Countries like Indonesia have banned foreigners from owning land altogether. You can apparently still own property through land-lease agreements and other arrangements, but not the land. I think they've cracked down on illegal rentals too.
One of the best books I read this year. I think a lot of HN readers will like it. A really balanced take on China that also digs deep into the perennial question of “why can’t we build big infrastructure projects in the US?” that comes up here quite often.
One of my intentions for this coming year is to critically examine and (if appropriate) alter or dispel some preconceptions I have. To that end, I'm curious about this part:
> You don’t have to convince the elites or the populace that growth is good or that entrepreneurs could be celebrated. Meanwhile in Europe, perhaps 15 percent of the electorate actively believes in degrowth. I feel it’s impossible to convince Europeans to act in their self interest.
Can someone elaborate on how growth is aligned with the general interest? To my mind, although growth could _theoretically_ lead to a "lifting all boats" improvement across the board, in practice it inevitably leads to greater concentration of wealth for the elite while the populace deals with negative externalities like pollution, congestion, and advertizing. Degrowth, on the other hand, would directly reduce those externalities; and, if imposed via progressive taxation, would have further societal benefits via funded programs.
I'd very much like to hear the counter-argument. It would be pleasant and convenient to believe that growth and industry are Good, Actually, so that I needn't feel guilty for contributing to them or for furthering my own position - but (sadly!) I can't just make myself believe something without justification.
> Can someone elaborate on how growth is aligned with the general interest?
Empirically, the past 200 years have seen high growth globally, and human well being has improved massively as a result. Life expectancy has skyrocketed, infant death, hunger have gone down to near zero, literacy has gone up, work is much more comfortable, interesting and rewarding, etc. But at a more fundamental level, our material quality of life is that of literal kings. The 1st decile poorest people in the US or Europe have much better living conditions than a king of 500 years ago. We are so lucky to benefit from this, yet we completely forgot that fact. You complain about congestion and advertizing, but with degrowth you would complain about hunger and dying from cold during winter.
>But at a more fundamental level, our material quality of life is that of literal kings.
This cannot be overstated. To wit, a Honda Accord (or equivalent mid-range car of today) is objectively superior to a Rolls Royce from the 90s in terms of amenities, engine power/efficiency, quietness, build quality, safety, etc. The same is true for quality-of-life improvements across a vast swath of consumer goods, and therefore consumer lifestyles.
Without growth, it's unlikely we'd see those improvements manifest. Carefully consider the lifestyle of someone living several decades ago. Would you honestly want to live such a lifestyle yourself? That's where degrowth likely leads. As the article says, "I feel it’s impossible to convince Europeans to act in their self interest. You can’t even convince them to adopt air conditioning in the summer."
For all the insightful takes about everything under the Sun, Dan's cynicism and skewed view towards "Europe" are shown in this letter.
It's not that all his takes are wrong, it's the exaggeration, the doom and gloom and a somewhat dismissal or some unsolved personal issues he has with "Europeans".
The irony is not lost that Dan acts as smug and dismissal as he accuses Europeans to be.
Regarding the whole "Degrowth" thing: yes Europe has those and they found their gold in Governmental entities and they entertain the rich. But.. that's exactly what happens in the US too and Dan as knowledge as he is should know this was mostly an American academia export, he just needs to talk with some people in the very same colleges he regularly set foot into.
Also, he should take a hint when he says historically liberal societies have fared much better than autocratic ones even if those are very focused and appear to make progress very quickly. Having a few mega-bilionaires directing what the populace do or not do might not be a smart move as it sounds. We'll see when the AI musical chairs stops.
Btw, Europe has been dead and on the brink of destruction for a few centuries by now. And according to experts the EU is about to collapse 3 or 4 times a year - minimum.
Wealth inevitably concentrates in the hands of the elite no matter the economic conditions. There are plenty of failed states where all the wealth ended up in the hands of warlords and dictators.
It’s something that regularly has to be dealt with in societies separately from the economic situation.
In the thread "Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges" [1], I wrote about China'a hardware capability now going far beyond what US can imagine. In Dan's article;
>A rule of thumb is that it takes five years from an American, German, or Japanese automaker to dream up a new car design and launch that model on the roads; in China, it’s closer to 18 months.
