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Mike Moritz slams politically correct tech culture, praises Chinese work ethic (cnbc.com)
77 points by Element_ on Jan 19, 2018 | hide | past | favorite | 87 comments



Complaining about Silicon Valley political correctness while extolling the virtues of China is at best tone deaf. It’s pretty much impossible for anyone who has any experience with Asia to deny that racism is just more socially acceptable over there than in the US. And things like homosexuality are suppressed. For example, China recently banned depictions of homosexuality on TV.

So of course it’s easier to say certain things over there than it is over here. That’s the difference between a society where tensions are high because we’re actively trying to work through the challenges faced by our minority groups, and one where there are no tensions because the concerns of minority groups are completely suppressed.

It’s also myopic to mistake forced social harmony for principled open mindedness. My extended family is from a South Asian country, and let’s face it—people say things that could, among Americans, get them in trouble. That’s not out of open mindedness. Try bringing up a cousin possibly being gay and see how open minded everyone is.


I don’t think political correctness is the correct description of what he is trying to complain about.

The word he is looking for is “entitlement caused by excessive privilege.”

The reason people in China work that hard is that there are many people in poverty who would also like to work very hard for those jobs and very little safety net.

I should also mention once again: The United States is nowhere near as racist or sexist as these countries as mentioned above.

However the common opinion is that the United States is extremely racist and sexist. To people who genuinely believe this: You have no idea what the rest of the world is like, please travel.

The things I have seen folks from China openly saying and doing in business make the United States look very fair.


I think that as liberals, we have a habit of fiercely criticizing problems within our own society, but will gloss over the same (or deeper) problems in other societies as 'cultural differences'. This can lead to a very rose-colored view of the situation in other countries.


It's not like we can control the racism levels in other countries, so why does it matter?

However when you look at countries we materially support (in their carrying out of racist actions) like Israel, liberals do care very much. So it does seem like there's some consistency there.


That’s the difference between a society where tensions are high because we’re actively trying to work through the challenges faced by our minority groups, and one where there are no tensions because the concerns of minority groups are completely suppressed.

Very well put!


"We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive." -MLK


In America, there is a lot of tension near the surface. It might seem like that means we have deep, deep problems. But sometimes when an issue is closer to the surface, that can mean it can no longer be ignored and is closer to needing resolution.


In my opinion the issues are close to the surface because the social enlightenment that much of the US experienced is a very recent thing. The best example is how the views on homosexuality has shifted in the last 20 years but it's also shown in views on race, poverty, and drugs


Not to mention let him try to comment on the way the government or even his government-affiliated business partners there are run and see how "open minded" they are then.


That’s the difference between a society where tensions are high because we’re actively trying to work through the challenges faced by our minority groups, and one where there are no tensions because the concerns of minority groups are completely suppressed.

This EXACTLY. Of course there is way less culture clash in China, cultures that aren't China explicitly get beat the hell down. That's not a solution, and I think China is going to be a lesson for the rest of humanity within the next 30 years or so as to why just telling everyone to shut up or they'll be killed isn't a sustainable long term solution to social harmony.


The simplest way of looking at this is that the more power you divide up among increasingly small segments of your population, the more you divide the house.

In China, there is the objective of China, where there is a singular focus on what is good for the people and the country. Groups that would take away from this to empower their own group are viewed as attacking the collective.

America until the middle of the 1960s or so was like this to a large extent. Various minorities (Italians, Irish, Eastern Europeans) entered the country, kept separate identities for a while, but eventually integrated into the whole. The death of John F. Kennedy signaled the end of a unified America and the birth of a far more divided house.

Today, America has fractured into a litany of squabbling sects. In China, you have the Chinese. In America, what used to be called "Americans" are now called whites, blacks, Latinos, Asians, Indians, Arabs, gays, straights, bisexuals, pansexuals, transexuals, liberals, conservatives, nationalists, globalists, Christians, atheists, Muslims, Jews. There are feminists and men's rights activists and Black Lives Matter and the Alt-Right. Each sect wants the spotlight; it wants advantages over other groups (masked with euphemisms like "equality" or "recognition" or "reparations"); and it views the overall identity of the country as an oppressive enemy that must be fought.

