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VC from Asia is skyrocketing

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Re: VC from Asia is skyrocketing

#51

Post by Chaebixi »

fspeech wrote: post #47
Chaebixi wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why hasn't US achieved the level of digital payment smoothness that China has been able to? Because it already achieved that "level of digital payment smoothness" with credit cards? > I think we need to be careful about attributing all of the China's success and splurge of VC funding to IP theft, hostile domestic market for foreign players, etc. China is succeeding because it really wants to. > It's important to re…

> Because it already achieved that "level of digital payment smoothness" with credit cards? Whether the two are equivalent depends on the transaction costs of the two models. According to the Economist: "Visa and MasterCard extract over 0.10 cents of net income for every dollar of payments. Ant takes a smaller cut, of less than 0.03 cents." https://www.economist.com/news/business/21726713-ant-financi... Perhaps more…

> Whether the two are equivalent depends on the transaction costs of the two models.

I don't think we're not talking about exact, feature-for-feature, cost-for-cost equivalence.

Both these systems have the same or similar "level of digital payment smoothness" from the customer perspective. At least with credit cards, those fees are on the merchant side not part of the customer experience equation.

Re: VC from Asia is skyrocketing

#52

Post by Chaebixi »

sanxiyn wrote: post #43
abhinavkulkarni wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we need to be careful about attributing all of the China's success and splurge of VC funding to IP theft, hostile domestic market for foreign players, etc. China is succeeding because it really wants to. With manufacturing in US hollowed out in last couple of decades and China being the new global manufacturing powerhouse, it is not surprising that China is seeking smart (software/cloud/AI/robotics powered) s…

> Why hasn't US achieved the level of digital payment smoothness that China has been able to? This isn't unusual. Because of legacy issues, latecomers often enjoy superior infrastructure. For example, US is still on 110V despite all the disadvantages.

> For example, US is still on 110V despite all the disadvantages.

Could go into that? IIRC, 110V is less efficient but it's also less dangerous, so maybe it's more of a trade-off.

But your point stands. I've read that the reason Estonia's government infrastructure is so much more advanced than the US's is because they had visionary leaders and started from scratch in the 90s. The US has the weight of decades of good-enough paper processes weighing it down.

Re: VC from Asia is skyrocketing

#53

Post by rayiner »

pascalxus wrote: post #45
abhiminator wrote: post #9

I remember The Economist doing a piece on this fairly recently[0] that talked exclusively about how China's tech VCs and established corporations (referring to the likes of Alibaba/Tencent) are challenging (and to a certain extent dethroning) Silicon Valley "monopoly" when it comes to investing in innovation/R&D in super critical areas like A.I., for example. One huge advantage Chinese corporations and startups have…

This may sound naive, but how does IP Theft even work? I've worked as a software engineer for over 12 years at over half a dozen companies, with codebases numbering in the millions of lines of code and I have yet to see any software or code I could imagine anyone would want to steal. And if you really needed some code, I'm sure it's available somewhere as open source. And wouldn't the open source code be much more pr…

E.g. what is now a major Chinese player in the US market used to clone Juniper/Cisco routers down to the English silk screened assembly instructions on the circuit boards.

Re: VC from Asia is skyrocketing

#54

Post by remir »

pascalxus wrote: post #45
abhiminator wrote: post #9

I remember The Economist doing a piece on this fairly recently[0] that talked exclusively about how China's tech VCs and established corporations (referring to the likes of Alibaba/Tencent) are challenging (and to a certain extent dethroning) Silicon Valley "monopoly" when it comes to investing in innovation/R&D in super critical areas like A.I., for example. One huge advantage Chinese corporations and startups have…

This may sound naive, but how does IP Theft even work? I've worked as a software engineer for over 12 years at over half a dozen companies, with codebases numbering in the millions of lines of code and I have yet to see any software or code I could imagine anyone would want to steal. And if you really needed some code, I'm sure it's available somewhere as open source. And wouldn't the open source code be much more pr…

Intellectual property is not just code. It can be patents, a product, a specific design.

Re: VC from Asia is skyrocketing

#55

Post by t1o5 »

coldtea wrote: post #37

> VC from Asia is skyrocketing, threatening to shift power over innovation "Threatening" to whom? Not to Asians. This is an offending us/euro-centric title in a global age...

>VC from Asia is skyrocketing, threatening to shift power over innovation

Thats what the OP thinks it is. The actual title of the article is " Silicon Valley Powered American Tech Dominance—Now It Has a Challenger "

Perhaps the western world sees challenges from Asia as threats now.

