Huawei’s secret weapon wasn’t the CCP. It was IBM
How did Huawei become one of the world’s most formidable tech companies? Washington blames the CCP. But Huawei’s rotating chairman, Eric Xu, credits IBM.
Huawei paid IBM nearly $600 million between 1997 and 2006 to build a product development system that put customers first. Meanwhile, Silicon Valley bet that money could create markets, then watched the dot-com and optical bubbles burst.
My colleague Steve Saunders argues America is repeating the mistake with debt-fueled AI data centers, while Huawei builds the integrated stack for AI in the physical world.
China builds industry to serve customers and the interests of China. The U.S. builds businesses to enrich billionaires.
Why is Meta building pervert glasses? It’s not because people want to replace their phones – people love their phones. It’s because Mark Zuckerberg thinks the phone is an obstacle to him becoming a trillionaire.