Journey to the South – domestic current situation, future comparison, whether to return to China

Today I ended my one-week trip south to Shenzhen and Guangzhou. In addition to Shanghai and Hangzhou before (my city has changed a lot and I need to move around a lot), this is my first time to move around on a large scale. I basically visited several cities in China that are suitable for development, met different people, and talked a lot. Maybe it’s because I stayed in the barren United States for too long. After returning home, I actually fell in love with this kind of communication with people from all walks of life and all kinds of people. This world is rich, and we don’t even know it.

This article is very long, so I have given you some titles to make it easier for you to read. There is no correlation between the various paragraphs because I wrote them at various times during my trip.

Shenzhen is the best, bar none

What impressed me most during this trip was Shenzhen, a city where young people gather. It is rare to see elderly people here, and the quality of the population is completely different from other cities. The level of development of Shenzhen has greatly exceeded my psychological expectations. Standing on the Shenzhen Bay, with Hong Kong on the other side, Nanshan District, the new Internet Silicon Valley, and Futian District, which is experiencing rapid development of the financial industry, are on the left and right. In contrast, there is an illusion that Hong Kong is photographed on the beach.

After going to these cities, I had a sorting order in my mind: Shenzhen>Hangzhou>Shanghai>Guangzhou>Beijing. Everyone will definitely have objections to this ranking, but for me, I have sufficient reasons to explain this ranking.

First of all, why Shenzhen ranks first is because of its environment. A large number of young people gather together and the whole city is full of vitality. There are no senior old towns here. Everyone is a foreigner. In terms of government efficiency and living environment, there is almost no second place in the country. However, the housing prices in Shenzhen are really scary. Even the better ones cost around 100,000 yuan. Fortunately, renting a house is very cheap. Overall, it seems like a great choice to work and rent a house here.

Hangzhou is my hometown, and there are Alibaba, NetEase, etc. Based on the familiarity of the city and the comfort of life, I will definitely be happy to stay here. However, this city has the same problem as Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Beijing, that is, the personnel structure is more complicated than Shenzhen, which makes people feel bad.

Shanghai is actually my favorite city, but unfortunately I came back and took a look this time. The housing prices and rents in this city are high, and the city is mainly engaged in finance. It is not the best choice for IT practitioners. Compared with Shenzhen and Hangzhou, office workers in Shanghai look like financial tycoons in suits and leather shoes.

Maybe I just stayed there for a short time, but the city of Guangzhou didn’t leave much of an impression on me. I feel like it’s similar to other cities, with no finance, no Internet, a very mixed population, and high-speed rail stations that are crowded and don’t have air conditioning. This city gave me a very ordinary feeling, and there was no reason for me to go there.

Beijing is actually a city that is very suitable for the development of the Internet, but I put it last. The reason is very personal. I don’t like a city full of politics. In my opinion, the reason why there are many Internet companies in Beijing is that they are close to the imperial court and can get first-hand information and discounts. Very Chinese characteristics, personally disgusted. Moreover, Beijing is so big that it doesn’t feel like a city. Outside the Third Ring Road, Beijing?

The current situation I see

Most of my classmates in the same class as me are doing well now. After all, they already have 5-6 years of work experience. 2012 was also the year when mobile Internet started at a rapid pace. Many people seized this opportunity and achieved great results.

This time I not only went to Alibaba, NetEase and Tencent, but also went to many friends’ companies to observe. The feeling it gave me was great. In the United States, it is simply unimaginable that a client product has nearly 50 people developing and operating it. Under this kind of resource allocation, every detail can be achieved to the extreme. In addition, China's Internet of Things and artificial intelligence are also in a stage of rapid development.

I don’t think artificial intelligence will develop significantly in the short term. After all, the so-called intelligence now is only based on probability judgments fed by data. What everyone is doing is to make the probability more precise, rather than letting the machine have its own intelligence. Now the domestic industry is indeed not inferior to that of the United States. After all, there is so much investment in research and development. Under this trend, when the next smart revolution breaks out, it will at least be on an equal footing with the United States.

In the more "low-end" Internet of Things, China has completely surpassed the United States. This conclusion is surprising, but it is not difficult to understand if you think about it carefully. The Internet of Things is not a sophisticated technology. It just installs an ordinary chip on an object and connects it to the Internet, allowing each object to form an interactive network. This requires neither chip technology nor advanced algorithms.

As someone who loves to play with products, I have installed many similar products in my American home, from sweeping robots to smart door locks and cameras to Nest and Alexa. It seems that American manufacturers are a bit disdainful of smart home production. Why do I say that? There are not many manufacturers of low-end products such as sensors, sockets, and light bulbs.

