YouSaid · the spoken record

Dan Wang

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108
first
2025-12-03
most recent
2025-12-03
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1
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podcast

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  1. “Will continue to build much, much more because it doesn't have a lot of these American notions of being super obsessed with financial measures like profitability as well as these other ratios. I think there is something much more common in China as well as the rest of East Asia where the business leaders are much more concerned about simply market share than they are about having really high profits. And so I think that is an element of China in which they are going to be investing a lot more because they're not targeting exactly the same things as American business leaders. I understand the Communist Party to be possibly the most technology-obsessed large institution in the world. I think that every country in the world would declare that it would like to have a lot of high technology, can have Canada saying that we can have Austria saying that. But I think the Chinese really, really mean it because over the last two centuries, they've understood.”

    2025-12-03 · Conversations with Tyler · Dan Wang on What China and America Can Learn from Each Other · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Well, I think the first thing I want to say is that we can definitely understand China right now as being partially nineteen fifties America. What do I associate? Including a giant highway building spree under Eisenhower, and that is what the Chinese have done. There are kind of these traditionalist attitudes towards work and gender, which the Communist Party is enforcing, minimal immigration attitude of favorability between both of these time zones, between both of these places. And so I think that one can definitely understand China as an earlier America. And I also understand China as perhaps an even earlier America at the start of the 20th century in which the US wasn't doing terrific amounts of groundbreaking science. That was mostly left to the Germans and the other Europeans. There was just a lot of hucksterism going on, and there was just a sense of vibrancy and a can-do attitude, which has partially dissipated now in China, but has been defining China, I think, for the last few decades. So I think that my hypothesis is that China”

    2025-12-03 · Conversations with Tyler · Dan Wang on What China and America Can Learn from Each Other · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Yeah, well, this is where I believe it was a couple of months ago where Peter Thiel accused you on your podcast, Tyler, of being a boomer optimist. And let me echo Peter's wisdom here of accusing you of being a boomer optimist. You grew up in the age of highways, but I think they're among younger people, among all sorts of people now, there is a much better sense that American cities have been deeply broken for a while. They used to be quite walkable places about 100 years ago before they demolished it, all in favor of highways. Now, I'm not a big fanatic in terms of walkable cities. I'm not a big fanatic in terms of bikeable lanes, but I think there are things that we can do to at least reduce how difficult it is to get around in places like New York City especially, where going to JFK is an ordeal and leaving JFK is an even worse ideal.”

    2025-12-03 · Conversations with Tyler · Dan Wang on What China and America Can Learn from Each Other · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Well, suburbs mostly, I would say that's the most boring category of American life, is my view. And yet you love visiting these vibrant cities of Asia, these ancient museum-like cities of Europe. Things are highly walkable. Very few people have cars there. Nice twisting roads, as well as excellent rail and subway, high-speed rail. Why don't we have, why don't we live a little bit more nicely like those Europeans as well as the Asians?”

    2025-12-03 · Conversations with Tyler · Dan Wang on What China and America Can Learn from Each Other · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Yeah, I don't know if we should give everyone a car. Tyler, I find it always quite funny that you live in suburban Virginia, which is essentially where we're speaking from now. Really the most boring part of the country”

    2025-12-03 · Conversations with Tyler · Dan Wang on What China and America Can Learn from Each Other · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “I believe that it might be higher, but I think that what is much more important is that quality of life will be substantially higher. We're not going to do all of this better transit stuff, but why not? Why don't we do it?”

    2025-12-03 · Conversations with Tyler · Dan Wang on What China and America Can Learn from Each Other · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Maybe we should have better high speed rail between the triangle in Texas, as well as a few select locations, probably not between San Francisco, as well as Los Angeles. But I think there should also be much better transit options within cities as well, because we are working through these subway systems built mostly 100 years ago now in New York City, which are screechingly loud. The noise levels on BART as well as New York City are sometimes exceeding these danger levels experienced by most people. And so I think that there should be just more options rather than cars as well as airports.”

    2025-12-03 · Conversations with Tyler · Dan Wang on What China and America Can Learn from Each Other · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “America has excellent infrastructure if you own a car. If you are driving every day on the highways into the parking garages to work, that is quite fine. I've never been to Columbus, Ohio. I'm sure its airport is perfectly adequate. I live mostly in between Aunt Arbor as well as Palo Alto. And these are cities that enjoy access to two excellent airports, DTW as well as SFO. So all of that is fine. But if we are taking a look at the broader set of suburban living, maybe it is more possible for people to take light rail into the city of Columbus where they might expect to work. Maybe they should have a little bit better high-speed rail access between not necessarily everywhere, but what we call the Acceler corridor from Boston down to the”

    2025-12-03 · Conversations with Tyler · Dan Wang on What China and America Can Learn from Each Other · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source