
Xiaomi's global vice president Hugo Barra is leaving the company - kshatrea
http://www.gadgetsnow.com/tech-news/xiaomis-global-vice-president-hugo-barra-is-leaving-the-company/articleshow/56729359.cms
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DemiGuru
I might be too sentimental (knowing that it's PR speak and therefore
downplayed) the last paragraph strikes me as sheer hell.

"What I've realized is that the last few years of living in such a singular
environment have taken a huge toll on my life and started affecting my health.
My friends, what I consider to be my home, and my life are back in Silicon
Valley, which is also much closer to my family. Seeing how much I've left
behind these past few years, it is clear to me that the time has come to
return,"

~~~
mikekchar
Was he in China? Culture shock can be quite devastating. And you might think
that after 3 1/2 years that you get used to your new environment, but it can
actually get progressively worse. I was pretty lucky that when I moved to
Japan I instantly felt at home. I've seen people pretty much melt down from
the stress of having all their values brought into question and everything
that they thought was common sense thrown out of the window. Even when you
have a good gig and you love what you are doing, it can be impossible to
continue. The worst bit is that it can actually be harder to return because
without knowing it, _you_ can change. And everything your remember about home
is a little different. I remember the first time I went abroad, when I
returned I felt that I lost my home. It took me years to find a new one.

~~~
seertaak
> I've seen people pretty much melt down from the stress of having all their
> values brought into question and everything that they thought was common
> sense thrown out of the window.

I'm curious as to what values are so different in China. Could you give an
example, please? For my part, I've lived in Argentina, USA, France, Spain,
German, and the UK. I've found that values are _pretty similar_. Nothing that
makes me feel shockingly out of place. But they're all "European" countries,
hence the question.

~~~
mikekchar
I can guess what values are different in China, but since I haven't lived
there it's probably better not to. Instead, I can tell you about one of the
most difficult aspects of Japanese culture for most foreigners.

It's a bit strange because this is one of the things that I personally _like_
about Japanese culture, even though it is definitely unsettling at times.
People in Japan are _very_ polite and helpful. If you meet someone, they will
smile and say good morning. If you are lost, they will often go well out of
their way to help you.

This friendliness is expected in the culture and people work very hard to keep
it up. It extends into your personal relationships and there is a saying that
you have one face that you present to everyone, one face that you show to your
family and one face that you never show anyone else. The corollary is that
every interaction you have with people involves an artifice to a greater or
lesser extent.

If you ask someone for their opinion, they will generally try to guess what
you think and give you that opinion -- because they don't want to upset you.
Often when you are at work, people will be very nice to you, even if they
don't like you very much. In fact, it may be the case that someone will
actually _hate_ you, but act like you are their best friend. Some of the
people who have helped me the most and to whom I owe the most are people who
I'm pretty sure despise me (but they are first on my list for souvenirs when I
go travelling!)

In western cultures, there is a kind of tradition of clearing the air. You
feel that you need to share your differences and work them out so that you can
come to a better understanding of each other. This is _not_ the case in Japan.
If you suspect that there is a problem and try to work it out, the other
person will be very uncomfortable. If you press the issue, they will squirm
and lie about their feelings. If you press the issue even more, they will
eventually break down and get very angry.

But then, having gotten angry, they will be embarrassed and upset and they
will never speak another word to you for as long as you live.

To some people, this is incredibly upsetting. There is _no way_ to determine
if people genuinely like you or if they hate your guts. You will catch people
out in little lies that have been constructed so that you don't have to
discuss a difference of opinion. While this is done ostensibly to promote the
harmonious flow of day to day life, you can get the feeling that nobody takes
you seriously. Nobody is actually listening to you. Nobody cares what you
think. They just smile and... well, lie to your face. And since many
westerners are judgemental by culture, they imagine that they are being judged
by this infuriating group of incessantly smiling jerks that are laughing at
them behind their backs (when in fact, nobody cares what you think as long as
you don't make trouble).

As for me... I'm living in a land of very polite people who smile and treat me
well, even if they don't like me. As someone with a different way of looking
at things, people take pleasure in listening to me and congratulating me on my
unique view of the world. They go out of their way to help me and I return the
favour. Nobody gives a damn if you agree or disagree or if you like someone or
don't like someone. For me it's a kind of paradise where I can relax and throw
out all the drama of western style relationships.

But even still, I can understand why some people can't deal with it.

