
Startup School Beijing - tvvocold
http://conference.startupschool.org/
======
seanmcdirmid
How does this work since foreigners are still not allowed to have equity in
Chinese startups? Is YC getting an exemption from the government, or are they
holding it in a Chinese incorporated company?

~~~
contingencies
This is not my experience, owning one and having owned another. Foreigners can
own outright or have a stake in multiple types of organizations, either
directly or indirectly, though not all (certain protected sensitive industries
such as media, finance, etc.). I suppose this is perhaps a misconception based
upon some kind of isolated incidence in which a domestic Chinese registered
company had issues writing a foreign investor as a direct shareholder. I am
certain this can be done but wouldn't be surprised if it _may_ require
alteration of the registration category of the company or the reformation of a
new entity owing to the ancient (but improving!) corporate registration system
which was geared toward early large foreign industrial investments which came
with substantial government shepherding. I seriously doubt the assumed case
that caused this misconception is some kind of conniving attempt at
ineffective protectionism - far more likely just the wee end of inertia
stemming from old-school socialist bureaucracy.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
This is simply not true. Many foreigners have been scammed by this, working
for a Chinese startup on the promise of equity, and then being eventually told
it is impossible because the government won’t allow it. See:
[https://www.chinalawblog.com/2016/09/the-china-stock-
option-...](https://www.chinalawblog.com/2016/09/the-china-stock-option-
scam.html).

If you are a foreigner working for a domestic startup, you simply aren’t
allowed to have equity. If the company is already listed or is a foreign
company, then no problem, otherwise it simply isn’t allowed.

~~~
baybal2
Yes, no company can offer options if they are not public, without any
exceptions as I know.

Any promise of an option through a proxy subsidiary, variable interest entity
for a non listed company is not legal under the republic's law.

On other hand, a right-away stock transfer is fully legit.

If they sell a part of the stock to a listing aggregation vessel, you can have
a part of this vessel's share.

Though, I keep myself a kilometer away from any financial scheme in China, and
advise you do the same.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
No idea why you are being downvoted, but your reply is pretty factual.

~~~
projectramo
I think people are reacting negatively to: "Though, I keep myself a kilometer
away from any financial scheme in China, and advise you do the same."

The idea that "any financial scheme" in China is worse than a "financial
scheme" anywhere else doesn't make sense.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I would totally agree with him though. You don’t want to get entangled into
opaque Chinese financial schemes as a foreigner. You just don’t have the
knowledge (inside or otherwise) or guanxi to do it well. If something goes
wrong, the legal system isn’t going to help you out.

~~~
projectramo
What does China have to do with it?

Do you want to be "entangled into opaque financial schemes" in the US as a
native?

If something "goes wrong", do you want to rely on the legal system?

You should avoid bad investments everywhere.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
The USA has a functional legal system that doesn't discriminate between
foreigners and locals. If you are promised something and that can't be
delivered, you don't have to just accept 没办法, it is the difference between a
first world country and a third-world one.

In China, there is nothing but "bad investments", the stock market is insider
trader heavy, the real estate market is bonkers, the shadow banking
market...which your bank, even if it is ICBC, will actively try to sell you
on, is really dodgy. Then there are crowd sourced micro finance platforms that
are basically Ponzi schemes...heck, bitcoin looks like a great safe
transparent investment in comparison.

------
jlg23
I am amazed by the negativity in the comments. China is a very specific
environment with its own rules - just like the US or Europe.

There you need to maintain good relations with the party, in the western world
it is government officials (preferably those who are not voted into office and
thus stick around).

Entering such a new, different playing field should tickle every
entrepreneur's nerves.

Edit: How we fail, esp. in the fb- and now Google debate, that most of the
tech we develop is dual-use and can be turned against us in an instant,
escapes me.

------
tgb29
I have the priveledge of being around Chinese students who are studying in the
US. Two comments I've heard recently:

'Doing research in China is the dream'

'I'll move back to China after I graduate; there's more opportinuty for
startups there.'

~~~
Matticus_Rex
I've had the dubious privilege of being around many college students, and in
that experience the fact that they say something is true about markets or
academia has very little relationship to whether it is actually true.

------
ausjke
you go china, you listen to CCP, then you probably will make some money by
trading away your soul.

if you want to have freedom of speech there somehow, you're out immediately,
the great firewall is there for a reason.

------
pnw_hazor
How will this impact my social credit score?

Every day China is becoming even more of a nightmare dystopia, so of course YC
will dive in headfirst.

------
baby
This is awesome. I’ve been wondering how hard it is to partner up, give
trainings or consult in China. Without many english speakers there it seems
that the Chinese language is a pre requisite but it might be getting better.

If anyone has experience to share I’d be interested. I’m guessing this kind of
ventures might be easy sales to universities like Tsing Hua.