That is not to say one condition is better than the other. These seem to be natural cycles nations go through. John Glubb notes the Byzantines squabbling amongst themselves over their divisions as the Ottomans blew holes in the walls around their city in 1453. [1] Byzantium, like America, had been the world's greatest super power at one time too. It seems likely the slide into infighting and decadence is a natural state of every nation advanced in the cycles of civilizations.

But of course, a people that spends its time tip-toeing around and arguing about what labels to use to refer to this group and who can use that word and who can't use that word and how many of which group you have to hire to not get sued has very different priorities and will achieve very different outcomes than a people that is relentlessly focused on a more singular, unified objective, other things being equal.

In America's case, I suppose the question is: do the benefits of diversity (which has become a sort of national religion over the past two decades) outweigh the costs?

The test case of American "maximum diversity" vs. Chinese maximal industriousness may prove as close as we'll get to a controlled study on how these two very different national priorities stack up against one another head-to-head on the world stage over the coming decades.

Place your bets now folks....

[1] http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf


In my opinion 'maximum' diversity doesn't just mean diversity of identity, it also means diversity of thinking and opinions. I also think the division of power up to the individual level is called Democracy...


Your version of America isn't very historical. The last time we had a big backlash against immigrants was 1923. That was a backlash against swarthy people from Southern Europe, who were living together, still speaking their home language, mostly following an unusual religion (Catholicism), not assimilating, and so forth.

Basically, we're seeing the same complaint today.


Why do you view the death of JFK as the inflection point?


i’ve never found a country less racist than the us


There's probably something to this. I doubt we're the best. But the rest of the world, including Western Europe, is surprisingly racist, misogynistic, and homophobic. The wrong lesson to take from that would be, "so we should all chill out about racism". It's just as likely (I think more likely) that the lesson is: "the freak-outs are working".


I agree with this, at least with the caveat that places that might do better tend to be much smaller. Friends from other countries who have tried to question why the U.S. seems to have so much trouble with this don't seem to be factoring in challenges from our diversity, history, and even the high level of freedom that citizens have to express themselves.


So you're saying you've never spent anytime outside the US unless it was at a vacation resort...


I've actually lived multiple years, in over a dozen countries... Certainly no resort times? Maybe you can provide evidence or our a counterexample instead of being full of snark


Please share which countries you think are less racist.

Brazil, Thailand, UK, France, Poland, Mexico, Canada, and Egypt are right out from my own experience.


You think Canadians aren't harsh on the natives when compared to america. I have never heard such open racism. Egyptians not racist, tell that to my buddy who was just beaten for being white. France, I mean, your kidding right?


Uhh... I agree those countries are not less racist than America. Please reread my post.


The only way to think like this is to have never left the US. Unfortunately, too many American grow up not having the exposure of how people speak in the rest of the world. Ever seen an entire soccer stadium erupt into monkey calls when a black player kicks a goal? You don’t know what a climate of racism is.

Americans think they are surrounded by racism, they have no idea what that actually means.


I agree with your example but am pretty sure you got me backwards


I think you misread the parent comment..


"Engineers have slightly different habits: they will appear about 10am and leave at midnight."

I actually agree with Moritz on some points, but this... all I can say is, from an employee perspective, this only makes sense IF you're going to get rich as a result. And the average startup employee does not get enough equity to get rich even in the event of a successful exit, so there's no reason to do this kind of stuff. Well, OK, maybe if you just plain enjoy coding (or whatever) to the point that you want to work 12-14 hours days. But I suspect that's a very small number of people.

Seriously though, unless you're being paid MEGA-BUCKS or have MASSIVE equity there is just no reason to work yourself to death.


> Seriously though, unless you're being paid MEGA-BUCKS or have MASSIVE equity there is just no reason to work yourself to death.

