by rstuart4133 | 2025-05-01 22:11:38+00:00
> I have to believe they're shills.

I'm sure there are shills here, but the video is reflects my experience. I'm Australian, so for me it's comparing Australian and US companies vs Chinese companies. The broad picture he paints is exactly right.

But he gets the nuance all wrong, particularly when he called Americans "cry babies". To understand why, you have to appreciate just how hard the Chinese fight for business. One example: we were after samples of LPO batteries for a few, contacted a few sites. When they asked why were where hesitant, we told them we needed a slightly different form factor, and different control from the BMS. They said "oh we can do that", sent customized samples to us for same price and said when we wanted real quantities the price would be the same as the unaccustomed ones. To be clear: they had to build a new PCB for the BMS. Some deal with some DC motors: we needed different shafts and current ratings. They created customized for us (with different shafts!) at no extra charge.

The Chinese sales people are not just your typical order takers you deal with in the USA. They have in depth knowledge of the product and how it can be customized. They speak English, and seem to be always contactable regardless of the hour. They seem to have engineering teams on call to back them up. They must have literally a small army of tertiary trained people sitting in rooms with nothing better to do that provide that level of service to every Tom, Dick and Harry who walks in off the street. It would send a Western company broke.

Remember: China has the population of roughly USA and Europe combined. Yet, it still has parts that are very poor, little better than sustenance farming. This produces a steady stream of very bright young adults looking for a possible way out, which the government provides: tertiary education. It doesn't guarantee then a job at the end, it might just be a sales job at these manufacturing companies that pay little better than MacDonald's in the USA. Nonetheless, that's still better than prospects at home. They've been doing this for decades now.

And it's still happening. From https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2024.2... quote "Using data from official statistical sources and a nationally representative survey, we find that since 2001, China’s agricultural labor force has declined by over 50 percent—a loss of over 200 million smallholders, probably the largest in human history. ... The 150 million remaining smallholders". From https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361169258_Reasons_f... quote "Almost a quarter of recent college graduates in China are working in jobs that are not related to their college major".

The narratives you see here imply Chinese engineering talent is better than the USA's, or they work harder or longer, or god help us "American Companies are Cry Babies". Nope, it's nothing like that. It's just a huge education pipeline along with the raw human material to feed it producing very cheap engineering talent. It will end, just like it did in Japan, once that raw material runs out. From that link they are down to just 150 million people working on small farms now - around 10% of their population. The bad news is: 150 million is also about 1/3 of the USA's population.