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Indeed, the startup worlds between China and the US are deeply linked. Most of the well-known US venture capital firms have Chinese branches. And many of the most successful Chinese entrepreneurs trace their first dreams back to Silicon Valley. Baidu founder Robin Li worked in Silicon Valley, and later received financial backing from famed valley investor Tim Draper. Victor Koo, founder of Youku, and Yizhou Chen, founder of Renren, are both graduates of Stanford University.
Of course, Silicon Valley attracts talent from all over the world, as its startup ecosystem is still second to none. On a recent trip to the Bay Area, I had a chance to meet several entrepreneurs from Europe, India and South America who relocated to California. Most of them acknowledged that the decision to move was a no-brainer.
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Outside Silicon Valley, there are only a handful of places in the world where entrepreneurs routinely dream big and actually make it happen. Beijing and Shenzhen are both such places. No doubt, Chinese startups make it big in the enormous Chinese market, but the legendary Chinese work ethic and increasingly favorable policies also play vital roles in their success. Combined, these factors created the vibrant Chinese startup scene, fueling waves of entrepreneurs and investors to swing for the fences in their field of dreams.
Talking about dreams tends to drift to the abstract, especially in a country like China, where if it doesn't affect hundreds of millions of people, it hardly moves the needle. Let's not forget that, behind every dream, there is a dreamer: a teenager who is about to become the first in the family to go to college, or someone from the countryside about to start a new life in the city. Or, as in the case of Jian, someone who dreams about fundamentally changing an industry and offering affordable healthcare services on a massive scale.
After I returned from my trip to the Valley, I went to attend an offline event in Beijing for software engineers, where Jian was scheduled to give a short presentation on her startup. The event was held at the new office of 36kr, a Chinese media site specializing in reporting technology-related news stories. The minimalist office sits in a pedestrian street that is being renovated to become home to a number of co-working spaces, technology media companies and startup-themed cafes. At the moment it is a mess of a construction site, but with just a little bit of imagination, one could easily see this becoming a humming hub of startup activities.
As I found myself sitting among dreamy-eyed engineers and entrepreneurs, I thought, "Build it, and they will come".
The author is an independent commentator in Beijing. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