Not only is China 3 - 5 times faster in terms of product launches, they would have launch it with a production scale that is at least double the output of other auto marker. If you were to put capacity into the equation as well, China is an order of magnitude faster than any competing countries, at half the cost if not even lower.
Every single year since 2022 China has added more solar power capacity than the entire US solar capacity. And they are still accelerating, with the current roadmap and trend they could install double the entire US solar power capacity in a single year by 2030.
CATL's Sodium Ion Battery is already in production and will be used by EVs and large scale energy storage by end of this year. The cost advantage of these new EV would mean there is partially zero chance EU can compete. And if EU are moaning about it now, they cant even imagine what is coming.
Thanks to AI pushing up memory and NAND price. YMTC and CXMT now have enough breathing room to catch up. If they play this right, I wont be surprised by 2035 30 - 40% of DRAM and NAND will be made by the two Chinese firms. Although judging from their past execution record I highly doubt this will happen, but expect may be 10-15% maximum.
Beyond tech, there are also other part of manufacturing that China has matched or exceeded rest of the world without being noticed by many. Lab Grown Diamond, Cosmetic Production, Agricultural Machinery, Reinforced glass etc. Their 10 years plan on agricultural improvement also come to fruition especially in terms of fruit and veg. I wont be surprised if they no long need US soy bean within 10 years time.
All in all a lot of things in China has passed escape velocity and there is no turning back. China understand US better than US understand themselves, and US doesn't even have any idea about China. I think the quote from the article sums this up pretty well.
"Beijing has been preparing for Cold War without eagerness for waging it, while the US wants to wage a Cold War without preparing for it.".
As often the case with Dan's letters, a well balanced take on many issues. I particularly appreciated the thoughts on AI and (what I read) the undertone of infrastructure being the real differentiator between the US effort and China. We'll see how it plays out this year. "May you live in exciting times" etc.
I agree. At first I briefly skimmed it and thought it was going to be a puff piece on China's AI efforts (unfair of me), but a couple paragraphs caught me and I read the whole thing. I'm glad I did.
I don't care who the next hegemon will be; US or China. But please pray, can these people tell what their next strategy is for the rest of the world after the Cold War ends. Will the next regime advance sciences further after whichever side wins the Cold War? Can't that be done without the war? US has been hegemon since last 5 or so decades; has it worked out best even ONLY for the Americans if not for the rest of the world. I will ask a very obvious question taught as a intuition pump by Daniel Dennett, "Then What? Then What? Then What?". Do these blob forces have post-Cold War steps figured out for the best of humanity, if not for whole of humanity but a national subset.
I don't know if it's that hard to figure out, at least in the short-term. China's #1 goal should be to keep the value of their currency stable and push hard on the neoliberal expansionist path. If the United States' financialized economy starts to sag, this is China's opportunity to provide discount stability to the nations that China needs as allies.
The "US plan," is driven by the executive office. That is to say, the by the US president.
Insofar as there is any plan, the current officeholder's priorities are to project the appearance of personal power on television. If you're wondering what's going on strategically, don't go thinking that there's some grand plan, or even an intention to benefit the United States in the long term. There are some people in the cabinet who are thinking long term, but that's not universal, and that's not what they're selected for. Every action that is taken is to satisfy the president's narcissism and ego in the present moment. You have to understand the "US plan" in this light for anything coming out of the executive office to make sense.
The US doesn't have a plan, it has a framework. The framework allows it to be nimble in a way that centralized economies (like China) can never match. My money's on the US out-competing everyone else in the long run.
Even if it’s a goal, it’s not a plan. The article talks about it, but Biden’s push for manufacturing wasn’t very aggressive, and Trump has basically stopped it. We’ve seen a loss in manufacturing jobs from tariffs and Trump idiotically deported Korean engineers working in local battery production plants. Simply protecting our existing companies (which are not very efficient, see shipbuilders) is not even close to enough to competing
> I believe that Silicon Valley possesses plenty of virtues. To start, it is the most meritocratic part of America.
Oh come on, this is so untrue. Silicon Valley loves credentialism and networking, probably more than anywhere else. Except the credentials are the companies you’ve worked for or whether you know some founder or VC, instead of what school you went to or which degrees you have.