~~~
martin_henk
Thanks! That's a pretty good summery I guess. But there's a lot of outright
bullying going on as well. I guess this where a lot of foreigners draw their
line.

~~~
mikekchar
I'm not sure what you mean by bullying. The biggest thing I see is that there
are true value clashes. Some cultures have more difficulty than others. I see
more Americans and British people having problems than some other cultures,
for example.

Americans in particular often believe that Japanese attitudes are morally
wrong. And it's not so much bullying as it is that Japanese cultural stances
are immovable. You can throw yourself against that wall as much as you like
and it is _not_ going to budge. So if you honestly believe that some things
are morally wrong and you call people out on it... well you are going to grind
yourself into dust.

Although I shouldn't get too carried away, I'll tell one last story. When I
worked at the high school here, my supervisor was trying to get me to work
without compensation on weekend (there was a special event). All of the other
teachers got a day off in lieu, but my supervisor didn't want to upset the
apple cart by trying to get the same treatment for me (I was on contract, so
played by different rules). This is pretty typical, and I've seen other
foreigners absolutely get squashed by the system as they try to preach about
worker's rights.

Instead, we had a drinking party that week. So I sat down with the department
head and a bottle of nihonshu (Japanese sake) and we preceded to enjoy
ourselves. At the appropriate time (just before he passed out), I casually
asked him if the regular teachers were getting time off in lieu. He said, "Of
course". I laughed and said something about the unfortunate lives of those who
work on contract. He stood up (unstably) and assured me, "No! It's not right.
We can fix this!". At which point he yelled over to the principal on the other
side of the room, "We can get a day of in lieu for Mike-kun here, right? He's
a good guy!" To which the principal laughed and said, "Of course, of course!".

My supervisor was clearly livid the next day as he brought the schedule and
asked me when I wanted to have my day off. This is Japan.

~~~
martin_henk
I believe I share your stance. Probably the only approach to live your life in
peace somehow. But there is a lot of real bullying going on. Maybe it is
something no related to being a foreigner. Probably it is indeed the
"culture". For me it is where I draw the line and it brought me some trouble.
To me it would be the same as to allow sexual harrasment to happen during
let's say a informal drinking party.

~~~
mikekchar
OK. I think I understand a bit what you mean. I tend to think of Japanese
culture as having an inside and an outside. All things are negotiable if you
are outside. No things are negotiable if you are inside. Everyone is allowed
inside, but you _must_ play by the rules -- all of them, with no exceptions.

Foreigners often have difficulty with this because rules in most western
cultures are negotiable. You can appeal to common sense. You can argue your
position and modify your environment. This is generally not possible in Japan.
The idea of drawing a line, as you have described, will almost certain end in
an extremely difficult position if you wish to be inside.

I think there are 2 happy places in Japan. You can decide that you aren't
going to follow the rules and accept to be outside. Everyone will smile and be
polite. They will be very helpful to you. They will praise you on being able
to use chopsticks, etc, etc. You will forever be an honoured guest.

But not many people want to be treated as a guest in their own home, so most
people want to be inside. This is also fine, but you have to learn the crazy
rules and follow them exactly. You have to be OK with being reprimanded for
making the slightest error. You have to slot yourself into society exactly
where they put you. You have to do what is expected of you.

Where you get into trouble is when you want to be inside, but you want to pick
and choose which rules that you wish to follow. Or if you wish to negotiate
those rules. Or if you wish to convince others to play by other rules. That's
just not going to work in Japan and I think it's why most foreigners don't
stay, even though it is technically very, very easy to immigrate here. Like I
said, especially if you have a very strong moral sense of right and wrong,
it's going to be really, really difficult unless it happens to match exactly
the sense of right and wrong in Japan (which is pretty unlikely if you were
not raised in Japan).

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fowlerpower
Xiaomi strikes me as one of the very few Chinese gadget companies I would buy
from. Their phones always look polished and their specs are always fantastic
for the dollar spent.

I have no idea about their quality but some day I will take the plunge and
buy.

