Sunday Snapshots (09/13/20) – Innovation in China, TikTok, Cicada 3301, Sebastian Junger, Singapore, and life
In which I feature some of my favorite creators
Hey everyone,
Greetings from Washington, D.C.!
I’ve spent the last week in deep work mode. Disciplined routines have been hard for most people during the pandemic and I was no exception. Moving cities disrupted it even further. But I feel like I’ve finally found my rhythm balancing my commitments. After months of feeling hazy, I feel focused. I’m not ready to announce what I’m work- ing on just yet, but expect some news in the coming weeks. If you don’t follow me on Twitter, now would be a good time.
In this issue of Snapshots, I want to talk about:
The various models of innovation in China
TikTok, WeChat, and information controls
Three creators I really like
Cicada 3301, Sebastian Junger, Singapore, and life
Book of the week
Pioneers, Hidden Champions, Change Makers, and Underdogs by Mark Greeven, George Yip, and Wei Wei is a book about innovation models in China. It explores how business in China is different from the West and the unique factors that enable growth in the country. Here were my key takeaways from the book:
Creative destruction at the bottom, comfortable monopolies at the top: The model of innovation that emerges in China is that of ruthless pragmatism at the bottom with fierce competition between competing companies with the same target consumer, balanced by the blessing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) once you’ve won these battles. It’s less nefarious than the Russia model of “Hey you’re my old friend of the KGB so you get rights in perpetuity to mine some extremely precious resource” but it undeniably makes these behemoths an arm of Chinese soft power. This is further formally enforced by the presence of a “party secretary” in any private businesses with more than fifty employees. In some way, this eliminates the need for The Swamp-like lobbyists that I’ve learned about during my short time in the city. But it also imprints the presence of big brother at the nascent stage of development.
Regional diversity in regulations: China likely has a greater number of major population centers than the Western Hemisphere combined. This allows for multiple cauldrons of talent, capital, and regulations. While diversity in the first two ingredients are typical everywhere, diversity in the last one is rarer. The CCP favors a “Do First, Ask Forgiveness Later if it succeeds” policy of enforcing the how uniform the regulations are across the mainland. Provinces are encouraged to try out different incentive structures to encourage innovation in business models. If a company or a particular model emerges as promising, rules are retroactively finessed to allow for the proliferation of the desirable elements across the country. An interesting model that not too far from “innovation islands” that Silicon Valley technocrats with pollyannaish assumptions promote.
Combination of domestic and foreign-educated workforce: While Chinese domestic education system is fairly robust at the very top, this highly trained STEM-focused workforce is complemented by the so called 海龟 (hǎiguī) or “sea turtles” who study in foreign universities and come back to their home country. This population of native students coming back is disproportionately higher in China than other comparable countries. These workers are said to bring process and cultural knowledge of how Western businesses operated. How well these twice-cultural-transplants integrate into their former homes (and to what extent are their moves voluntarily vs. induced by visa issues/government soft pressure) is a question for another time but suffice it to say that they are an important component of innovation in the country.
I wouldn’t recommend Pioneers, Hidden Champions, Change Makers, and Underdogs to anyone who is not extremely interested in learning specifically about how Chinese companies innovate. While I do think that they are a few broader lessons to be learned, most of the book is very domain-specific.
Long read of the week
TikTok and WeChat: Curating and controlling global information flows by Fergus Ryan, Audrey Fritz, and Daria Impiombato
Continuing the China theme this week, this report by an Australian Think Tank on TikTok and WeChat was particularly good. After reading Martin Gurri’s The Revolt of the Public earlier in the year, my overwhelming conclusion was that the prevailing social networks of our time have created tools of creativity at the individual level and of destruction at the societal level. Without credible actors at the societal level, what you’ve created is a networked system with volatility but without self-correcting guard-rails. But in China, the center is at the helm of the network.
This report doubles down on that hypothesis and is a great read in its entirety.
Business move of the week
I don’t have a particular news story I want to analyze this week. I was just not excited about anything that I came across and so decided to take a break.
Instead, I wanted to highlight three creators whose work I admire:
Sari Azout’s Check Your Pulse is more human than most other newsletters, has cool discount codes, and her personality shines through it.
Sara Dietschy is a famous YouTuber, but her latest video about the basics of filming is a 14 minute crash course through the lens of how terrible Joe Rogan’s new studio is.
Laura Gao’s The Wuhan I Know is amazing. I’m in awe of her talents.
I hope you enjoy these creators as much as I do!
Odds and ends of the week
A video, an interview, an article, and a tweet:
🦗 Cicada 3301: If you love going down rabbit holes, this is one for the ages. I’m surprised there isn’t a Netflix documentary about it yet.
🎖️ Sebastian Junger’s Tribe via SVIC: Enjoy this moving conversation with Sebastian Junger about his book Tribe by the good people over at Silicon Valley Investor Club. I read the book in late 2018 on the recommendation of a former Navy Seal I had gotten to know at college. Listening to the interview brought back the feelings of anguish I had about the lack of community and support structures we have for veterans.
🇸🇬 Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew: In preparation for reading a doorstopper – From The Third World to First – about Singapore starting next week, I thought it would be helpful to figure out what the terrain of views looks like on Singapore’s founding father. This piece is the perfect starting point.
👓 When you’re old: Via Brett Bivens and Muneeb Ali
That wraps up this week’s newsletter. You can check out the previous issues here.
If you want to discuss any of the ideas mentioned above or have any books/papers/links you think would be interesting to share on a future edition of Sunday Snapshots, please reach out to me by replying to this email or sending me a direct message on Twitter at @sidharthajha.
Until next Sunday,
Sid