Gurley recounts a China trip conversation revealing a stark information asymmetry: Chinese entrepreneurs study the US in exhaustive detail, but Americans rarely study China with the same rigor. ✦ AI generated
Bill Gurley · BG2 Pod · 2025-08-28 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 12:34
“how would you compare contrast as a venture capitalist the level of rigor and innovation and excitement, enthusiasm, um, and investment, I guess, going on against these, you know, critical future industries.”
every founder and every VC in China studies the West at a nauseating level. So they listen to all the podcasts, they read everything they possibly can, they study any speech, they look at the financials. And he said the West doesn't do that of China.
verbatim transcript · starts at 12:34
12:34public company, which is a children's toy company that started in China and is everywhere over there. But like just the idea that that there is no innovation. You know, one one of my favorite meetings and I promised I would protect the innocent. So I'm not going to sure who it was with, but over lunch this individual told me, you know, every founder and every VC in China studies
13:00the West at a nauseating level. So they listen to all the podcasts, they read everything they possibly can, they study any speech, they look at the financials. And he said the West doesn't do that of China. And you know, maybe this goes back to my main motivation for going over there to learn, but that I thought that was a very provocative statement that he made, you know, and um maybe we should be
13:28maybe we should be studying the best and the brightest over there. Well, let's let's dive into, you know, maybe one industry, I I guess, as a lens. Yeah. I know you spent a bunch of time uh in the auto industry. Yeah. Right. Looking at all of these new entrance and I help us understand the innovation that's happening there on two dimensions. One on uh you know just electric vehicles.
13:51number two on you know maybe autonomy and then number three I'm just curious like how Tesla is able to compete so effectively you know in a market where you have this hyper competition uh for electric vehicles. >> Yeah. So I I I had a number of auto experiences when I was over there. First of all I I was invited to um visit BYD. This is my they gave me a nice coat. I
14:16um I met with Stella Lee who is their number one executive I think facing outside of China. Um she runs all their Europe initiatives. For those people that don't know BYD is the largest EV manufacturer in the world at about 4 million vehicles. Um they started in batteries. They they you know they compete in with uh Fox Con to build mobile phones. They bought Jable Circuit. You remember that old company?