Comments
By ThePowerOfFuet 2024-04-106:09 By throwaway4good 2024-04-106:304 reply I was listening to Nicolai Tangen's interview with Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai:
https://www.nbim.no/en/publications/podcast/alibaba-co-found...
Alibaba co-founder and Chair: China, Jack Ma, AI and basketball
And while smart and sympathetic, I cannot help to think that Alibaba is a company of the past belonging to a time of a certain US-China order that is no more. The future of Chinese tech belongs to companies that are much more fast moving, fearless, and aggressively deep tech than what Alibaba aspires to be.
By resolutebat 2024-04-107:392 reply Alibaba was fast moving, fearless and aggressively deep tech, you don't survive the world of Chinese e-commerce if you aren't. They were decapitated and neutered by the Chinese state when they started to show signs of upending the existing order, specifically building a competing financial system (Alipay/Ant) and daring to call out Chinese economic orthodoxy.
From what I heard from engineers working for Alibaba, my understanding is that they are fighting with their own bureaucracy structure for quite long time to make any effective decision, at same time facing fierce compitition from JD and PDD. At some stage they released new prodect to compete with PDD every few months while still keep losing in their core e-commerce bussiness till now. All these were before government cracking down their financial business.
Most of the people I know in the industry think Alibaba is one of the least efficient big tech company in China compare to e.g Tencent, Baidu, Bytedance, Huawei. They all have somewhat similar bureaucracy burden as big corp but not at the level of Alibaba. Their problem is much complex than pointing the finger at Chinese government to explain everything.
Is that why the search has gone to absolute crap? I’ve switched to Amazon basically for everything I used to get from AE because of the anti search / advertising search. I’d rather pay more and not waste the time.
I heard they switched to fully use a recommending system for search (don't know how it works today but feels like that's still the case), which means there is there is no real search happening and you query is used as a hint, not a search query (which relativeness matters more).
At that time PDD is promoting the idea you buy what they think you will buy. PDD's search is barely functioning at that time and their bussiness model is solely relying on recommending system.
Though I'm not sure how much Alibaba's decision is affected by PDD because the story I heard is more driven by their internal politics. I feel like that's really a weird product decision for Alibaba and to me doesn't make a lot of sense.
By datadrivenangel 2024-04-1113:12 That explains so much! Alibaba search randomly adds items I've previously bought to totally unrelated searches, so it does feel like a bad recommender system.
By throwaway14356 2024-04-114:21 100 vendors selling the same thing each at a different price but if you search for it you get only one as the 200th result.
I spend many hours trying to make sense of it. Usually I fail and buy elsewhere.
Truly an impressive feet of stupidity.
Someone should do a paid search engine for it. $50 per month seems well worth the preservation of sanity.
By throwaway4good 2024-04-108:05 By deep tech I thinking things more like making your own chips rather than running a ponzi scheme :-D
Anyway. If you listen to the Tsai interview he seems more concerned about US regulators than Chinese.
By seanmcdirmid 2024-04-112:571 reply > The future of Chinese tech belongs to companies that are much more fast moving, fearless, and aggressively deep tech than what Alibaba aspires to be.
Being all of that is exactly why Jack Ma got beat down by the party. The party doesn't want fast moving, fearless, aggressively deep tech, they want control, compliance, and stability.
I think the main reason alibaba got beat down was because it was moving from "tech" into finance offering unregulated loans and jack ma criticizing regulators did not help at all.
And alibaba was not "deep tech", more like derivative tech. It's just a ecommerce site. It takes a lot of technical expertise to operate that at a large scale for sure, but at the end of the day, it's not the kind of fundamental tech free from sanctions that the chinese government wanted to pivot its tech industry to.
By seanmcdirmid 2024-04-116:29 Alibaba is like Amazon, they are known for commerce but have branched out into so many other things, they even have or had a quantum computing effort. Most Chinese companies work under the ask for forgiveness rather than permission creed, because I think that’s how the only way they can do anything at all as the government itself moves slowly, if your project is successful it will be blessed after the fact as always the true way (eg wepay and Alipay started like that). Ma’s mistake was in at least not pretending it wasn’t like that.
