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YC China and Qi Lu

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: YC China and Qi Lu

#321

Post by Markoff »

hungryhobo wrote: post #142
nullifidian wrote: post #132

>to ensure that the benefits of that are fairly spread throughout humanity. What about Uighur internment camps YC money will finance through taxes?

what about the millions of people that have been lifted out of poverty in China? they don't count?

are you really trying to say they wouldn't be lifted with different government? i tend to believe living standard of Chinese people would be higher if not for CCP, these guys can't manage basic things like overcrowded public transport, health insurance pretty much doesn't exist, schools are inaccessible etc. you would really need to try hard to be worse than them

Re: YC China and Qi Lu

#322

Post by enwa »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #313
europeanperson wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You got me there. It's just that almost all of the current comments talk about how YC shouldn't do business in China, while they're already doing business in the U.S. I just don't see how it is worse, when the U.S. has a far more violent recent past.

There are many comments that don’t say that, however. The USA is still a great place to do business if you want to make money. My only arguments against China is that the system is more rigged against foreigners from making money there. The moral arguments are a distraction, though they are mostly true. Yes, China has third world problems, yes the USA has first world problems. Whatever, the world is an imperfect plac…

I don't think the moral arguments are a distraction if they are reasonable. Any intelligent person can see that both the US and China have problems and wouldn't want to contribute to those problems. And to not do that one has to look at ones intentions, motivations and actions.

Most individuals just don't have a lot of pull and we can compensate, at least somewhat, through other means. People visiting, buying products from or to some extent working in these countries isn't the problem. Most people aren't qualified to make an assessment, can't really be expected to go out of their way and won't, hopefully, engage in propaganda.

What YC is doing is just incredibly high on that scale. If you start a company in the US chances are you don't know better, since the US has a much better reputation, or you have to be there, since you were born or just very aware of it. You can treat your employees well, protest the US government and you can sue companies, people or the government itself.

YC should not only know better but will be able to do very little of those things in China. And it will be a huge win for China in general. This makes their actual step into China much worse. You can't really come back in five years and criticize them for working with the government and their investments doing objectionable things. Well you can, but it isn't very practical.

Why do we even insist on justice? Most of us can just mind our own business and do fine. It is of course on behalf the people who get mistreated. Their condition is the actual cost of our actions. Most of us can, sort of, live with that we largely unintentional enable mistreatment of many people in the developing world. But for a small entity with a lot of impact those actions becomes a lot costlier. So such decision are and should therefor be much harder to justify.

Re: YC China and Qi Lu

#323

Post by sama »

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…

We fund startups all around the world! In the rare cases where a founder is unable to get a US visa for the duration of our program, we are open to doing something remote. We offer a lot of help figuring out the US visa system, which is in my opinion extremely sub-optimal. I believe talent is equally distributed in the world, and the US should want as many talented founders to come create businesses here as possible.

China is an especially interesting market to us given the quality of companies and entrepreneurs we see there.

Re: YC China and Qi Lu

#324

Post by sama »

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…

It's definitely an area where we will have to tread carefully, and the concerns are for sure real. It was important to us to find an extremely ethically aligned leader.

However, I think it's easy to fall into a trap of assuming that everything about China (or any other culture) is worse just because it's different. My experience in China, and talking to Chinese people about their experiences in China, has been very different than what I assumed it would be.

Re: YC China and Qi Lu

#325

Post by mattigames »

europeanperson wrote: post #309

I assume that most of the people that commented on this article live in the U.S. The majority of the world sees the U.S. as the world's biggest threat to world peace, yet I don't see anybody on Hacker News claiming companies shouldn't do business with the U.S. Since the war in Iraq, can we think of something that the Chinese government has done that is worse? I disagree strongly with the notion that the Chinese gover…

USA is fairly variant in its own chaos, no president gets more than 8 years, internet censorship by the state is looked down by all parties; people who oppose the wars it goes can complain without fearing for their lives; a big chunk of this behavior and similar ones is because the US is made from people of a lot of races including Asians and Asia-descendants.

On the other hand China just recently confirmed a "president for life", that's always a bad idea, remember the last "president for life" China had? Yeah... So despite U.S. being more likely to start wars its open to change from the inside; China is a solid big time bomb with little to no space for change and once they decide to enter a war it will likely be the last one.