I went to a smaller college that the big tech firms didn’t really recruit from. I spent the first ~5 years of my career working for a couple smaller companies without much SV presence. Somehow I lucked into landing a role at a big company that almost everyone has definitely heard of. I didn’t find my coworkers to necessarily be any smarter or harder working than the people I worked with previously. But when I decided it was time to move on, companies that never gave me the time of day before were responding to my cold applies or even reaching out to _me_ to beg me to interview.
And don’t get me started on the senior leadership and execs I’ve seen absolutely run an entire business units into the ground and lose millions of dollars and cost people their jobs, only to “part ways” with the company, then immediately turn around and raise millions of dollars from the same guys whose money they just lost.
I guess I'll ask since you strongly disagree and ignoring the fact this is very reductionist: In your opinion, what is the most meritocratic part of America?
Isn’t the obvious answer that many would refute the premise of meaningful regional variation? In which case the claim isn’t that somewhere else is that place but rather than all places are substantially equivalent on this difficult to measure concept (or difference is unknown).
note that the first chunk of the piece spends time to analogize SV to the CCP, in terms of its willingness to take attacks (of humor).
So, for your quote, a skeptical interpretation of the text may assert the author was merely praising SV in the same fashion one might appraise the party.
I think the OP was making the point that it isn't meritocratic, at least that is how it read to me: they thought people where not meaningfully different in skill level (the people at the exclusive company being comparable to everywhere else) and that where you worked was the new way to find the 'in' people, rather than what university you graduated from (saying they had job offers based purely on getting the job at the exclusive company).
You could argue that getting a job at X or Y company by itself conveys some level of skill - but if we are honest, that is just version of saying you went to Harvard.
There's lots of cliques everywhere in life, and various ways to show status, SV is definitely not immune to that.
> Narrowness of mind is something that makes me uneasy about the tech world.
> The Bay Area has all sorts of autistic tendencies. Though Silicon Valley values the ability to move fast, the rest of society has paid more attention to instances in which tech wants to break things.
> There’s a general lack of cultural awareness in the Bay Area. It’s easy to hear at these parties that a person’s favorite nonfiction book is Seeing Like a State while their aspirationally favorite novel is Middlemarch.
It's refreshing to read someone addressing this aspect of the Mecca of the tech word.
For the reasons above the tech elites are the ones I trust the less and fear the most when they are involved in national and international politics. And I think the current state of the US is directly caused by the rise of post dot com Silicon Valley.
>Lack of action due to the expectation of long timelines is one of the sins of the lawyerly society.
>But American problems seem more fixable to me than Chinese problems.
China has stayed on trajectory of improving life of its society for a long time. USA has been in decline all that time and decent accelerated after Cold War with Russia ended.
All of China's growth comes from its internal resource. Growth in the USA had been driven by exploiting other countries.
>I made clear in my book that I am drawn to pluralism as well as a broader conception of human flourishing than one that could be delivered by the Communist Party.
Pluralism had been eradicated in the western society. I can't speak freely in Canada. People get cancelled or jailed for speaking their mind in UK. US is not too far behind in that.
There is no meaningful pluralism in the West. They never make a long term plan they can follow for many years.
China has monolithic ( more so ) society with shared culture, language(s) and national identity that runs deep to the gene level. They don't don't allow foreign influence to erode it. It's much easier to make progress when people share the same long term vision and goals.
CPC is doing just fine leading the country into the future. Sure, it has a monopoly on power, but it also owns its mistakes and fixes them. Multiparty systems of the USA and the rest of the West are just two curtains on the stage, and when you draw the curtains you see the same people attending the same party.
Elected officials aim to earn as much as they can in their short stay in power. After all, they only have a few years before they get replaced, better make use of the short time you got.
China IMO has a much brighter outlook for the future
> USA has been in decline all that time and decent accelerated after Cold War with Russia ended.
Exactly when do you believe this decline started? I have some major concerns about the current trajectory of the USA, but it seems like nonsense to say that the US has been in decline since well before the Cold War ended.
> I can't speak freely in Canada
I wonder what it is that you want to say but can’t.
Comparing China positively against western nations and then griping about limits on freedom of speech in western nations seems suspect regardless.
