2025 Letter
Key topics
Diving into Dan Wang's 2025 Letter, readers are discovering a nuanced exploration of China's development, infrastructure, and tech landscape. Commenters rave about Wang's book, praising its balanced take on China's complexities and its thought-provoking insights into the country's ability to build large-scale infrastructure projects. As the discussion unfolds, participants reveal key takeaways, including China's prioritization of process knowledge and its preparations for potential isolation, sparking a fascinating debate about the country's motivations and the implications for global tech. With many readers initially skeptical due to the piece's length, the overwhelming consensus is that Wang's writing is engaging, well-researched, and worthy of attention.
Snapshot generated from the HN discussion
Discussion Activity
Very active discussionFirst comment
2h
Peak period
61
2-4h
Avg / period
10
Based on 160 loaded comments
Key moments
- 01Story posted
Jan 1, 2026 at 9:32 AM EST
8 days ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Jan 1, 2026 at 11:20 AM EST
2h after posting
Step 02 - 03Peak activity
61 comments in 2-4h
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03 - 04Latest activity
Jan 2, 2026 at 4:54 PM EST
7 days ago
Step 04
Generating AI Summary...
Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns
Want the full context?
Jump to the original sources
Read the primary article or dive into the live Hacker News thread when you're ready.
It also defies easy summaries, but my biggest takeaways were that 1) the CCP really doesn't care about the costs any of its policies (one-child, zero COVID, etc) impose on its citizenry, and 2) that the CCP is actively preparing China for a world where it's entirely cut off from the West, because it realizes that's the price to pay for invading Taiwan.
"In vain do I protest that there are historical and geopolitical reasons motivating the desire, that chip fabs cannot be violently seized, and anyway that Beijing has coveted Taiwan for approximately seven decades before people were talking about AI."
Consider the historical timeline: "Fortress China" policies coincide with the rise of American protectionism on both sides of the aisle and the introduction of chip restrictions and punishing tariffs. Taiwan is an emotional/nationalist issue for China, but it's only one part of their policy, not the lynchpin as your comment suggests.
Such gems as
> I like SF house parties, where people take off their shoes at the entrance and enter a space in which speech can be heard over music, which feels so much more civilized than descending into a loud bar in New York. It’s easy to fall into a nerdy conversation almost immediately with someone young and earnest.
As if there is a single Asian-American culture and no Asian-Americans like going out to bars…
The whole piece is littered with weird over generalizations over huge and diverse groups of people.
The latter profile isn't suitable for short content bites and doesn't sell to a large audience. The former does, but comes with a cost only the uninformed aren't aware of.
I can sympathize with that though. Non-fiction in general is a hard sell.
I’ve lived in both SF and now NYC, and that characterization is painting with a broad brush, but isn’t ridiculous.
great line
Insofar as there is any plan, the current officeholder's priorities are to project the appearance of personal power on television. If you're wondering what's going on strategically, don't go thinking that there's some grand plan, or even an intention to benefit the United States in the long term. There are some people in the cabinet who are thinking long term, but that's not universal, and that's not what they're selected for. Every action that is taken is to satisfy the president's narcissism and ego. You have to understand the "US plan" in this light for anything to make sense.
They don't even have a concept of a plan.
Anything beyond that is just like a kid playing an arcade game without putting any quarters in.
There's stock market bros, kill people bros, government welfare bros and some mega business bros.
None of them want to know anything beyond my kids go to private school, get nepo baby job.
This is what humans are capable of at this time - not just in USA, as a species. USA's 'plan' or rather inevitability is to fall apart. China will soon be a land of clueless nepo babies like USA is today and like USSR was when it fell apart.
Maybe in another few thousand years it'll be different, I doubt it. Read Plato's Republic you're above 140 IQ - it spells it all out so nicely that one you grok it, you need not know much of anything else regarding politics.
Here is a fun representation I have in my mind:
Galactic Emperor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfQbm8Wk2vU
this kinda goes against the very policy of China for the last decade-2-3 of almost-manual depreciation of RMB to make export easier
> China's #1 goal should be to keep the value of their currency stable
and it's US strat to boost allies with money donations - while China seems to be more about joint infrastructure and industry building
but main divide seems to form on "ngo vs government" lines, imo - and ironically the exact opposite way of the proclaimed "authoritarian China vs USAID america" of the previous decade-or-two. (As always, best path is somewhere in the middle between the two)
the main thing that will happen for sure - globalization, unification into bigger and bigger pieces will continue. Sure, big pieces might go further from each other - but smaller ones will will get closer and closer (unless we all die, of course)
All jokes aside, current China and current US administration believe in "might makes right", like any criminal gang. They both like to abolish the rules based order, any smaller "piece" will be on the menu in this school of thought.
