Scaling A Company While Controlling Costs – AVC
Interesting that Fred is suggesting companies reduce engineering costs by outsourcing to China.
I think this works for Zoom cause the CEO came from China and knows how to do it. My guess is most companies find the appeal attractive but will not have much success. You would need a solid executive lead in the company who can manage China and fold the results into the overall framework. I think few will be able to pull this off unless they have a Chinese exec on their team.
However I don’t think China is the only option but what is increasingly happening is the competition for these bodies is growing both from local companies and from regional startups. You see this very clearly in Indonesia with even the large players like GoJek having to do engineering abroad to compete.
As the entire startup ecosystem grows around Asia the local companies will probably be able to hire and manage better but I think the culture of working for an overseas company could also be attractive.
As tech goes global this pull for talent is only gonna increase and I am not sure the USA startup ecosystem will have the leg up for much longer. Since the rise of Asia is unstoppable at this point: