thetechlead

Don't lie about your experience living in China. There is already too much China-related misinformation on HN.

For 99% of the time, you go straight to click-n-buy which should get your order delivered on time, and for the 1% you prefer to talk to the seller the option is a blessing, not a curse.

I used to work for Alibaba.

Thank for the info. Though not the case where I live (China) and where I often travelled (east Asia and ASEAN countries). However Huawei indeed put their best effort in marketing in Europe.

Not saying they don't spend big money in advertising. They certainly do, like any other premium brand. However their marketing campaigns alone are nothing extraordinary either. US governments accusation certainly helped - good advertising makes people intrigued, just look at the nationalist comments under Huawei related HN posts and try to read from a non-US POV. Not hard to come to a state that you wonder what the hack is truely going on and what really makes American feel so insecure. There must be something superior in the accused that triggered the action. This is happening as a trend, not just in Huaweis case, but in many topics related to China.

I start to believe what US has done to Huawei actually made the brand more famous. Smart phones are becoming commodities so marketing plays a big rule for sales. The tension between US government and Huawei certainly saved them tons of marketing money. Three years ago even many Chinese don't know Huawei, but look at what Huawei accomplished today. I travelled abroad frequently and people are talking Huawei everywhere even a street vendor I randomly met in nowhere Philippines, and they want to know more about my Huawei Porsche Design and discuss why Americans feels threatened by a company making electronic gadgets. No marketing money buys you that kind of popularity. In most places I traveled to, people don't believe the American version of the story, and when a superpower utilizes all its resources to try to destroy a company but couldn't do? There must be something the company did right.

Advanced logistics technology is a part of the New Retail happening in China that revolutionizes the customer experience in shopping and living daily life, though integrating online, offline services and logistics. It's more than just delivering your food or automated convenience stores. There are quite a few companies utilizing AI and big data to drive New Retail to the next level. Recommend some articles on this topic：

https://www.bain.com/insights/embracing-chinas-new-retail/ https://www.alizila.com/new-retail/

GDP per capita can be misleading and doesn't translate well into the quality of life, certainly not how convenient and safe you feel living there. Anyone who lived in China for a while would agree.

I see no problem submitting China-related news since I live in the country and Chinese technology is my focus, and HN folks deserve to know more about the development of Chinese technologies. I should submit more often. The fact that people are 'shocked' to hear Chinese company winning western counterparts as shown in the comments under various China posts in HN proves my point.

Not just in e-commerce, the convenience living in China has far passed America, such as in mobile payment, food delivery, bike sharing, WeChat with its tremendously useful ecosystem, the subway system, high-speed rails, etc.

Having lived in both China and America, I have to say the living standard in Chinese cities has passed America's in many ways and, more importantly, the speed of China building new facilities is at least 10x of the US. Many American believe there's a competition between two countries, but IMO the competition is already won. Chinese no longer see the US as a competitor in many areas - you rarely hear Chinese Internet companies learning something new from their American counterparts today, or people envying America for their way of living. It's the opposite I found worrisome, that America is losing confidence and becomes more insecure day by day.

The trend is more important. US has only 32% of the world's unicorns. Even if you remove all the Chinese companies, US is 58% of the total, far less than the number a few years back. India and Southeast Asia are especially doing well if you put the size of their economies into consideration. In five years, these unicorns could grow into nowadays Amazon and Facebook, and the same holds true for the shift in the job market.

That was in the 90s. He was rejected visa b/c he didn't speak any English. Almost all VC and Internet businesses located in the US at that time. Things are dramatically different now.

Good for him. However, the wind has already turned eastward. Given the insanity in US immigration policy and xenophobia among the public, talents are going back to their original countries in flocks. Check out top 20 most valuable startups in the world - used to be 100% American and now half[ref] are foreign owned.

edit ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unicorn_startup_compan...

> The mystery to me is that if my suspicion is correct, then the CEOs and upper management must think that devotion is ultimately (long-term) more important than productivity is to the bottom line.

That's actually what Jack Ma asked for in his original WeChat posts. You simply can't ask a passionate employee to work in a fixed schedule, because they prefer working MUCH LONGER than 996.

> But does it matter if you work continuously 9-9? If I stay on premise 9-9 I still regard that as work -- that still is my time that I'm selling to the company.

In many countries, lunch and dinner breaks are unpaid time - in theory you are free to go home and do whatever you want. In China, noon break can be two hour long including napping. And the free dinners of IT companies are actually incentives to lure you staying longer on campus. Of course you can leave earlier or even on your own schedule if raising a child, however, for young people most prefer staying overtime enjoying free facilities companies provide them, like food and gyms they have to pay off-campus otherwise.

Definitely not immature. People have all the right to do so, and Chinese laws protect labor rights. And I do agree that the reason you are working overtime and whether it's voluntary make a big difference.

Worked at Alibaba. Not trying to defend the company, just offering my observation.

They do work much longer hour as compared to most American companies (like Google, I worked at too), even longer than the average Chinese ones. However, 9-to-9 doesn't mean people work 12 hour straight and nobody forcing anyone to stay at work until 9. Chinese work schedule includes 30 minutes to 1 hour extra napping time at noon, and Alibaba has on-campus canteens and facilities so employees go gym/game after dinner then back to work a little longer before leaving.

When I was working there I usually leave right after dinner so the actual work hour was around 8.5-9 hours a day. And our team never work on weekends (except for around 11.11 the annual shopping craze). However I do work at night and weekends at home, voluntarily.

They do pay well though.

Not that I don't have hobbies and friends. I routinely take week long beach vocation to make myself physically isolated from work. Just can't stop thinking about it daily and it's a hellof joy returning to my cubicle start working.

