China Needs 20 More Years to Become Really Innovative
On Saturday I went to a Yale Club of Beijing Masters Tea talk by Xu Xiaoping at Peking University. Xu Xiaoping is one of China’s most prominent angel investors; but not just in the fields of tech start-ups but also film and philanthropy. At the end of 2011, his angel fund Zhenfund announced its partnership with Sequoia Capital China to create a US$30 Million JV seed fund. He is probably most famous for being the former co-founder and Vice Chairman of New Oriental Group, a NYSE-listed education company that helps prepare Chinese to study overseas, mainly America.
土曜日、Beijing Mastersの茶会、イェールクラブに行って来ました。Xu Xiaopingが主催するもので、北京大学で開催されました。Xu Xiaopingは中国で最も有名なエンジェル投資家の1人です。技術の新設業だけでなく、映画や慈善事業も多く手がけています。2011年の終わりには彼のエンジェルファンドであるZhenfundがSequoia Capital Chinaとの提携を発表しました。3000万ドルのJVシードファンドを作るためです。彼はおそらくNew Oriental Groupの前創立者の1人、副会長として一番知られているでしょう。この会社はニューヨーク証券取引所にも登録されている、教育会社です。中国人に海外、主にアメリカでのビジネスのための知識を身につけさせる会社です。
土曜日に、北京大学のXu Xiaopingが主催する、 北京修士同窓会の、イェールクラブ（Yale Club）に行ってきた。Xu Ziaopingは中国の、もっとも傑出したエンジェル投資家の一人である。 彼の投資は技術的なスタートアップ分野に留まらず、映画や慈善事業などにもまたがる。2011年の終わりに、彼のエンジェルファンドであるZhenfundは、ジョイントベンチャーによる3千万米ドルのシードファンドを設立するため、Sequoia Capital Chinaとパートナーシップを結んだと発表。XiaopingはNew Oriental Groupの前共同出資者及び副会長であったことで最も有名だろう。このNew Oriental Groupは、中国人が主に米国等海外へ留学する為のお膳立てをする、ニューヨーク株式市場的エデュケーション・カンパニーである。
The main topic of discussion was about ‘Innovation in China’. One of his conclusions was that, in this generation, China will not be able to produce their very own equivalent of Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. However he did say, things are changing and it will just take time to happen. Here are some of his reasons:
1. China has a culture of education first at the expense of passion
Asians like to joke about Asian parents being strict and paranoid about studies and grades for their children. Generally it is true but of course not every Asian parent is like this.
1.中国の教育パターンでは、情熱の拡大が根本になっている。
アジア人はよく、アジアでは両親が子供たちの勉強や成績に厳しく、ほとんどパラノイド的であることを、好んでジョークにする。一般的に言えばそれは的を得ているが、アジアの親達みんながみんな、必ずしもそうではない。
In China, there are a number of factors which feed into parent’s paranoia. The main one is fierce competition. With so many people, fighting to get into the best schools and presumably best jobs, the only way-in besides guanxi, is through stellar grades. Xu explained that China’s most important high school and university entrance exam called the Gao Kao is a killer of passion and creativity – a rather bold statement. He highlighted his reasoning through two stories. The first was of a Chinese boy in Canada who had a great passion for programming and was encouraged by his parents to explore his skills. This boy went on to amazing things and created a very valuable technology company.
guanxi）の他にあり得る唯一の道は、最も優秀な成績、Stellar グレードを取得することである。Xuは大胆にも、Gao Kaoと呼ばれる最も重要な高校及び大学入学試験が、創造性に対する情熱を殺していると述べた。始まりはカナダにいた中国人少年だった。彼はプログラミングへの大いなる情熱を持ち、彼の両親も、彼がスキルを高めることを奨励した。この少年は偉業を成し遂げ、非常に有意義なテクノロジー会社を設立した。
The second was of a boy in China who also had a deep passion for programming and even invented something that Apple could have used. But conversely, his parents told him to stop working on it and instead focus on studying for the Gao Kao. After years of draining preparation, his mind was so consumed it sucked his passion away for programming and he eventually just became an employee of a company. Xu believes that this traditional Chinese mindset of fighting to be accepted, rather than encouraging peoples natural curiosity and passions deters China from reaching its true potential.
人々の生まれ持っての好奇心や情熱を応援するのではなく、社会に受け入れられる為に尽くすと言う、伝統的な中国の考え方が、中国を本当の将来の可能性から遠ざけていると、Xu氏は信じている。
Xu is convinced that China’s education system lacks behind more Western countries such as America. That is why his former company, New Oriental is built upon sending Chinese overseas to study and broaden their perspective and almost discover themselves. However as China’s economy booms, this trend of going overseas is starting to slow. At the end of the talk, I asked Xu Xiaoping, “How long will it take until China has to keep sending students overseas to become really creative and innovative?” He replied “At least 20 years”.
2. Chinese products and services need more soul
Xu is a unique case because he studied music and was a music teacher at Peking University, so he is passionate about arts and culture. In relation to many Chinese tech companies and their products and services, he feels that they lack ‘soul’, a rather profound thought.
What does this mean? For example, Steve Jobs was more artist than engineer. He believed his products needed a personality and evoke emotions in people. Xu said this way of thinking and intuition is largely missing from China and is a fundamental reason why China will not have a Steve Jobs in this generation. Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi Tech, is known to be China’s closest contender for China’s Steve Jobs but even his friend, Xu believes that he is not the right guy. He explained that Lei Jun is an engineer at heart but not an artist. Now Xiaomi is looking for a CEO who can execute like an artist but Xu believes that could be difficult, finding that person in China.
This partly explains why there is so much cloning in China. Many Chinese start-ups are not really founded by designers and artists but engineers who often don’t have the creative minds to think of new ideas or designs. For now, cloning works because it speeds up the process of time to market but even Chinese are starting to criticize such blatant copying. The latest is called DianDi, an exact clone of popular mobile journal, Path. Perhaps if people revolt against copying more and more, the copiers’ will start to change their strategy.
3. Innovators are discouraged by big giants that want to crush them
In America and especially the Silicon Valley, there is a start-up culture of build-to-acquire. Meaning many start-ups create a start-up that a big company like Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft want and then sell to them. Usually the reason is because a big company really just wants their talented team. The other reason is that by acquiring their technology, it saves them time building it themselves.
米国、特にシリコンバレーでは獲得の為の設立（"Build-to acquire"）のスタートアップ精神がある。つまり、多くのスタートアップ会社は、Facebook、 Google、 Apple および Microsoftのようなビック・カンパニーが欲しがるようなスタートアップを作り、それらを売却する。たいていの場合あげられる理由は、大会社がただ単に彼らの優秀なチームを欲するからだ。その他にも、大会社が彼らの技術を獲得することで、自分たちで設計する為の時間を省くためだ。
However in China, many big companies like Baidu, Sina, Tencent prefer and can afford to simply hire a big team to crank out the product rather than buy a start-up out. Often, if they see a Chinese start-up working on something with big potential, they will just copy them, pump the product with their huge amounts of existing users and eventually crush the original start-up product. Such a threat from big gorilla companies discourages people from innovating and trying their luck.
