<story><title>VC from Asia is skyrocketing</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/silicon-valley-long-dominated-startup-fundingnow-it-has-a-challenger-1523544804</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>abhiminator</author><text>I remember The Economist doing a piece on this fairly recently[0] that talked exclusively about how China&amp;#x27;s tech VCs and established corporations (referring to the likes of Alibaba&amp;#x2F;Tencent) are challenging (and to a certain extent dethroning) Silicon Valley &amp;quot;monopoly&amp;quot; when it comes to investing in innovation&amp;#x2F;R&amp;amp;D in super critical areas like A.I., for example.&lt;p&gt;One huge advantage Chinese corporations and startups have is China&amp;#x27;s super lax (non-existent, in fact) privacy and data protection laws -- enabling their companies to harvest ENORMOUS amounts of data to hone their A.I. algorithms on -- making them super attractive for investors.&lt;p&gt;Add to this China&amp;#x27;s culture of scientific inquiry, rampant IP theft from American and European corporations and startups alike, a stable administration that has made technological advancement it&amp;#x27;s razer sharp focus -- you have the perfect recipe for VCs&amp;#x27; fund to start flowing on to the next big thing with relatively fewer barriers.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.economist.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;business&amp;#x2F;21737075-silicon-valley-may-not-hold-its-global-superiority-much-longer-how-does-chinese-tech&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.economist.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;business&amp;#x2F;21737075-silicon-val...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>abhinavkulkarni</author><text>I think we need to be careful about attributing all of the China&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x2F;cloud&amp;#x2F;AI&amp;#x2F;robotics powered) solutions to industrialization, warehousing, transportation, supply chain, payments and other areas. Why hasn&amp;#x27;t US achieved the level of digital payment smoothness that China has been able to?&lt;p&gt;While the points you made about lax laws and blatant data privacy invasion are an contributing factors, I think you would have seen China making great strides in the above mentioned areas even if laws were enforced strictly. It&amp;#x27;s important to recognize China&amp;#x27;s technological prowess. They have similarly taken a lead in bioengineering.</text></comment>
<story><title>VC from Asia is skyrocketing</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/silicon-valley-long-dominated-startup-fundingnow-it-has-a-challenger-1523544804</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>abhiminator</author><text>I remember The Economist doing a piece on this fairly recently[0] that talked exclusively about how China&amp;#x27;s tech VCs and established corporations (referring to the likes of Alibaba&amp;#x2F;Tencent) are challenging (and to a certain extent dethroning) Silicon Valley &amp;quot;monopoly&amp;quot; when it comes to investing in innovation&amp;#x2F;R&amp;amp;D in super critical areas like A.I., for example.&lt;p&gt;One huge advantage Chinese corporations and startups have is China&amp;#x27;s super lax (non-existent, in fact) privacy and data protection laws -- enabling their companies to harvest ENORMOUS amounts of data to hone their A.I. algorithms on -- making them super attractive for investors.&lt;p&gt;Add to this China&amp;#x27;s culture of scientific inquiry, rampant IP theft from American and European corporations and startups alike, a stable administration that has made technological advancement it&amp;#x27;s razer sharp focus -- you have the perfect recipe for VCs&amp;#x27; fund to start flowing on to the next big thing with relatively fewer barriers.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.economist.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;business&amp;#x2F;21737075-silicon-valley-may-not-hold-its-global-superiority-much-longer-how-does-chinese-tech&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.economist.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;business&amp;#x2F;21737075-silicon-val...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>seanmcdirmid</author><text>Laws in China are not as relevant as enforcement. Enforcement is completely contextual, if they don’t like what you are doing they’ll get you on something, so as a foreign company you have to tread much more carefully when operating in China than a Chinese company.&lt;p&gt;The legal framework in China simply isn’t very developed, that doesn’t mean you can get away with whatever you want, quite the contrary, it means you never know when the government will come down on you for violating some unwritten rule.</text></comment>