~~~
jk2323
What do you have? What do you want?

~~~
baby
Oh, I've been giving applied crypto trainings at Black Hat and different
venues. I was wondering if I could train or give classes in China, or
collaborate or do security consulting for companies there.

------
sandGorgon
India drives the most number of applications to YC after the USA.

I wonder why China was chosen over India.

------
philippz
I don't find Beijing to be the best place to start something like that. I'd
rather prefer Shanghai which provides a much better ecosystem and access to
capital than Beijing.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Shenzhen is the tech place to be in China. But if you want to make the
government happy, you got to be near them in Beijing, so a lot of tech happens
there also.

~~~
mirgj
Is true, but Shenzhen is culturally very different from Beijing and so is
Shanghai.

Shenzhen is a new city and tech stuff are there because of the influence of
Guangzhou as production hub and HK as facilitator for access to the west.

Beijing is more, let me say it, artistic. Is much more vibrant, culturally,
than any other city in China. This kind of mix that you can find in New Work,
Berlin or London also it brings innovation. So I don't think is meant to make
the government "happy". Many Chinese tech company started in Beijing form many
reasons: education, capital access, culture and so on. To give you an example:
Mobike was founder by an ex journalist

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Many tech companies started in Beijing with obvious government boosts. There
is also the major research universities (PKU and Qinghua at the top, many more
at tiers just under). However, Beijing is also famous for government meddling
and Black Audi-style privileged that is lacking in SZ and SH.

Take traffic for example, it is much saner in SH and SZ because the police can
actually enforce the rules, whereas in BJ you get a asense they have given up
because they feel like everyone is an official or is connected to one. It is a
weird city even by Chinese standards.

~~~
mirgj
I don't have nothing to support this thesis. I just shared my pure
observation, after living there for a while, I notice it was a way more
dynamic compared to the other 'cold' Chinese cities.

Yet I think my message didn't pass through since I got downvoted

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I lived in Beijing for 10 years working in tech so know it pretty well. I
always surprised how much smoother things were in SH in comparison to BJ.
Heck, many second tier cities (like Hangzhou) were much better run than
Beijing.

------
zwaps
A country where if you disagree with any policy on social media, your kids
literally can't go to school, you can't fly and you can't buy a house.

Sure, I'll invest right away!

------
b6
I'm not optimistic about this at all. The same metrics for success just don't
apply in China. All the elements necessary for success in the US could be
there, but in China the startup may get red-taped and legislated out of
existence in favor of a basically identical entity with better connections to
the Satanic squid in charge of the country. I predict a rapid demise for this
project, sorry to say. Talented Chinese entrepreneurs, please make your way
out of the country as soon as you can.

~~~
neolefty
Having spent 5 years there, I have to say it's not a uniform hellscape, to say
the least.

There are millions of potential Chinese entrepreneurs, idealistic and
talented, who deserve to have their efforts catalyzed. That's the way forward.
If you want a new generation of leaders and a more egalitarian culture, you
are not alone, and I'm super happy to see YC decide to help build it.

------
SuperNinKenDo
I'm disappointed to know that YC has drank the cool-aid on China. Once you
invest significantly in China, you quickly find yourselves beholden to the
whims of the CCP. And for what? Such privileges as building their dystopian
techno-autocracy for them? I don't see any signs in this statement that you
are going into this with your eyes open to either the difficulties this will
cause down the line, nor the morally "questionable" things you will all be a
part of building now. Of course, none of that will be in there, because you
all already know that to say anything untoward on the matter would break the
ice right out from under your feet.

And of course, that's all if you're actually "successful", unlikely given the
CCP will prefer something more malleable than even the likes of Zuckerberg are
willing to be. I foresee a rapid demise to this project, indeed, I pray for
it, as the alternative, you guys actually succeeding, would be painful to
watch given what it will involve.

~~~
opportune
Agreed, investing in China is the "invading Russia" of the tech world. Yes,
China is a huge market and a rapidly growing economy, which makes investing
there an extremely appetizing prospect. However, it seems very difficult for
non-chinese to be able to hold onto their investments in China without their
business being ripped off (e.g. having the business model copied by a more
Chinese company that gets favorable government treatment and takes over the
nascent market), not to mention the political uncertainty of having to deal
with / win the favor of arbitrary officials in the Chinese government that may
have interests conflicting with your own.

And even if you are successful, you have to consider the ethics of what you're
enabling - suppose you create a wildly successful and helpful service for
Chinese people that involves users' geographic data, private messages between
individuals, or financial transactions. You won't get a say in turning over
that data to authorities for any and every reason that they have for wanting
it. Are you willing to actively participate in corruption and the quashing of
political dissent for money?

