Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google will open a new office complex and add hundreds of jobs in Taiwan

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 85 posts

Re: Google will open a new office complex and add hundreds of jobs in Taiwan

#71

Post by kenneth »

z2 wrote: post #28
hocuspocus wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like Taiwan represents a talent opportunity like no other. Yup. When I was in Korea I met a few Taiwanese that my employer poached from Asus, HTC, Benq, ... The state of their tech scene seemed quite dire. They would easily double their salary in Korea, for a pretty similar CoL. Eventually most got fed up with the Korean work culture and left for even higher salaries in... mainland China!

A lack of language/cultural barriers would work well for those who go to mainland China. 5-10% of Taiwanese currently reside on the mainland, due largely to China granting long term resident status (with full rights to work and public services) to virtually everyone. It's a masterstroke in increasing ties and knowledge transfer while undermining the island's economy through brain drain.

Yup, that easily fits in the evil genius category

Re: Google will open a new office complex and add hundreds of jobs in Taiwan

#72

Post by intertextuality »

tanilama wrote: post #58
cco wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facilitating authoritarian control of a population is a...good thing? Mind expounding?

Support a language that billions use is a bad thing?

Don't shift the goal posts. Nobody is objecting to "mandarin being supported". The issue has always been with working with a totalitarian state and working on censorship tools for said state. Saying "the jobs will go elsewhere" is not a tenable argument. Google providing those tools is not better than another actor doing the same thing.

Re: Google will open a new office complex and add hundreds of jobs in Taiwan

#73

Post by asaph »

jhallenworld wrote: post #43
komali2 wrote: post #3

>Last year, the project trained about 5,000 students in AI technology and 50,000 digital marketers. I feel like Taiwan represents a talent opportunity like no other. I dream of starting an engineering company there that is literally a clone of some upcoming business model, and doing nothing but capping the work week at 40 hours and guaranteeing 4 weeks vacation. I could snipe the best talent on hand in the country, w…

Remember when (USA) mall bookstores had technical books (or at least programming books)? In Taiwan they still do. I remember seeing Pro/E CAD manual in Chinese there among many others.

Do people still go to mall bookstores? There is a pretty big online bookstore now.

Re: Google will open a new office complex and add hundreds of jobs in Taiwan

#74

Post by scythe »

vram22 wrote: post #53
scythe wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Google is placing a bet on annexation Why would that possibly be a reason to invest in Taiwan? Unless you can somehow imagine that "annexation" is a purely de jure arrangement that leaves Taiwan's regulatory structure untouched ( very unlikely), any corporate structure you erect will have to be totally rebuilt upon annexation (employment law changes, people move, etc); if you're lucky you can keep the buildings (ass…

> safer than mainland SE Asia Safer in what sense? crime? traffic? other?

I was primarily thinking about corruption and political stability, and civil rights (particularly women’s rights) are a concern wrt Malaysia, which otherwise leads in the EDBI for the region.

Re: Google will open a new office complex and add hundreds of jobs in Taiwan

#75

Post by sinstein »

I think Taiwanese engineering is a great bunch of seemingly underpaid developers. I visited Taiwan for 2 weeks from India and had a few observations:

1. Food and transport are quite cheap. So cheap that almost everyone eats out for all their meals.

2. Everyone stays far from the office. They said the area around the offices is expensive but the rent I heard did not sound so high. Most of my friends in Mumbai, India already pay rent close to that figure and they get by just fine.

3. Consumerism is quite high. Almost everyone in the office had fancy clothes and gadgets which are usually considered signs of good wealth in India.

My conclusion was that people are not paid a lot, and they spend a lot of what they make on clothes and gadgets but that is just the picture I could paint.

Would appreciate some input from people who have more knowledge about Taiwanese culture.

Re: Google will open a new office complex and add hundreds of jobs in Taiwan

#76

Post by sinstein »

cowmoo728 wrote: post #14

I visited Taiwan recently and was shocked by the weird economics there. Rent, food, clothing, and labor are extremely cheap. Foreign goods and property are insanely expensive. It's clear there's wealth, as I saw several dozen rare BMWs and Audis, and some Lambos, Ferraris, Bentleys. But then I read that the average annual salary of a new university graduate is $11,000 USD. It's also a very friendly place to foreigner…

I spotted more Maseratis than BMWs and there were already a lot of BMWs.

Re: Google will open a new office complex and add hundreds of jobs in Taiwan

#78

Post by patcon »

KerrickStaley wrote: post #47
patcon wrote: post #36

Interesting. If I were Taiwanese, I would be very wary of the aspirations, and perhaps keep a #BlockSidewalk campaign idling in the driveway. I don't trust Google's ability to steward and govern a thoughtful city-building project that respects local agency and cares to tread softly around local power and autonomy

The article is not about Project Sidewalk or smart cities, it's about opening an office campus.

I recognize that. But it's plainly a big connected operation, at least until we break it up. They operate via succession -- one subsidiary moves in and helps create space for the next.

fwiw, you do people a disservice when you assume they don't know what they're talking about, just because you don't see the connection. If you took a second to offer me good faith and maybe presumed I'd read the article, then you could have responded with substance or asked a question, like a curious person might. Or not -- I wouldn't particular mind if you passed by. But your response was condescending and silly. What you said was obvious, and so the implication for others to follow was that I'd simply read the title and you were "calling me out". Basically, I feel very hackernews'd through our small interaction :/

Disclaimer: I've spent months on a civic research fellowship in Taipei. I live in Toronto. I've done community organizing in both. I work in tech. I have tons of experience with both places and topics -- not just an article.

Re: Google will open a new office complex and add hundreds of jobs in Taiwan

#79

Post by kerbalspacepro »

asaph wrote: post #73
jhallenworld wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember when (USA) mall bookstores had technical books (or at least programming books)? In Taiwan they still do. I remember seeing Pro/E CAD manual in Chinese there among many others.

Do people still go to mall bookstores? There is a pretty big online bookstore now.

Yeah. Going to a bookstore has the same feeling as going clothes shopping with respect to online shopping: it feels good to look at lots of product and to feel the pages in your hand. You can't tell if something will spark joy over Amazon.

Re: Google will open a new office complex and add hundreds of jobs in Taiwan

#80

Post by xyz23 »

komali2 wrote: post #3

>Last year, the project trained about 5,000 students in AI technology and 50,000 digital marketers. I feel like Taiwan represents a talent opportunity like no other. I dream of starting an engineering company there that is literally a clone of some upcoming business model, and doing nothing but capping the work week at 40 hours and guaranteeing 4 weeks vacation. I could snipe the best talent on hand in the country, w…

Are you saying that you want find a business model with potential that is being fudged by the silicon valley slackers, who only care about work life balance and spending quality time with friends and families, and try to get that built in Taiwan where you can overwork and exploit desperate workers. Talking like a true visionary.
Post reply on HN