By fspeech 2024-04-1118:23 What is the irr for Softbank's investment in Alibaba? If given another chance would they do it again? I believe the answer is yes, so there is no lack of risk capital. Is China willing to pay for talent? Absolutely. Given these two factors I think China can climb the technology ladder. Just a question of time.
However this doesn't mean China's GDP will get back to fast growth. Its economy is constrained by demand, not supply. Anyone who has experience with Chinese elders would know how thrifty they are no matter how much wealth they have.
> The future of Chinese tech belongs to companies that are much more fast moving
Not at all. The future of Chinese tech is state owned enterprises [1]. Just like other Chinese industries, such as state owned real estates [2] or state run communal restaurants [3]. Just like Soviet Union, before it fell.
"The Peterson Institute for International Economics analyzed the market capitalization of China's top 100 companies. It found that the share of total market capitalization held by state-controlled enterprises, in which the government holds a stake of 50% or more, rose to 50% by the end of 2023, the highest proportion in five years"
[1] China's favored state-owned companies squeeze private sector https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Markets/China-s-favored-sta... [2] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-state-owned-devel... [3] https://www.thinkchina.sg/not-everything-has-be-run-state-th...
Aren't you presenting a false dichotomy here? Perhaps they are having their cake and eating it too, so to speak. Not to comment on the supposed economic malaise of the moment.
Sometimes state-owned enterprises might be able to outperform a private structure!
By realusername 2024-04-117:241 reply > Sometimes state-owned enterprises might be able to outperform a private structure!
They can ... until they don't and there's no market correction in place anymore to keep them in check.
It's going to take another decade to feel this effect but it'll be there in full force.
By temporarely 2024-04-1114:593 reply This is sound analysis sans ideological bs. The system lacks a self-correction mechanism.
The profit driven system is supposed to self-correct. We see this today, with Boeing for example (yes /s).
Now beyond snark, we can ask is the same thing happening to us that happened to the "commies" with the 'defense and national security' establishment raising troubling doppelgangers of "state industry" from the body of "market driven" neo-liberal capitalist societies?
So, we see issue is not really "ownership" but rather establishments ..
By edmundsauto 2024-04-1115:36 In fairness, there is a good chance Boeing is self-correcting now. After deaths and lawsuits. If it were a governmental entity, it’s plausible that would not happen and the company would continue as before.
At least that’s the idea, I think. May as well steel man the argument.
By lazide 2024-04-1117:29 Eh, Boeing is a defacto state owned enterprise. Check out their board composition if you don’t believe me.
Or are you more complaining about the lack of honesty in these defacto situations?
In China, any company larger than a tiny one is state controlled anyway - someone from the CCP needs to have a board seat, and everyone knows what happens if you anger the party.
By dav43 2024-04-116:00 State owned enterprises will outperform private in this environment when there is no option to compete as a private structure
By refurb 2024-04-119:29 Considering the the stated goals of the Chinese government and past actions, I can’t see how anyone would consider the state owning a major share of a Chinese company to be either a net negative or neutral at best.
By logicchains 2024-04-115:511 reply >Sometimes state-owned enterprises might be able to outperform a private structure!
But it's extremely unlikely, given how often the opposite occurs instead in historical data.
By coldtea 2024-04-1114:44 How often does it really occur? In historical data, not in "free market" ideological narratives...
By mensetmanusman 2024-04-1112:301 reply When you are subsidized by a billion tax payers, you better beat the private sector!
The more important question is if it is worth it, since money spent is zero sum.
By coldtea 2024-04-1114:43 It's not "zero sum" if you have exports...
Also, we could use more zero sum that redistributes wealth towards huge masses, even if that means some billionaires will have fewer billions...
It's a bit hilarious that there are attempts to convince people on a board for hackers and startup founders that state owned enterprises are great and amazing!!
I think it’s good to be clear headed and acknowledge empirical evidence when it’s there. Context is useful in understanding the mechanisms of society!