Re: YC China and Qi Lu

#326

Post by nailer »

qihqi wrote: post #307
nailer wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Taiwan is not "China" for reasonable and informed definitions of China. Taiwan is literally the Republic of China. The leadership is descended from the same people who overcame the Japanese. Pretending the Communist Party has a monopoly on the word 'China' is uninformed and unreasonable. Off topic, a better compromise would have been Hong Kong, inside the PRC with some degree of democracy, though less than original…

You are not wrong that Taiwan is part of China according to official definition (from both PRC and Taiwanese gov). However, "Taiwan is literally the Republic of China." is disingenuous considering that their government is not the one that sits in the United Nations.

Taiwan's official name is the Republic of China. How is that disingenuous? They're not at the UN because the PRC is bigger than them and has nukes.

Re: YC China and Qi Lu

#327

Post by chaostheory »

nailer wrote: post #326
qihqi wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not wrong that Taiwan is part of China according to official definition (from both PRC and Taiwanese gov). However, "Taiwan is literally the Republic of China." is disingenuous considering that their government is not the one that sits in the United Nations.

Taiwan's official name is the Republic of China. How is that disingenuous? They're not at the UN because the PRC is bigger than them and has nukes.

When people refer to China, they are referring to mainland China which is about the same size as the continental US, and not a small island about the size of Vermont. They are two different things because Taiwan based businesses do not have the same access to mainland China vs businesses based on the mainland. China's domestic market is pretty much a closed one.

Re: YC China and Qi Lu

#328

Post by pnathan »

ProAm wrote: post #287
pnathan wrote: post #283

This is a recognition that the Chinese world is a rising superpower, both in innovation and in politics. Reminds me to study Mandarin! I wish them all the best, and I hope that the interactions with the great qualities of YC produces an excellent step forward for China and its technologists.

> This is a recognition that the Chinese world is a rising superpower To be fair this has been known since the early 90's maybe even late 80's

It's a growing recognition - a lot of the 90s commentary around China was, in my recollection, essentially mediated by genteelly stated Yellow Peril racism and fear, much like the 80s fear of Japan. Along with a fair dose of anti-Communism - reading the old Leninist & Stalinist ideas for world revolution into the CCCP.

The 2000s have allowed, in my opinion, a more mature understanding of China with less stereotypical hyperbole. I expect part of that is the commercial and cultural interchange, part of that is time, and part of that is the Internet.

I also think there's something of an ideas stagflation in the US, against which China might be considered to be a bright spot in the world.

Re: YC China and Qi Lu

#329

Post by client4 »

remir wrote: post #254
client4 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 run…

Many Chinese, like Americans, want to make their home and the world a better place How about respecting human rights? That would be a start. Technology can help for some things, but past a certain point, "making the world a better place" also imply policy changes.

And what I'm saying is, my government doesn't respect human rights, but I as a citizen do. You're throwing the baby out with the bathwater arguing private US business shouldn't work with anyone in China because they must all be human rights abusers. /s

Re: YC China and Qi Lu

#330

Post by iskippedlegday0 »

nailer wrote: post #286
maxkwallace wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taiwan is not "China" for reasonable and informed definitions of China. Independent of that, to the best of my understanding: (1) The talent pools in Taiwan and China are different (2) The markets in Taiwan and China are very different Right now the Chinese market is more important than the Chinese talent pool, but both are important. Basing an accelerator in Taiwan would be good for Taiwan, but it would not meaningf…

> Taiwan is not "China" for reasonable and informed definitions of China. Taiwan is literally the Republic of China. The leadership is descended from the same people who overcame the Japanese. Pretending the Communist Party has a monopoly on the word 'China' is uninformed and unreasonable. Off topic, a better compromise would have been Hong Kong, inside the PRC with some degree of democracy, though less than original…

We're in the realm of opinion, but my $0.02:

"China" is the name of a country. For historical reasons the "Republic of China" is one of the names of a different country, but having "China" in its name doesn't make it (a part of) China.

Most people call China "China" simply because China's current territory is closest to the China that existed before the Nationalist/Communist split. It's not a political statement. Two different countries needs two different names. Taiwan is for all intents and purposes a country but it can't declare itself one now because of military threat from China.

Yes, there are Taiwanese who want Taiwan to subjugate itself and become part of China. But all the young people I have talked to, excluding blindly patriotic Chinese, see Taiwan as Taiwan and China as China-- as two separate countries with their own economies, histories, cultures, and languages.

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