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Silicon Valley Isn't Ignoring China; It's Looking For The Opportunity
from the looking-for-opportunities,-not-threats dept
Echoing some of Rebecca McKinnon's claims that we discussed recently, VentureBeat is running an OpEd piece by Rebecca A. Fannin, claiming that Silicon Valley has its head in the sand about the rising "threat" of competition in China. While there certainly may be some folks who aren't paying attention to China, my take on the situation is quite different.
Silicon Valley, as a broad generalization, doesn't worry about "threats." Instead, it tries to treat them all as opportunities. So, if Fannin is upset to see folks focusing on Twitter and the iPhone rather than the fact that China is building up a healthy and rapidly innovating tech economy, she may be focusing on the wrong thing. It does little to "fret" about the next big threat. There are always people warning about this or that big threat. A dozen years ago, it was how Japan was going to take over the tech industry. That didn't exactly happen. Sitting around and worrying about a threat doesn't make much sense.
Instead, it makes sense to pay attention to opportunities. And, many, many, many people in Silicon Valley view China as a huge opportunity. And, yes, new companies and technologies will flow out of China -- and it will present formidable competition -- but, again, competition isn't a real threat, it's an opportunity to do something even better and more innovative. So, I'd disagree with the assertion that Silicon Valley has its head in the sand about the rise of Chinese innovation. We're just focusing on how to make them opportunities.
