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YC China and Qi Lu

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: YC China and Qi Lu

#161

Post by fsloth »

Gwaih1r wrote: post #153
fsloth wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. It's not about empowering everyone on the planet, it's about creating companies which become billion dollar unicorns 2. The probability of Unicornism is directly related to the size of the market you can access. US is the biggest single market on the planet. 3. Accessibility of markets: While EU is the second largest single market [0] US companies have entered european markets just fine. On the other hand, to oper…

Are you sure nominal GDP is the right metric to be using to compare market size? By adjusted (PPP) GDP it's China, EU and then the US. Those billions can go a lot further in China and the EU than they can in the US. https://www.thebalance.com/world-s-largest-economy-3306044

As a complete economist noob this is my understanding: When discussing huge investements, the cost of goods and services does not really matter, but what matters is that what is the expected profit margin from the investment and at what risk.

From this point of view dollars do equal the estimated size, not how much commodities or services you can buy with it.

Someone with more experience can comment hopefully on this.

Re: YC China and Qi Lu

#163

Post by client4 »

piggybox wrote: post #111
Analemma_ wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I worked at Bing when this all went down.) It was a strange departure. He apparently got in some kind of cycling accident and took medical leave from Microsoft for recovery, but then just a few months later he was a senior executive at Baidu. Not sure what was up with that. But contra the GP, the general opinion both during and after Lu's tenure was that he did a good job. It took a while, but Bing is profitable now…

As good as Google is, I'm glad we have alternatives to choose from. Bing is actually pretty good in China where Google is not available.

I use Bing as my primary search engine while in China. It isn't blocked, has excellent search results, and is a general drop in replacement for Google/DDG. Baidu is a bit harder to navigate as a foreigner. I don't even try with Baidu Maps.

Re: YC China and Qi Lu

#164

Post by ekianjo »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #152
fsloth wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. It's not about empowering everyone on the planet, it's about creating companies which become billion dollar unicorns 2. The probability of Unicornism is directly related to the size of the market you can access. US is the biggest single market on the planet. 3. Accessibility of markets: While EU is the second largest single market [0] US companies have entered european markets just fine. On the other hand, to oper…

> US is the biggest single market on the planet. By which measure? China has nearly five times as many inhabitants, the biggest economic growth over the past three decades of any country, and out-produces the US by over nine thousand. If it's not yet the biggest market on the planet yet, it soon will be.

China may become richer but it will have to deal with the effects of a very fast aging population as well which will impede its economy as well.

Re: YC China and Qi Lu

#166

Post by yzh »

ulfw wrote: post #44

I find it funny how YC is focusing only on places where the majority of the world won’t or can’t easily work (US visa policy is atrocious and getting worse every year + raising xenophobia in recent times) and China isn’t an easy country to navigate if you don’t speak Mandarin, let alone succeed in as a foreigner (for a variety of reasons). Asia and Europe are big places as are Canada and Australia. Time to think broa…

I think YC China would mainly help local tech talents to launch startups with a focus on China's markets first. If you look at how many tech startups are located in Beijing (some of them are tier-one companies: Tusimple, uisee, bytedance, mobvoi, megvii, just to name a few), you would know that they have made the right choice.

Re: YC China and Qi Lu

#167

Post by jmspring »

Interesting to see YC embrace someone who went on leave at MSFT due to injuries of a bike accident... or so the news claimed. Yet popped up at Baidu/etc.

Next up YC will hire the Amazon Exec that puffed himself up and was fired before he joined Uber?

Re: YC China and Qi Lu

#168

Post by yzh »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #49
ulfw wrote: post #44

I find it funny how YC is focusing only on places where the majority of the world won’t or can’t easily work (US visa policy is atrocious and getting worse every year + raising xenophobia in recent times) and China isn’t an easy country to navigate if you don’t speak Mandarin, let alone succeed in as a foreigner (for a variety of reasons). Asia and Europe are big places as are Canada and Australia. Time to think broa…

Mandarin isn't strictly necessary to live in China. Plenty of my laowai colleagues only knew a few words and got along just fine in a tier one Beijing, which admittedly is a bit behind Shanghai and Shenzhen. The only thing that really drove us out was the pollution (a huge problem in Beijing that is supposedly finally getting better). Given the US visa policy, as bad as it is, still attracts far more many foreigners…

I think compared to pollution, political situation and education is more concerned.

Re: YC China and Qi Lu

#169

Post by client4 »

jumelles wrote: post #15

YC's got a very, very fine line to tread if they're serious about China - with its limits on human rights and authoritarian tendencies, the Chinese government is absolutely not to be trusted. I worry about what sort of concessions tech companies have made and will make to gain access to the Chinese market.

I think this is a very American perspective; I'm American as well. It is very easy for us to forget our own human rights abuses, like bombing children in the Middle East, torture in Abu Ghraib, etc. etc. and focus on other countries as the "bad guys". America's leadership has made mistakes, China's leadership has made mistakes, but to use those mistakes to promote isolationism divides us as a global people. China runs their country differently. If YC can promote new startups in China, perhaps one day those startups will be the driving cause of unifying the world. Most citizens only loosely affiliate with their country. Many Chinese, like Americans, want to make their home and the world a better place. To remix from Richard Dawkins, A child is not an American child, not a Chinese child, but a child of American parents or a child of Chinese parents.

Re: YC China and Qi Lu

#170

Post by yzh »

kaptain wrote: post #107

The political concerns are real. It's too cynical to say that YC just cares about money, though. There would be better ways to create an incubator than to do it like this, if that were the case. One obvious question that hasn't been raised is: "Why not base it in Taiwan?" It's still "China" (for some definition of China), you can still get access to the talent that you want (you just have to try a little harder), and…

Some of my Taiwanese friends would choose to base their companies at either silicon valley or mainland China, while a lot of my bay area Chinese friends (and friends who received US grad school education) would choose to base their companies in mainland China. Taiwan doesn't really have the ideal startup environment.
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