Notes from the ground here. My undergrad was in EE at an "elite" school - I can say definitively that ~50% of the MS/Ph.d. students in EE were from China (with the other 50% largely from India). They TA'd many of the graduate level courses and were the majority of the students taking high level semiconductor design courses that centered on fabrication and nanotechnology. China's short term goal is clearly to reach pa…
Well the vast majority of these kids would prefer to stay in the US. Clearly the solution to prevent them from taking their knowledge back to their home countries is to denigrate them politically and make it harder and more inconvenient for them to live and work here.
Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power
181–190 of 211 posts
Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power
#182I worked for Nokia when we outsourced part of our R&D to Huang Shu. 2 years later many of the sites employees moved on to work for Chinese gov backed tech firm, and the source code of what I wrote for Nokia and that of several colleagues popping up on github. It wasn't critical in terms of copyright or deep secrets about the product. But it contained info that allows an outsider get a very accurate picture of the sof…
Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
>America is not where opportunity is these days Yes, but the living standards in the United States are far higher. Sure you may never become a billionaire here like you can in China, but you can breathe the air and the traffic isn't that bad. The schools are better, the houses are bigger. China may get there, but I know where I'd rather be over the next 20-30 years. And they can always move back.
I'd be wary of thinking that it'll take that long. Live in Shenzhen and it is crazy the amount of progress here every year. Public transportation is way better than most American cities and housing is more expensive than most American cities. Apartments here regularly go for a couple million USD, the ads are plastered on the windows of every real estate agency on every street corner. The air here is quite breathable…
Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
My car has 18” rims with Continental tires. This is about as related to the comment above, as yours. (By the way, the death toll of Mao’s cultural revolution clocks in around 50 million.)
50 million? What the hell, that's multiple cities worth of depopulation. There's no way that could be true
Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Yes, we sent rockets to the moon, but an average Ivan couldn't have proper plumbing in his apartment." Older properties in London sometimes still had outhouses into the 1960s.
Ironically, in retrospect, outhouses are a better technology and plumbing is solving a problem we never had. Removing waste that can be easily recycled is wasteful.
Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power
#186Notes from the ground here. My undergrad was in EE at an "elite" school - I can say definitively that ~50% of the MS/Ph.d. students in EE were from China (with the other 50% largely from India). They TA'd many of the graduate level courses and were the majority of the students taking high level semiconductor design courses that centered on fabrication and nanotechnology. China's short term goal is clearly to reach pa…
We won't decline in absolute numbers but comparatively. We will never produce as many engineers as china because they outnumber us by more than a billion people.
Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm mostly with everything but the second half of your first sentence here, but unfortunately that embeds such a huge misconception that the net value of your comment could very well be negative unless you acknowledge and clarify/correct this. The boundaries of Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, etc. are "arbitrary [and] invisible" to some extent, and obviously drawn by the powerful. But "the current set of lines are…
I'm not interested in your advice but I'm happy talk about the issues. That said, I'm not sure what you're saying or what you think I said. Immigration is, I believe, a human right. It's liberty - liberty to travel, to make the most of yourself, and it's opportunity. People should be free to make the most of themselves. It's also economic freedom, which generally yields more productive economies for all. For practica…
A corollary is that you should be allowed to join organizations that want you.
But entry to any organization, regardless of whether they want you or not? In a world where Google has to hire everyone who applies, or Stanford has to admit everyone, or families have to house and feed anyone who shows up at their doorstep even when they don't want to, you no longer have a Google or a Stanford or a family functioning anywhere close to its current level. "Entry to anywhere as a human right" is an idea which may be initially attractive due to its simplicity, but the only people I know who stick with it after further thought appear more interested in harming groups of people they don't like than trying to lift up everyone.
And as a practical matter, for all of its flaws, the US has nevertheless done more than any other country over the last 7 decades to enforce a right of exit across most of the globe. A more diverse and stronger US would be an improvement, yes, and I'm pretty sure Canada/Australia-style immigration policy will get us there. But there are ways to become more diverse and weaker, too; and importantly, in that world, bigotry is even further from being solved, because the probable leading superpower is a more bigoted, monoracial China. (In contrast, when the City College of New York ceased to be a top-tier institution, the damage was fortunately limited to just itself; other top universities had ended anti-Jewish admissions practices some years earlier.) You seem completely blind to this danger.
Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power
#188Having worked in China in the semiconductor industry, it really saddens me what the Chinese are trying to do. You simply cannot out innovate 4 decades of work in a few years no matter how much money you throw at it. Also, China has a branding problem and it is only going to get worse. They can make short term progress but it takes a long time to build a great brand.
Sure you can, as long as you have the people, resources and the infrastructure.
> Also, China has a branding problem and it is only going to get worse.
So did every country. When we were starting out as a nation, we stole IP from britain and we were known as the nation of the shoddy. Believe it or not, germany was once known as a nation of terrible brands and shoddy products. So was japan. Ask your grandparents. "Made in japan" was equivalent to junk in our grandparents time. The same with korea. It's only within the past 20 years that korea shed the "junk" image with Samsung, LG, etc.
Also, for most of history, "made in china" was considered high quality. That's why we have terms like "fine china". Until the opium wars and the collapse of china, china was renown for quality goods.
History has shown that countries move from shoddy manufacturing reputation to quality reputation. Don't really see why china would be the exception to the rule.
Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power
#189Notes from the ground here. My undergrad was in EE at an "elite" school - I can say definitively that ~50% of the MS/Ph.d. students in EE were from China (with the other 50% largely from India). They TA'd many of the graduate level courses and were the majority of the students taking high level semiconductor design courses that centered on fabrication and nanotechnology. China's short term goal is clearly to reach pa…
Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power
#190History rhymes. American industrialists famously begged, borrowed and stole machine designs from Europe -- Slater the traitor kickstarted the American cotton industry. Of course, the lack of foresight of Wall St is legendary! Many companies have traded long term loss for short term gain.
IP and knowledge was much less valuable in the 19th C industrial economy than it is today. Back then execution and raw materials and access to semiskilled labor was most important. The Chinese (NK, Iranian, Russian) corporate hacks we have seen recently could have a MUCH larger economic effect.
Actually it was far more valuable because it was far rarer and you could do far more with it. With IP you could own/dominate the entire textile market, the entire cotton market, the entire oil market, etc. With IP you could dominate the world's oceans with your navy.
It's counterintuitive but IP at the beginning stages was far more important.
> The Chinese (NK, Iranian, Russian) corporate hacks we have seen recently could have a MUCH larger economic effect.
This is simply not true. The markets today are much larger and far more diverse and the IP space is ridiculous complex, large and diverse. Of course IP theft has a significant economic impact today, but IP theft 200 years had a far greater effect when industries and IP was so limited.