<story><title>I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it</title><url>https://basta.substack.com/p/no-sacred-masterpieces</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>iancmceachern</author><text>This isn&amp;#x27;t that.&lt;p&gt;This is engineers deliberately taking tech to somewhere where they know IP laws won&amp;#x27;t be enforced.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not like I&amp;#x27;m saying they can learn calculus here and then go to China and use calculus to design things.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s that I&amp;#x27;m saying they design a very specific thing, a very specific way, for hire, then go make that exact specific thing, that same specific way.&lt;p&gt;If it were in any other country but China, it wouldn&amp;#x27;t be allowed to happen.</text></item><item><author>vkazanov</author><text>So an engineer learns how to make something, and then goes elsewhere to make it.&lt;p&gt;To be honest, the way you put ut, the story feels OK to me.&lt;p&gt;There are many truly bad examples, e.g. the arm china story, but engineers doing their thing is not one of them.</text></item><item><author>iancmceachern</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve watched this happen.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve watched key, core engineers and technical leaders work for US and European companies, develop their next generation products, then turn around and design and develop essentially the exact same thing for the Chinese market. They then build a company, in China,  that makes essentially the same product, but for the Chinese Market, and with Chinese investors, etc.&lt;p&gt;Examples:
Thoratec&amp;#x2F;Abbot Heartmate III &amp;amp; CH Biomedical&lt;p&gt;Auris&amp;#x2F;Verb&amp;#x2F;J&amp;amp;J Robotic &amp;amp; Digital Solutions &amp;amp; Renovo Surgical&lt;p&gt;The ironic thing, is that some of these companies after success in China are working to sell and be competitive in the US and Europe.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not even secret or under the table anymore, it&amp;#x27;s overt and largely accepted as the way it is in our industry.  A brave new world.&lt;p&gt;The other factor, is that it is very very difficult for a foreign company to do business and protect their assets in China, so often the wise companies don&amp;#x27;t even try.  They often just license their stuff for the Chinese market to a Chinese company.  That way they at least have a chance of not having it all just stolen.</text></item><item><author>ipython</author><text>Best quote: &amp;quot;People working for Didi apply for intern jobs at Uber China and then exfiltrate our data. We can’t let them see the formulas or they’ll just copy what we do!”&lt;p&gt;This is so true. People in the US just don&amp;#x27;t understand the level of economic and industrial espionage that happens in China on a daily basis. I was responding to an unrelated breach at an unnamed tech company back in mid-2000s time frame and had a side bar conversation that went like the following:&lt;p&gt;Them: &amp;quot;Yeah, we just opened a tech center in Xinjiang and ... wow, we&amp;#x27;ve had quite the rash of lost ID badges there recently&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Me: &amp;quot;Have you considered that they&amp;#x27;re not &amp;#x27;lost&amp;#x27;, but rather &amp;#x27;sold&amp;#x27; for profit?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;... silence ...&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know if executives are aware but just don&amp;#x27;t care, or if they&amp;#x27;re simply incompetent, but China has productized industrial espionage on a massive scale. GE Aviation was a victim more recently: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cincinnati.com&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;2022&amp;#x2F;11&amp;#x2F;16&amp;#x2F;accused-chinese-spy-who-targeted-ge-aviation-sentenced-to-20-years&amp;#x2F;69653460007&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cincinnati.com&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;2022&amp;#x2F;11&amp;#x2F;16&amp;#x2F;accused-chi...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ak_111</author><text>This feels like the debate between tax evasion and tax avoidance. What the engineer did here going to an IP lawless place is more like tax avoidance. It has a bad smell but he &lt;i&gt;legally&lt;/i&gt; exploited a loophole in the international IP system if I understood correctly. Sort of migrating to a tax haven to avoid taxes.&lt;p&gt;Unless there is something explicitly stated in your contract banning you from taking the &amp;quot;know-how&amp;quot; in your brains and use it elsewhere (so long as you don&amp;#x27;t breach any patent) then it sounds there is nothing technically wrong.</text></comment>
