News on China's scientific and technological development.

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Overbom

Brigadier
Registered Member
Overbom said:
So far it had been a win-win relationship between Microsoft and China.

Microsoft was training top-notch talent for China which later produced their own start-ups or poached by Chinese AI companies, and as a return Microsoft was using that talent to further enchance its global competitiveness. All parties were happy with this arrangement

This move by Microsoft to move it's Chinese talent to the US is breaking this arrangement. As a result, the Chinese gov should intervene to even the board.

It doesn't have to be public. Just getting the personal info of the employees and distributing it to the recruiter agencies or recruiting departments of major Chinese AI companies would let the invisible hand of the market do it's job and poach them from Microsoft.

You don't have to be all sticks or using hard methods. Soft methods also work.
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That's a far bigger problem though. It makes working for Microsoft far more attractive than going to domestic competitors
Employees said the work-life balance provided by American firms is a major perk of working at Microsoft. Employees are allowed to work from home and log off at 5 p.m. — a stark contrast to the cutthroat pace of the domestic internet industry. Under the infamous
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, Chinese tech workers sometimes work 12 hours a day, six days a week. Age discrimination is prevalent: Those older than 35 are often
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for tech jobs.
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Staff who agreed to relocate say favorable labor conditions at Microsoft, and in Western countries in general, contributed to their decision. “We are quite excited,” a Beijing-based engineer’s wife told Rest of World. “He doesn’t like the domestic work environment, and I just want to see what’s outside.” Although she will need to quit her own job as a teacher, she looks forward to taking a career break, seeing a platypus in Australia, and raising any future children outside of China’s grueling education system.
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Alan deliberated with friends and colleagues. He reached out to a headhunter to ask about opportunities at other tech companies in China. The headhunter said that he wouldn’t easily find another job that comes with the same high salary and work-life balance. Alan eventually accepted the Vancouver offer.
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That's huge brain-drain. If we assume that Microsoft extended the offers to its top talent, then this is not good news. With just a wave of its hand, the US just gained hundreds of talented high-quality/intelligence workers
At the Homeland Security Committee hearing, Smith assured legislators that Microsoft was reducing its engineering teams in China. Most recently, it offered to relocate 700 to 800 people out of the country, he said. “They would need to move out of China in order to keep the job they have,” Smith
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.
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Six employees estimated that fewer than half of the people who were offered relocation had accepted the offers.
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Eventine

Junior Member
Registered Member
It's not necessarily about retaliating against Microsoft, but prioritizing the reason why China suffers brain drain vs. the US even in the current political climate when Chinese researchers are being actively discriminated and their families are in danger of being put away in camps.

What are Chinese companies doing to retain top talent? Why aren't there government benefits for competent research scientists? Why are useless fuerdai and social media celebrities allowed to prosper while the people leading China's next generation AI research are tempted to go to the US?

To create a high quality society, you have to build the right incentives structure. If people see that the best way to get ahead is by investing in real estate, you're going to get a nation of real estate investors. China's historical advantage is its well educated, science & engineering work force; it needs to incentivize that work force to stay in China and to have children.
 
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pbd456

Junior Member
Registered Member
I was talking to a friend while he transited from China back to US in HK. He is a professor in US that I have known for a long time as we were colleagues when we were both assistant professors over 20 years ago.

I don't think he pays attention to politics as closely as people here.
He is complaining about Trump enticing his base to be racists.
US media is saying China is evil, while China media saying US is evil. I asked him specificly what Chinese media said that is wrong. He just say he doesn't know what Chinese media say is true or not. Therefore, he thinks what Chinese media say is like US media.

I asked him about US invasions in other countries and he countered saying that US has helped many other countries.
 
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Overbom

Brigadier
Registered Member
curiouscat said:
The bigger question is why do the researchers want to leave in the first place. At the end of the day anyone from any nation has the right to leave if they want.
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Working times is obviously a big one. If given the option the vast majority of the people would rather have extra free time than work.

Here, with the extreme competition for talent in Silicon Valley, Microsoft and other big tech companies know how to incentivise top talent to come work with them
Employees said the work-life balance provided by American firms is a major perk of working at Microsoft. Employees are allowed to work from home and log off at 5 p.m. — a stark contrast to the cutthroat pace of the domestic internet industry. Under the infamous
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
, Chinese tech workers sometimes work 12 hours a day, six days a week. Age discrimination is prevalent: Those older than 35 are often
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
for tech jobs.
Click to expand...
The headhunter said that he wouldn’t easily find another job that comes with the same high salary and work-life balance. Alan eventually accepted the Vancouver offer.
Click to expand...
 
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BlackWindMnt

Captain
Registered Member
CMP said:
China needs to find a way to retaliate against Microsoft.
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You can't if the age discriminate is a real thing, developers are only just getting started at 35, so Chinese domestic companies will miss out.

Usually developer is done at 24~28 years old with his or her studies. Usually juniors are so ill prepared for real work when they just graduated. It will take years before they can lead a project.

So at 35 they will just have about a decade worth of experience, have probably worked on 2 or 3 big projects. That's just about the moment a developers skill level has been sharpened enough to start leading or teaching.

Imaging China sharpening a while army of developers and not using them to cut away at US software advantage. US companies be like "don't mind if it take those old farts, China. I'm sure I can get 20~25 more years out of them."..
 
O

Overbom

Brigadier
Registered Member
BlackWindMnt said:
You can't if the age discriminate is a real thing, developers are only just getting started at 35, so Chinese domestic companies will miss out.

Usually developer is done at 24~28 years old with his or her studies. Usually juniors are so ill prepared for real work when they just graduated. It will take years before they can lead a project.

So at 35 they will just have about a decade worth of experience, have probably worked on 2 or 3 big projects. That's just about the moment a developers skill level has been sharpened enough to start leading or teaching.

Imaging China sharpening a while army of developers and not using them to cut away at US software advantage. US companies be like "don't mind if it take those old farts, China. I'm sure I can get 20~25 more years out of them."..
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Also at this stage they are probably at senior level who can lead their own teams and projects. They are huge enablers for businesses

Especially a good senior developer is worth his weight in gold. You can have your 100 wonder-kid undergraduates work on a shitty foundation while I have my experienced senior developer ironing out a solid foundation while leading his team of mid and junior developers to start building on top of it.

It's like training your scientists to Phd level and then kicking them out and sending them straight to US instead lol
 
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