Long considered a global copycat, China is now home to many of the fastest start-ups to reach a $1 billion valuation globally. Whatever has propelled Chinese companies to the top, the metrics we use to evaluate innovation have missed it. The author argues that China today has a resource that no other country has: hundreds of millions of people who have lived through unprecedented amounts of change—and who, consequently, can adopt and adapt to innovations at a speed and scale unmatched anywhere else on earth. Those hyper-adaptive and hyper-adoptive consumers are what make China so globally competitive today. But competition with the Chinese should not be considered a zero-sum game. Foreign companies would do well to seek to learn from China’s newly powerful example. The complete Spotlight package is available in a single reprint.

Up your imitation game. If you’re used to believing in your own exceptionalism, leaning into imitation as a strategy can feel like a declaration of defeat. But innovation has always been about both invention and imitation. We don’t think less of Apple because Steve Jobs got the idea for the mouse from Xerox. Genius steals, and it always has. To compete with China, imitation must be a weapon in the arsenal of global companies—one they’re willing to use.

Socialism with American characteristics soon? Lmao

  • Tankiedesantski [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Last time I visited China before the pandemic, even the street buskers stopped accepting coins and wanted to be paid by WeChat instead. It was like stepping into a different century.