
Crazy Work Hours and Lots of Cameras: a group from Silicon Valley visits China - awad
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/05/business/china-silicon-valley-technology.html
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salmonfamine
This attitude of "tech for tech's sake" at the cost of everything human is so
absurd on its face that I have a hard time believing that even these SV-bubble
VC's truly believe it. But apparently they do. This is why people hate Silicon
Valley and everything tech nowadays.

Historically, technology -- even when it has caused massive disruptions -- has
generally enhanced people's lives by freeing them from a harsh constraint
imposed by nature. If you have a refrigerator and a microwave, you don't have
to worry so much about gathering food and spending all day cooking. If you
have birth control, you don't have to worry about choosing between your sex
life and your future.

Much of what Silicon Valley has produced in the past 10 years is software and
platforms that 1) actually appeal to base, primitive instincts via advertising
and 2) directly reduce human liberty by constraining privacy.

We need technology that has a purpose. It seems like the EU is the only
governing body that actually understands this.

~~~
LiterallyDoge
Respectfully dissenting on the hate comment, but otherwise very good points.
+1

~~~
carapace
"Fuck! Fuck Google!"

Literal quote from my mother when I explained Project Dragonfly to her. (She's
not a person who cusses often.)

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kstenerud
This has amazing parallels to the panic over the Japanese manufacturing and
management methods of the 1980s. Everyone was terrified that Japan would take
over the world economically, and everyone would be working for Japanese
companies soon if we didn't adopt their ways of doing things.

Hell, it even made it into Back to the Future:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlUgBDgH1po](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlUgBDgH1po)

Seriously, this is what America was terrified of.

~~~
refurb
I can remember watching new reports of people smashing up Japanese electronics
in front of the White House. And people were really concerned about all the US
property being bought up by the Japanese.

It was the beginning of America's decline everyone thought.

It didn't turn out that way at all.

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jasode
Semi-related video from 1999 of Jack Ma's early pitch about Alibaba's
potential to some friends in China.[0]

His quote about hard work and long hours:

 _> "Second, we need to learn the hard working spirit of Silicon Valley. If we
go to work at 8am and go home at 5pm, this is not a high tech company, and
Alibaba wil never be successful."_

Apparently, of the 17 people in that room, only 1 joined/invested in Alibaba.
Intense startups are definitely not the right lifestyle for most people.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up9-C4_8dVo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up9-C4_8dVo)

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katuskoti
“We’re so lazy in the U.S.!” blurted Wesley Chan, a venture capital investor,
on the first day of what would be a weeklong journey into the Chinese
technology scene.

...Yikes.

~~~
phil_folrida
yes, this only shows how not very experimented those people were, not a lot of
gray hair in this article.

~~~
nashashmi
Good Point! Burn out is real. And Eventual. Especially when you work for a
founder or have a VC who is just demeaning and sucks all around.

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tschellenbach
I'm from Europe, living in the US, and it always frustrated me that startups
are able to do so well in the US and China, yet find very little momentum in
the EU. It's crazy, there is plenty of local talent in Europe's tech hubs.

~~~
baxtr
Why do you think it is like that? Access to risk capital? Lack of IPOs?

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tdons
Fragmented European market; the culture and language differences.

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baxtr
I don’t but that argument. In math you’d say that this is an “continuous
function”, wouldn’t you? Where is the break-off point? Germany for example has
80 mio people, Japan has 120 mio or so. You’d expect the same level of
activity scaled by population size. Am I wrong?

