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Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

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Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#31

Post by 50CNT »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #27
50CNT wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investment into incubators, co-working spaces, government projects such as tech parks, building office space, streamlining of company registration and visa's, doing official visits (XiJingPing at Cheku, China's finance minister at 3W Cafe), yeah, they're pretty involved in things.

I've heard about these places from colleagues. Every local government is starting incubators, but many of them are like ghost malls. Which is funny, because they are converting a ghost mall in Beijing Zhongguancun near my office into an incubator space....

Yeah, haven't bothered checking any of them out tbh, don't really see the draw of it. I do have a friend who was trying to get a spot in one of them, but the materials he showed me seemed pretty sterile. Can't fault them for not trying though.

Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#32

Post by doppp »

supster wrote: post #12
ignoramous wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're undermining the fact that to build services of that scale is not trivial at all, and the fact they have managed to do it is the basis of why they are an effective competition to SV, now that they are as economically strong as the Bay Area is. Once they are done with "replicating" SV, they'd start "inventing" too. What's stopping them from that?

I'm not undermining them - simply stating that there was a vacuum created by the lack of competition. Even cloning successful services at scale is incredibly difficult, but it's not 0 to 1, it's 1 to n. Nonetheless, I agree Chinese startups are using their current leverage to innovate in really interesting new ways.

I highly doubt there is a "lack of competition" in China. For each and every one of those "Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Youtube, Gmail, Dropbox, Vimeo, SoundCloud" you mentioned, there are a hundred similar companies.

In fact, I'd argue that competition is rife and more ruthless in China than in Silicon Valley. The moment you have a good idea, ten companies will appear the next day hot on your heels. Even if the American stalwarts were to enter the Chinese market, who's to say they won't be crushed by Chinese competition?

Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#33

Post by tmptmp »

chx wrote: post #30
api wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been told that the great firewall is actually more about protectionism than censorship. They know they can't really contain information, but they can block or degrade foreign services to favor their own. Of course this does serve a state censorship and surveillance agenda indirectly since home grown services can be more easily controlled. As much as I can't stand Trump and could never vote for him, I do think he…

Stop right there. Think of what you are doing. You are already trying to find positive values in Trump. Don't. Resist him. The whole world is in deep shit if he gets elected. Check https://twitter.com/ivan_hernandez/status/694388187284795392 as well :)

No, Trump has made many important and crucial things about USA. The matter of shoddy trade practices by China is one such thing. I guess, Trump is a right candidate for USA now given the situation of Islamist immigration and China and such things.

Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#34

Post by kyledrake »

50CNT wrote: post #25
kyledrake wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an endless supply of people to fill in those that leave. Mind you, the greener pasture might just be Shanghai. Shanghai looked a lot more developed than Beijing, but I was only there for the day, so I didn't have time to really explore the city. It reminded me a lot of Hong Kong in many respects. I'd love to spend a month deep diving into the tech scene there.

From what I've heard the more mature startups with interesting end up moving to Shangdi for cheaper office space. That kinda leaves the has-beens and never-will-be's behind, but I guess that's to be expected. Even the founder of the place has started another venture a bit down the street. We met some interesting people during their anniversary party, but then we met an equal share of idiots, so my guess it's 50/50 ri…

> We met some interesting people during their anniversary party, but then we met an equal share of idiots, so my guess it's 50/50 right now.

Oh there was plenty of that when I was there, but that was part of the fun for me. Easy to write off the dude I spent half an hour talking about Chinese punk rock bands with as a goober, but maybe he's the one that kicks off the Chinese version of Sub Pop records.

I gave up a long time ago on the idea of ever knowing who's going to do the awesome stuff. Almost more often than not it's the people I thought were the idiots and the lunatics.

Actually what I really liked about the people I met was that they were real characters with a lot of personality. I expected a lot of blank faced marketing pitch lameness but didn't get much of that (I'm sure it's there though).

Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#35

Post by Apocryphon »

doppp wrote: post #32
supster wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not undermining them - simply stating that there was a vacuum created by the lack of competition. Even cloning successful services at scale is incredibly difficult, but it's not 0 to 1, it's 1 to n. Nonetheless, I agree Chinese startups are using their current leverage to innovate in really interesting new ways.

I highly doubt there is a "lack of competition" in China. For each and every one of those "Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Youtube, Gmail, Dropbox, Vimeo, SoundCloud" you mentioned, there are a hundred similar companies. In fact, I'd argue that competition is rife and more ruthless in China than in Silicon Valley. The moment you have a good idea, ten companies will appear the next day hot on your h…

On the other hand, the customer base is also much larger in China.

Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#36

Post by ximeng »

iveqy wrote: post #28

Actually, if we count unicorn companies per capita, the number two after silicon valley is stockholm. http://www.forbes.com/sites/knowledgewharton/2015/11/11/how-...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnol...

Alternative source without interstitial.

Also comments here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10693764

And actual companies here:

http://stockholmitregion.com/2015/08/31/stockholm-unicorn-fa...

Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#37

Post by Apocryphon »

fighting wrote: post #9

Lack of clean air to breathe and rampant corruption and authoritarianism seem not very conducive to a successful startup culture. There is a huge churn of chinese money trying to find places to go and get a good roi. It is not clear that this will last though. Also, I find it unlikely that without a free/open software ecosystem like linux or bsd they will get very far. Building a startup culture on a general computin…

Lack of clean air to breathe and rampant corruption and authoritarianism seem not very conducive to a successful startup culture.

It's a test case to see if cyberpunk novels were accurate in describing neon-lit, polluted urban corporate wastelands like Chiba City, I guess.

Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#39

Post by ximeng »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #7

Spend 3 weeks in China, and maybe it is clear that it is, but spend 8 years in China, and it is overwhelming clear that it is not. > Yes, they clone where they can. But cloning is starting to reach its max — there are just not enough successful ideas to clone. In addition, clones often fail in the local market due to different consumer behavior and needs. China is still fairly closed, startups here in Beijing are 99%…

WeChat payments seem like genuine improvements. But agree it's going to be very challenging for these companies to expand overseas. Perhaps still easier for China to expand outside its borders than outside companies expanding to China.

Re: Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor

#40

Post by mrb »

api wrote: post #8
supster wrote: post #4

It must help Chinese startups that many SV companies are blocked from competing in China. For example no competition from Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Youtube, Gmail, Dropbox, Vimeo, SoundCloud... more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Websites_blocked_in_mainland_C...

I've been told that the great firewall is actually more about protectionism than censorship. They know they can't really contain information, but they can block or degrade foreign services to favor their own. Of course this does serve a state censorship and surveillance agenda indirectly since home grown services can be more easily controlled. As much as I can't stand Trump and could never vote for him, I do think he…

I think most economists will tell you the USA-China economic trade benefits both countries. Few will tell you it is "unfair". China get American money, and the USA get swath of cheap goods.
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