So true! It's tempting, I'm a hardware engineer, but I know I can make more as a software engineer working in web tech. I think the issue for VCs and such is that competitive VLSI design is so much work that it's really limited to big companies who have large budgets to afford the engineering costs.
Personally, I wish there existed more high level HDLs for (at the very least) programming FPGAs and creating chip designs. I am also excited for RISC-V. I hope that as we start to run into limitations in lithography, we get more creative with our chip designs, and as a result, we see more players in the space.
My prediction: If and When the demise of American Tech. supremacy happens, the main culprits will be the American "Management" and "Finance" industry folks. Hubris and Complacency have been legitimized and are ruling the roost.
But the entire setup of China is made for stealing tech from companies who invest there, this doesn't mean anyone isn't hardworking or hasn't got any talent. I know Chinese are hardworking.
Also, hardware needs a lot of capital in Western countries, workers are expensive.
Starting for yourselve ( with software) and gradually growing is a lot "easier" if you aren't rich.
Do not go down that road, please.
So yeah, this wasn't what I had in mind. Human error.
Following the site guidelines also means not using flamewar tropes like "Oh please", and refraining from nationalistic flamewar in general. "The Chinese always sprout up" is a pretty gross thing to see here.
Based on my experience, it's also complete bullshit.
I work at a chip company in the US. Our (chip engineering) workforce is probably about half White Americans. The other half are predominantly Indian, with significant numbers of other Asians. (It's also almost entirely male, because 2018.)
At my previous employer, also a chip company in the US, the workforce was even more heavily skewed to White Americans. Probably at least 70%.
I can point to a great number of very smart, hard-working, dedicated, and capable co-workers in every one of these racial groups.
That's a really weird statement. A large part of China has no foreign dependencies. China has a vibrant and closed ecosystem tech industry right now -> Most of the Chinese tech startups nowadays have diverged so much from other countries and they're mostly focusing on Chinese market.
Ps. Alibaba and jb.com are 2 of them for mostly outside of China. Tescent is "mostly" Chinese gamers