Page 115 - How China Is Winning the Tech Race

Today, the Valley is on the tech
route to China. No longer funding “Everyone talks about corruption in China,
the copycat start-ups they once did, but I have found Chinese entrepreneurs to be
so honest, fair, real straight, and tough on
new venture explorers are searching
themselves.”
to find and fund a breakthrough
idea in China with intellectual Morten Lund,
property that can disrupt tech- cofounder, LundKenner,
nology standards, establish a new and early investor in Skype
paradigm, and possibly go global.
The rewards increasingly are
cutting-edge technology developed by homegrown Chinese entrepreneurs—
raw, energetic, and unproven—and riding on the nation’s rapid ascent in
digital media, wireless communication, and science. For investors looking to
reap extraordinary gains, China and its energetic people offer the prospect of
profitability and perhaps the “next big thing.”
Morten Lund, the visionary Danish investor who discovered and made
Skype a hit with its free chat and text service, has a global perspective on tech-
nology development. Today he backs five Chinese tech start-ups. “Everyone
talks about corruption in China, but I have found Chinese entrepreneurs to
be so honest, fair, real straight, and tough on themselves,” he says.
Tom Byers, a Stanford professor of entrepreneurship and the author of a
popular technology ventures textbook, often is asked what the secret of
Silicon Valley’s success is. Today he sees the financial, cultural, and educa-
tional infrastructure that created the Valley rising in the People’s Republic of
China. Says Byers: “China has the best shot at replicating the Silicon Valley
model of the next 50 years.”
Of course, Chairman Mao Tse-Tung never anticipated that Red Guards,
teenagers who during the Cultural Revolution marched through the streets
denouncing the “running dogs of Wall Street,” would see today’s entrepreneurs
courting venture capital from the United States. This new generation, even
under the ominous shadow of the former leader of the Communist Party of
China, seems more interested in following the advice of Mao’s successor, Deng
Xiaoping: “To get rich is glorious!” Not since the Marshall Plan for rebuilding
Europe and repelling communism after World War II has such a huge
economic transformation been launched.

Silicon V alley’ s T ech Route to China 89