> Elected officials aim to earn as much as they can in their short stay in power.
That’s true. Unelected officials can stay in power and accrue wealth for much longer than elected officials.
> Exactly when do you believe this decline started?
ever since they thought they won over communist/socialist ideas, i.e. with the breakup of the USSR
>I wonder what it is that you want to say but can’t.
Nice try, this won't provoke me.
>That’s true. Unelected officials can stay in power and accrue wealth for much longer than elected officials.
Sure, sure. The systems are setup differently but you are using the same logic for both coming from the assumption that power is used to acquire personal wealth.
For some (many) power isn't about acquisition of wealth but about responsibility, taking care of a hard chore. It's a mistake to think that Xi is in power for wealth.
I often draw a parallel with being a father. You have some power, but mostly you have responsibilities.
USA is cooked sadly, that being said being Britain 2.0 ain't too bad. pretty much all the YC companies in the past few cohorts just are desperately rent seeking, sad but true - go look urself
This is such a long letter it would take me probably 3 months to write it. I would have to end my year by September and spend the rest of the year writing the letter.
> One way that Silicon Valley and the Communist Party resemble each other is that both are serious, self-serious, and indeed, completely humorless.
There is a commedy show literally called Silicon Valley making fun of what's going on in the valley and everybody I know in tech loves it and appreciates the humor.
Right, but it’s written and produced in Hollywood, not in Silicon Valley. The Valley, so the argument goes, could not produce “Silicon Valley” the show. It provides the topic to be skewered, but it can’t skewer itself.
The beginning perfectly embodies the culture in Silicon Valley and touches on a crucial part that I notice when I visit: the complete lack of self expression or as I would put it ZERO drip.
Remove the tech, what does SF contribute to the world wrt culture? Especially when compared to other metropolitan cities: NY, London, LA, Tokyo.
> Which of the tech titans are funny? In public, they tend to speak in one of two registers. The first is the blandly corporate tone we’ve come to expect when we see them dragged before Congressional hearings or fireside chats. The second leans philosophical, as they compose their features into the sort of reverie appropriate for issuing apocalyptic prophecies on AI.
This is just not accurate though? For example, this post from a tech titan might not necessarily be that funny but it's neither blandly corporate nor philosophical: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2006548935372902751
1. Elon is not funny. He’s deeply unfunny.
2. “Tend to” is the key bit you’re missing. It “tends to” be true that titans speak in those registers, even if it is true that Elon, a titan, a does not.
London has the house prices of California and the income levels of Mississippi.
the UK is seriously broken, I always reflect on the energy generation statistics of the UK per capita
while in the US you see automated car washes, in the uk most car washes are Albanians n other immigrants etc
House prices are out of wack anywhere desirable because the local income is irrelevant when non-locals are allowed to scoop up the local supply.
Countries like Indonesia have banned foreigners from owning land altogether. You can apparently still own property through land-lease agreements and other arrangements, but not the land. I think they've cracked down on illegal rentals too.
Income and wealth inequality! I don’t see a way out for the UK
Median wealth per adult in the UK is 176k. In the US it is only 124k.
Source: UBS Global Wealth Report 2025
Of course US does has a much higher mean wealth…
We're a wholly-owned subsidiary of America Inc., Minsk to Washington's Moscow.
The Vampire Squid has its tentacles in all our orifices, and we won't be free till we cut it off, or it dies of an obesity-related illness.
The UK is already close to the USA on obesity rates and catching up fast.
Not disagreeing but also I wonder how it compares to inequality in Britain before the US was a thing.
Meh. Everywhere has foreign investment. The economic elite of the UK owns the US as well.
I recommend Dan’s book (https://danwang.co/breakneck/) to those wanting to better understand China - and the United States.
One of the best books I read this year. I think a lot of HN readers will like it. A really balanced take on China that also digs deep into the perennial question of “why can’t we build big infrastructure projects in the US?” that comes up here quite often.
A fascinating and eye-opening read.
One of my intentions for this coming year is to critically examine and (if appropriate) alter or dispel some preconceptions I have. To that end, I'm curious about this part:
> You don’t have to convince the elites or the populace that growth is good or that entrepreneurs could be celebrated. Meanwhile in Europe, perhaps 15 percent of the electorate actively believes in degrowth. I feel it’s impossible to convince Europeans to act in their self interest.
