Asia’s megacities are San Francisco’s biggest competitors when it comes to innovation

"There are a number of drivers behind [the Chinese] success, according to Lambda School CEO Austen Allred:

- Work ethic. Their engineers work “9–9–6”: 9AM to 9PM, 6 days a week. The mere mention of this in SF would have people running for the exit.

- State support. The Chinese government is often the first investor and biggest proponent of new firms and startups.

- Greater supply of STEM workers. China has 4x the population as the US, but 10x the tech employees.

- Local factories and deep manufacturing expertise. As US startups steer away from hardware, Chinese startups have easy access to the biggest manufacturers in the world.…

It’s not only Chinese startups, it’s the whole Asia that has became a crazy massive startup ecosystem... These are annual startup community events and conferences happening in Bangkok, Hong Kong and Singapore. These events hold between 10,000 and 30,000 attendees for 3 days."

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