“This thing goes against my orthodoxy therefore I refuse to see it” is exactly the sort of attitude that gets you far away from success.
For the record, I was merely saying it’s possible for a state owned enterprise to do things quickly, even if in practice most of them don’t. So much of the world is just about having the right kind of people at the right place, and that’s true in the public sphere and the private one.
Sure, then by all means share your evidence or data for a successful state owned enterprise vs private enterprises
By rtpg 2024-04-1123:43 I mean the topic of this thread is basically on how we have a bunch of well performing, pretty fast Chinese companies. This is happening despite these companies having a lot of buy-in from the state (down to outright ownership).
One might start trying to say "well a bunch of money from the state isn't enough to consider it a state owned enterprise", but then the contention is a bit more specific than just about being state owned.
By obsoletehippo 2024-04-1117:33 I invite you to share your evidence that all private enterprises are strictly superior to any state owned enterprises, as that is clearly the stronger (and less likely to be valid) position.
It shouldn't take much effort, the results speak for themselves...
We did get to the moon with "state owned enterprises" anyway...
By amou234 2024-04-1116:39 no profits involved in the moon effort, was not competing with any private enterprise at that time
Believe it or not but not everyone shares your enthusiasm towards the idea of privatizing United States Postal Service.
By stefanfisk 2024-04-1113:301 reply Read the first line: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service
There you go.
For some reason I thought it was a quasi-private company owned partially by the government.
I'm going to assume that you're American.
You may find insight after reflecting on why a non-American knows this detail about the USPS while you don't.
Well, this is a forum where some degree of openmindedness is encouraged.
There have been far many more economic and capital systems on this rock than just American capitalism.
I used to think it’s open mindedness but I think it’s more hubris.
The other day a guy was complaining about being in jail for a time and how unfair it was that he had a criminal record. Lots of open minded people praising him.
Then a new user called him out for trying to get with a 12 year old. Yikes.
Regardless, China figured out some formula that has been incredibly successful the last couple decades. While I have doubts about this approach being sustainable, hindsight is 20/20 and we can’t predict the future.
By qwerasdf5 2024-04-1116:00 The "formula" was capitalism, introduced by Deng Xiaoping, which lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty.
However, Deng also introduced China's 1-child policy (decidedly not capitalism), which is now beginning to seriously strain the system. The future is indeed uncertain.
Sure, then by all means share your evidence or data for a successful foreign state owned enterprise vs private enterprises in that country and other countries
By jonnybgood 2024-04-1117:471 reply Aramco
By nickff 2024-04-1119:20 Aramco’s not a perfect example, as it was built up as a private corporation, and only nationalized as a relatively mature corporation. It also has a state-sanctioned monopoly on a very low-cost, high-price commodity. On the other hand and to be fair to Aramco, the Venezuelans managed to make a mess of their state oil monopoly.
By nebula8804 2024-04-114:146 reply I don't know man, from the outside looking in it seems like despite this arrangement, the people doing the day to day work are fiercely competitive and they want it all. This is just an anecdote but I have seen talks where the Chinese look at the silicon valley grind culture of long working hours and sacrifice and think how can these people be so lazy?
Maybe state ownership will collapse it all, maybe the coming demographic implosion will do it. But it does not seem like your daddy's communism....more like a capitalism-communism fusion that combined with nationalistic pride and a desperation to account for all the over production might lead to surpassing what the soviet union could only dream of.
Check out a couple of phrases on Chinese media (they are heavily censored): tang ping (躺平) bailan (摆爛)
If you just want English language go for SCMP: https://www.scmp.com/yp/discover/lifestyle/article/3194858/l...
The money has already been made by those in power and the only way to make more is to follow the government gravy train. For the last decade that has meant batteries, EVs, semiconductors, displays are all so heavily subsidized (factories are built with free government loans) that doing anything else (other than buying property) makes no sense. That doesn't mean the people aren't motivated, smart, and ingenious, but they won't be making back the $T in loans.
