Feng Deng’s Talk at HYSTA
I attended a talk given by Feng Deng sponsored by HYSTA and held in the Fenwick and West auditorium on Saturday, May 10. The Fenwick and West auditorium is a great setting for a talk. I had wanted to get there early to network, but I found the front door closed. Turns out that the entrance was around the corner. I have been to this building several times, but I did not realize that the other entrance existed. By the time that I found it, I was only able to network a little. But I did manage to get a place to sit, which was a major accomplishment.
Feng Deng is best known for selling his company, NetScreen Technologies, after it went public on the NASDAQ to Juniper Networks for $4 billion. HYSTA organization itself has an extensive managerial structure and several big names in its board including Feng Deng. The weird thing is that this organization was founded back in 1999. For such a young organization, it is very advanced.
Feng Deng is now a VC in China where he has been living for the last few years. He joked that his English was a little rusty, but I had no problems hearing or understanding him where I was in the back of the room. The only problem with the talk was that there were far more people attending the talk than the room could hold. The talk itself was 2 hours long with another hour scheduled for questions. I think that it would have been better to reduce the time for the talk to 1 hour to keep more focused.
Feng Deng was both enthusiastic and honest about the economy in China. What he said, I have heard from other sources. For example, he does not think that a recession in the US will slow China down. Most Chinese businesses are focused on the huge, growing Chinese market and have not spent much time or effort to become a global brand. The biggest issue of the US and world economy that will affect China will be in the cost of food, energy and overall inflation. Inflation is becoming a huge problem in China.
One area that China still needs to work on in getting her people to be innovative. But innovation is really the freedom to try new things and to make mistakes without fear. That is something that the people of China probably do not feel that they can safely do. For example, I read a story published by a business writer visiting China. His hotel had given him a free bottle of wine. He had brought the wine to a restaurant and asked to have it with his meal. This variation from their standard business practice was too much for the Chinese wait staff and management. After much discussion on the subject, the writer was told that he could not drink wine brought from outside the restaurant. When in doubt, the restaurant management chose to take the safest course.