This is just not accurate though? For example, this post from a tech titan might not necessarily be that funny but it's neither blandly corporate nor philosophical: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2006548935372902751
“ the median age of the latest Y Combinator cohort is only 24, down from 30 just three years ago “
does yc publish stats to validate?
- There's a hard edge to the distribution that isn't far from 24 (I'd expect relatively few sub-18-year-old YC founders, but more 31+-year-olds)
- Older founders (with more experience, larger networks and less life flexibility) aren't a good fit for incubators.
https://tomtunguz.com/founder-age-median-trend/
YC trends younger given what they’re looking for
Oh come on, this is so untrue. Silicon Valley loves credentialism and networking, probably more than anywhere else. Except the credentials are the companies you’ve worked for or whether you know some founder or VC, instead of what school you went to or which degrees you have.
I went to a smaller college that the big tech firms didn’t really recruit from. I spent the first ~5 years of my career working for a couple smaller companies without much SV presence. Somehow I lucked into landing a role at a big company that almost everyone has definitely heard of. I didn’t find my coworkers to necessarily be any smarter or harder working than the people I worked with previously. But when I decided it was time to move on, companies that never gave me the time of day before were responding to my cold applies or even reaching out to _me_ to beg me to interview.
And don’t get me started on the senior leadership and execs I’ve seen absolutely run an entire business units into the ground and lose millions of dollars and cost people their jobs, only to “part ways” with the company, then immediately turn around and raise millions of dollars from the same guys whose money they just lost.
You could argue that getting a job at X or Y company by itself conveys some level of skill - but if we are honest, that is just version of saying you went to Harvard.
There's lots of cliques everywhere in life, and various ways to show status, SV is definitely not immune to that.
and the story told is "no judgement on skill, only on being in-group. It's just the in-group is caused by previous employment and not birth-right/nationality/etc"
surviving a startup says a lot more about skill than going through employee churn of some bigname corp
So, for your quote, a skeptical interpretation of the text may assert the author was merely praising SV in the same fashion one might appraise the party.
Remove the tech, what does SF contribute to the world wrt culture? Especially when compared to other metropolitan cities: NY, London, LA, Tokyo.
Part of the Silicon Valley ethos (and techie ethos in general) is the rejection of fashion. Comfort over style. Casual over classy.
Even the “stealth wealth” thing that trended for a while seemed to be an expression of this. Casual wear, but really expensive.
I think this is reflected in how techies are drawn to the safety of techwear, where fit and color matter less and clothing can be chosen and justified through objective criteria like weather resistance parameters.
There is a commedy show literally called Silicon Valley making fun of what's going on in the valley and everybody I know in tech loves it and appreciates the humor.
There WAS a comedy called Silicon Valley that wrapped more than 5 years ago ABOUT the valley made in Hollywood by a guy with a science background who grew up in NEW MEXICO and SAN DIEGO, featuring ACTORs, none of them actual techies from the bay area.
One of my intentions for this coming year is to critically examine and (if appropriate) alter or dispel some preconceptions I have. To that end, I'm curious about this part:
> You don’t have to convince the elites or the populace that growth is good or that entrepreneurs could be celebrated. Meanwhile in Europe, perhaps 15 percent of the electorate actively believes in degrowth. I feel it’s impossible to convince Europeans to act in their self interest.
Can someone elaborate on how growth is aligned with the general interest? To my mind, although growth could _theoretically_ lead to a "lifting all boats" improvement across the board, in practice it inevitably leads to greater concentration of wealth for the elite while the populace deals with negative externalities like pollution, congestion, and advertizing. Degrowth, on the other hand, would directly reduce those externalities; and, if imposed via progressive taxation, would have further societal benefits via funded programs.
I'd very much like to hear the counter-argument. It would be pleasant and convenient to believe that growth and industry are Good, Actually, so that I needn't feel guilty for contributing to them or for furthering my own position - but (sadly!) I can't just make myself believe something without justification.
It’s something that regularly has to be dealt with in societies separately from the economic situation.
There are those who think massive concentration of wealth is not a problem at all and is just a product of healthy capitalism. Tax is theft, and individual property rights are above all else.
There are others who want some kind of communist revolution, where the entire structure of society and property ownership is changed. The workers should benefit from their work as much as the managers.