By nebula8804 2024-04-114:381 reply The lie flat movement is a legitimate movement that touches upon the same problems the youth are experiencing elsewhere around the world but it appears to be a fizzling movement everywhere. Even the US equivalent of quiet quitting and utter hopelessness is waning in the US with the slow demise of the far left and right.
> Even the US equivalent of quiet quitting and utter hopelessness is waning in the US with the slow demise of the far left and right.
This is all news to me.
By nebula8804 2024-04-1114:54 Its easy to see this in the US. Ignore the news and Twitter and look at results. This election cycle Justice Democrats: the poster child of the progressive left has no choice but to just defend their existing seats having already lost one and some of their top stars nearly losing their seats last cycle.
Ignoring the age issue in the far right (not enough young people replacing the dying elders in the movement), we have repeated losses in special elections due to their stance on abortion indicating their current plan of action is not in sync with where the country is. That does not look long term promising for the movement. Either they move left or they will continue to cede power at all levels of the government.
No one doubts that Chinese people work incredibly long hours. They do so because there’s been a strong link between input and output. The harder you work, the wealthier you get. That has been incredibly motivating … so far. In an economy that isn’t growing quite so fast, people might not see the same returns for their labour that they did between 2001-19. They might not work as hard.
That’s speculation though. What we do know is that the CCP is changing the way of managing the economy. Between 1992 and 2019 they leaned heavily on the private sector for growth. They would do anything they needed to help private enterprise succeed. That approach paid rich dividends, it’s obvious.
Xi Jinping is going a different way now though. He reckons he knows better than Deng, the architect of the Chinese economic miracle. His approach is to pick winners and losers. It may succeed because he’s picked good horses so far - EVs, solar panels, AI, semiconductors. And state led capitalism has had success in China, with major players like Huawei doing well despite major headwinds.
Because of this shift in approach you can’t extrapolate from the success of 2001-19 and say China’s future success is inevitable.
By Log_out_ 2024-04-116:02 If a country were a company and Xi the CEO, would that be "ideologically kosher"?
By spaceguillotine 2024-04-115:473 reply there is zero link between hard work and wealth. There is a link between wealth and exploitation.
By logicchains 2024-04-115:531 reply If you define hard work as intellectually challenging work, there absolutely is a strong link between hard work and wealth in China. Even the corrupt bureaucrats have to pass a difficult exam to become bureaucrats.
Which one and why is cheating nepotism not as widespread as with everything else? In a company or functioning democracy in competition, if you nepotism, you kill the company..
Only if the person picked via nepotism isn’t competent.
Which is less likely (one would hope) than via other methods, but the correlation is not as strong as we’d all like.
By ChainOfFools 2024-04-1120:241 reply > Only if the person picked via nepotism isn’t competent.
It'd be interesting to know how much this phenomenon would explain the stability of otherwise culturally ossified regimes that stood for four or five centuries before collapsing, where government was built almost entirely out of extreme nepotism in which the ruling potentate had 50 or 60 kids to choose from, and thus had a shot at picking the most capable from the, er, top of the class.
Or the most ambitious /ruthless pick themselves, taking the old man and/or their dangerously competitive siblings out of the picture.
Either way there is a little more competition involved then what we normally think of with a modern family unit.
There is also the factor that the nepo kids are trained since birth for the role, often with the best education money can buy.
Training makes up a lot for stupidity and other gaps.
At some point, it doesn’t matter enough, but that can go quite awhile.
No drugs at private schools? The machinery catering to wealthy parents is good at 3 things, placatting parents, preventing scandals, creating interelite connections. It's not good at educating, no matter how expensive. There is simply put absolutely no incentives to work
By lazide 2024-04-1513:53 Those seem like pretty critical skills to teach someone in the ruling elite actually.
Doing those things at scale is ‘work’ even if it isn’t what most people consider work.
Learning how to sweat a pipe is useful if that’s what you’re going to need to do to put food on the table.
Learning how to placate powerful sponsors, not get caught doing naughty things, and networking among other power brokers is how you put food on the table as a ruling elite isn’t it? Or at least avoid being burned at the stake.
And not something they’re going to teach effectively at your neighborhood public school.
