Hacker News Reader

Comment by Presquare | Hacker News Reader

Very exciting news!

I hope YC will help Chinese startups become global. My biggest problem with Silicon Valley is its ideological uniformity and the increasing willingness to use their companies/products as vehicles to push their ideologies.

China would be in an excellent position to address the part of the Western market that is increasingly alienated by this push. They can build SV tech clones for the local market, and then expand to the global market by offering ideologically more neutral (from Western perspective) alternatives to SV tech.

Chinese startups will have their own flaws, but at least we will have a choice.

View on HN

    I hope YC will help Chinese startups become global.

Why would you want that? As long as the chinese goverment prevent foreign companies to buy chinese companies no one should be happy about chinese startups going global. The chinese goverment is highly corrupt and only supports actions which benefits the chinese. That's why there are so many "joint ventures".

I agree with the corrupt part, but it's interesting that you say "the chinese government...only supports actions which benefits the chinese" as if it's a horrible thing. Every government does what is best for their country... Being upset about it is like getting mad at fire for being hot.

I'm deeply confused what "ideological diversity" Chinese companies will offer. How much of the Western market is really pining for that autocratic, pro-censorship touch?

Sam Altman wrote in a blog post, "Earlier this year, I noticed something in China that really surprised me. I realized I felt more comfortable discussing controversial ideas in Beijing than in San Francisco. I didn’t feel completely comfortable—this was China, after all—just more comfortable than at home." [0]

This probably wasn't because China is inherently less censorious, but rather the set of controversial ideas in Beijing are different than the set of controversial ideas in San Francisco.

Thus Chinese companies can be biased in ways that are relevant to the Chinese market, but less likely to be biased in ways that are relevant to the Western market.

If SV companies are biased in a way that is relevant to the Western market, this can be an opportunity for the Chinese companies to provide a more neutral service.

[0] https://blog.samaltman.com/e-pur-si-muove

Do you have to go all the way to Beijing for that? I feel like the root is more Silicon Valley monoculture than East vs. West.

>ideologically more neutral I hardly feel like the global market will accept Chinese alternatives as being "ideologically neutral" in any sense of the phrase.

What ideologies do you mean exactly?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com