Page 111 - How China Is Winning the Tech Race

CHAPTER SEVEN

Follow the money trail directly from Sand Hill Road to Beijing and Shanghai, where Cali-
fornia’s best venture capitalists are looking for a pot of gold among China’s homegrown
entrepreneurs and their innovative start-ups. With an avalanche of American money looking
for original technology, the Chinese copycats are being upstaged.

Silicon Valley’s Tech
Route to China

’m driving a convertible with the
Irooftop open, enjoying the sun and
the scenery while heading south on
Route 280 from San Francisco. The
Pacific Ocean is just over the grassy
ridges of the Santa Cruz Mountains to
the west. At Sand Hill Road, I end up
at Sequoia Capital amid manicured
lawns, towering redwood trees, and
blossoming roses.
Don’t be fooled by the perennial sunshine; this is the western Wall Street.
Fueled by the Internet revolution and nearby Stanford University, this venture
epicenter has created more wealth in a shorter time span than any other place
in history. This potent mix of finance and technology in Silicon Valley produced
Google, Cisco, Oracle, Palm, Yahoo!, Apple Computer, and Amazon.
I’m here to meet Don Valentine, a godfather in this valley, who founded
Sequoia Capital in 1972. Valentine drives a red Mercedes convertible and at
75 years of age is aging-movie-star-handsome with a silvery head of hair, a
square jaw, and confident body language.
When Valentine talks, people listen. Now, in a conference room, Valentine
is offering me his bleak view of China. China is too far and too foreign. It’s
crippled by ills such as intellectual property theft, immature stock exchanges,

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