Crazy Work Hours and Lots of Cameras: a group from Silicon Valley visits China

Jordan for example has the same population size as Sweden, that's about where the similarities end.

Sweden, along with Canada and Australia, are just about ideal micro US versions in technology, in terms of potential to pull off your scaling of activity. Good market economies, relatively robust technology societies and technology economies, high GDP per capita and incomes, plenty of wealth and capital to invest, stable open societies with respect for human rights, english language use giving them global benefits (Sweden having one of the world's highest english language adoption rates, outside of primarily english speaking countries), and so on.

Japan has far less spending power per capita - disposable income - than the US, and their economic output per capita is similarly far lower. Their cost of living is not far lower to offset. US GDP per capita will be around $63,000 for 2018. Japan is down around $38,000 to $40,000. Culturally Japan has historically not been friendly to risk taking, entrepreneurial activity. That has shifted some over the last 10-15 years, but not immensely (it's starting from an extreme where a long corporate career was the only acceptable path). There's a considerable difference between Sweden and Japan on that conservativism. Japan also is very different at a macro level, they put themselves into a particularly bad 20+ year debt trap that has robbed their economy of the surplus capital it needs to invest into expansion and innovation.

Germany is doing OK, in regards to technology and tech start-ups. They've lagged a bit in the transition from old industrial to new technology [1][2], it appears to be a cultural problem that is acting as friction. Culturally they're not nearly as dynamic on entrepreneurism as Sweden has become. Perhaps it's just easier to change directions at the scale of Sweden than Germany, with all the entrenched institutions and large conglomerates that Germany has.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-12/germany-n...

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-08-16/inside-eu...

Same with becoming wildly successful. In America those people are looked up to as role models. In many parts of the EU, being the "tall poppy" is a bad thing.

In the US if you get the hype going about your startup, get mentioned by a few high-profile newspapers, news programs and Instagram celebs you can ramp up pretty quickly. In Europe your brand can be mainstream enough that it becomes a common name in Italy while at the same time nobody ever heard of you in Germany.

Ever heard of Skyblog? I remember that in the early 2000's it was basically French Myspace. It was spawned by a French radio but became super popular on its own, all the French teens back then had a "Skyblog" (and an MSN messenger account). How many non-francophone Europeans have heard of a Skyblog? Not many I'd wager. Actually I doubt that even today's French teenagers know what a Skyblog is, they're using Instagram and whatever else while Skyblog is joining the Minitel as a footnote in the history of the French internet.

> Sensing skepticism from the fisherman, the businessman moves onto the next boat and finds a more receptive fisherman. The two, sensing an obvious business opportunity, decide to go into business together. They raise a venture capital round and a year later, return to the pier outfitted with a dozen high tech fishing boats.

> Immediately, the price of tuna at the pier drops threefold with increased supply, forcing the young Mexican fisherman to increase his hours at sea just to maintain his existing standard of living.

> Shortly thereafter, all of the shallow water tuna have been caught and the young Mexican fisherman discovers his tiny boat is incapable of deep water fishing. Because of his limited savings, he does not have enough capital to invest in a deep water fishing boat and he is forced to sell his tiny fishing boat for pennies on the dollar as scrap because advances in technology have made it obsolete.

> After discovering that there is limited demand for an employee whose only skills are watching ballgames, playing the guitar and taking siestas, the young Mexican fisherman finds his only option is to take a job working minimum wage on one of the businessman’s fishing vessels.

> Several years later, the fisherman’s joints are shot through from the hard manual labor of operating on a commercial fishing vessel and an ill timed lift of a 150lb pallet of tuna finally causes his back to give way, causing permanent crippling. The fisherman discovers intensive lobbying from the businessman has weakened workplace protection rules and the fisherman is summarily let go with only a paltry settlement.

> After years of expensive medical treatments and crippling bills, the fisherman is finally forced to sell his land, passed along to him from generation to generation, to a development conglomerate run by the businessman who is buying large tracts of the entire village.

> Unbeknownst to the fisherman, the businessman has lobbied for the village to turn into a protected nature reserve, allowing for the rehabilitation of the environment and the restocking of fish in it’s pristine waters. The businessman painstakingly recreates the quaint, costal charm of the village he once visited, making it a paradise where the wealthy flock to when they want to retire into a life of easy indolence.

> Finally, 15 – 20 years after the original conversation, the fisherman and his wife are found dead in a homeless shelter. Meanwhile, the businessman retires to the village having made two successive fortunes first in fisheries and then in real estate development. He spends his days sleeping late, playing with his grandchildren, watching high def ESPN ballgames on a 70″ TV, and taking siesta with his wife. He occasionally strolls down to the village in the evenings where he regales his fellow millionaires with the story of how he found an unexploited niche in the marketplace and then took full advantage of it to make the fortune that got him to the comfortable retirement he enjoys today.

Much like the original story, this is of course a fairy tale - I doubt the businessman in question would put much effort towards the rehabilitation of the village's environment. Environmentalism rarely improves a business' bottom line - if it did, we'd see a lot more businesses lobbying for it.

It might.

Or they will fight over it, get pestered by the media, have people beg for investments etc.

Crypto?

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A14... https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke+19%3A11-27...

What's changed is that society is becoming increasingly polarized. HN isn't immune from macro trends.

You need to talk to Chinese tech employees who were formerly working/living in China and are now in the US. They will have nothing but bad things to say about the work culture in China, regarding both management and the employees under them, with plenty of examples / horror stories.

Don't just take HN comments at their word, do a little work on your part and get some first-hand information so you can form a less biased opinion. Even better, go work in China for a bit :)

> Maybe they are as capable as we are, as productive as we are, and also are putting the extra work.

I 100% agree with this and don't think I suggested otherwise. My comment was in no way meant to take away from the incredible work of many people. I don't doubt that many people have worked long hours and absolutely think people are equally capable regardless of where they come from.

I just think it is ridiculous to suggest that other economies should participate in a race to the bottom of who can work their citizens to death

One round through the startup/VC/IPO/acquisition world was enough for me - I like building stuff too much.

Do VCs often fund companies that are full of people working 2+ manual labor jobs?

The white collar workers actually aren’t necessarily lazy though, which is why the bullshit work thing is kinda tragic.

I'm not. Personally I think helping a leftwing authoritarian society is actually something that the SV leadership is interested in doing, because it is something they want for the US as well, and they want in at the top. I don't feel this is a very big leap from the demonstrated political proclivities of the area, what people say, or the actions being taken.

"Thus the left blaming the right for not coming to the party on regulations that would stop or regulate this."

Actually, if you want to fall back to "I blame the other people over there for not stopping us from doing this!", I'll take it. It's a silly argument but I'll take the premise it's based on without question. It's still you doing it. And I say "you" not necessarily as "greycol" personally, but because this is HN and the line workers actually doing this work are indeed here. And 95%+ of them are on the left.

Reagan fired air traffic controllers who were striking illegally. It then makes the huge jump that this caused private sector companies to not negotiate.

I don't buy it.