Saturday, November 24, 2007

All Hail Diller-xiansheng, China expert

When I first travelled to China in 1985, I was given sage advice and a good warning by an American who is still there and running what is now a listed company. Stay for a week she said, and you'll feel prepared to write a book on the place. Stay for a month and you'll be up for an article. Stay a year and you'll be so thoroughly confused that you won't want to write anything.

So, I was intrigued to read this Seeking Alpha post of Barry Diller's plans to conquer China:

Diller commented that he was not especially worried about the complications of running a business China; he plans to spend a couple weeks traveling and meeting successful internet entrepreneurs.
That'll do it then; 2 weeks and a handful of bright boys with pony tails. Forget eBay and Yahoo!'s failures and the struggles that Google has had to establish itself in China.

Demonstrating his absolutely mastery of Chinese regulation, Diller reportedly said "online gambling, a booming market in China, would be on the top of his list". Hmmm. I think there will be quite a line of people waiting in Beijing to relieve him of his $100 million.

No comments: