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- Startups in the down economy and venture financing
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6 comments:
I didn't really understand what happened to the poor guy.
Also, here we see the difference with Russia: In Russia, they would immediately settle with whatever brother/parents/relatives/friends available.
Whereas in the United States, your brother/parents/relatives are on the other side of the country, you haven't seen them in years and don't even know their telephone numbers, and your friends melt away in horror the moment they smell the sweet scent of desperation upon you, in horror that your fate might contagious if they so much as say hello to you on the street. The U.S. is a very dog-eat-dog world. And when you're a dog on the street, Americans feel no compunctions about giving you a swift kick in the ribs just because.
The upside is that if you are in high tech, you can make a pretty good living. For a while. After a certain point eyes start glazing over the moment you walk into the room. Then you realize to your horror that now that you are in your late 40's or early 50's, you are unemployable in the United States of America, at least if your devotion is to quality engineering rather than management.
But never fear, there is a solution to that problem: simply move to China or some other similar emerging technology giant. They are desperate for experienced technological people to teach their masses of very bright but very inexperienced engineers how to create quality products. I find it very rewarding to work with teams of Chinese engineers helping them to design and create new products, because they are always eager, hard working, and polite, and once you show them the ropes and they figure out how to emulate the way you think, they can be as creative as anyone. They are inexperienced and they are total geeks (may the gods help anyone who has to use a user interface that they have designed because said user interface will have enough knobs and bells and whistles that an ordinary non-geeky person will run screaming in horror upon seeing it), but "stupid" most definitely is not a word to describe the Chinese engineers I work with.
And there is the scoop. American culture simply is not well designed for the truckload of hurting that is about to fall down upon it. Strangely enough, those who are already down on the bottom will probably survive best of all, because they have already built the intertwined networks of relations and friends needed to navigate the new world of an impoverished America. As for the remnants of the American middle class that once made their way through life selling real estate to one another and laughing at the misfortunes of others... ah. Sometimes justice does happen. Too bad about all the others who will similarly fall hard too. I have heard too many of their stories over these past few months, and they all show commonalities with Mr. Dolan's experience -- including, unfortunately, the way his friends swiftly fled away from him as if they could catch the disease of poverty from him. American "culture". It would be a good idea.
I'm Chinese. Those things won't apply to me. This doesn't mean that I won't lose my job. The reason is simply because I deposit. Most Chinese deposit unlike the Americans who spent their future money.
The economy in China hasn't been stable for past decades. So Chinese have the expectation to lose their jobs, have a un-insuranced disease, etc. The best way to survive is to save money, rather than spend them.
But nowadays some Chinese has been too optimistic about the fast developing economy, and their income. They started to spend their future money, and spend too much. Though house mortgage is sth that can not be avoided, some people are going further to buy apartments of which the price is actually beyond their payment ability. Subprime mortgage! They will pay for that! They deserve it!
What I found during my stint running Windows Home Server dev team that was partly in China, was that that country is quickly adopting US culture: big cars, inefficient use of energy, lack of health coverage and free education (suddenly, this is a "communist country?!") and massive, massive inequality in the level of pay.
So while the savings rate is still largely positive, it might not stay so for long.
Also, savings are not always enough - an unhappy turn in the stock market can quickly take care of them, and at the most inopportune moment...
So.. what happened to that huge employer of liberal arts majors, McDonalds?
It's losing left and right in China to a different competitor for the qualified candidated - KFC.
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