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Strengthen self without stopping and hold the world with virtue
By Jamsheed Gandhi
The wisdom of the Chinese has stood in good stead over the ages. In recent times, the Chinese have mastered one more art, and that is imitation. To paraphrase Charles Caleb Colton’s famous quote: "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery", China is now the workshop of the world. It is not uncommon to hear of entire products being reverse engineered and re-introduced in the market at a much cheaper rate. This is the only market in the world where a Baidu is more popular than Google, or dingdang.com beats down amazon.com.
Somewhere this book too is in keeping with this new Chinese profession. In the not so distant future, when readers would want to look back in the past and try to determine a list of books that would have tracked the growth of people, companies and the technology sector as a record to what all China has to offer, this book will come high on the list.
Readers of this book will find it similar to the existing titles which have tracked the technology industry in the United States. Readers can draw parallels between this book and The Silicon Boys And Their Valley of Dreams by David A Kaplan, or The Nudist on the Late Shift: And Other True Tales of Silicon Valley by Po Bronson.
A writer who has covered the industry for Red Herring & The Asian Venture Capital Journal, Fannin segregates the book into three sections namely, Copycats, Venture Capitalists and Innovators. In the beginning this segregation does not seem to have much relevance, but its subtlety emerges as you finish the book.
Fannin brings to the readers emotions that each and every one of her subjects would have experienced, their trials and tribulations, joys and sorrows. Bokee or “plentiful guests”, is the Chinese terminology of blogging. In writing about Fang Xingdong and his trials with blogging services in the country to launch bokee.com, she puts forth a view of Gary Rieschel, an investor and board member saying, “The commercial risk is that he (Xingdong) is a CEO for the first time.” This is after the company has run through $10 million in venture funding. No wonder the book has received praise from some marquee names who straddle the technology world, two of which are George Gilder and Jason Pontin.
It’s interesting to read about Lingtu or “clever maps” who has not only restricted the art of digital map making to the Internet or the PDA, but also brought it to mobile phones and laptops with built-in GPS; or about Liu Yingkui who runs Oriental Wisdom and wants to put transacting almost all financial products such as mutual funds, insurance through the cell phone. The innovators drive their company with hard work and thrift that is always associated with the Chinese, and an attitude that does not have them running to exit their ventures at the first sign of exorbitant cash being thrown at their faces.
In conclusion, the imitators have emerged as the innovators. Strengthening the self without stopping and holding the world with virtue has been put to test and has emerged victorious. What used to be passed of as a cheap knock-off is now a billion dollar company. David Rubenstein, Co-founder and Managing Director of Carlyle Group has put his stamp and declared, “The center of technology is shifting, and China is emerging as the other major pole for innovation.”
At long last, all crows under heaven are black.
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