The flip side to this: we may soon have to do just that, merely to maintain our status-quo.

SV engineers are getting paid 2-5x what engineers in China are making. Over the long-term, this is an unnatural state of affairs, and can only be maintained by continually extending our competitive edge. If engineers in China are catching up on talent, earning a fraction of our wages, and working twice the number of hours, it's only a matter of time before we see a regression-to-the-mean.

An an employee myself, I don't begrudge any of my colleagues wanting to minimize their work-hours and maximize their quality-of-life. But then again, I can hardly begrudge an employer/investor deciding to partner with someone who's willing to sacrifice quality-of-life and go the extra mile for her job.

If you're lucky enough to be in a position where you can maximize quality-of-life, while still pulling in the big bucks, milk it for all it's worth. But don't expect it to last forever.


There's something to that, for sure. But OTOH, people said the same thing about Indian developers for some time now, and it seems that the net effect has been more about Indian developers earning more, than American developers earning less. Although wage growth for American engineers might have been blunted by offshoring... hard to say.

Still, you're right to say that

If engineers in China are catching up on talent, earning a fraction of our wages, and working twice the number of hours, it's only a matter of time before we see a regression-to-the-mean.

however the details work out.


Working more is almost never the solution. If you have to work from 8am until 10pm, you're just doing something wrong.

Does he himself work from 8am until 10pm?


I assume you mean 10pm? In my experience, after ~6 or 7h coding, my focus starts to move elsewhere, I make more errors and start reacting more irritaded than usual.


Sorry, typo. Yes, 10pm of course

I share pretty much the same experience. Five to six hours of coding is a good day in terms of work for me.


I often work from 8am until 10am.


He actually probably does. But he's a schmoozer, he's always working. Plus, the more he works, the more his net worth multiplies. It's not the same at all, even if it looks the same to him.


It really depends. I worked at a company a few years ago and we stayed late because we were just a bunch of lonely dudes living in a big city with nothing better to do. If we went home at 5, we'd just be sitting alone playing video games.


Sure, that's fair. Do it if it's just plain what you want to do (for whatever reason). But I don't think anybody should feel obligated to work those kinds of hours, unless they're being compensated damn well for doing so.


That doesn't mean you weren't being exploited.


Exploiting implies unethical. I'm not too sure this fits the notion of unethical. Or, if it does, only from one perspective. Ethical doesn't become unethical the second you pass over 8 hours in a workday.


Your own decisions cannot be exploitation by someone else.


That's what the exploiter would like you to think: it's what you chose, and if something's not right, it's all your own fault, so try harder? This is how pimps have always manipulated their prey, for instance.


I think if you have traction then you could justify this but you could also not justify it either. Same without having traction. IMO I think he's wrong here. Pretty sure there is academic research backing that up.


So basically, to us American techies, shut up and start working 100 hour weeks?

What a delightful fellow. I wonder if he’s going to lead by example, or if he thinks 14-hour days are only for underlings.


Exactly, do it or else he's going to take his ball and go home (or take his fund's money and go to China)

But don't tell him what happens if he ever tries to take his money OUT of China, we can let that be a "fun" learning experience for him.


Doing business in China is basically giving them your IP for free. China is due for a rude awakening from the west.


Most will stick to their 4 hour work week and go back to golfing.


I agree some parts of our society have basically forbidden any kind of discussion. That is in need of real change. Respectable and honest discussions between adults should be allowed.

Sucks that conference speakers are being "checked" for political affiliations. Why not let the topic stand on its own?

But of course, everyone is free to not listen to people that don't support them in some way. It's a delicate line.

> "grumbling about the need for a space for musical jam sessions."

What? I have to believe that isn't common and it's being used as a "see how lazy/unprofessional/undedicated _everyone_ in SV is"


Conference speakers being checked for political affiliation is crazy but not surprising - are there specific examples of this?

On sites like reddit you often see reasonable arguments shot down based on the author's political leanings gleaned from their comment history. The chilling effect is made clear when you see people having to preface their commentary with "I hate x, but... {insert argument here}"


"You post on 'X' sub. That says all I need to know about you."