Re: VC from Asia is skyrocketing

#56

Post by remir »

kozikow wrote: post #6

I got a random idea: what if sites like HN, Reddit, RSS readers, etc. would have netflix-like subscription for articles? I don't care about WSJ or other paywall publishers. Especially not enough to subscribe. I however do care about occasional story that ends on HN.

This is a good idea. I don't want to subscribe to 20 different web sites and journals, but on the other hand, I would like to be able to pay for article that are informative and important.

Re: VC from Asia is skyrocketing

#57

Post by pkaye »

karthikb wrote: post #40
pkaye wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the EB-5 visa?

Not going to work for most founders. The point is that VC money chases where founders and their talent are, which is why the SF Bay Area has had such as stronghold for such a long time. As the US makes it more difficult for founders and talent to come to the US, VCs will focus on areas where those founders actually are. And if your option is - stay in your home country and take local money, or try to move to the US,…

I misread the parent post and was thinking of VCs. Anyway my view is that it is good for the wealth and opportunities to spread around a bit. It will benefit us all that more people around the world are solving problems in science, technology and medicine.

Re: VC from Asia is skyrocketing

#58

Post by marcell »

csomar wrote: post #46

Everyone is ignoring the fact that China is a massive closed market. Most western services do not care about China. China culture is different and it doesn't seem that the "world" is willing to translate and adapt its services to it. This means a huge opportunity for local ventures.

> the "world" is willing to translate and adapt its services to it

This is a pretty gross mischaracterization. China intentionally blocks foreign tech companies for protectionism.

Re: VC from Asia is skyrocketing

#59

Post by nostrademons »

Chaebixi wrote: post #35
abhinavkulkarni wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we need to be careful about attributing all of the China's success and splurge of VC funding to IP theft, hostile domestic market for foreign players, etc. China is succeeding because it really wants to. With manufacturing in US hollowed out in last couple of decades and China being the new global manufacturing powerhouse, it is not surprising that China is seeking smart (software/cloud/AI/robotics powered) s…

> Why hasn't US achieved the level of digital payment smoothness that China has been able to? Because it already achieved that "level of digital payment smoothness" with credit cards? > I think we need to be careful about attributing all of the China's success and splurge of VC funding to IP theft, hostile domestic market for foreign players, etc. China is succeeding because it really wants to. > It's important to re…

The way credit cards work in the U.S. is incredibly behind how they work in every other developed nation.

I studied abroad in New Zealand in 2004. Even back then, everything was chip-and-pin, with computerized machines at every merchant to take orders. I never had to hand my NZ bank card to a merchant, just insert it into an EFTPOS reader and enter my PIN. My American credit card needed a swipe, signature, and handover to the cashier, because unlike in the U.S, they actually checked signatures in NZ.

Meanwhile, in the U.S, we just moved to chip cards 2 years ago, and just yesterday I had a POS reader reject it for "chip malfunction - swipe instead". The major merchants just stopped collecting signatures last month, though cashiers have been ignoring the signature for decades now.

I blame the innovator's dilemma and first-mover disadvantage, like sanxiyn's comment mentions. The U.S. has a "good enough" system that everyone's adopted; it's not worth it to force everyone to adapt to a system that's a little better. Same goes for many other broken systems in the U.S. - electricity, measurement, public education, public transportation, health insurance, etc.

Re: VC from Asia is skyrocketing

#60

Post by s73v3r_ »

abhinavkulkarni wrote: post #31
abhiminator wrote: post #9

I remember The Economist doing a piece on this fairly recently[0] that talked exclusively about how China's tech VCs and established corporations (referring to the likes of Alibaba/Tencent) are challenging (and to a certain extent dethroning) Silicon Valley "monopoly" when it comes to investing in innovation/R&D in super critical areas like A.I., for example. One huge advantage Chinese corporations and startups have…

I think we need to be careful about attributing all of the China's success and splurge of VC funding to IP theft, hostile domestic market for foreign players, etc. China is succeeding because it really wants to. With manufacturing in US hollowed out in last couple of decades and China being the new global manufacturing powerhouse, it is not surprising that China is seeking smart (software/cloud/AI/robotics powered) s…

"I think we need to be careful about attributing all of the China's success and splurge of VC funding to IP theft, hostile domestic market for foreign players, etc."

All of it? Clearly not. But it would be pretty disingenuous to claim that it's not related.

"With manufacturing in US hollowed out in last couple of decades"

The US is still the #2 manufacturer in the world.

"Why hasn't US achieved the level of digital payment smoothness that China has been able to?"

We've had credit cards for quite a long time.

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