Can someone elaborate on how growth is aligned with the general interest? To my mind, although growth could _theoretically_ lead to a "lifting all boats" improvement across the board, in practice it inevitably leads to greater concentration of wealth for the elite while the populace deals with negative externalities like pollution, congestion, and advertizing. Degrowth, on the other hand, would directly reduce those externalities; and, if imposed via progressive taxation, would have further societal benefits via funded programs.
I'd very much like to hear the counter-argument. It would be pleasant and convenient to believe that growth and industry are Good, Actually, so that I needn't feel guilty for contributing to them or for furthering my own position - but (sadly!) I can't just make myself believe something without justification.
> Can someone elaborate on how growth is aligned with the general interest?
Empirically, the past 200 years have seen high growth globally, and human well being has improved massively as a result. Life expectancy has skyrocketed, infant death, hunger have gone down to near zero, literacy has gone up, work is much more comfortable, interesting and rewarding, etc. But at a more fundamental level, our material quality of life is that of literal kings. The 1st decile poorest people in the US or Europe have much better living conditions than a king of 500 years ago. We are so lucky to benefit from this, yet we completely forgot that fact. You complain about congestion and advertizing, but with degrowth you would complain about hunger and dying from cold during winter.
>But at a more fundamental level, our material quality of life is that of literal kings.
This cannot be overstated. To wit, a Honda Accord (or equivalent mid-range car of today) is objectively superior to a Rolls Royce from the 90s in terms of amenities, engine power/efficiency, quietness, build quality, safety, etc. The same is true for quality-of-life improvements across a vast swath of consumer goods, and therefore consumer lifestyles.
Without growth, it's unlikely we'd see those improvements manifest. Carefully consider the lifestyle of someone living several decades ago. Would you honestly want to live such a lifestyle yourself? That's where degrowth likely leads. As the article says, "I feel it’s impossible to convince Europeans to act in their self interest. You can’t even convince them to adopt air conditioning in the summer."
For all the insightful takes about everything under the Sun, Dan's cynicism and skewed view towards "Europe" are shown in this letter.
It's not that all his takes are wrong, it's the exaggeration, the doom and gloom and a somewhat dismissal or some unsolved personal issues he has with "Europeans".
The irony is not lost that Dan acts as smug and dismissal as he accuses Europeans to be.
Regarding the whole "Degrowth" thing: yes Europe has those and they found their gold in Governmental entities and they entertain the rich. But.. that's exactly what happens in the US too and Dan as knowledge as he is should know this was mostly an American academia export, he just needs to talk with some people in the very same colleges he regularly set foot into.
Also, he should take a hint when he says historically liberal societies have fared much better than autocratic ones even if those are very focused and appear to make progress very quickly. Having a few mega-bilionaires directing what the populace do or not do might not be a smart move as it sounds. We'll see when the AI musical chairs stops.
Btw, Europe has been dead and on the brink of destruction for a few centuries by now. And according to experts the EU is about to collapse 3 or 4 times a year - minimum.
Wealth inevitably concentrates in the hands of the elite no matter the economic conditions. There are plenty of failed states where all the wealth ended up in the hands of warlords and dictators.
It’s something that regularly has to be dealt with in societies separately from the economic situation.
Exactly _how_ should society deal with it, and exactly _when_ should society deal with it?
In the thread "Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges" [1], I wrote about China'a hardware capability now going far beyond what US can imagine. In Dan's article;
>A rule of thumb is that it takes five years from an American, German, or Japanese automaker to dream up a new car design and launch that model on the roads; in China, it’s closer to 18 months.
Not only is China 3 - 5 times faster in terms of product launches, they would have launch it with a production scale that is at least double the output of other auto marker. If you were to put capacity into the equation as well, China is an order of magnitude faster than any competing countries, at half the cost if not even lower.
Every single year since 2022 China has added more solar power capacity than the entire US solar capacity. And they are still accelerating, with the current roadmap and trend they could install double the entire US solar power capacity in a single year by 2030.
