"Tech Titans of China" (Rebecca A. Fannin)

TITLE: Tech Titans of China: How China's Tech Sector is challenging the world by innovating faster, working harder, and going global
AUTHOR: Rebecca A. Fannin
PUBLISHER: Boston, MA: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2019, (256 pages).

Those of us who live in the West would be familiar with the Tech Titans of America, in particular, the Silicon Valley of California. At the end of the Millenium, there were the AOLs, Blackberrys, IBMs, the HPs, the Ciscos, the Dells, Yahoo, and so on. Today, these companies have been eclipsed by Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, and so on. Like the common saying that the big will eat up the small, the new threat to these Western Tech Titans are coming from East Asia, namely, China. Calling them the BATs of China, these rising tech titans of China (Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent) are challenging the FANGS (Facebook, Amazon/Apple, Netflix, Google) in the search, e-commerce, social networking, and many other technology domains. WeChat's userbase has surpassed WhatsApp. China's Silicon Dragon is China's emerging equivalent of Silicon Valley. In fact, China has grown from copying to innovating. If imitation is the biggest form of flattery, the successes of many Chinese tech firms have been validated with Western firms doing the copying instead. Facebook imitates WeChat's messaging features. Amazon has to play catchup in some areas too. Even the giant Apple are copying some of Xiaomi's business model. It is not just the speed of innovation that is catching up, it is also about the super-quick time that these Chinese corporations need to overtake their Western counterparts. Like the words of Gary Rieschel, "China is going to eat Silicon Valley's lunch." While it is true that some areas of advancement are due to government protectionist measures, a sizable chunk of innovation is due to the relentless entrepreneurial spirit and hardworking culture so synonymous with the Chinese. Not only that, the work rate of the Chinese is unmatched. Working over 12 hours per day, six days a week, and having meetings on weekends. Many of these are all-nighters that reflect a workaholic culture not often seen in America. With an enormous domestic market, a relentless entrepreneurial spirit, a workaholic culture, and a protectionist government, all signs point to inevitable domination within China first, and the world next.