That was the title of a session in Davos today that looked at how China is moving rapidly from manufacturing to serving as a hotbed of technical and scientific innovation, as well as a fount for design and other forms of creativity. Moving, in fact, more rapidly than many of us recognize. And here was a scary anecdote: Jack Ma Yun, the founder and CEO of Alibaba.com (the eBay of China), described how impressed he was when he visited Silicon Valley eight years ago. The work ethic, he said, was astounding: Judging by the traffic to and from offices and the lights he could see burning at all hours, people were working late into the night and all weekend. But on a return visit three years ago, the lights were out by evening and the office parks were dead on Saturday and Sunday. The opposite is true in China today (where increasing numbers of Chinese engineers and scientists who were educated in the U.S. and who cut their teeth in Palo Alto are returning because the opportunities are so great). Today, Ma said, "Silicon Valley is in China."
Related Stories: | Topics:Innovation, davos 2007, China, Silicon Valley, Business, Science and Technology, Sciences |
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Recent Comments | 10 Total
January 28, 2007 at 10:04am by Luke
Honestly, I would not be worried about China's role in the future business world. The country will have huge troubles and issues in the near future, which will consume almost all of its free resources.
January 28, 2007 at 10:10am by John Roberts
I agree with luke
January 28, 2007 at 11:54am by Mark
Would Luke or John like to share exactly what "huge troubles" they are referring to?
January 28, 2007 at 12:18pm by Brad
Read the Coming China Wars by Peter Navarro. IT explains a lot.
January 28, 2007 at 4:22pm by Peter Peng
I think China will need more time and Get the windows of the World , We need more time , but we are Changing the World. Pengco is the Company, Based New York City and Beijing , But The Founder from China.
January 29, 2007 at 5:30am by David Wolf
Jack Ma is a bit of a cheerleader for China, with his public remarks bordering on the jingositic, so it's not surprising to hear him make such unequivocal statements in a forum like Davos.
As someone who lives and works in China in industries that are innovation driven, I can say that Mr. Ma's remarks are astoundingly superficial and overlook some interesting subtleties, including but not limited to:
- A regulatory environment for start-ups that is challenging and, when compared to that of the Bay Area, almost hostile.
- A lack of engineers trained in practical applications of the engineering art - despite a surfeit of people educated in engineering.
- A dearth of leadership and creative skills in the workforce from which technology firms must draw.
I could go on, but this is not the proper forum. Suffice to say that China has made remarkable progress, but it has a long way to go before it can match the dynamism of Silicon Valley.
January 29, 2007 at 10:21am by Mark Vamos
Thanks for these good comments. David, I think you're right that Jack Ma's thinking omits some subtleties and challenges. There was, for example, a lot of discussion about whether Chinese education is anywhere near up to snuff. I will say, though, that other panelists who could hardly be called jingoist, were more upbeat on the creative/innovative potenial of China than I had expected. Joe Schoendorf, for example, of the big VC firm Accel Partners, described going to a pitch meeting in Shanghai in which Chinese entrepreneurs (almost all of whom were trained and worked in the U.S.) bowled him over with the quality of their ideas and presentations--so much so that, he said, he got up, opened the blinds, looked out the window and then sat down again. When the folks in the room asked him why, he said he needed to make sure he wasn't in Palo Alto.
January 29, 2007 at 2:28pm by Ignorant Plebe
All I need to know is where to invest my 401k monies...
100% in International Funds seems to be returning almost 30% at this time...
Next thing I need to know is when to get out?
If you can answer this question, then you are indeed a god!
My 401k has doubled in 3 1/2 years... It should double again in 2 1/2 at this rate.
January 29, 2007 at 11:07pm by Peter
When China grows 10 % / year and the USA 1 %
the amount of Dollars involved is about the
same.
For the time being it functions as a sort of
sweatshop and labour conditions,human rights,
freedom of speach, independent justice system
just to mention a few are issues which sooner or
later needs to be adressed.
It actually surprises me a bit that the Googles,
Microsofts,Yahoos,Nikes of this world are willing
to accept terms which would create a public uproar at home if they would be implemented in the USA and by massively investing and ignoring
these issues we make it quite easy for the local
authorities to keep things unchanged.
China needs the rest of the world and not the
other way around.If they want to be part of the
world family they have to abide sooner or later
to a minimum standard of democracy and freedom of
speech.Freedom is hard to value but is the most valuable quality.The Quantanamo Bay is hopefully
an incident,the free and democratic countries should not lower their standards.
The only way to create more wealth for the chinese people is allowing more freedom and rights and i don't see any reason why the authorities should be afraid to do so.
February 1, 2007 at 11:39pm by john bunyan
All you people living in Ohio can babble as much as you like about how "creative" China is getting but if you live here, you know that's a crock. There is not one single thing made by any Chinese company which is worth fifty cents. Quality absolutely sucks, after sales service ... ha ! you are lucky if the company which just sold you an item admits that they even made it. Chinese HR couldn't blow their noses if brains were dynamite and *they* are the ones making hiring choices. And the educational system ? If you call memorizing what some pompous old blowhard has written "education," then Chinese education is superb.
China is a joke with exactly *one* punchline : cheap. Cheap labour = peasants. Peasants do not know *anything* and they aren't going to learn anything, either. Cheap costs = no environmental controls. Great, pollution x 10.
It is truly ironic that in a mere five years China has regressed from being one of the countries with the greatest possibilities to being one with the least. We are turning into the Qing dynasty at a speed that makes Columbia look like a turtle. Ci xi will be the next leader of this country.
It is very sad.