Many of China's technology titans carry a huge influence on the nation's startup companies, the Financial Times reported. Founders who have established companies that have grown to billion dollar corporations have exited from their first firms wealthier and more experienced and are now acting as benefactors to others. Engineers from firms that have gone public have undertaken new ventures or backed and guided others.
The report said Lei Jun is one of them. The founder of Kingsoft, Lei left his post as the company's Chief Executive Officer after Kingsoft held its public debut about six years ago. He then went on to establish smartphone company Xiaomi which became worth of $10 billion a mere three years after it was founded. Another tech titan is the former China Chief of Google Lee Kai-fu who has become a venture capitalist.
They are just two of the veterans who are aiding a new generation of Chinese tech entrepreneurs capitalize on the increasing demand of mobile internet in the country, the report said. As hundreds of millions of Chinese use the internet for the first time, consumer internet firms are seeing the opportunities brought about by affordable smartphones.
The report quoted China and US serial entrepreneur Jeff Hsu who said about these opportunities, "What I have seen is a move to creating homegrown models. It's still a minority, don't get me wrong, but that's something you didn't see five years ago."
However, bigger technology firms also give tough competition to struggling startups, the report said. With weak protection given to intellectual property, even moderately large groups can succumb. The report cited the first popular chat application developed by Xiaomi which it called Miliao. The company had to shun it aside after Tencent's WeChat emulated many of its features, the report said.
Former Head of Zynga in China Andy Tian told FT, "Silicon Valley is very idealistic, the most idealistic place under the sun. People [say] 'I want to change the world. The environment is tougher here in China. It's not about changing the world, it's about 'I need to make money, or I'll be dead'."
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