CATL's Sodium Ion Battery is already in production and will be used by EVs and large scale energy storage by end of this year. The cost advantage of these new EV would mean there is partially zero chance EU can compete. And if EU are moaning about it now, they cant even imagine what is coming.
Thanks to AI pushing up memory and NAND price. YMTC and CXMT now have enough breathing room to catch up. If they play this right, I wont be surprised by 2035 30 - 40% of DRAM and NAND will be made by the two Chinese firms. Although judging from their past execution record I highly doubt this will happen, but expect may be 10-15% maximum.
Beyond tech, there are also other part of manufacturing that China has matched or exceeded rest of the world without being noticed by many. Lab Grown Diamond, Cosmetic Production, Agricultural Machinery, Reinforced glass etc. Their 10 years plan on agricultural improvement also come to fruition especially in terms of fruit and veg. I wont be surprised if they no long need US soy bean within 10 years time.
All in all a lot of things in China has passed escape velocity and there is no turning back. China understand US better than US understand themselves, and US doesn't even have any idea about China. I think the quote from the article sums this up pretty well.
"Beijing has been preparing for Cold War without eagerness for waging it, while the US wants to wage a Cold War without preparing for it.".
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46273326
As often the case with Dan's letters, a well balanced take on many issues. I particularly appreciated the thoughts on AI and (what I read) the undertone of infrastructure being the real differentiator between the US effort and China. We'll see how it plays out this year. "May you live in exciting times" etc.
As someone unfamiliar with the author, I had a deep amount of cynicism for the length of this piece... but damn, it's good, top to bottom.
I agree. At first I briefly skimmed it and thought it was going to be a puff piece on China's AI efforts (unfair of me), but a couple paragraphs caught me and I read the whole thing. I'm glad I did.
from the piece:
“ the median age of the latest Y Combinator cohort is only 24, down from 30 just three years ago “
does yc publish stats to validate?
Quoted as 24 vs 30 in 2022 from one of the partners here: https://www.businessinsider.com/yc-founders-younger-under-mo...
Didn’t we just have a front page article about the average founder age increasing well beyond 30 this year? Is it a non-normal distribution or what?
Tunguz shows early 40s as the median
https://tomtunguz.com/founder-age-median-trend/
YC trends younger given what they’re looking for
Lots of explanations with power here:
- There's a hard edge to the distribution that isn't far from 24 (I'd expect relatively few sub-18-year-old YC founders, but more 31+-year-olds)
- Older founders (with more experience, larger networks and less life flexibility) aren't a good fit for incubators.
> Beijing has been preparing for Cold War without eagerness for waging it, while the US wants to wage a Cold War without preparing for it.
great line
I don't care who the next hegemon will be; US or China. But please pray, can these people tell what their next strategy is for the rest of the world after the Cold War ends. Will the next regime advance sciences further after whichever side wins the Cold War? Can't that be done without the war? US has been hegemon since last 5 or so decades; has it worked out best even ONLY for the Americans if not for the rest of the world. I will ask a very obvious question taught as a intuition pump by Daniel Dennett, "Then What? Then What? Then What?". Do these blob forces have post-Cold War steps figured out for the best of humanity, if not for whole of humanity but a national subset.
Here is a fun representation I have in my mind:
Galactic Emperor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfQbm8Wk2vU
I don't know if it's that hard to figure out, at least in the short-term. China's #1 goal should be to keep the value of their currency stable and push hard on the neoliberal expansionist path. If the United States' financialized economy starts to sag, this is China's opportunity to provide discount stability to the nations that China needs as allies.
It's not clear what the US plan even is. Move all manufacturing back home and compete with China ASAP?
The "US plan," is driven by the executive office. That is to say, the by the US president.
Insofar as there is any plan, the current officeholder's priorities are to project the appearance of personal power on television. If you're wondering what's going on strategically, don't go thinking that there's some grand plan, or even an intention to benefit the United States in the long term. There are some people in the cabinet who are thinking long term, but that's not universal, and that's not what they're selected for. Every action that is taken is to satisfy the president's narcissism and ego in the present moment. You have to understand the "US plan" in this light for anything coming out of the executive office to make sense.