<story><title>I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it</title><url>https://basta.substack.com/p/no-sacred-masterpieces</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>iancmceachern</author><text>This isn&amp;#x27;t that.&lt;p&gt;This is engineers deliberately taking tech to somewhere where they know IP laws won&amp;#x27;t be enforced.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not like I&amp;#x27;m saying they can learn calculus here and then go to China and use calculus to design things.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s that I&amp;#x27;m saying they design a very specific thing, a very specific way, for hire, then go make that exact specific thing, that same specific way.&lt;p&gt;If it were in any other country but China, it wouldn&amp;#x27;t be allowed to happen.</text></item><item><author>vkazanov</author><text>So an engineer learns how to make something, and then goes elsewhere to make it.&lt;p&gt;To be honest, the way you put ut, the story feels OK to me.&lt;p&gt;There are many truly bad examples, e.g. the arm china story, but engineers doing their thing is not one of them.</text></item><item><author>iancmceachern</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve watched this happen.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve watched key, core engineers and technical leaders work for US and European companies, develop their next generation products, then turn around and design and develop essentially the exact same thing for the Chinese market. They then build a company, in China,  that makes essentially the same product, but for the Chinese Market, and with Chinese investors, etc.&lt;p&gt;Examples:
Thoratec&amp;#x2F;Abbot Heartmate III &amp;amp; CH Biomedical&lt;p&gt;Auris&amp;#x2F;Verb&amp;#x2F;J&amp;amp;J Robotic &amp;amp; Digital Solutions &amp;amp; Renovo Surgical&lt;p&gt;The ironic thing, is that some of these companies after success in China are working to sell and be competitive in the US and Europe.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not even secret or under the table anymore, it&amp;#x27;s overt and largely accepted as the way it is in our industry.  A brave new world.&lt;p&gt;The other factor, is that it is very very difficult for a foreign company to do business and protect their assets in China, so often the wise companies don&amp;#x27;t even try.  They often just license their stuff for the Chinese market to a Chinese company.  That way they at least have a chance of not having it all just stolen.</text></item><item><author>ipython</author><text>Best quote: &amp;quot;People working for Didi apply for intern jobs at Uber China and then exfiltrate our data. We can’t let them see the formulas or they’ll just copy what we do!”&lt;p&gt;This is so true. People in the US just don&amp;#x27;t understand the level of economic and industrial espionage that happens in China on a daily basis. I was responding to an unrelated breach at an unnamed tech company back in mid-2000s time frame and had a side bar conversation that went like the following:&lt;p&gt;Them: &amp;quot;Yeah, we just opened a tech center in Xinjiang and ... wow, we&amp;#x27;ve had quite the rash of lost ID badges there recently&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Me: &amp;quot;Have you considered that they&amp;#x27;re not &amp;#x27;lost&amp;#x27;, but rather &amp;#x27;sold&amp;#x27; for profit?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;... silence ...&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know if executives are aware but just don&amp;#x27;t care, or if they&amp;#x27;re simply incompetent, but China has productized industrial espionage on a massive scale. GE Aviation was a victim more recently: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cincinnati.com&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;2022&amp;#x2F;11&amp;#x2F;16&amp;#x2F;accused-chinese-spy-who-targeted-ge-aviation-sentenced-to-20-years&amp;#x2F;69653460007&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cincinnati.com&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;2022&amp;#x2F;11&amp;#x2F;16&amp;#x2F;accused-chi...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>barry-cotter</author><text>&amp;gt; It&amp;#x27;s that I&amp;#x27;m saying they design a very specific thing, a very specific way, for hire, then go make that exact specific thing, that same specific way.&lt;p&gt;I really doubt this unless all the inputs are commoditised. Industrial espionage usually fails because if you don’t have the know how to make the tools that make the tools it’s difficult to impossible to literally copy it. Not saying what you’re saying doesn’t happen, it does, all the time. But usually the engineering is substantially different if only because different things are cheap or expensive, or just unavailable.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; If it were in any other country but China, it wouldn&amp;#x27;t be allowed to happen.&lt;p&gt;Historically, the US, Japan, Korea, Taiwan all did it. No doubt Vietnam does it now too. Not like they have an excellent civil legal system. Joys of working in developing countries.</text></comment>