~~~
tiatia
I own a Xiaomi product (not a phone)

Xiaomi phones have the same problem as all Chinese phones: If you can't put
Cyanogen mod on it, it is close to useless.

~~~
tdkl
MIUI > AOSP/Google Android, but that's my opinion.

They even fixed the shitty non existant backup/restore situation on Android,
hence why Titanium Backup&Restore is the best selling paid app for years.
Built in solution backups apps with data (also overrides backup permission set
in manifest) and all system settings. You can run it periodically, save in
desired storage location, locally or in MI Cloud. After I had to reflash
cousins phone which had a vendor MIUI installed, the restore did everything
and was almost a 1:1 copy.

Not to mention updates, my budget 135€ device has January 2017 Android
security update and is updated weekly.

It has it's own funny things though, like expanding notifications with two
fingers only and a bit fiddling to allow apps to run in background and receive
notifications, but this whitelisting isn't anything different that other
Android vendors have done to save battery.

~~~
aembleton
You also can't change the launcher.

~~~
Max_Mustermann
Of course you can, I'm running Nova Launcher.

~~~
aembleton
I take it back. I had to check what my last Chinese phone was. It was a Letv
1s running EUI. I thought it was MIUI.

I found the software a bit frustrating but I can tell you the build quality
was the best I've experienced in a phone. Mind you, all my phones have been
sub £200.

------
dotBen
I wonder if he's been poached to work on Andy Rubin's new high-end Android
handset startup. Timing and his background would seem to align...

~~~
jedc
That's the exact same thing I thought as soon as I saw the headline.

------
geodel
I have noticed this is common pattern for Sr execs placed in Indian subsidiary
by parent US companies. Mostly people of Indian origin go to India for few
years, fulfill their yearning for homeland, parents, friends etc and then come
back to US when a new opportunity shows up.

In this case, Hugo is not even of chinese origin so it must be specially hard
for him.

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eklavya
One thing fundamentally broken on xiaomi phones is GCM. So if you are not
whatsapp or Facebook (they have pre configured exceptions) and you need push
notifications, you have no options. You can't even have a persistent
connection because your app is killed whenever. The user needs to specifically
turn off restrictions for your app which do not persist across updates. Users
don't really understand all that so your app is "broken" for them.

~~~
boundlessdreamz
Whatsapp didn't have preconfigured exception in the Redmi phone I bought in
2016 in India running official MIUI. It was infuriating as I had no idea that
MIUI kills apps and you need to except apps from that

------
bluetwo
Sure, maybe what he said is true. Or maybe the food/water/pollution issues are
what drove him away.

But, more often this kind of departure is a prelude to either more departures,
accounting issues, or the sudden public disclosure of previously hidden away
infighting in the executive suites.

------
shaqbert
Xiaomi turns out to not have a big moat. And run on extremely thin margins.
Top line growth has been flat. And the writing on the wall is that we might be
seeing revenue contraction ahead.

I wonder what their private market valuation is doing?

~~~
bostand
As owner of one of their excellent products, I couldn't care less about their
private valuation.

(btw, mi is owned by their employees)

~~~
Laforet
They are obviously concerned about long term viability of their core cellphone
business, enough that they are diversifying into a massive range of products
from alkaline batteries[0] to reverse osmosis water purifiers[0]. Some of
their offerings, such as wifi routers and rice cookers (yes, Xiaomi make rice
cookers[2] that send notifications to your phone when your meal is ready) are
mildly successful while others are received with either apathy or outright
animosity such as their drones which crashed during a livestreamed demo
flight. And nobody wants to buy their laptop computer for sure.

[0]:[http://list.mi.com/14](http://list.mi.com/14)
[1]:[http://www.mi.com/water/](http://www.mi.com/water/)
[2]:[http://www.mi.com/dianfanbao/](http://www.mi.com/dianfanbao/)

------
iamnew
Good share.