The US doesn't have a plan, it has a framework. The framework allows it to be nimble in a way that centralized economies (like China) can never match. My money's on the US out-competing everyone else in the long run.
With trump at the helm, do you think there is much of a plan?
Even if it’s a goal, it’s not a plan. The article talks about it, but Biden’s push for manufacturing wasn’t very aggressive, and Trump has basically stopped it. We’ve seen a loss in manufacturing jobs from tariffs and Trump idiotically deported Korean engineers working in local battery production plants. Simply protecting our existing companies (which are not very efficient, see shipbuilders) is not even close to enough to competing
Plan?
They don't even have a concept of a plan.
The US plan is to enrich oligarchs who are friendly with Trump and to enact white nationalist policies.
Anything beyond that is just like a kid playing an arcade game without putting any quarters in.
> I believe that Silicon Valley possesses plenty of virtues. To start, it is the most meritocratic part of America.
Oh come on, this is so untrue. Silicon Valley loves credentialism and networking, probably more than anywhere else. Except the credentials are the companies you’ve worked for or whether you know some founder or VC, instead of what school you went to or which degrees you have.
I went to a smaller college that the big tech firms didn’t really recruit from. I spent the first ~5 years of my career working for a couple smaller companies without much SV presence. Somehow I lucked into landing a role at a big company that almost everyone has definitely heard of. I didn’t find my coworkers to necessarily be any smarter or harder working than the people I worked with previously. But when I decided it was time to move on, companies that never gave me the time of day before were responding to my cold applies or even reaching out to _me_ to beg me to interview.
And don’t get me started on the senior leadership and execs I’ve seen absolutely run an entire business units into the ground and lose millions of dollars and cost people their jobs, only to “part ways” with the company, then immediately turn around and raise millions of dollars from the same guys whose money they just lost.
I guess I'll ask since you strongly disagree and ignoring the fact this is very reductionist: In your opinion, what is the most meritocratic part of America?
Isn’t the obvious answer that many would refute the premise of meaningful regional variation? In which case the claim isn’t that somewhere else is that place but rather than all places are substantially equivalent on this difficult to measure concept (or difference is unknown).
note that the first chunk of the piece spends time to analogize SV to the CCP, in terms of its willingness to take attacks (of humor).
So, for your quote, a skeptical interpretation of the text may assert the author was merely praising SV in the same fashion one might appraise the party.
Judging you based on the work you've done seems... very meritocratic to me?
I think the OP was making the point that it isn't meritocratic, at least that is how it read to me: they thought people where not meaningfully different in skill level (the people at the exclusive company being comparable to everywhere else) and that where you worked was the new way to find the 'in' people, rather than what university you graduated from (saying they had job offers based purely on getting the job at the exclusive company).
You could argue that getting a job at X or Y company by itself conveys some level of skill - but if we are honest, that is just version of saying you went to Harvard.
There's lots of cliques everywhere in life, and various ways to show status, SV is definitely not immune to that.
> Narrowness of mind is something that makes me uneasy about the tech world.
> The Bay Area has all sorts of autistic tendencies. Though Silicon Valley values the ability to move fast, the rest of society has paid more attention to instances in which tech wants to break things.
> There’s a general lack of cultural awareness in the Bay Area. It’s easy to hear at these parties that a person’s favorite nonfiction book is Seeing Like a State while their aspirationally favorite novel is Middlemarch.
It's refreshing to read someone addressing this aspect of the Mecca of the tech word.
For the reasons above the tech elites are the ones I trust the less and fear the most when they are involved in national and international politics. And I think the current state of the US is directly caused by the rise of post dot com Silicon Valley.
My copy of Breakneck arrived a few days ago and I'm rushing through the book, hard to put down, highly recommended
Turns out the author is completely humorless too. What a wall of text
>Lack of action due to the expectation of long timelines is one of the sins of the lawyerly society.
>But American problems seem more fixable to me than Chinese problems.
China has stayed on trajectory of improving life of its society for a long time. USA has been in decline all that time and decent accelerated after Cold War with Russia ended.
All of China's growth comes from its internal resource. Growth in the USA had been driven by exploiting other countries.
>I made clear in my book that I am drawn to pluralism as well as a broader conception of human flourishing than one that could be delivered by the Communist Party.