~~~
DanielBMarkham
_" And even if you are successful, you have to consider the ethics of what
you're enabling..."_

This is the thing I don't understand. Ten years ago, you could make a case
that simply by making stuff people want, the world would become more
connected, all sorts of goodness will happen.

You can no longer make that case. People are not idiots. They see both the
good and bad that tech has brought.

Technology companies are ethically responsible for what their tools end up
doing. And if they can't be bothered to develop their own ethics, the rest of
us are going to have to develop some for them.

I must be missing something. YC is a really smart bunch of guys. Certainly
they know what the hell they're getting into.

~~~
d4rti
> The most amazing thing about Silicon Valley is that they all think they are
> on the left side of the political spectrum, while it is totally unquestioned
> that the venture capital firms should make every single decision on how
> human activity is organized.

Existentialist Comics
[https://twitter.com/existentialcoms/status/98887750761196748...](https://twitter.com/existentialcoms/status/988877507611967489)

~~~
chillacy
The political spectrum is more like a political plane, with one axis being
economic and the other being social, and with a 2 party system we've
conveniently collapsed it into a line.

It's probably more accurate to say that silicon valley runs libertarian,
especially those in the startup game, and especially YC and folks.

[http://www.paulgraham.com/inequality.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/inequality.html)

------
greatabel
They need compete with www.sinovationventures.com.'Sinovation Ventures' has
quite a few similarities to YC, for example:The founders like to support each
other, etc

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Kai Fu’s (famous for the ballmer chair) innovation works has been around
forever, it’s not like China is lacking for YC-style tech incubators. However,
they are all Chinese owned and managed without direct connections to SV.

~~~
contingencies
There is HAX in Shenzhen, but it's focused on pre-crowdfunded consumer
hardware projects. However, at their last building (they moved around
2016/2017) the space apparently interleaved the foreign cohort with a domestic
intake they never talk about (to my knowledge) in foreign media.
[https://hax.co/](https://hax.co/)

There are quite a few in Hong Kong as well. [https://medium.com/whub/hong-
kong-accelerator-and-incubator-...](https://medium.com/whub/hong-kong-
accelerator-and-incubator-programmes-you-need-to-know-568590b836c8)

------
erikb
This will fail so much. If you ever had anything to do with China you know
there's no path in. Especially under Xi.

Even in the old lang sine, when China was (more) open to the West it was still
hard. Think about getting serious stuff stolen, threatened by people with
sticks etc. Then you sue someone and the judge simply decides in favor of the
Chinese party, no matter what they did.

The only option I can see is if you have privately loads of money and then
marry a strong business family in China. Then through your Chinese wife you
can achieve something.

~~~
mistermann
Think of it this way: eventually, China will figure out and dominate this
market like any other they've tackled. So if you stay in the US, you're just
delaying the inevitable. This way, you're in on it, you're buying favor in a
sense - in the new world order, having an pre-existing relationship with the
900 pound gorilla might come in handy.

~~~
erikb
Okay interesting point of view. So you still fail but you fail earlier than
the other western competitors and you might fail less. Can't say much against
it.

~~~
mistermann
> So you still fail

You do?

> Can't say much against it.

You could say it's a poor prediction and explain why. For example, it isn't
exactly an inevitability, even though it seems fairly plausible.

------
indescions_2018
Will there be a livestream? Would be a great opportunity to try out
instantaneous real-time audio and video translation in english, chinese and
japanese ;)

Baidu Shows Off Its Instant Pocket Translator

[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610623/baidu-shows-off-
it...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610623/baidu-shows-off-its-instant-
pocket-translator/)

------
contingencies
Great timing! Right in line with our Series A. Happy to meet any HN'ers! Email
in profile.

------
middle1
When will original online Startup School start this year? Who knows?

~~~
ajeet_dhaliwal
Are you talking about this?
[https://www.startupschool.org/](https://www.startupschool.org/)

I don't understand if this is something online or not, it mentions attending
group office hours.

~~~
sandslash
It's all completely virtual. All "attendance" in the course is done online,
including group office hours.

------
exabrial
Interesting... I'll be in Bejing these dates, I may stop in!

------
jpincheira
to any of the organizers... is it possible to attend to the talks even though
I'm starting a company based off -at the moment- Vietnam?

