so it seems like Drones is one of the first big nascent industries, SV utterly lost to China b/c of their dominance of manufacturing?
If DJI represents the future of Chinese corporations[0], many people on the other side of the ocean should be very wary.
[0] edited from "products". In fact what's so impressive with DJI is not just the products themselves, but also the design, marketing and branding, which is kind of an Apple/GoPro hybrid. They are not just creating immense value - they are packaging it the right way.
This is what always struck me as so short-sighted about Western corporations offshoring their manufacturing. Japan and the Asian Tigers proved that it's possible for nations to successfully climb the value chain, starting off by doing low-skilled work and then using the experience gained from that to gradually take over more and more of the overall product development process. China is just taking that approach and applying it at a larger scale than anyone has ever done before.
When a company like Apple contracts out its manufacturing to a Chinese firm, it's betting that Apple will always be able to produce better design and marketing than that Chinese firm can. But based on history, that doesn't strike me as a very good bet. Eventually the Chinese firm will climb high enough on the value chain where they don't need Apple's designers and marketers to make objects that sell anymore. The Western companies are training their own replacements.
EXACTLY!
While the western corporations think they're taking advantage of cheap Chinese labor, the Chinese are actually taking advantage of our weakness for short-term profits over long-term investment and getting us to sellout IP in the bargain. For western corporations & governments, one of the most historically stupid geostrategic moves ever.
China (Netflix) takes what the United States(Hollywood) doesn't want to do/finds little value in. Once China (Netflix) has a foundation of manufacturing know-how (media catalog)they move up the chain to more complex technical (media) products.
If anyone is interested look up "robomasters" for a DJI recruitment competition running with teams from >100 Chinese Universities.
People should be excited.
If Chinese companies all behave like DJI, that's a blessing to everyone.
But it can't do end hardware.
And the stuff it has been successful at is designing consumer hardware but outsourcing the manufacturing to another country.
Arduino is Italian. Samsung is South Korean. TSMC is Thai. ARM and RPi is British. Shenzhen is the hardware place to be now. It didn't even steal that crown from SV. It stole it from Akihabara.
There is a great history of end hardware in SV. It has moved off shore chasing lower costs and fewer regulations. Great video tour of the Mac factory in Fremont: