Tuoc Luong博文

转载自盛大在线（SDO）CEO Tuoc在推他上的轻博客：

原文网址为： http://tuocinchina.tuita.com/

Observations of China versus Silicon Valley Companies

This is the first of what I hope to be many blogs on my experiences in China's Internet Industry. The Tuita guys convinced me to blog on my experiences as a Silicon Valley CEO running a Chinese Internet company.

I thought for my first blog, I share my observations over the last year on the differences between China and Silicon Valley. To understand China, one must first understand the staggering size of the China market. There are 500M+ Internet users in China. Yahoo talks about having 600M users and Facebook about having 850M users. These numbers are global worldwide numbers though. For China, it's 500M+ in just one single market and it's only 38% penetrated, meaning lots of headroom to go.For many large U.S. multi-national corporations like Intel, China is already the single largest revenue market even above that of the United States.

With this staggering market opportunity, it's like the 1800s in America where there's so much opportunity (land to claim in the West) that it's critical to run fast and stake your ground first. As such, China values execution speed, execution speed ...etc. Yes, pure innovation is valued but isn't necessarily the most important thing. Just ask yourself, what's the fastest way to stake your ground for market share with so much opportunities? See what's successful eslewhere and bring it to China, tailor it for China, execute quickly, be first in China and grab market share. In Silicon Valley (where the U.S. market is more matured), disruptive innovation is valued. Of course execution is important as well but disruptive innovation creates opportunities in a mature market and thus are valued more. Both are important everywhere but it's a matter of which is the center of gravity or which comes first.

The land grab opportunities in China are so large that it produces a certain mentality:

• Act first, less upfront planning. It's so important to move quickly and get there first.
• Direction is given and expected from the Top. Less tendency to challenge orders or thinking.
• Context isn't always set by leaders. Questions aren't always asked about context.
• Environment does not foster bottoms up innovation as much.
• Execute, execute and execute mentality at all costs

The outcome of this mentality is that execution is extremely fast and very much valued. KPIs are tracked, measured and rewarded.Talent hiring is focused on execution skills more so than creative or innovative thinking. The result is that there are a lot of programmers but there is a lack of Architects, Scientist and Designers. Innovations isn't always given the same focus. This is recognized and changing especially in a company like Shanda where Innovations is equally valued.

There are a lot of "Project Managers" but lack of professional "Product Managers" in China. The result is short term thinking rather than long term planning and not much thought given to "going to market" plan. It's very much a "build it and they will come" mentality. Great execution on "build" the product but not enough upfront planning on whether it's the "right" product. Great if successful and if not successful, just move on to the next one. In China, the Product Management culture is somewhat a culture driven by success and money where in Silicon Valley, you find more a Product Management culture and passion for "changing the world".

Of course, it's not always so black and white when you look at individual companies in China and Silicon Valley. But for the most part, I believe the above observations is relatively true when comparing China with Silicon Valley.

It's really a matter of what stage the market is in. The U.S. is a very much a more mature market for many of the industries where in China, it's more early stages for many industries and thus different things are valued more than others. Things will change, in fact, are changing as you see some industries in China start to mature.

I think the future winners globally will be the companies that blend the best of Silicon Valley and China. I believe Shanda will be one such company.

Seeking a Hero

Like previous blog(s), this is simply my personal view and observation.

Over the year I've been in China, I noticed an interesting dynamic in differences between China and Silicon Valley companies. It's interesting in that it's the opposite of what one might be expecting given the cultures as viewed from outside.

The U.S. is always known for standing for the individual and how one man can make all the difference. Hollywood has always made movies about a single hero comes and save the day. China's known more for "the Party" view and less so for individual centric view. Yet, if anything, I would say it's the opposite while observing Internet companies in China and Silicon Valley. Let me explain further.

In Silicon Valley, there's a culture of building a strong team. A culture of recognizing "weakest link" of a team can create problems and lowering the bar overall. Yes, the leader of a team is important but the strength of the team itself is equally important if not more. Human Resources focus on all aspects of a strong team. From the talent level (weakest link mentioned) to building the right set of talent that work together well and a leader whose strength isn't just his own personal intellectual poer (IP) but his ability to get the team to work together well and produce an outcome where the "whole is more than the sum of its parts". In short, there is a very strong belief that you cannot build a great product without a great "TEAM".

In China there seems to be more of a "HERO" will fix everything mentality. Yes, there's focus on building a team as well but there is still a stronger "HERO" centric view. Perhaps it stems from the fact that companies in China are more top down where the founder/CEO drives everything. But I think it goes deeper than this. I think if you look at China's history, there's a very strong "HERO" culture where one man is given the credit for changing things or revolutionizing an entire country ...etc. Add to this, the "Execution" mentality I mentioned in the previous blog where the top man gives direction and everyone follows and execute for the sake of speed,and you get the right "hero" fixes everything culture. There's too much a willingness to wait for a "hero" or a leader to give directions and solve things rather than team itself will solve the problem or set the tone.

