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Chinese Workers Abandon Silicon Valley for Riches Back Home

(www.bloomberg.com)
219 points thisisit | 2 comments | 11 Jan 18 16:55 UTC | HN request time: 2.897s | source
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asabjorn ◴[11 Jan 18 19:41 UTC] No.16127096[source]▶
I am a Norwegian in Silicon Valley that have spent most of my career with Chinese colleagues, both in academia and industry, and my anecdata seem to indicate that my highly talented China-born colleagues are sadly leaving because;

- China has great opportunities for riches

- Getting a US VISA is hard and painful when you come from a populous country like China or India

- My China-born colleagues seem to in general be more conservative, and Silicon Valley has become violently intolerant of anyone that holds an opinion different than the predominant view

Only the first reason is somewhat objective, while the two others cause stress in their daily life as their ability to provide can at any time be removed due to what is perceived as arbitrary reasons. Everything being equal, many of them have told me they would prefer the less crowded Silicon Valley.

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1. xster ◴[12 Jan 18 23:51 UTC] No.16137338[source]▶
I'd add 2 more anecdata points

- The strong sense of rapid progress, culturally, technologically, socially, infrastructure-wise. Everything transforms every few years and there's still the sense that everyone's hard work goes towards making the pie bigger instead of fighting each other for pieces of the pie. In relative terms, there's more stagnation in the Silicon Valley. I don't know when's the last time there has been a brand new shiny mall built. POS are still routinely being plugged with a card so you revert to using a magnetic stripe. NIMBY movements are still trying to revert society to an agrarian state.

- The comfort feeling that your hard work translates to social approval and your personal wealth vs the feeling at least in the Silicon Valley that your hard work translates to your landlord's wealth and increased vilification of the tech working class.

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2. asabjorn ◴[13 Jan 18 10:29 UTC] No.16139031[source]▶
Yes, I think supply constraints on housing has in the last three decades only made the Bay Area worse. I donate to YIMBY and any other organization that fight to increase housing supply.

I am tired of people claiming to fight for the poor and working class by fighting market rate housing and offices. Their position is objectively wrong and they are at this point inarguably causing damage to vast groups lives.