EDIT: Another example countering your point is Sweden/Stockholm. Tiny
population, high number of startups and unicorns.

~~~
adventured
That really heavily depends on the market in question. They're all so
different in terms of culture, regulation, politics, market structures,
productivity, output, wealth, etc.

Jordan for example has the same population size as Sweden, that's about where
the similarities end.

Sweden, along with Canada and Australia, are just about ideal micro US
versions in technology, in terms of potential to pull off your scaling of
activity. Good market economies, relatively robust technology societies and
technology economies, high GDP per capita and incomes, plenty of wealth and
capital to invest, stable open societies with respect for human rights,
english language use giving them global benefits (Sweden having one of the
world's highest english language adoption rates, outside of primarily english
speaking countries), and so on.

Japan has far less spending power per capita - disposable income - than the
US, and their economic output per capita is similarly far lower. Their cost of
living is not far lower to offset. US GDP per capita will be around $63,000
for 2018. Japan is down around $38,000 to $40,000. Culturally Japan has
historically not been friendly to risk taking, entrepreneurial activity. That
has shifted some over the last 10-15 years, but not immensely (it's starting
from an extreme where a long corporate career was the only acceptable path).
There's a considerable difference between Sweden and Japan on that
conservativism. Japan also is very different at a macro level, they put
themselves into a particularly bad 20+ year debt trap that has robbed their
economy of the surplus capital it needs to invest into expansion and
innovation.

Germany is doing OK, in regards to technology and tech start-ups. They've
lagged a bit in the transition from old industrial to new technology [1][2],
it appears to be a cultural problem that is acting as friction. Culturally
they're not nearly as dynamic on entrepreneurism as Sweden has become. Perhaps
it's just easier to change directions at the scale of Sweden than Germany,
with all the entrenched institutions and large conglomerates that Germany has.

[1]
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-12/germany-n...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-12/germany-
needs-to-reengineer-to-thwart-digital-obsolescence)

[2] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-08-16/inside-
eu...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-08-16/inside-europe-s-
struggle-to-build-a-truly-global-tech-giant)

~~~
baxtr
Ok, so you’re saying it’s not size (as single root cause)

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exabrial
My personal experience, after working for Alibaba, is that just the appearance
of looking busy is what drives promotions, funding, and raises. Actual
progress on projects is not measured, nor is code quality via common metrics
(tests written, branch coverage, line coverage, test failures).

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FlyingSideKick
Chinese citizens have en masse been exploited by those in power for thousands
of years. Moreover, workers and peasants weren't critical or even
overwhelmingly supportive of the cultural revolution. Now China near the
highest income inequality in the world and just like in the past those in
power have technology in place to keep the average Chinese worker the ability
to protest their working conditions. Hopefully, this will change but it is
probably unlikely.

I'd really like to ask these VC's and corporate leaders "Are 12 hour work days
6 days a week where every movement of your workers are tracked something you'd
like to see as a cultural norm?"

I think it is up to employees and entrepreneurs here in the US to push back
against this march to longer and longer work days. Our physical and emotional
health is far more important than a title or a few extra dollars. The well
balanced life is a wealthy life.

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baybal2
I can give a first hand account. Working in a mid sized engineering consulting
company there, and been working all around consumer electronics industry since
2007. Six points for you:

1\. "American style startups" only make single digit percentage of the whole
tech industry in China. And out of those, the "cult like" make even less.

2\. "the American style startup" model is seen here with a lot of scepticism.
Some call it a model for failure, and justly so.

3\. There are not so few very well run companies in China, including,
surprise, factories! I don't know a single factory owner who is not aware how
dangerous overworked workforce can be for the bottom line. A single misplaced
component can fry a few thousand dollars TV set. A single labour action, can
end his business.

4\. Becoming "more Western" is not a success model for a Chinese company. It
became clear to me as as a rule of thumb, when a Chinese company invites "cool
American MBA boys," things begin to go wrong very fast.

 _5\. So are Chinese businesses that competitive after all? Yes and no:_ Yes,
as for that the capability to outcompete American companies "fair and square"
is there. And no, for that the company that could've buried countless strong
American competitors will never take their place, never become a household
name, never list on a stock market, never own a skyscraper office, and may not
even have a website — it will forever remain a no name OEM in a grey factory
building in a dusty industrial town.

6\. "What's the trick?" The answer is: "the trick is that there are no
tricks." Whatever place under the sun Chinese companies wrestled from Western
competitors was achieved with nothing but sweat, blood, grit, and
perseverance.

The best thing China has introduced me to was an entirely different, bullshit
free work culture centred on value: contract, payment, and CAD files in the
morning — widgets ready in the evening, without any manager in the loop.

If a Western business wants to do as well as a Chinese competitor these days,
their corporate boffins should try doing that as their starting point

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m23khan
As much as I love working in IT, if things continue down the path where you
are expected to become a labourer in 3rd World Country (mentally) and as a
consequence start suffering devastating effects such as physical illnesses,

I would strongly, STRONGLY recommend my kids to not pursue IT as a career at
all - better be a civil engineer or even a plumber or a lawyer or a family
Doctor and live a good life with good money.

~~~
nashashmi
Plumber = get hands dirty, sometimes real dirty, little respect, and work is
hard.

Civil engineer = except for the top tier branch smart people will find a
difficult community fit, moderate to modest money, too many external
influences towards the discipline, seemingly prime for disruption by the tech
world (already happening).

Lawyer and family doctor = too many hours in school and then too many hours in
work (generally).

Disclaimer: I'm a civil engineer, work alongside plumbing engineers, know zero
actual plumbers, fiancee is doctor, looking to pursue law.

