Fireside Chats at KI labs; ep. 10

Where does the story of Tiexin begin?

“I was born in a very small city of Shanxi, China in the middle of the country. My parents were both workers in the same factory and knew nothing about technology. I got my first exposure to computers at 10 years old when I took a trip to the seaside for a summer vacation. I accidentally walked into a book store and saw a comic book about the DOS Command Line Interface. I didn’t have a computer nor had I touched one, but I bought the book because it looked interesting.

I first touched a computer one year later in elementary school — I think it was a 386 or 486 — at the beginning running on DOS 6.22 later Windows 3.2, not even Windows 95 even though it was past 1995.

I got into programming 2 years later in middle school. My father rewarded me with a portable electronic dictionary because I got 1st place in the exam, and it provided BASIC programming language. In middle school, we were tasked with solving quadratic equations so I wrote some BASIC programs for that. Later, I used Visual Basic 5.0 but soon had to put programming on hold to study intensely for high school exams to get into universities.

I was lucky enough to get into the best university in China (Tsinghua to be clear, not Peking, you Peking University advocates can stop bashing me now because the fact that you only have one standard 400m runway already means it’s not nearly as good) studying computer science and technology. My parents and I both knew nothing about computer science and no idea about what courses were a part of the curriculum. In high school, the competition is fierce and we studied 12 hours per day. We would start the day at 7 am and leave around 10 pm most of the time. We had breaks of course, but it is much different than what you would be used to 6 days a week! This is normal.”

Do you want your kid to be in a similar system?

“Maybe! In Beijing, kids start at 8 or 9 and leave at 3. What do I do with him if I am working? Then I have to pay for childcare.”

What does China do better than Europe?

“Germany is very famous for punctual and how good the engineering is. But as you can see, the S-Bahn, U-bahns and long-distance trains are always late — sometimes even cancelled. In China, this is not possible. In rush hours in Beijing, the busiest subway has a train every 90 seconds continuously. It is not possible to be late. Apparently, Germany isn’t very punctual regarding this.

The basic infrastructure is also better than in most European countries. The trains go crazy, 380km/hr. I think most of the trains are Japanese, French or German technology, but China just does a better job. China had no highway in 1988, and now it has more kilometres of highway than any other country in the world. Since 2011 it builds 9000km of highway every year — I think in most European countries, they don’t even have 9000km total. For those who haven’t seen the Grand Tour S03E06, please do so, it’s totally free on Amazon Prime.

Everything is also much cheaper. In China, you can have a very decent workday lunch for about 5 euros maximum even if you work in the huge cities.”

Is the employee treated better in Europe?

“In Europe, I think employees are treated more equally. In Europe, a CTO earns probably around 2 to 4x more than a university graduate — that’s it. In China that difference is huge. A university graduate makes around 20k euros/year. A CTO can make 10 or 20x more. I think maybe Europe is too advanced. They are very into equality rather than efficiency. If you pay too much attention to welfare and equality, you lose efficiency. People don’t have the incentive to work harder and get more money. While in China, it’s totally different. If you work in a non-tech industry you get much lower wage — especially if you’re a farmer, you get 1000 euros/year.”

With that though, what do you think about your parents’ career?

“They were actually quite lucky. There was a big revolution in China in the 1960s and 70s where students dropped out and became part a movement and the universities were shut down. For them, joining the army and then joining a state-owned company for 30–35 years, was probably the best scenario. In the worst case, you would get killed if you said something politically incorrect in public places. For them, it was quite good, since my father started as a farmer, moved into the Chinese Air Force, and then became a worker for the rest of his career. Coming from a farmer where he couldn’t even afford 3 meals a day to a worker; that is a huge step.”

What do they think about your achievements?

“To be fair, I started way better than my parents. I started in a small city, not a rural area. I had the chance to get educated, get into one of the best universities in the world, and now I am in Europe, apparently a better place. From them, there is no complaining.”

Why do you say “apparently a better place”? Is that your opinion or your perception of the world’s opinion?

“I think it’s my opinion but maybe the world’s as well. U.S. #1, Germany #2? Maybe UK #2? China is still developing… it is not developed.”

Why did you choose Estonia as your first country outside of China to live?

“It was actually the first country I visited outside of China. There are only 1 million people in the whole country! This is very different than China. Nature is beautiful, lots of trees and lakes, and no matter where you are in the country, you are always only 30 minutes away from the forest or a nice lake.”

Why did you decide to move to Germany?

“I would say because of career. In Estonia, I wanted to find a company with a better platform. I couldn’t. My city was the “Silicon Valley” of the Baltics but the startup companies do not have well-defined processes with very strong talent. But this is understandable, as they only have 1 million people in the whole country. I was actually thinking of Sweden before I moved to Germany, but after some research of the living cost, and the fact that I love cars and motorcycles and especially BMWs, I decided Munich is the best place. At that time, I only applied to positions in Munich, not any other German city.”

What do you think of Munich?

“Munich is great, best city in Germany! Maybe not the best city, but Bavaria is the best area. Close to the mountains, and the weather is nice. More importantly, I think Bavaria is rich. In China, the poverty and rich people difference is huge. If you drive a nice car, maybe someone will steal it. In Bavaria, I never worry. I am driving a BMW but so is everyone else. Some guys are driving Porsches — they are not worried about my BMW. But this is not the story across all of Germany. In Bavaria I feel safe, the weather is great, the people are nice. Stuttgart is also very nice, and Frankfurt has more tall buildings and a large river going through it. Maybe those are nice places to live as well.”

Why did you join KI labs?

“I have already read all the articles you have written. I think most people’s answers are like “Danial is a great guy” or something like that. Same story for me. I joined KI labs as the first Cloud engineer — there was no DevOps before me. Danial interviewed me directly, and we had a great talk. I felt he is very talented, and it would be good to work with him. To be honest, at that time, I had another 2 offers and I chose KI labs because of Danial.”

What do you think of KI labs?

“It feels like a startup but actually it’s not. It’s owned by a huge group, so you are not worried about losing money or about closing down — which is good. The culture wise, a little bit unstructured, with slowly defining processes (as we grow), and this feels like a startup.

The startup culture is definitely a big positive. We have multiple projects to work on and the total freedom to use whichever tech stack we want to use. Working at a product company, you are stuck with the same thing for your time at that company. Here you get the chance to work on new things and it’s always nice to work on something new and keep your mind fresh.”

What do you think is next in technology?

“It’s very hard to say. I think it is safe to say that I don’t know. No one knows. That’s why they come.”

*Letter to the reader: You may have noticed some of the grammar is not typical British or American English. I chose to write much of what was said as it was said to retain a level of authenticity*

Last week’s episode with one of our talented Frontend Developers: Ellie.