It's a vicious cycle where opposing sides become more polarized with every interaction. For some, the only way out is apathy.


I think it's more that pre-reddit/twitter/facebook we all had separate online forums, chat rooms, etc and now it's all centralized to the same few sites.

For example before reddit we didn't have popular fascist subforums hosted on the same site as a liberal politics subforum, where people could cross-post and PM between them.


This is a good point. I used to frequent DemocraticUnderground back in the 2004 days during the Kerry campaign. It was as bad an echo chamber as anything we see today. The alternative site was FreeRepublic (or 'freepers', as we called them). However, the fact that you didn't have to go to that site or see those people's opinions if you didn't want to, made a big difference to how vitriolic the whole thing felt.


Investor prefers environment where employees are even more willingly exploited than in SV. Well, of course he does.


What does having discussions about ethics, morality or equality have to do with working 14 hour, six day workweeks (84h)?

Look, there's genuinely important discussions to be had right now. If he wants his son to grow up addicted to a social network he interfaces with through a screen, or his daughter to be subjected to casual sexism, because it'd hurt some engineers' feelings to be confronted with that toxic reality, then cry me a river. I for one am glad to see someone making a stand, some of the discourse we see now is meaningful and I'm happy for it. (far from all of it, don't get me wrong. but a lot of these discussions are way overdue and we shouldn't throw away the baby with the bathwater).

That having been said, this article really looks like one of those 'we paraphrased 5 minutes of nuanced commentary into a shitty one-liner'. I'm sure I'll still disagree with his more elaborate views, but I get the feeling there's more to his argument than this article supposes.


>What does having discussions about ethics, morality or equality have to do with working 14 hour, six day workweeks (84h)?

Because the former is just cover for the latter, which is the real concern. He, like most of his type, wants his underlings to work as much as possible for as little as possible without any complaints. This has become annoyingly hard to enforce in the US, so off to a dictatorship where the drones don't have those options.


There is a reason why buildings in China have nets to prevent suicide and Japan has a work to death problem. Working that much is not good or healthy.


> Working that much is not good or healthy.

Nor is it good for employee retention, but apparently there is no concern for employee retention.

https://twitter.com/patio11/status/954282877717422080

https://twitter.com/TProphet/status/954090579897466880


Probably not, but us westerners are going to be forced to compete with them sooner or later.


Is there proof that working 14 hours 6 or 7 days a week is truly more productive than working 8 hours 5 days a week? Theoretically it should be, but I am just curious if there is any science on it.


Even if it's not, we'll need to compete against the perception that the Chinese are harder working than us.


More in depth article (well, at least compared to the CNBC piece) here on Financial Times, authored by the SV investor. The comments section has some good feedback as well.

https://www.ft.com/content/42daca9e-facc-11e7-9bfc-052cbba03...

I get some of the investor's complaints about pc culture, and at the same time I wonder if this guy considers the ideal corporation one where an "employee" literally "works" 24/7, never leaves his/her desk for anything thanks to IV tubes for food, digestion, and medications to keep oneself constantly awake; and the bio-energy of the employee is harvested to supply energy for the office building.

Quite the recipe for individual and societal flourishing...


I've seen a lot of anger about his comments on Twitter, but for me this just boils down to a structural issue: for him, a company is an item in a financial portfolio. For an employee, a job at a company means years of their life. Their incentives are not aligned (unless the worker is voluntarily putting in continuous 12-hr days for adequate compensation.)


A rich investor is complaining about how people are not working to their death so that his portfolio companies do better and get him more returns? Give me a break.

Why do we even have to have a discussion when all he complains about is how they work for 12 hours? They copied every SV company the moment it hit off, no real innovation besides the recent AI advancements. What good would come off by copying that model?


The troubling part for me is:

"Top managers show up for work at about 8am and frequently don't leave until 10pm. Most of them will do this six days a week — and there are plenty of examples of people who do this for seven. Engineers have slightly different habits: they will appear about 10am and leave at midnight."