~~~
sizzle
Wow a doctor looking to pursue law, very cool! Isn't law worse for work/life
balance? (Not taking into account the opportunity cost of already having
gotten past the grueling med school and residency stages). Or is it to go into
the medical side of the legal field and combine the best of both worlds, or
simply a change of heart? How do you like civil engineering? Do you see tech
disrupting your profession, or the field of medicine or law for your
significant other? For example, I know there is software that will make
paralegal work redundant eventually.

~~~
nashashmi
Whoops! Didn't mean to say fiancee is looking to pursue law. I am.

Definitely worse for the work/life balance metric. But I think it is unfair to
yourself if you seek careers based on how little or how much you work.
Sometimes you are just looking for something fulfilling. It is the problematic
misc/admin problems surrounding the cool stuff that cause you to lose your
passion. Like knowing the dismal outcome of a work beforehand, but having to
do it anyway without success because someone else said so.

A forgotten rule for me: Know your [unique] strengths, Find your fit, Swing
hard at the pitches, and serve the community with what God gave you as
uniquely yours because that is your duty. But don't forget everything else you
have to do too (this causes a natural work/life balance).

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toastking
I think one thing that seems to be missed here is none of the products they
showed were that original. It's not like WeChat was some amazing new idea. It
was chat. Their only real advantage is a captive market.

~~~
obmelvin
WeChat is a lot more than just a chat app

~~~
Markoff
agreed, it's the most successful gov surveillance tool, now even enhanced with
tracking financial movements

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azifali
This seems to be straight out of a dystopian novel. While we do have our own -
of government snooping and excessive government oversight - the scenario
playing out of China is not sustainable in the long term.

~~~
pacala
My fear is the scenario is all too sustainable. North Korea is at the third
generation of Kim's and its political pyramid appears to be quite stable.

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Chardok
It is extremely concerning to me how these tech executives are so enamored
with Chinas working conditions and all-pervasive data collection as if it was
the pinnacle of living in the 21st century.

What happened to the dream of letting technology do the work for us, giving us
vast leisure time and taking the burden of survival off? These executives seem
so driven towards some ever-changing unobtainable goal that I don't think they
will be ever satiated with people just... living.

~~~
21
Their goal is to be billionaires first. Then they can have the leisure life.

You won't become a billionaire by enjoying life on basic income.

~~~
alexandercrohde
I think though wanting to be a billionaire is, for lack of a better word, a
psychosis.

There's nothing that you could possibly want that costs that much. A drive for
that much money to me indicates a form of emotional damage where one no longer
has a rational relationship with a numeric self-assessment.

~~~
slededit
You think of money as a way to buy things. Others think of it for what it
really is - a way to gain influence and control.

~~~
jriot
Psychosis is still an appropriate term for people who want to gain influence
and control.

~~~
slededit
That would make the diagnosis so common as to be meaningless.

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jriot
Just because a large number of people seek control, power, and influence does
not make it a worthy venture. It is a terrible trait.

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alexandercrohde
I have always found this notion of "race" with China odd. I don't see how
other countries doing well economically does anything but help America
economically.

If anything, to me the lesson of the last century is that we've changed too
fast with too little forethought.

~~~
chapium
The "us vs them" mentality puzzles me as well. Perhaps for some they feel
economic growth is a zero sum game. However I see the potential growing for
all players.

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clarry
> Perhaps for some they feel economic growth is a zero sum game.

Maybe not zero sum, but you can't have the rich without the poor.

If you lose the race, you may very well end up among the poor.

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tommoor
I have taken part in this trip on previous years. It really was an eye-opening
experience, although less for long work hours and more for the scale that
these "small" startups operate at.

We were talking to companies only a couple of years old that had hundreds of
millions of users – and that wasn't a standout/unicorn.

~~~
Spoygg
In walled garden where you have few choices as a user it's not really a
question of quality product/service.