But these are all we need. This time at Boss Zhong’s house, I saw a complete set of Xiaomi smart home appliances. From door sensors, to desk lamps, routers, curtains, to voice control, sensors, smart TVs, rice cookers, and universal air conditioners. Xiaomi has made the entire device very perfect. Although if you think about it carefully, these are some low-end IoT, and they are just the design and upgrade of user experience. But this made me feel deeply about the future. If we continue to develop like this, one terminal will be able to control the entire home in a few years.

In fact, this gap is not too surprising. The United States is a developed country and many things have been perfected, just like an aristocrat who is getting higher and higher. China, on the other hand, is a young man who is unwilling to lag behind and strives to catch up. It dares to act and has a huge advantage as a latecomer. Let’s just talk about mobile payment. I’ve posted on Moments before and said that Apple Pay will not be successful in the United States, and it is even less likely to be successful in China. Why? Because credit cards are so convenient in the United States, the steps for mobile payment and using a credit card are similar, so there is very little motivation for change. In China, credit card swiping is not popular. Scanning the QR code on Alipay and WeChat is much simpler and more open than the complex Apple payment. In the entire mobile payment industry, the United States and even the world are an era behind China.

The same is true for the Internet of Things. The products you can see in the United States are available in China, and they are even more user-friendly and easier to use than those in the United States. The reason is that China has a large number of excellent designers and developers, and the hardware industry chain is very complete. As long as you want to make a device, you just need to go to Huaqiangbei and other places and you're basically done. In the United States? It is estimated that it will take at least half a month to negotiate a supplier, and another half month to start the production line.

In summary, China is fully prepared for the next era, while the United States is still grasping its super advantage of the previous era: high-precision technology. There is no time to wait for the future. One has a large number of talents from various companies practicing it, while the other only has some companies advancing it.

Want to return home?

This is a question that has been asked all the time. I originally wanted to write an article specifically about this topic, but I will write a little bit here first, and I can also make a preface later. To this question, the answer I have always given is: if you are a talented person, go back to China; if you want to be comfortable, stay in the United States. After returning to China this time, this thought deepened in my mind.

Something surprised me when I came back this time. There are various third-generation returnees hiding in domestic companies.

Let me generalize my definition here. The first generation refers to the group of Chinese returnees from a very long time ago, before the 1980s. We call the elites sent by the country in the 1980s and 1990s into the second generation of returnees. They were the most powerful people at that time. Unfortunately, a large number of them chose to break their contracts and stay in the United States, missing the 10 years of China's fastest development. Those who came back from their generation have become top talents in all walks of life. The third generation refers to those who went abroad from the late 1990s to around 2007. Their characteristics are that they are strong and have clear goals. Since China was still developing at that time and their families were not wealthy enough to fully fund their studies, most of them received scholarships. As for those of us who have no shortage of money to go abroad and have formed the current wave of returnees, I define them as the fourth generation.

Why am I surprised that there are many third-generation returnees in China? Because I always thought they stayed overseas more. Many people told me that many of their batch came back after they could no longer stay overseas. The reasons are surprisingly consistent: unable to realize their ambitions. That was true ten years ago, and it is true now. I have always thought that the United States is a place for retirement. If you don’t go out and explore at a young age, you will hide in one place and wait to die? At least I can't accept it at all. It turns out that there are so many people like me. The reason why they don't know about it is because they have already taken action.

Of course, in rational comparison, the advantages of the United States are still obvious. There is no overtime salary, and the entire social system and humanistic environment are better than those in China. However, after this experience, apart from the fact that the social system cannot be changed, other things are actually just trying to scare myself. The phenomenon of overtime is widespread, but it is not caused by pressure. Under the social system of teams and friends, the pressure of overtime has been alleviated to a great extent, and what is left is only the cost of time. In terms of salary, the salary in China is not much lower than that abroad. Coupled with the low cost of living (although high-end consumption is similar to that in the United States, the selection gradient is very large, and it is impossible to go to a big restaurant for every meal). The overall salary level is even more comfortable than in the United States. As for the humanistic environment, China is indeed much worse, but if you are with a group of similar people, you will find that it is actually not bad. What's more, staying in the United States requires constant pressure from government policies.

From this point of view, why not return to China? Maybe it’s the price?

In what kind of social environment can courtesy exist? (Written before leaving for Shanghai)

It’s been almost a week since I returned to China, and I’ve always been lazy when I got home. Today, while I’m waiting for the high-speed train to go to Shanghai, I just want to write down my thoughts.

After staying in the United States for five years, many habits have been formed. For example, drive politely to pedestrians, wait sideways in the elevator, wait at a certain distance when queuing, and keep a certain distance from other people. These subconscious behaviors suddenly found that they did not work in the country. Some people think that this is a difference in quality, an inevitable difference between developed and developing countries. But I think this is more a matter of habit. The United States is used to this, but the Chinese do not have this habit and are not aware of it. It is not intentional.

