“一流人才去了歐美，二流、三流留在中國做苦活。”
At first glance, this sounds discouraging—even insulting.
But when we look at China’s past 20 years of explosive growth in AI, EVs, batteries, fintech, and consumer tech… we realize something counter-intuitive:
👉 China’s technological rise wasn’t blocked by the loss of top-tier talent.
It was accelerated by the energy, hunger, and relentless execution of the so-called “second-tier.”
This is one of the great ironies of global technology history.
Let’s dive deeper.
1. First-Tier vs. Second-Tier: A Misunderstood Label
When commentators say “first-tier talent,” they usually mean:
Graduates from MIT, Stanford, Tsinghua, Peking University
Elite researchers
People with advanced degrees and gold-plated résumés
Individuals who tend to excel in structured, theoretical, academic environments
And here’s the truth:
Many of these people did go abroad
—studying in the U.S., working in Silicon Valley, joining Wall Street, or settling into stable careers.
Nothing wrong with that. But the behavior of top-tier academic talent tends to be:
Risk-averse
Preference for stability
Strong in theory, weaker in messy real-world execution
Motivated by prestige, not chaos or wild opportunity
By contrast, the “second- and third-tier” who stayed in China often had:
Less academic pressure to maintain prestige
More hunger to change their life situation
More willingness to work 12–14 hours daily
More comfort operating in uncertainty
More “street-smart grit”
And when China entered its chaotic, fast-moving, opportunity-rich tech era (2005–2023),
these qualities mattered far more than fancy degrees.
2. China’s Tech Explosion Rewarded Speed, Not Perfection
In Silicon Valley, the rule is:
“Move fast and break things.”
In China, the rule became:
“Move faster, break more things, and fix them overnight.”
Take any example:
| Sector | Western Version | China Version |
|---|---|---|
| E-commerce | Amazon grew over 20 years | Alibaba/Taobao exploded in 3–5 years |
| Mobile payments | Credit-card-based | QR codes with no banks needed |
| Ride-hailing | Uber | Didi scale-up speed 3× faster |
| Short video | Douyin/TikTok global phenomenon | |
| EV cars | Tesla | BYD overtakes world in affordable mass production |
This type of hyper-speed environment is not where elite professors or Ph.D. theorists shine.
It’s where:
hustlers
coders who learn by doing
entrepreneurs who sleep in their offices
engineers willing to iterate 100 times
young workers willing to fail, pivot, retry
managers who don’t care about “face” but care about results
…absolutely thrive.
3. China’s Real Talent Advantage: A Massive Pool of “Practical Doers”
One of the biggest myths in the West is:
China lacks top innovation because it lacks top talent.
This is simply false.
China has:
The world’s largest STEM graduate output
A huge population of competitive, adaptive workers
Millions of engineers who can build, fix, and improve things quickly
A society comfortable with fast experimentation
And there’s a hidden factor:
China has the world’s highest density of “good enough” engineers.
Not geniuses.
Not Nobel winners.
But people who can:
Learn quickly
Improve existing designs
Reduce manufacturing cost
Scale from 1 prototype to 10 million units
Work together at incredible speed
This practical engineering force is the backbone of:
Shenzhen's electronics ecosystem
BYD battery and EV dominance
DJI drone leadership
TikTok's AI-driven recommendation algorithm
CATL’s global battery hegemony
Huawei’s resilience under sanctions
This wasn’t a story of genius.
It was a story of execution and scale.
4. Why “Leaving of First-Tier Talent” Actually Helped China
This part sounds ironic, but it’s true:
**Top-tier talent who went abroad didn’t drain China—
they became an overseas knowledge pipeline.**
They:
brought back foreign experience
imported global best practices
bridged China with Silicon Valley
connected supply chains
became managers, advisors, angel investors
returned later with international perspective
They became the “knowledge and capital network,”
while the people who stayed in China became the “hands and engines” that built the future.
A perfect division of labor.
5. The Chinese Tech Rise: Built on Grit, Speed, and Imperfection
The West loves perfection.
China loves iteration.
The West loves systems and frameworks.
China loves results.
The West waits for consensus.
China just does it.
This is why many breakthroughs—EVs, solar panels, batteries, AI chips, robotics, drones—
came out of China not because of Nobel-level genius
but because of massive collective effort.
China’s success came from:
Execution over theory
Scale over elegance
Speed over perfection
Pragmatism over idealism
Iteration over contemplation
This is the “superpower” behind the rise.
6. What This Means for China’s Future—and the World
China’s science-and-tech ecosystem is now entering a new phase:
After mastering execution
After dominating manufacturing
After achieving scale
…it is now investing in original innovation:
AI foundational models,
quantum computing,
biotech and gene editing,
aerospace and rockets,
advanced materials,
homegrown semiconductor design,
autonomous driving algorithms,
The earlier generation of “doers” laid the foundation,.
The next generation of “creators” will push the frontier.
And now, many of the so-called “first-tier talents” are actually returning to China
because the opportunities at home are bigger.
Final Thoughts: Success Comes From Who Shows Up to Build
At the end of the day, China’s tech rise proves something profound:
A nation’s progress isn’t decided by how many geniuses it has.
It’s decided by how many people are willing to build, try, fail, and build again.
The graduates who stayed behind, the engineers who worked late nights,
the programmers who iterated endlessly—
these were the real heroes of China’s tech rise.
Sometimes, the world’s biggest transformations are created not by “top talents”…
but by the unstoppable force of ordinary people with extraordinary drive.
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