~~~
jpatokal
It's a walled garden with over a billion people, there's plenty of choice. If
anything there's _more_ choice since BBAT copycat each other furiously:
imagine if every time Google launched a product, Facebook, Apple, Amazon,
Netflix and Microsoft all launched their versions within weeks.

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pmcpinto
"Then there are the work schedules. The Silicon Valley natives were introduced
to the Chinese start-up concept of 996: Work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a
week. Once they got over their shock, they had to ask: Does that punishing
schedule make sense? “I’m not worried so much about my portfolio companies not
working as hard as the Chinese companies,” said Mr. Chan, now a partner at
Felicis Ventures. “I’ll worry when they’re less creative and less efficient.”"

This is scary

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tjbarkley
> “I’m not worried so much about my portfolio companies not working as hard as
> the Chinese companies,” said Mr. Chan, now a partner at Felicis Ventures.
> “I’ll worry when they’re less creative and less efficient.”

This seems to be a hollow fear. Working that much seems like it would do more
harm than good.

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alismayilov
I’ve always thought that in future we are going to have 4h work days. I
thought it is a logical direction to go. However, it seems we are now proud of
longer working hours and we are heading to wrong direction.

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andyidsinga
This is interesting - implications is that VC's may have to work 996 too to
keep up :)

> While Silicon Valley start-ups raise funding every 18 to 24 months on
> average, the group was told that the most successful Chinese companies do it
> every six months. It isn’t unusual for a hot start-up to raise funding three
> to four times a year

edit changed 669 to 996 :)

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joshstrange
> One Chinese technology executive said he worked 14 to 15 hours a day at
> least six days a week. Another said he worked every waking hour and forced
> himself to watch movies to relax.

> The reaction from a group of Silicon Valley executives: Wow.

> “We’re so lazy in the U.S.!” blurted Wesley Chan, a venture capital
> investor, on the first day of what would be a weeklong journey into the
> Chinese technology scene.

Uh, how about not. That is the complete wrong response to that. I understand
Wesley might have just been trying to lighten the mood or be nice but let's
not encourage working yourself to death.

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izzydata
Considering how little work people actually do at work we should be pushing
for a 4 day work week instead.

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wycs
Much of the value is standby time. Even if workers are doing very little most
of the day, the fact that you can spin up a worker instantly (between 9 and 9)
in China can make their companies extremely efficient.

~~~
sremani
Depends on what kind of work, if you are front-line developer the value of
work is different from that of an executive. Executive game has more
perception elements to it, in such the style is as much important as
substance. Its has little or no similarities with the deep work needed from
most of the knowledge workers.

~~~
DAaaMan64
I think I now what you're saying, but can you please ELI5?

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stevenwoo
"They found Chinese tech executives to be less reflective about the social
impact and potential misuse of their technologies." On the one hand it's hard
to find anything less reflexive than Facebook/Whatsapp acknowledging their
platform was used for a literal genocide and taking a year to actually do
something about it, on the other hand what we know about product tampering in
China for the bigger scandals with baby formula, milk and pet food seems the
anything goes for a profit should make this story's startup attitude not a
surprise to anyone paying attention to the news.

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almost_usual
I'd prefer 6am to 6pm 6 days a week.

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pulsarpietro
We need to be more efficient to beat them, there are not other ways.

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asianthrowaway
I've often wondered about that. It seems we've gone backwards since the social
democratic promises of the 60s and 70s. A higher level of technology should
translate into more leisure and less work, not the opposite.

Neoliberalism?

~~~
almost_usual
Capitalism ironically. X money is never enough.

~~~
jerf
There's a lot of people here trying to blame capitalism or the right, but it
seems like trying to square that circle with the collaboration of Silicon
Valley and the Chinese Government is a bit of a stretch. History is important
and all, but even if I stipulate your theory about the past (which I don't,
but for the sake of argument let's let it go), it's SV and China doing this
_today_. Anyone who wants to try to convince me that the SV+China
collaboration is "of the right" is welcome to try but I warn you you're
basically facing Mt. Everest here. Blaming it on people who are not even
proximal to today's manifestation of the will, at best, make you briefly feel
better, but do nothing to solve the problem.

~~~
FiveSquared
What happened in the past can happen again. See, every war in human history.

~~~
jerf
What relevance does that have to what is happening _now_? Are you seriously
proposing that it's OK to not worry about what Silicon Valley and China are
doing, because someday in the past and maybe someday in the future, right-wing
people will try to squash freedom? That makes no sense.

