[anoraca]

Unlikely IMO.

"Zoom, a Silicon Valley-based company, appears to own three companies in China through which at least 700 employees are paid to develop Zoom’s software. This arrangement is ostensibly an effort at labor arbitrage: Zoom can avoid paying US wages while selling to US customers, thus increasing their profit margin. However, this arrangement may make Zoom responsive to pressure from Chinese authorities."

https://citizenlab.ca/2020/04/move-fast-roll-your-own-crypto...

[nilkn]

So Zoom is essentially a Chinese company with a formal outer shell in the US and 81% of its revenue coming from North America?

[nafey]

Isn't the holding company based in US? Aren't the majority of stockholders in US? Apple manufactures a lot of stuff in China so it a chinese company?

[Zenbit_UX]

This explains how their web installer which is essentially glorified malware was made and not reported on some bay area dev's blog or leaked to the press immediately. I was always surprised that a US software team could make something like that in a consumer project in a prominent company and it not be talked about for so long.

[guug]

Are you referring to the same "glorified malware" tricks that are used in Cisco's WebEx installer?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22815583

[foobiekr]

Correct.

[Florin_Andrei]

That's an excellent business model.

[sct202]

It's basically what a lot of consumer goods companies are now. All the products are made and mostly designed in China, and then the US HQ does all the sales, marketing, and funneling product requirements back to China.

[inetknght]

> and funneling product requirements

I don't think the funneling stops at product requirements.

[tree3]

Not if your business relies on trust.

[lrem]

Only matters when you get big enough to attract meddling kids to look under the hood.

[Florin_Andrei]

I guess it depends on how long-term your goals really are.

[fock]

so basically merging SV surveillance capitalists with PLA style APT developers. What could possibly go wrong!

[rayvd]

I mean, this is incredibly common. Is there a large software company that doesn't do this? Labor competition is a real thing.