goty

It isn't for a lack of "a Shenzhen". Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, New York etc. is the Shenzhen of the US. They are all home of massive growth industries. That this doesn't sustain or lead to (what could be summarized as) widespread prosperity is, well, the problem.

The US doesn't need a Shenzhen. It already has free enterprise, electronics suppliers and prototyping equipment. The problem is the barrier to entry, mostly living costs. There isn't really much you can do in Shenzhen that you can't do in the bay area. It will just cost you five times as much.

But of course it depends on what you mean by "a Shenzhen".

Yes, if there is any advice I could give it is to get familiar with the local tech ecosystem as soon as possible.

After spending a few month in Shenzhen, seeing people coming and going, you realize that everyone has the same ideas about the same things. How to get around the firewall, catalog hqb, build their own pcba etc. Those things are of course harmless enough, but also missing the point.

Shenzhen is all about doing things and talking to people. Which is something a lot of western hackers seem to have forgot how to do in favor of fantasizing about things in various ways. The sooner people can get past that and start doing things the more they will get out of the experience.