Page 101 - How China Is Winning the Tech Race

engineering from the Xi’an Jiatong University of Communications in 1994 in
the inland city of Xi’an, the starting point of the ancient Silk Road and a
tourist attraction for its life-size army of terra-cotta warriors and horses. He
moved to Beijing to enroll at Tsinghua University as a Ph.D. student but
dropped out during the height of the dot-com boom in 1999 to form China’s
first Internet consultancy and research firm, Chinalabs.
Intellectual, stubborn, and independent-minded, Fang quickly became one
of the country’s most influential information technology columnists. He was
known for his outspoken critiques of the software giant Microsoft, including
his 1999 book, Arise and Challenge the Hegemony of Microsoft. It’s one of 20
books he’s written, including a four-volume compilation of profiles and
writings of the 100 most important information technology leaders and a tome
about the history of blogging. This is an impressive array of accomplishments,
all of which demonstrate that his drive has very little to do with getting rich.

Connecting with Fang
Wen acts as a translator because I don’t speak Mandarin and Fang doesn’t
speak English well. Trying to make a connection with China’s blogging god-
father, I mention some of my new media contacts in the Valley. I’m struck by
his links to the Bay Area. Fang has jetted to the Valley to attend the AlwaysOn
conference twice, have lunch with Perkins in the Valley, and catch the latest
issue of Red Herring. He also knows Dan Gillmor, a former tech blogger for
the San Jose Mercury News who jump-started the blogging trend and
authored a popular book, We Are the Media. His hero is Stanford law pro-
fessor and author Lawrence Lessig, an influential advocate of open, free-
ranging cyberspace.
I explain that I’ve heard about Bokee’s latest woes and ask Fang to tell me
what’s going on. “We had a good vision, but we realize now that we need to
take it step by step,” he says. He acknowledges that his experience in running
a company is “quite small” and that managing is a “big challenge.” He also
sheepishly admits that after Bokee raised the $10 million, “We didn’t do a
very good job.” Leaning toward me, he says he wants to move from “high
projections” to “more realistic actions.” The translation is not perfect, but I
get the point.

Bokee.com—Growing Pains 75