By refurb 2024-04-119:33 Clearly not since even the middle class in the US holds trillions in wealth and the vast majority did it through work.
By adampk 2024-04-1118:32 If you work more hours and take more overtime, you will make more money you can use to build wealth.
Seems like a clear link.
By nebula8804 2024-04-1114:56 Yeah like I said it could still collapse, but I am not ready to write them off so quickly like others are, thats all.
This is just an anecdote but I have seen talks where the Chinese look at the silicon valley grind culture of long working hours and sacrifice and think how can these people be so lazy?
Working long hours isn't necessarily efficient.
Exactly. The OP didn't know any English teachers in China, or else they can verify that Chinese workers in private enterprises nap on the job/play on their phone/waste a ton of time, to get through the long working hours.
By com 2024-04-118:56 Interestingly I’ve heard this observation about American managers in US multinational businesses in Europe, that they seem to performatively do the long hours, for the sake of their own managers view of them, but that little of it is actual productive time.
I’ve not really observed it myself, and I’d suspect that part of it might be very different styles or ways of working. But maybe there’s a grain of truth there.
By nebula8804 2024-04-1117:12 The output in relation to competitors is what matters in the end. At this point their results are impressive.
From what I’ve seen the motivation of Chinese workers is the same as any worker - to make money.
By nebula8804 2024-04-1117:20 There is an argument to be made then when a country is on the rise and developing rapidly there is a sense of PMA(Positive mental attitude) among the people. Maybe you are just projecting American stagnation on Chinese?
You would be astonished how many people want to live a calm and good life, with making money as just one mean, and hence secondary, if you would come out of your capitalist bubble.
By refurb 2024-04-120:19 Stay on topic bro, now isn't the time for your anti-capitalist views.
We're talking about "the people doing the day to day work are fiercely competitive and they want it all".
Do you really think those people's main goal is "to live a calm and good life".
No state owned enterprises in the history of the world has the quality you've just described - fiercely competitive, nationalistic pride, desperation.
China is now Soviet Union, but with horrendous demographics, mind-numbing debt, and wealth flooding out of the country. China is old and broke. China is fucked.
By nebula8804 2024-04-114:301 reply You say that but then we see things like BYD introducing products like this.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izvdO-zdlKg
Unless you want to keep your head in the sand and pretend this is the soviet union all over again, you better start paying attention to how fast they are iterating.
>China is now Soviet Union, but with horrendous demographics, mind-numbing debt, and wealth flooding out of the country. China is old and broke. China is fucked.
Yeah this is the Peter Zeihan thesis but you know what, it might take a while for this to play out and in the meantime, China may not leave the arena until after they have taken out a large chunk of the western incumbents.
BYD is not a Chinese state enterprise...yet. And yeah, I'm not worried.
Nio Loses $35,000 A Car. https://www.carscoops.com/2023/10/nio-loses-35000-a-car-that...
BYD lost its EV crown to Tesla after just one quarter as China’s EV market slumps https://fortune.com/asia/2024/04/03/byd-loses-ev-crown-to-te...
The EU just got a step closer to hitting Chinese EVs with additional tariffs—and may even apply them retroactively https://fortune.com/2024/03/07/eu-nears-hitting-chinese-evs-...
By nebula8804 2024-04-114:411 reply Ok feel free to not be worried.
I'd rather listen to Elon in this regard, this is one thing he does have experience in.
[1]:https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-...
>The EU just got a step closer to hitting Chinese EVs with additional tariffs—and may even apply them retroactively
The EU having no major tech giants to call their own has pivoted to regulation and tariffs against both China and the US.
You're really gonna take a statement from a CEO that it's important for the government to intervene in order to protect his profits at face value? Elon's made some stupid decisions in the past but I don't think he's stupid enough to be honest. Not lobbying for protectionist measures even if they aren't needed would probably be some sort of corporate malpractice.
By nebula8804 2024-04-1114:581 reply When it comes to getting advice on where the EV market is going, I am definetly going to listen to the guy who is the leader of EVs in the US. Would I take relationship advice from him? Probably not, but we are talking about the EV market here.