------
Presquare
Very exciting news!

I hope YC will help Chinese startups become global. My biggest problem with
Silicon Valley is its ideological uniformity and the increasing willingness to
use their companies/products as vehicles to push their ideologies.

China would be in an excellent position to address the part of the Western
market that is increasingly alienated by this push. They can build SV tech
clones for the local market, and then expand to the global market by offering
ideologically more neutral (from Western perspective) alternatives to SV tech.

Chinese startups will have their own flaws, but at least we will have a
choice.

~~~
benjaminsuch

        I hope YC will help Chinese startups become global.
    

Why would you want that? As long as the chinese goverment prevent foreign
companies to buy chinese companies no one should be happy about chinese
startups going global. The chinese goverment is highly corrupt and only
supports actions which benefits the chinese. That's why there are so many
"joint ventures".

~~~
ObnoxiousProxy
I agree with the corrupt part, but it's interesting that you say "the chinese
government...only supports actions which benefits the chinese" as if it's a
horrible thing. Every government does what is best for their country... Being
upset about it is like getting mad at fire for being hot.

------
Dowwie
Of all the provinces, why Beijing?

~~~
baybal2
>Of all the provinces, why Beijing?

Because this guy lives there >
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Xi_Jinpi...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Xi_Jinping_March_2017.jpg)

------
fisheuler
北京欢迎你。

------
Endy
Thank you so much for displaying that YC has taken a step toward accepting
China's desires to rule the world and a step away from supporting free and
open cultural discourse. I think I'm going to be avoiding HN for a while, so
that I can avoid the pro-Chinese propaganda and policy which is likely to
result from this move.

------
walrus01
New Pied Piper?

~~~
kewafb14
Hah that's what crossed my mind too :)

------
auganov
To people debating whether China are the good guys or not - hundreds of
thousands Falun Dafa practicioners are locked up in Chinese concentration
camps. Thousands have died of torture. Many more are suffering it everyday.
China is ruled by a cruel evil regime. No question about it. You won't hear
people involved with China talk about it. You won't be allowed into China if
you do.

~~~
dang
Please don't take HN threads into national/political flamewar. Regardless of
how correct your atrocity assessments are, this is off topic and violates the
site guidelines.

Others have been violating the guidelines in this thread too, but at least the
other subthreads haven't gone completely out to the generic political sea.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
auganov
Dang, they're not "my assesments". They're cold, hard, well-known facts
relevant to the discussion. Almost all the comments are political. The
standard HN policy on threads that go too political is to just nix the whole
thing. You know it and I know it.

~~~
dang
Even if that were true, the greater part of "assessment" is in selecting which
"cold, hard, well-known facts" to mention, which not to mention, and what
weighting to place on them. The facts don't tell you that. Humans make those
choices, and there are infinitely many to choose from.

Your description of how we moderate HN isn't really accurate. When a story is
nothing but partisan politics, we may kill the thread—though more often users
flag it first—but those are just the easy cases. The difficult cases are when
a story is both on topic for HN, like this one, but also has overlap into
intensely political areas, like this one. Then our job becomes more fine-
grained, trying to support thoughtful, specific discussion and dampen generic
flamewars.

~~~
auganov
Mention what? What facts may one omit that justify this ongoing atrocity?
Perhaps you're just ignorant about it. In which case it only goes to show that
it's an interesting, relevant fact people should be aware of.

Yes, I imagine my comment might excite strong feelings more so than others -
because such an atrocity does. For good reasons.

The discussion has clearly settled on the moral aspects of YC doing business
in China. Which seems okay with you - as long as you don't call out the actual
atrocities.

------
baybal2
Out of all places? Why???

And...

>Saturday, May 19, 2018 (5 月19 日，周六) >Tsinghua University （清华大学) Beijing,
China （中国北京)

This is just... they could've just went for the central committee party school
if they wanted to get high profile handshakes that much

~~~
molteanu
>Out of all places? Why???

"Since China is the fastest growing tech ecosystem in the world and a massive
center of new innovations - we want to meet more founders from China!"

------
gaius
How does this square with
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16918480](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16918480)
?

~~~
neolefty
BTW, that's a link to a discussion of the NYTimes article "Wanted at Chinese
Startups: Attractive Women to Ease Coders’ Stress".

Likewise, isn't Hollywood the place with Harvey Weinstein? Must be purely
evil.

No, China is big and intellectually diverse. Many young idealists who deserve
to be catalyzed. Source: Lived there 2011-2016.

~~~
coupdejarnac
Most people commenting on these China posts have a superficial, at best,
understanding of China.

