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2) Lack of respect for the nuance of history

If Americans had any respect for the “arch of history”, they would have long ago realized that pumping up South Vietnam was a lost cause. Anti-colonialism was in full rage, and “white men” could no longer dictate terms. The French learned the hard lesson by fighting hard and losing big in Vietnam; Charles De Gaulle himself warned the Americans that fighting Hanoi was futile. Unfortunately, the warnings were ignored. Gaopeng, too, should have realized that foreign Internet companies have a notoriously bad track record in China. Yahoo, Ebay, and Google are some of the well known cases where foreigners lost out to their more tenacious and well adapted local competitors. With that in mind, shouldn’t Gaopeng have substituted its extreme confidence for caution? After all, Groupon is a foreign company, and the employees they deployed to run the show at Gaopeng are also foreign. Why would they succeed where others have failed? This question was never asked. 3) Failure to recognize that people do things differently in a foreign country.

Vietnam is a unique place, with a unique history and unique culture. This obvious fact was ignored by the best and brightest of Americans; they all wanted things in Vietnam to work exactly like they do at home. By ignoring local logic, these most rational and intelligent men built extremely beautiful edifices based on the foundation of false assumptions and it all crashed down because of that. China, too, has its unique logic. Because of differences in political and economical environment, the Chinese simply do things differently than Americans. Gaopeng didn’t appreciate many of the subtleties, and it was simply devoured by the beast of the jungle. In hindsight, it never stood a chance. If other foreign companies do not appreciate that, they too shall suffer ignominious defeats.