I - that's a truly stunning mindset I don't have words. Why would you consider the market leader of a market a reliable source for information on the market? Maybe this is obvious to me coming from a world where all banks have their own analysts and all but the idea of trusting a market leader is just insane. Information asymmetry is so important to capitalism he's obviously not going to provide the full picture. There are entire university departments dedicated to coming up with clever estimates for how much drugs cost to develop to justify high prices. This sounds like, would you trust a pharma CEO if they were providing advice on where the pharma market is going? Or a tech CEO on where the tech market is going? Elon is, as you clearly stated, the leader of EVs in the US. Why would you take his advice on the EV market!? The base assumption is that he's going to be quite strongly motivated to stay leader of the EV market, why would you think he cares about giving you accurate advice?
By nebula8804 2024-04-1117:101 reply >Why would you consider the market leader of a market a reliable source for information on the market?
You seem to be ignoring how they literally created and led this market over the last 15+ years. I get how you are so blinded by your hate of one man that you completely ignore the facts on the ground but do you have to make it so obvious?
> Maybe this is obvious to me coming from a world where all banks have their own analysts and all but the idea of trusting a market leader is just insane. Information asymmetry is so important to capitalism he's obviously not going to provide the full picture.
This would be a plausible statement if it hasn't been disproven time and time agin over the last 10 years. See the entire short industry that got burned by their analysts. I was there on day 1 of the /r/Realtesla a subreddit dedicated to pushing the thesis of following industry experts and analysis. In 2019 they were convinced that Tesla was structurally bankrupt.
The hard lesson I learned after years of failed predictions based on analysis is that banks and analysts only have a snapshot of a current moment in time and do not consider the fast moving nature of innovation led companies.
They have gotten this wrong with many tech companies but especially Tesla. Just to give you one example: all the analysts and shorts were certain that Tesla would fail in 2018 due to their live up to the minute counts of materials going in and out of the factories. They had live video feeds of everything happening outside the factory. They failed to predict Musk using a loophole in California laws to set up a giant tent and get production levels increased. That changed the entire calculus.
Musk has repeatedly proven the analysts wrong and so I'd ask why would you continue to trust them? Their motivation is to get people to pay their fees yet it seems as if they suffer no major consequences for continually getting it wrong.
Going back to what Musk said(which you obviously didn't even bother reading): "If there are no trade barriers established, they will pretty much demolish most other car companies in the world," he said. "They're extremely good."
You might be able to make the argument that he is self serving in his comments but this quote is a poor hill to die on.
By vikramkr 2024-04-1123:44 I mean, if you're just going to ignore the core point then I guess feel free. The disconnect seems to be that you think it's somehow reflects poorly on Elon that he's good at his job! Being self serving is good, controlling information to maximize your leverage is good, these are good things. Especially in a competitive market! The stupid decisions I'm referring to tend to be ones like buying Twitter or tweeting nonsense that causes him to lose control of the narrative. I don't care whether he actually thinks that not having trade barriers means Tesla will be wiped out, all that matters is that lobbying for trade barriers is the right move for the business. Also what's your obsession with trusting people? Why would you trust analysts? Or any source of information? Every source of information is biased, incomplete, and useful.
By Turskarama 2024-04-115:081 reply Chinas situation is so incredibly far away from what the Soviet Union was. For one thing they aren't spending the majority of their GDP on a cold war.
By shiroiushi 2024-04-117:56 They've been massively increasing their defense spending, though you're right, it's not a majority of GDP.
In addition, they've been trying to massively increase their military capacity, but throwing money at it only does so much: you also need young men, and there's not that many that think being in the military is a great idea, and people aren't having kids any more. At least in the old Soviet Union, there was no lack of young men being raised.
By eunos 2024-04-118:34 Uhh what? Non SOE BYD kicks the buts of SOE carmakers (FAW SAIC BAIC etc).
By galaxyofdoom 2024-04-114:30 [dead]
By tjpnz 2024-04-114:15 He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.
