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An update on YC China

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: An update on YC China

#51

Post by president »

blotter_paper wrote: post #38
ddevault wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has got to be satire. >I understand this is a very difficult decision. I'm not sure if its right or wrong. From the perspective of Human Rights its probably right, but from the perspective of investment its difficult considering China's growth prospects. I can't believe a human being would actually write this. The level of cognitive dissonance would be off the charts.

Here's an attempt at interpretting it graciously: if China's economy grows, more Chinese people may be lifted out of poverty. This is obviously beneficial to their lives directly, but could also result in political shifts as the rising middle class becomes more of a stakeholder in society. More developed countries can also afford to have more environmentally friendly laws. There are a bunch of potential benefits to C…

A noble view but giving China too much credit. The more that US invests in China, the more the US is supporting the atrocities in Chinese concentration camps, mass surveillance and censorship, and military expansion into international territories. This is not at all just an economic issue. China is acting without impunity and it is up to world leaders to step up and put a stop to their aggressive tactics.

I think most people would be sold on decoupling from China or at least entertaining the idea of enacting punitive actions on China the moment they realize that more than 1 million Chinese citizens are being detained against their will and having their organs ripped out from them while still being half-conscious. All the while, their family gravesites are bulldozed [1] and the CCP sends Chinese men to sleep with their wives [2]. Unfortunately, the insane amount of influence through bribery, censorship, and propaganda exported from China has made people completely unaware of Holocaust-level atrocities.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/09/chinas-destruc...

[2] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7647865/Muslim-wive...

Re: An update on YC China

#52

Post by noobermin »

SandersAK wrote: post #45

Personally I was really disappointed when YC opened up shop in China - to me it really revealed a Profits over People approach and was pretty brazen at the time. Happy to see (for whatever reason) that they're recommitting to communities that (at least on the surface) don't support fascist overtures.

Echoing another poster, people and individuals who are Chinese are not their government. You shouldn't equate working with Chinese individuals and talent as a tacit support of their government.

Re: An update on YC China

#53

Post by overkalix »

blotter_paper wrote: post #38
ddevault wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has got to be satire. >I understand this is a very difficult decision. I'm not sure if its right or wrong. From the perspective of Human Rights its probably right, but from the perspective of investment its difficult considering China's growth prospects. I can't believe a human being would actually write this. The level of cognitive dissonance would be off the charts.

Here's an attempt at interpretting it graciously: if China's economy grows, more Chinese people may be lifted out of poverty. This is obviously beneficial to their lives directly, but could also result in political shifts as the rising middle class becomes more of a stakeholder in society. More developed countries can also afford to have more environmentally friendly laws. There are a bunch of potential benefits to C…

> Sacrificing these benefits to bring attention to human rights might actually be harmful

So we have to tolerate human rights violations so that in the future _maybe_ there are no more human rights violations?

Re: An update on YC China

#55

Post by leroy_masochist »

jessewmc wrote: post #11

Strange optics not to mention the elephant in the room. I could see them hitting some roadblocks and wanting to try again to get into China, but that would be a reasonable thing to come out and say. It also would be reasonable to come out and say they've changed their minds due to political climate or some other risks. Instead its... the new guy is busy?

Wouldn't it be an abandonment of their duty of care to portfolio companies for them to poke the bear, though?

I get that if PG tweeted something like, "We're pulling out of China because they're violently repressing pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong and they run a re-education gulag archipelago for millions of Uighurs and they murder political prisoners so they can sell their organs through their state-administered transplant market", it would be satisfying to read -- but I'm not a YC alum. I don't run a company that could get screwed if YC lands on Beijing's shit list. Sure, that's probably a small slice of the portfolio, but this is still the right call from a business perspective.

Actions speak louder than words, and this decision was pretty clear.

Re: An update on YC China

#56

Post by kbumsik »

Did some people in the comments forget what happens to Blizzard? It would be better not having a branch in China unless they are 100% sure they can be free from any political issues around China, and we actually don't need to hear "why" from YC.

Re: An update on YC China

#57

Post by ngcc_hk »

yourbandsucks wrote: post #47
SandersAK wrote: post #45

Personally I was really disappointed when YC opened up shop in China - to me it really revealed a Profits over People approach and was pretty brazen at the time. Happy to see (for whatever reason) that they're recommitting to communities that (at least on the surface) don't support fascist overtures.

Chinese people are people too, you know.

But chinese government is not a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

North Korean is also human too. So is those in nazi Germany für Ibm.

Re: An update on YC China

#58

Post by CharlesColeman »

justinzollars wrote: post #43
ddevault wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has got to be satire. >I understand this is a very difficult decision. I'm not sure if its right or wrong. From the perspective of Human Rights its probably right, but from the perspective of investment its difficult considering China's growth prospects. I can't believe a human being would actually write this. The level of cognitive dissonance would be off the charts.

I don't really appreciate that. I would argue I'm pretty well informed on China. I've traveled to China, I've worked with the Chinese for over a decade across various roles, my grandfather helped industrialize China, and I've read many great books on China. Personally I retweeted Hillary Clinton's support of Hong Kong protestors while I was in Beijing, so I put myself at personal risk in doing this. But lets address…

> ...the West believes in Universal Human Rights. China obviously does not.

This is probably a case where more precision is warranted. The CCP and the nearly synonymous PRC government obviously do not believe in Universal Human Rights [1]. However "China" can be interpreted as the Chinese nation/people, and many of them do believe in human rights [see Hong Kong] or have been deliberately kept ignorant of the concepts. It's not like rejection of human rights is part of the national character, or anything.

> Is it really wise to Balkanize the world if our goal is to encourage China to adopt Human Rights? How would a second cold war help?

The Cold War was basically about containment, and it's an acknowledgment that no good options are available. Recent history has shown that trade and investment don't necessarily lead to liberalization, and military attacks are out of the question. Besides containment, the only option left is acceptance/appeasement.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/world/asia/chinas-new-lea...

Re: An update on YC China

#59

Post by blotter_paper »

overkalix wrote: post #53
blotter_paper wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an attempt at interpretting it graciously: if China's economy grows, more Chinese people may be lifted out of poverty. This is obviously beneficial to their lives directly, but could also result in political shifts as the rising middle class becomes more of a stakeholder in society. More developed countries can also afford to have more environmentally friendly laws. There are a bunch of potential benefits to C…

> Sacrificing these benefits to bring attention to human rights might actually be harmful So we have to tolerate human rights violations so that in the future _maybe_ there are no more human rights violations?

I'm not actually arguing that this is the most desirable course of action, I'm arguing that OP's original comment can be interpretted in a manner that isn't putting personal gain above human rights. I felt like there were a lot of angry voices piling on over a potential misinterpretation.

Re: An update on YC China

#60

Post by shasheene »

It suprises me that intelligent, reasonable people like Andrew Ng and Sam Altman were willing to help develop and invest in the Chinese Communist Party's AI/ML capabilities helping to create an authoritarian surveillance state used to repress minorities (Uighers, Tibetans, Falun Gong) on a scale not seen since Adolf Hitler.

The CCP and private companies are hand-in-glove. The risks of working with state-owned enterprises are clear. The risks of working with private companies are are also great with "party cells" officially embedded into at least half of private companies.

Fortunately for the free world, China faces massive structural issues to growth over the next 40 years, which the CCP is unable or unwilling to deal with. I highly recommend [1] and [2] to understand the future of the brutal Chinese dictatorship.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/01/17/world/asia/ch...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AvNT3vyzr0

EDIT: Instead of down voting, please articulate why you disagree.

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