[nilspihl]

Author here - The massive growth of big data talent is not spurred by the government, but by the fact that the Chinese market place is many times bigger than the provincial markets that Silicon Valley often ends up targeting. Within a year of launch,our client Tantan would have accounted for a very hefty percentage of ALL the traffic that Mixpanel disclosed that their clients were recording.

The data is bigger here because the market is bigger here, and the internet is more modern here. If you haven't walked a day in the shoes of a Chinese person with WeChat and Alipay, you haven't seen the future of the internet.

It's time for Silicon Valley to catch up.

[mnfthyr]

This is a tangential argument we're having, but the CCP, while perhaps not spurring it, is at least reveling in it, and most definitely encouraging it and helping it along where it can. Anybody who thinks otherwise is willfully ignorant or woefully naive about the CCP. Nobody benefits more than the Chinese government. Big brother would be proud.

But government involvement is not the main point of your article. I think it's a great illustration that no matter how much marketing jargon the and kool-aid we peddle, we still can't escape basic economic principles.