

Why there aren't many innovators in China - joezhou
http://joezhou.posterous.com/startups-in-china-why-there-arent-many-innova

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cleaver
China has long culture of believing in studying hard and becoming part of the
system as the route to success. (The imperial exam system.) Although it no
longer formerly exists, there are analogues and the influence is still there.
It is ingrained from birth that you study hard, get into the right university
then reap the rewards. Beijing locals I talked to were puzzled by the idea
that government workers in the west could get in trouble by accepting gifts
and favours. In China, that's the main reason you would follow that career
path.

This doesn't lead to a very entrepreneurial culture, although there are many
who will still try to start their own business. Then you start to hit the
barriers discussed in the article. Another barrier you can hit is that if you
start to become successful, the government will appoint a party member to your
management. Further, if you are in certain fields, the government erects tax
and regulatory obstacles that will create an advantage for state-owned
enterprises.

It's unfortunate... there are enough in the under-35 age group, who might
actually break out of the old culture and innovate. They face a lot of
obstacles and that will be bad for China's long-term outlook.

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Suan
I'm a Chinese Malaysian and pretty familiar with Chinese culture and their
ways. For those of you who might be skeptical, I think this article quite
accurate.

I've tried hard to think of recent Chinese tech inventions that are truly new,
and not a ripoff of a popular existing product, and could never come up with
any, until just recently. I bought one of these "Air Fly Mouse"
<http://www.airflymouse.com/> and it works as advertised! Here's to more
innovation coming from China.

~~~
maeon3
Did the guy who brought the Air Fly Mouse to market get fantastically rich and
have the entrepreneurial spirit to turn those winnings toward a more ambitious
goal, like how Elon Musk did with paypal -> SpaceX? Something is blocking the
furnace of innovation over there.

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dublinclontarf
Sorry, can't read the article, blocked here(China). There is plenty of money
here, especially if you've got a good idea and whats needed, no shortage.

But China in general doesn't do different or new or innovative. They do better
at the same thing, where better usually means cheaper, but not always. If they
can't compete in that way, then they just try to get the government to crush
any non-Chinese competition.

~~~
dimmuborgir
I'd like to know if Posterous itself is blocked in China or just the blog
page?

~~~
joezhou
Posterous. I had to use VPN to post. Seriously

~~~
buu700
If you don't mind my asking, why choose to post this specifically where it
will be blocked for others in China?

~~~
IsaacL
It's not blocked everywhere in China, I can access it fine here (Chengdu).

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jenhsun
That's why I was pitching so many times to my friends. Why not go to Taiwan
first? Small island for testing the foreseeable mainland market, initial
understanding the culture and language, and enjoy freedom of speech and better
human right. Mostly OEM industry HQ are all right here. All you have to
worried are air pollution, the crazy traffic, and the heat, humidity tropical
weather. There is a site called techorange dot com blog talked about China and
Taiwan startup. You can have a look.

~~~
donw
As a Westerner, I'll also put in a vote for Taiwan -- great people, big pool
of talent, but overall a western-style business environment.

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colintan
This was the most damning line in the article and points to a genuine
breakdown in the ecosystem, or lack thereof:

"Actually a more common practice is that VCs would have take one of the
pitches he really likes and just hire a bunch of engineers."

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dasil003
Where's the incentive to innovate if you have a huge market with tremendous
cultural barriers to entry for the most innovative companies in the rest of
the world?

~~~
moonhorse
Agreed. The risk for innovating is too high. When there are ideas up for grabs
in the US, why not just take it and localize it. This is simply a rational
decision.

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awflick
My read on China is that there is a weaker society culture while also having a
stronger family culture. This probably means that a lot of startup financing
will be from families as the middle class grows and there is spare cash
around.

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wisty
The reason I think - China is choked for capital. Yes, there is money, but not
a lot. Unless you are doing are doing a government contract (i.e. building
infrastructure) or are in real estate, you don't get much capital. Interest
rates are artificially low, but only if you can get a loan - i.e. you look
very very safe. Why bother investing in business, when you can borrow at a low
rate and invest it in houses?

Chinese businessmen _look_ rich. Some of them do have a lot of money, but most
are just richer than the average Chinese worker. And because the poor Chinese
workers are poor, they can't bootstrap their way up so easily.

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corecirculator
Though they take a lot of flak recently, patents and patent protection are
crucial for the environment in which any innovator can market his/her
products, without fear of the idea being copied and mass-produced by a mega-
corporation.

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zhemao
The internet in China isn't that good. Transfer fees are slow, there is a lot
of government censorship, and not many people can afford it. Why invest in a
risky internet startup, then, when there is much more money to be made in
manufacturing or real estate? So the financial incentive to invest in a tech
startup just isn't there. It's probably also difficult for potential startups
to get good engineers, as the brightest students usually go into government or
work for one of the large government-sponsored corporations that dominate the
economy.

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mavin
Relevant article: China's Education Army

<http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/158/china-education>

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known
Isn't cloning products and exporting them their forte.

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maeon3
In America intelligence is seen as Yankee ingenuity, building a better
mousetrap. Talking back to your superiors and finding a better way is smiled
on if you can produce results in the states.

In china, intelligence is seen as efficiency, doing something well, getting
the right boxes filled on the exam, non-intelligence related things that are
called intelligence. Go talking about how the yuan is pegged to the dollar
instead of gold and the government won't hire you because you aren't parroting
the group think (I have experience talking to some china-women about this).
Try to break out of your class and get beaten back into it.

It's the culture. I really think if china could break out of it's meek-slave
mentality and have them start thinking that the Earth is theirs for the taking
if they want it, then it could blow United States out of the water a thousand
times over. Educate the meek slave class sleeping giant with care! It took
thousands of years to craft a group of people who will work and not fight back
when exploited.

~~~
Qa8BBatwHxK8Pu
They can't afford ethics, honesty, "care and affection" and stuff. But without
it they can't beat the slave spirit so hardly ingrained in their social DNA.
Egg and the chicken, huh? They need to propagate the wealth in their system so
they can stop worrying about the cash and start being themselves.

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Qa8BBatwHxK8Pu
> Yes, there's a lot of money but there's not enough ethical business people.

Well, that's bound to happen when a generation suddenly becomes rich for first
time in long family history. You kind of had it coming.

It'd take some metabolism cycles to ingest the wealth they come by. Until then
they'll act like pigs on money steroid rather than the rich.

Best to avoid the shitbag of shitstorm until they learn to be civil.