996 sounds like a paradise. We startup founders work 24/7. We are either working or thinking about work related stuff when not sleeping. Not that we don't know work-life balance is good for health, but you just can't stop dwelling on it if you have a devotion.

bs. it's like telling a PhD candidate no need doing reference research. being a good startup is not only about solving customers problem well, but solving in the best way and preferably first to solve.

Some people still think China's economy is a centralized one. No it's not. It's a mix of state owned and private - the former really good at long-term planning for national strategic goals, maintaining economic stability and building infrastructures with no short term returns, AND vibrating private sectors that drive innovation and employment. How they keep the balance of the two is mythical to many. However the Chinese came to this mixed system not by design, but with some luck. It needs to be studied and whether it can be replicated elsewhere remains a question.

If you look really closely, and look at the right index, the development of homosapiens today is in a very dare situation. In gross industry out, which should be the true measure of national power, most major economis grow less than one percent even recession after deducting inflation. We human beings are at a historical low since the last industrial revolution. The reason is simple. We are no longer building amazing infrastructures in a large scale as we used to do.

However there's one exception, China. The gross output of China will soon be equivalent to the rest of the world combined. China consumes more cement and steel in five years than the US did in the last 100 years, and China has built more than half of the world's high-speed rails, in just 20 years. It's really a miracle.

That's why I think the BRI could be a real opportunity for many, where China tries to replicate its model of development to other countries through infrastructure building, and investment that those countries desperately need. The new silk road project will be the project of the century. For sure the Chinese will build influence upon it, even a new world order. Time to perfect your Mandarin skill!

You are confusing Chinese companies with Chinese government. In most areas, whatever restrictions/laws on foreign businesses, are also put on Chinese companies (private). Most foreign companies lost Chinese market due to fierce competition from local counterparts, not any imaginable barrier. Back in 2000s, Chinese government even gave green light when Huawei tried to sell [ref] itself to Motorola, but only been turned down by the American side, and in the past few months Huawei ascends from nowhere to the #1 target of US spy agencies. See the irony?

edit ref: https://www.ft.com/content/fa8e7ab4-3905-11e9-b856-5404d3811...

their phones are not cheap, at least for the flagship models like mate/p series. if you're really looking for the best budget phone your money can get, try a xiaomi

to be honest I think it's all bullshit, just like how oracles sued google for fucking 9-line copyright infringement, when the first jury trail came out i was working at google. or the lawsuit Qualcomm 'won' against apple in china. imo copyright law is hurting competition and innovation in the long term

where did you get this piece of crap? i have lived in china and us, both countries have pros and cons, things that their people should be proud of. its weird that you label my post as nakedly cheerleading

my flagged post was about how the OP misinterpreted the chinese phrase (since you asked i include below). thats why I questioned what his point is. in my old post i was also critisizing huaweis early products as cheap knockoff but he seemed not bothered to quote.

reposting here:

> In China, stealing trade secrets is called “打破技术封锁” (breaking the technical blockade).

Wow. This is a blatant lie. Where did you get this piece? The Chinese phrase means developing the technology to a certain level that an embargo no longer works as intended. There are plenty examples in space technologies - US prohibits NASA collaboration with China and there are indigenous innovation breakthrough from within like landing on the far side of the moon.

You're welcome to read all my posts and comments, and they are public. I have been reading hacker news for a few years and only recently wanted to sign up. so what's your point?

Simply put, Huawei's products have better quality and companies in the US can't compete with it.

They are already #1 in telecommunication equipment and for consumer electronics like smart phones, they are killing other competitors in markets like China and Europe. Their phones were just like another cheap knock-off a few year back and what impressed me most is how they innovated through hard core R&D in the last 3 years.

I'm now typing on a Huawei Matebook 13 and carrying a Huawei Mate 10 phone. Those things have amazing quality and it's a real pity customers can't have them in the States.

we used to maintain our own k8s cluster and it's a pain in the ass given we have no dedicated ops. the cluster crashed every one or two month and we never tried making it up to date.

I suggest every startup use a hosted k8s solution, which takes care of most things like authentication, networking, monitoring, updating, etc.

also keep away from templating system such as jsonnet which is a huge overkill. you will end up writing a lot code you will hate to read later. instead write your own yaml builder in CI, together with parts that do docker image building, and code that deploys the microservices

imo Google did a really smart move with open sourcing k8s, as a latecomer of cloud provider. now infrastructure become so insignificant since everything runs on docker and pods.

The validation procedure is not required when signing up. Validation happens only when your account changes login device or you try password too many times. It works as a security feature and has nothing to do with whether your account's phone number is foreign or not. The procedure requires you identify people from your wechat contact or ask friends sending message to your account. It's fairly easy and your friends don't have to be local at all.

> If you're a foreigner, getting a functioning WeChat account is near to impossible these days.

You are confusing Wechat with Wechat Pay which is a feature of the former. You only need a mobile phone # (foreign or domestic) to sign up for WeChat. As for Wechat Pay, getting a bank account should be fairly easy if you live in China.

Lived in both China and USA for 10+ years each. Things that make no sense in American eyes make a lot sense in China.

> In 2012, I traveled for about 6 weeks in China.

Six weeks staying in China means nothing. China is already the 2nd largest economy but it still develops at an unprecedented rate. Urbanization in the country only reach 60% and will increase to 90% in 2030. 'Ghost cities' and empty malls will be filled very quickly in the next 3-5 years. There's actually a shortage of malls/supermarkets/schools in most communities in China, and that's the reason why e-commerce prevails and companies like Alibaba are reinventing retail.

> So pretty much everything I read about China's economic development, I don't believe.

You shouldn't, especially if you only read reports from Western sources, which are heavily biased and often telling only what people prefer to hear. People in the States are either ignorant on what's going in China, or so entitled to think there's only one way for how societies work.