The Thomas Crampton Channel

Silicon Valley has moved East?

Silicon Dragon author Rebecca Fannin adds her voice to the recent debate about whether China's tech sector creates or copycats. Does she convince?

 
There are currently 8 Comments for Silicon Valley has moved East?.

Comments on Silicon Valley has moved East?

It's too short a clip to convince me. Speaking in general terms about a new web browser and some unspecified wireless applications doesn't prove anything. And while it's undeniable that China has creative minds who can change the world of tech, I think the bigger question is whether they'll be able to gather the supporting staff necessary to make a worldwide impact.

these very short interviews thomas does are great.

note: this opinion is formed on a 2:30 min video.

im not convinced. although obviously there is no time to get into all the details in this short interview, her opinion seems to have formed from a single observer point of view, focusing on a narrative and forgetting about what forms a cluster and how it operates.
single point of view: she tells the story of people that she spoke to.
narrative: by this i mean that its just stories, you're not proving anything. she thinks that one of the companies she profiles is going to be a billion dollar ipo...

another notes:
* internet browsers? is this really "cutting edge"?
"for instance this internet browser called maxthon. it's making internet explorer run"
i was hoping for a better example. a new player to the browser wars is not that much of an innovation.


would love an opinion from someone who read the book.

With China churning out so many engineers each year, the support staff is not a problem. Whether there will be many truly visionary, pioneering leaders is a different issue.

I second gao zhi's comment regarding Thomas Crampton's recent efforts - may he live long and prosper.

Having said that, I am completely unimpressed with Ms. Fannin. Seems to me that she took one too many Vicodin prior to throwing down shots of baijiu with her buddies in Zhongguancun. Just another spacey foreigner going on about how China will soon eat the West for lunch and rule the world for two thousand years. Forget the shitty environment, the broken educational system, the widening gap between China's rich and poor, the virtual absence of a civil society, etc. - let's all get turned on by the new Chinese web browser and cutting edge wireless tech. Give me a f*ing break. 全都是臭狗屁。

As for China graduating legions of engineers every year, one must understand that the numbers are dramatically inflated by China's inclusion of graduates of two-year technical colleges. Likewise, many of China's domestically trained engineers are very poorly trained and have had little laboratory experience. As such, most would not be very competitive in a demanding labor market. Good math skills alone do not make a good engineer. Furthermore, the fact that graduates of Tsinghua still flock to the U.S. and other western countries for graduate degrees is a telling indication of the continued failure of Chinese universities to establish world-class programs in science and engineering.

Ma Bole,

How does China (臭狗屁) manage to attract flies like you people here? Oh, I got it, you flies love sh*t.

So short yet says so much about China(臭狗屁) and you cynical foreigners (恶心的苍蝇). 哪儿卖苍蝇拍儿呀?我买俩。

I for one welcome our new 臭狗屁 silicon valley creating over-lords.

Who cares? By 2025 the NWO would have completed (search Denver airport murals) their perfect master plan (that's real politiks, mofos.);90% of us will be gone. While the rest will have chips implanted in their brains and hooked up to a matrix like Internet^3 while getting human sacrificed on massive monolithic temples dedicated to Satan. Foteball for the elite, no doubt.

I've worked with several Chinese companies and research institutes in the wireless area.


Anybody who thinks that Chinese engineers are second rate or that China merely copycats western technology is going to be in for a very rude shock over the next few years.

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