Pluralism had been eradicated in the western society. I can't speak freely in Canada. People get cancelled or jailed for speaking their mind in UK. US is not too far behind in that.
There is no meaningful pluralism in the West. They never make a long term plan they can follow for many years.
China has monolithic ( more so ) society with shared culture, language(s) and national identity that runs deep to the gene level. They don't don't allow foreign influence to erode it. It's much easier to make progress when people share the same long term vision and goals.
CPC is doing just fine leading the country into the future. Sure, it has a monopoly on power, but it also owns its mistakes and fixes them. Multiparty systems of the USA and the rest of the West are just two curtains on the stage, and when you draw the curtains you see the same people attending the same party.
Elected officials aim to earn as much as they can in their short stay in power. After all, they only have a few years before they get replaced, better make use of the short time you got.
China IMO has a much brighter outlook for the future
> USA has been in decline all that time and decent accelerated after Cold War with Russia ended.
Exactly when do you believe this decline started? I have some major concerns about the current trajectory of the USA, but it seems like nonsense to say that the US has been in decline since well before the Cold War ended.
> I can't speak freely in Canada
I wonder what it is that you want to say but can’t.
Comparing China positively against western nations and then griping about limits on freedom of speech in western nations seems suspect regardless.
> Elected officials aim to earn as much as they can in their short stay in power.
That’s true. Unelected officials can stay in power and accrue wealth for much longer than elected officials.
> Exactly when do you believe this decline started? ever since they thought they won over communist/socialist ideas, i.e. with the breakup of the USSR
>I wonder what it is that you want to say but can’t. Nice try, this won't provoke me.
>That’s true. Unelected officials can stay in power and accrue wealth for much longer than elected officials.
Sure, sure. The systems are setup differently but you are using the same logic for both coming from the assumption that power is used to acquire personal wealth.
For some (many) power isn't about acquisition of wealth but about responsibility, taking care of a hard chore. It's a mistake to think that Xi is in power for wealth.
I often draw a parallel with being a father. You have some power, but mostly you have responsibilities.
USA is cooked sadly, that being said being Britain 2.0 ain't too bad. pretty much all the YC companies in the past few cohorts just are desperately rent seeking, sad but true - go look urself
Dam Wang, good read!
This is such a long letter it would take me probably 3 months to write it. I would have to end my year by September and spend the rest of the year writing the letter.
Happy New year
> One way that Silicon Valley and the Communist Party resemble each other is that both are serious, self-serious, and indeed, completely humorless.
There is a commedy show literally called Silicon Valley making fun of what's going on in the valley and everybody I know in tech loves it and appreciates the humor.
Right, but it’s written and produced in Hollywood, not in Silicon Valley. The Valley, so the argument goes, could not produce “Silicon Valley” the show. It provides the topic to be skewered, but it can’t skewer itself.
The beginning perfectly embodies the culture in Silicon Valley and touches on a crucial part that I notice when I visit: the complete lack of self expression or as I would put it ZERO drip.
Remove the tech, what does SF contribute to the world wrt culture? Especially when compared to other metropolitan cities: NY, London, LA, Tokyo.
Maybe I’m missing some nuance but are you just saying that folks in Silicon Valley aren’t cool?
The only problem with Silicon Valley is they just have no taste.
This guy is Chinese right? He sounds like a plant. An Emannuel Goldstein type.
>Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I want to say that I am rooting for San Francisco.
Sure.
Upside: I’m glad someone is covering the topic.
Downside: the West is so fucked.
Wait, how funny is this guy. That's an easy top 10 funny person out of nowhere in my life.
> Which of the tech titans are funny? In public, they tend to speak in one of two registers. The first is the blandly corporate tone we’ve come to expect when we see them dragged before Congressional hearings or fireside chats. The second leans philosophical, as they compose their features into the sort of reverie appropriate for issuing apocalyptic prophecies on AI.
This is just not accurate though? For example, this post from a tech titan might not necessarily be that funny but it's neither blandly corporate nor philosophical: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2006548935372902751
1. Elon is not funny. He’s deeply unfunny. 2. “Tend to” is the key bit you’re missing. It “tends to” be true that titans speak in those registers, even if it is true that Elon, a titan, a does not.