In this culture, the attention is often put on the "hero" that puts out fires (fixes problems) and not enough emphasis on the team or people that plan and prevent fires in the first place.

In recruiting, rather than looking for an individual to fill a position that's needed, there's a strong willingness to mold the position to fit an individual. And the tendency is to look at an individual in isolation and not enough focus on how that individual may fit into the rest of the team.

Building a team is like organizing an orchestra. You want to bring in the best musicians but you want different people to play different roles in the orchestra and together they make beautiful music. A leader is like a conductor, his strength and biggest contribution should be how well he puts together and conduct the orchestra and less on him specifically playing all the instruments. Yes, the conductor is important but the orchestra dynamic is equally important.

I think as the market matures in China, to scale a company, more focus need to be put on building the right team and less emphasis on an individual hero.

I believe companies like Shanda are changing and embracing team building and not just focus on individual heroes.

Healthy Body Helps in Dealing with Stress and Pressure from Work!

I believe very much in a healthy body and healthy mind concept. By this I mean that exercise and fitness in general helps you in dealing with work in multiple ways from lowering your stress to giving you more energy to think and be creative.

I have noticed a big difference between Silicon Valley executives and executives from local companies in China. I'm not quite sure how Chinese executives deal with pressure and stress of doing business in a fast pace dynamic environment. But I am sure they don't deal with it through exercise :-). In Silicon Valley or even USA in general, there is a strong passion for exercise and fitness among executives. For example, I play a lot of Tennis and Basketball. It is my way of staying fit and more importantly helps in relieving my stress from work and gives me energy. Other executives in Silicon Valley may like to run (jog) or hit the gym (pumping iron).

I've noticed very little of this if any at all among executives here in China. All the people (executives or otherwise) that I play Tennis and Baskeball with in Shanghai are either ex-Pats from other countries (USA, Germany, Japan, ...etc) or oversea chinese coming back (from USA where I'm sure their passion/habit for exercise and fitness was formed).

When I went out and played Basketball with a group of my engineers, they were shocked in two ways. One was that I would come out and play Basketball (and decent at it :-)) and second was how old I was (50). Apparently, that's a rare case here in China. In Silicon Valley, it's very common for you to see executives as old as me:-) go to the gym and lift weights or play basketball before coming in to work everyday.

When I travel within China and I use the hotel fitness center, I never see local chinese executives or travelers. I tend to see more travelers from outside China using the fitness center. In the year that I have been in Shanghai, I almost never ever see people jogging in the streets or on the school track near my apartment. In Silicon Valley, you will commonly see people jogging everywhere including the streets or bike for fitness. When you travel in the U.S. including busy cities like New York, you can see people jogging.

In China, there is a strong work expectation of entertaining customers and government officials with multiple dinners and drinking. Not to mention smoking. It's rare that you see Silicon Valley executives smoke where in China it's very common. All this makes a more unhealthy lifestyle that local chinese executives live compared to their counterpart in Silicon Valley in my eyes.

I can't help but wonder how this affect people long term. Just an observation.

Brand is Everything ....

I've noticed that in Shanghai and probably China in general that the people are very brand conscious - much more than in Silicon Valley anyway.

This seems to manifest itself in many different ways that I've noticed since arriving here a year ago.

I think people everywhere are brand conscious especially when the brand is associated with quality of the product. I think that's healthy if you love a brand because it's associated with quality. 

I don't think it's as healthy when the love of a brand is predominantly for the "status" and using or exhibiting a brand to simply show off to others. Of course, there are people everywhere including Silicon Valley that exhibit this behaviour. But I would say that from my observation, it bends on a little extreme or more profound in China. Let me relay two stories to illustrate my point here.

The first story occurred last year when the iPad 2 just came out in China. I was at the Shanghai Aquarium and notice an individual carrying both an iPhone 4 and an iPad 2. I noticed that he was taking photos with his iPad 2 rather than his iPhone 4. I thought it was odd since the camera on iPhone 4 is superior than the iPad 2. I point the individual out to my friend who subsequently listened in on that individual's conversation with his friends. Afterwards, my friend surmised that the individual simply wanted to show off to people around him that he had an iPad 2.

I suspect this is true. In 1990's when cell phone were large (not pocket size) and expensive, I noticed in Hong Kong almost everyone in Hong Kong was carrying one. I asked my friend at dinner about it. He told me to watch the pay phone in the restaurant. He bet me that I would see several people come use the pay phone even though they are carrying the large cell phone. Sure enough, before the night was over, I saw several people do that. My friend then took me to a store and pointed it out that they sell fake cell phone that looks real so that people can carry around for status.

I also heard recently from a local that there's a style of holding Starbucks coffee cup so that the Starbucks brand was pointing outward for others to see that you're drinking Starbucks. Amazing:-).

I think the love for luxury brands in China is insatiable and sometime not for healthy reasons - just my personal opinion and observation, true or not.