This dude wants his fellow Americans to work at least 84 hours a week, if not a "modest 7 day work week" of almost 100 hours. Life is too precious for that sort of nonsense and I can only hope that this fellow and those like him lose their power and capability to influence society.


I don't know if the headline is specifically that California and Silicon Valley is a worse climate then China, but this has been known for anyone outside the valley for a long time. The business climate in flyover country is worlds better. The only real problem is that its hard to get enough talent to really put your money to work, which is the same problem you will have anywhere outside the major tech hubs.


Can you be specific about what you mean about the business climate being better? Is it taxation? The cost of land and workers? It seems that if talent is unavailable that is not just "the only problem" but an actual blocker.


What do you mean by "business climate" here? I would assume that finding and retaining employees is a core component of any business, and if that's not happening, then the climate isn't all that good.


I love when billionaire's criticize people who work for a living. The unmitigated gaul. It's amazing that someone... So many someone's...can be so blind.


https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/jack-...

It is interesting to contrast this investor's cliches about working 12 or 14 hours day as a key to success and Chinese work ethic with what an actual Chinese business leader as to say on that topic:

“My grandfather worked for 16 hours a day. He thought he was very busy. We work eight hours a day for five days a week and we think we are very busy. But in the next 30 years, people will work only for four hours a day and four days a week”


As an employee and a founder of a company his viewpoint seems to go against what has made the most effective teams I've worked with. You should focus on outputs not inputs when working. If someone can do the work of someone else with a fraction of the effort that person should be rewarded not punished. I don't know anyone who can work 14 hour days regularly and still be productive. If someone is doing that, it is a red flag for me to know that something is broken or that person is incompetent and needs to be let go.


http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2017-01/11/content_279...

meanwhile in the official chinese media, we get a pretty different picture. I wonder what the chinese communist party thinks of westerners assuming their people are willing to work like slaves.


I just love the "bet on the mouse that spins the wheel faster" mentality

(and this is regardless of culture or nationality) betting on those who are sitting on their chairs longer is just "traditional" corporate shortsightedness


I always suspected that the end goal of the wealthy was to push America into the Authoritarian Capitalist model of China or Russia. I never expected them to be so explicit about it.


So engineers should work an additional 60 hours a week each while rich VCs get to systematically steal the future with their accredited investor scam. Sounds reasonable.


When you're more productive, you become more valuable and it requires less of your time to do something. This is pretty basic economics here.

If Mike wants to fund a Mythical Man Month play against efficient workers, I wish him the best of luck. I don't think it will work but I'm interested in the results.


Multi-billionaire with wealth accumulated from institutional gambling and rent seeking feels that wage-slaves complain about "inequality" to much and should instead behave like people in countries with no human rights.

Sounds legit.


Spent too much time on indulging in political correctness in long-term will hurt the productivity of the SV companies. It adds up the cost to operate. This guy is not wrong for a lot of good points.


So, he's basically indicating to companies he may potentially invest in that they need to start hiring Chinese to do the actual work because they're cheaper and work longer ours.


I’ve definitely noticed tech, especially tech press, getting much more political and negative in the last few years.

I don’t really know if it’s the WHOLE of tech (or just how it’s reported), but it definitely feels like a downer right now.

As a tech liberal dreamer, it’s totally getting to me.

I want to read about interesting new solutions to problems, but at the moment it seems mostly like negative press about Uber.

Obviously it’s responsible to call it when conpanies do bad things, but is tech really unethical on the scale of pharma or agrobusiness or fast food? Doesn’t seem so. ( I get that they’re tech press so they’ll only report on tech, but context would be nice).

Feels like the optimism is gone?


Too much prosperity isn't a good thing in the long run.

The PC problem is a result of prosperity without corresponding effort. I hope the correction is a kind one.


Which side is unhinged? I think the Moritz side.



"Stealing vacation days"


I agree with this guy. I know I'll be downvoted to oblivion but gotta say what i gotta say.

