difference in the sizes of the
two (bigger long-distance trains run on broad gauge and local smaller ones,
like for remote or hilly areas, run on meter gauge). Wondering if you mean
minor differences between gauges in adjacent countries, like 5.4 feet vs. 5.7
feet, (made-up numbers) which is only 3 inches, but would still make them
incompatible.

~~~
detaro
Most common "full gauge" in central Europe is 1435 mm, some eastern-european
countries (including Russia) use 1520 mm -> 85mm ~ 3.3 inches difference.
Spain has 1668 mm as well -> 232 mm ~ 9 inch difference.

Except the obvious "just move all cargo to a different train" solutions to the
issue include swappable bogies and wheels that can be moved on the axle in a
special device.

EDIT: wikipedia has a color-coded map!
[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rail_gauge_world.png](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rail_gauge_world.png)

------
LiweiZ
Fashion for this decade.

------
raverbashing
I don't buy it

Do their culture allow for experimentation? For disregard of hierarchy?

You need a license for having a website in China. Very innovation-friendly /s

~~~
seanmcdirmid
China has many laws but many of those laws are ignored and unenforced. China
doesn't have "rule of law" so much as it has "rule of context", which makes it
difficult to judge Chinese businesses using western standards. It makes it
especially difficult for western companies to operate in China, as they really
can't follow the same "gray" path as their Chinese competitors.

~~~
stcredzero
_China has many laws but many of those laws are ignored and unenforced._

The same goes for the US.

 _China doesn 't have "rule of law" so much as it has "rule of context"_

The same goes for the US, just to a different degree in different contexts.

~~~
dageshi
You can say that, but I don't see many wealthy Americans parking their money
made in the US in China, whereas there are a multitude of Chinese citizens
investing in the North America/Europe as a means of safeguarding their
capital.

I think that's somewhat telling in terms of which legal system is trusted
more.

~~~
awongh
That's only kind of true. They park it in other places besides China:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/magazine/how-to-
hide-400-m...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/magazine/how-to-
hide-400-million.html)

~~~
dageshi
Granted... but they're not parking it in China are they? So in terms of places
you put your money being sure you'll get it back, China is not very high on
that list for a number of reasons.

~~~
smallnamespace
Asset prices in China are grossly inflated because of 1) capital controls and
2) China has been running large trade surpluses for about 2 decades.

It would make sound financial sense for any rich person to move as many assets
as they could out of the country, regardless of whether the nation's
institutions were trustworthy.

------
muzz
I submitted the same thing 12 hours prior. Not sure why it wasn't de-duped?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13103340](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13103340)

------
puppetmaster3
If they are emulating SV culture: they are screwed. Good.

~~~
haukilup
Curious: What makes you believe this? What is the basis of this comment?

~~~
analognoise
Techno-narcisissim with a dash of oblivious to reality.

The valley is a very profitable bubble that thinks it powers the world - but
it's still a bubble.

~~~
BlackjackCF
Doesn't help that China's already in a giant bubble. It's gonna have to pop.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I believe you two are talking about different kinds of bubbles.

~~~
TeMPOraL
One is nuclear-armed, the other wields pictures of cute kittens!

~~~
echevil
no, one wields pictures of cute kittens, the other loves huskies

------
pdog
China has surpassed Silicon Valley when it comes to the original vision of
self-sufficient entrepreneurship and freedom from stifling bureaucracy.

Mark my words. Beijing is the biggest competitor to Silicon Valley in the
coming years.

~~~
brilliantcode
> Mark my words. Beijing is the biggest competitor to Silicon Valley in the
> coming years.

Been hearing that since 2009. Any day now. I'll believe it when Peter Thiel
moves to Beijing along with other Silicon Valley VC.

Obviously that isn't happening and why, the richest Chinese citizens are
moving to SV permanently. Why would they permanently move all of their assets
if they believed in China?

There's an important distinction between imitation and innovation. What
Chinese product have reached the scale American grown SV companies _outside of
their own borders_ where they won't have the same level of protection from
their own government?

I can't think of any. I don't know any white people using WeChat or Baidu
_because FB messenger and Google isn 't good enough_.

It doesn't help the rest of the world speaks English while Chinese pumpers
insist that eventually everyone will speak and write Mandarin, which is
syntaxtually and linguistically a lot harder to learn and use. I'm certain
Japanese thought the whole world would eventually learn Japanese... _in 1989_.

It's hard to have an objective debate when the answer to everything is
_because China is big_.

~~~
nabla9
>Obviously that isn't happening

Take a look at Kleiner Perkins. KPCB has offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco,
Beijing and Shanghai [http://www.kpcb.com/china](http://www.kpcb.com/china)

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/ceibs/2014/09/19/chinas-many-
typ...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/ceibs/2014/09/19/chinas-many-types-of-
innovation/#66067ad96fd0)

~~~
brilliantcode
that's just one _branch_ you listed. Obviously, KPCB isn't relocating
permanently to Beijing or Shanghai.

Clearly, KPCB's millionaire VC's aren't buying a high rise penthouse above
Beijing's cloud of pollution, and neither are China's rich, and neither are
their offsprings attending Beijing university but prestigous US institutions.