Then the question comes, what kind of social environment will make everyone have the habit of being polite? Today I conducted a round of brainstorming on this issue myself, and I summarized it as follows:

1. Amount and allocation of resources. in the country, everything seems to be snatched up, and if you are one step behind, it will be gone. Even in the form of queuing for tickets, there will still be some queue jumping. After all, there are 1.4 billion people, and resources are concentrated in major cities. The shortage of resources has caused everyone's mentality to change. Imagine that in a village, ten apples are divided among ten people. No one needs to grab them or jump in line. They may even show up to let others take them first because everyone knows that the resources are sufficient. But when there are 9, 5, or even 3 Apples, people will slowly change from the first-come, first-served mentality to contacting acquaintances, asking for inside information, and going through the back door. This is also human nature. But why is Japan, which is also crowded with 400 million people and has a higher density than China, so much better? In fact, it is not all a matter of quality. The main problem is that methods such as going through the back door are completely blocked and unfeasible. In this case, everyone can only queue up, and people will also weigh the pros and cons. If they feel that the cost of queuing is too high, they will choose to give up. (Of course, the averageness and substitutability of resources are important, because even if they don’t have apples or strawberries, although they don’t like to eat them the most, they can still make do with it), and everyone in our country is now thinking about change, whether it’s a house, a job, or starting a business, they are all actively seeking changes. This situation puts a lot of pressure on me and makes my life very utilitarian and rushed.

As for the problem of stability, there is basically no solution in large and medium-sized cities. We can only wait for development and everyone develops into "spiritually rich" before we can fundamentally solve it.

2. The behavior of other people. To be honest, phenomena such as crowding and queue jumping mostly occur in places such as stations, mainly because there are more people there and their quality is different. When there is a thief in a group, everyone will defend themselves. Therefore, if this problem is completely solved, the overall quality must be improved to a very high level. But the good news is that if you go to high-end hotels, airports and other places, this phenomenon is basically invisible. This shows that the humanistic quality will gradually change, but this process may take several generations, and it is difficult to change habits.

BAT seems to have lost Baidu (written on the way south)

Today on the high-speed train to Shenzhen, I finished reading "Smart Revolution" by Robin Li. This book is more like an introduction to "Baidu Brain". Apart from understanding Baidu, the current status of artificial intelligence, domestic and foreign policies and environmental conditions, there is no other useful information.

But this was expected. After all, I had already considered this when choosing this book, but I still decided to buy it. I think books are divided into three categories. One is "learning". They are for learning knowledge. Whether they are books in school, books on policy and law, psychology, or management, they all fall into this category. This is also my favorite book to read. When I read it, I must bring a notebook with me to record the essence at any time (I feel that I have obsessive-compulsive disorder and cannot start reading this kind of book without a notebook). But I feel that as I grow older, my motivation to read these books becomes less and less, not because I no longer love learning, but because I feel that I have figured out the routines of these books. At this time, I gradually began to like reading the second type of books - "introductory books". This kind of books is not as nutritious as the previous type, but it can help me understand more about the world, my own industry, and better position myself. This book "Intelligent Revolution" falls into this category. I have been away from the country for a long time. I need to read more books like this to understand the development of the domestic industry and how the big guys think.

This time when I returned to China, I visited Alibaba and NetEase, and was about to go to Gouchang (Tencent), but I didn’t go to Baidu. It's not that I don't want to, but there is really no one I'm particularly familiar with on Baidu. This is actually my impression of Baidu in the past few years. BAT, Tencent and Alibaba are booming in the market. Baidu has no big news or movement except for some negative news and the poaching of some Silicon Valley executives. It seems that others are making strides forward, but Baidu is struggling to save itself.

But after reading the book, I changed this view. Baidu has chosen a different path in this market. Alibaba and Tencent are using their own resources to build an ecosystem and seize market resources. Baidu changed its thinking and began to recruit talents from various industries to develop artificial intelligence to serve the commercial side of enterprises. This is Robin Li's grand plan, although there is still a long way to go.

Since Li has the same undergraduate and graduate majors as me (domestic information management and American computer science), I have a certain affinity with him. Although the entire book talks about intelligence that relies on big data and neural network stacks, it is still far from artificial intelligence that can truly think, and there is also a certain gap between it and Google's DeepMind. But I still admire his ideals and vision. In this market full of gold, few people can leave it alone and invest a lot of real money in an area that cannot yet generate profits.

The smart cars and artificial intelligence that Baidu is working on are things for the next era. It is really admirable to take this step ahead of schedule. However, judging from Baidu's recent personnel transfers and PPT incidents, this company may have encountered certain problems. The BAT that everyone often talks about has now been divided into different grades. In my opinion, Tencent is far ahead, Alibaba is working hard to catch up, and Baidu has fallen far behind, forming a second group with JD.com, NetEase, Xiaomi, etc. behind it.