Startup School Beijing • Hacker News Board

Re: Startup School Beijing

#151

Post by jk2323 » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 5:02 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #88

contingencies wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 foreig…

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-... . 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…

chinalawblog.com is a good source, but I know foreigners who made 7 figures with stock options in China.

Also, a western buddy of mine co-runs a VC fund. Many of the China based start-ups have western equity holders. Something is missing here.

Re: Startup School Beijing

#152

Post by jk2323 » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 5:04 PM UTC

baby wrote: post #45

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.

What do you have? What do you want?

Re: Startup School Beijing

#153

Post by jk2323 » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 5:08 PM UTC

Dowwie wrote: post #50

Of all the provinces, why Beijing?

Because Beijing is the best city in China. Shanghai is for people who don't like China.

By the way, never fuck with anyone with money in Shanghai. There is always somebody with more money than you. Never fuck with anyone with power in Bejing....

Re: Startup School Beijing

#154

Post by auganov » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 5:16 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #148

auganov wrote: post #74

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.

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

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.

Re: Startup School Beijing

#155

Post by jk2323 » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 5:18 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #88

contingencies wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 foreig…

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-... . 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…

"If you are a foreigner working for a domestic startup, you simply aren’t allowed to have equity."

This can't be true since you can have equity in a company. Start-up or not. An IPO may be a different thing because a regular foreigner can't hold A-Shares. If (big if) he holds a Chinese green card then even this is allowed.

Re: Startup School Beijing

#156

Post by dang » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 5:24 PM UTC

auganov wrote: post #154

dang wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

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.

Re: Startup School Beijing

#157

Post by projectramo » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 5:30 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #137

baybal2 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 my…

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

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.

Re: Startup School Beijing

#158

Post by mistermann » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 5:31 PM UTC

dnomad wrote: post #128

mistermann wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Agreed, investing in China is the "invading Russia" of the tech world. I'd go even one step further, it is more like partnering with Germany, except in this version of the story Germany might be successful in its quest to take over the world, because make no mistake, China is coming for your market, it's only a matter of time. It is encouraging that more and more people are finally starting to put the pieces of thi…

The vast fear and ignorance in this thread is amusing but the comparison of China to Nazi Germany is perhaps a new low, even for Hacker News? It's interesting though how people develop such warped perceptions of the world. It's exactly how the greatest disaster of the 21st century, the absolutely unprovoked and absolutely senseless American invasion of Iraq which killed a million people and directly led to the rise o…

> The vast fear and ignorance in this thread is amusing but the comparison of China to Nazi Germany is perhaps a new low, even for Hacker News?. It's interesting though how people develop such warped perceptions of the world.

It's amazing how you can deduce what I believe without me having said it. How long have you been able to read minds?

It is this hyper-anti-racism aspect of modern western culture that is enabling China to walk in and take over the world, and get the people from whom they're taking market share help them out in their endeavor.

Re: Startup School Beijing

#159

Post by seanmcdirmid » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 5:32 PM UTC

jk2323 wrote: post #155

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-... . 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…

"If you are a foreigner working for a domestic startup, you simply aren’t allowed to have equity." This can't be true since you can have equity in a company. Start-up or not. An IPO may be a different thing because a regular foreigner can't hold A-Shares. If (big if) he holds a Chinese green card then even this is allowed.

The number of foreigners with green cards is really small, I’ve never met one before, so I have no idea about their situation.

I thought the whole point of the equity restriction is that you can’t hold A shares. What other kind of equity class is there besides outright ownership? And thats not even getting into the Huawei mess.

Re: Startup School Beijing

#160

Post by seanmcdirmid » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 5:34 PM UTC

projectramo wrote: post #157

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

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.