I'm not saying political correctness is bad, and I don't think this guy is saying that either. He's just stating the facts and I would like to also just state the facts.

There are way more conflicts and drama and scandals in America because Americans are much more "woke" than citizens of other parts of the world. Again, this is not a "bad" thing, but if you look at what this is causing, same americans are tearing down successful and ambitious american entrepreneurs who may have achieved something really great.

Let me use Uber as an example, since I know you guys will downvote me anyway. The founder of Uber got kicked out and now Uber is struggling. When Uber was struggling to grow in China, Americans were busy criticizing Uber for all kinds of things. This probably didn't help them in any way. You will say companies like Uber and the founder deserves it and unethical companies like Uber should not be left to survive.

And I agree with the sentiment that unethical companies are bad, but again, I'm just going to state the facts.

If you look at "less woke" developing countries around the world, they don't have this sense of social justice because they don't have the luxury. So they do whatever is possible to increase their GDP.

That's why a lot of developing countries are corrupt. But guess what, that's how these countries and companies from these countries grow. Companies like Samsung have always had very tight relationship with their government, and most people--while they never actually witness the corruption--kind of acknowledge that something like that happens behind the scenes. The woke Americans will say that's bad and that shouldn't happen, and samsung should be taken down, etc.

But at the end of the day, this is how developing countries actually accumulate their riches and this is how the top performing companies from these countries reach the top and end up growing globally.

They will one day become the "woke" ones as much as Americans are, but until then, they will become richer and richer and soon be a threat to the U.S. economy.

This has nothing to do with ethics, justice, or whatever. This is just how it has always been, and that's how it will be.

If you look at what's happening with China, it really IS taking over the world. A lot of top cryptocurrency projects and companies are from China. Most influential hardware are increasingly coming from China. All this while the ADD silicon valley founders and VCs are pouring money into fad technologies and having a serious identity crisis.


> If you look at "less woke" developing countries around the world, they don't have this sense of social justice because they don't have the luxury. So they do whatever is possible to increase their GDP.

They don't have that sense of social justice for a number of reasons. Having lived in the developing world, one big component is that the legal system is not set up to prevent exploitation of the many by the few who are rich. Corruption and exploitation are entrenched because the culture accepts it and those crushed under it don't feel they have the power to change it.

There's more than enough money in many developing nations to significantly raise the standard of living for the average citizen, but those taking the lion's share of the spoils have no interest in changing that system.

> That's why a lot of developing countries are corrupt.

No, a lot of developing countries are corrupt due to weak rule of law and an entrenched culture of back-scratching. The corruption is not there simply because they are relatively poor countries.

So for example, in Latin America, Brazil's GDP is around $1.8 trillion, and Costa Rica is at $57 billion. Yet Costa Rica performs MUCH better on international corruption scale. And there are plenty of examples of that. Look at Russia versus some of it's former satellite states. Corruption is much worse in Russia than it is in Georgia, even though Russia is a much bigger economy.

It really is about the strength of institutions and rule of law. Being a developing nation doesn't mean that out-of-control graft is inevitable.


I agree with all your points.

But that's not what the comment was about.


[flagged]


I've lived and worked in a half dozen countries. The guy is just stating that he wants thoughtless drones to work as much as he demands for as little as he can pay them, and also not care about anything other than work. He's using slightly different words. There's nothing about his "worldly experience" that makes his statements unique or insightful.


Chinese culture is pretty different from ours (from what I read). I’m not sure one can pin longer work hours on work ethic alone.

As I understand it, China has a gender imbalance and there are not enough women. Men therefore must be successful to find a wife. This could help explain some of the difference in work ethic, as one of the primary human motivations is to reproduce.


This is the most ridiculous explanation I have read about why Chinese work hard.

It’s extremely simple: everybody wants to be successful, and right now because of many reasons, Chinese think they can be successful by working hard. This is the Chinese equivalent of American dream, that one can pursue happiness by working hard.




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