Personally, I feel like there's a middle ground to hit. We should be able to make changes to our current system in the US without needing anything too radical.
We have some good examples from the last century, such as trust busting, the New Deal, and the Great Society. These programs made major improvements without changing the country's fundamental economic system or growth trajectory.
I don't know what sea change it would take for today's GOP to even tepidly support any of these.
Empirically, the past 200 years have seen high growth globally, and human well being has improved massively as a result. Life expectancy has skyrocketed, infant death, hunger have gone down to near zero, literacy has gone up, work is much more comfortable, interesting and rewarding, etc. But at a more fundamental level, our material quality of life is that of literal kings. The 1st decile poorest people in the US or Europe have much better living conditions than a king of 500 years ago. We are so lucky to benefit from this, yet we completely forgot that fact. You complain about congestion and advertizing, but with degrowth you would complain about hunger and dying from cold during winter.
This cannot be overstated. To wit, a Honda Accord (or equivalent mid-range car of today) is objectively superior to a Rolls Royce from the 90s in terms of amenities, engine power/efficiency, quietness, build quality, safety, etc. The same is true for quality-of-life improvements across a vast swath of consumer goods, and therefore consumer lifestyles.
Without growth, it's unlikely we'd see those improvements manifest. Carefully consider the lifestyle of someone living several decades ago. Would you honestly want to live such a lifestyle yourself? That's where degrowth likely leads. As the article says, "I feel it’s impossible to convince Europeans to act in their self interest. You can’t even convince them to adopt air conditioning in the summer."
Sure, I lived it, and it was very pleasant at the time and in many ways better than now in retrospect. e.g. always-on access to infinite content engines like YouTube, TikTok, X, Facebook, etc. is probably a net negative, both for individuals and society. I wouldn't want to go back a century or more and give up air conditioning, dishwashers, washing machines, air travel, electric lights. But a few decades, sure, in a heartbeat.
I'm worried the harsh reality for most humans is that life is often not that easy. And if it is, it won't be for long
if you grow - you increase total progress (and your influence on it)
but if you degrow - you concentrate your progress into smaller amount of hands, making their life better
seems reminiscent of "left vs right" debate in politics with its "wealth disperse vs wealth squeeze" - but with humans themselves instead
I don't think degrowth is necessary to solve this problem, although I'm sure it has its merits. But I think growth can still occur without the trend toward oligarchic or feudal society, and in fact a society with a vibrant economy would have more growth than we do today.
It's not that all his takes are wrong, it's the exaggeration, the doom and gloom and a somewhat dismissal or some unsolved personal issues he has with "Europeans".
The irony is not lost that Dan acts as smug and dismissal as he accuses Europeans to be.
Regarding the whole "Degrowth" thing: yes Europe has those and they found their gold in Governmental entities and they entertain the rich. But.. that's exactly what happens in the US too and Dan as knowledge as he is should know this was mostly an American academia export, he just needs to talk with some people in the very same colleges he regularly set foot into.
Also, he should take a hint when he says historically liberal societies have fared much better than autocratic ones even if those are very focused and appear to make progress very quickly. Having a few mega-bilionaires directing what the populace do or not do might not be a smart move as it sounds. We'll see when the AI musical chairs stops.
Btw, Europe has been dead and on the brink of destruction for a few centuries by now. And according to experts the EU is about to collapse 3 or 4 times a year - minimum.
And believing this, is the single thing keeping the entire world running.
Germany is currently ruining itself because its stagnating economy means that it can not keep up with the rising costs for its pension system and has to increasingly raise more funds from a smaller, population which is seeing little productivity gains.
>Degrowth, on the other hand, would directly reduce those externalities; and, if imposed via progressive taxation, would have further societal benefits via funded programs.
Do you think that Germany will have social benefits at all, when the auto industry collapses. Where is the money coming from?
Economic growth has enabled mass literacy. It has created industrial agriculture, which eliminated hunger for economic reasons in all countries which practice it. Degrowth means turning our back on the single process which caused the greatest increase in human quality of life.
>But American problems seem more fixable to me than Chinese problems.
China has stayed on trajectory of improving life of its society for a long time. USA has been in decline all that time and decent accelerated after Cold War with Russia ended.
All of China's growth comes from its internal resource. Growth in the USA had been driven by exploiting other countries.
>I made clear in my book that I am drawn to pluralism as well as a broader conception of human flourishing than one that could be delivered by the Communist Party.
Pluralism had been eradicated in the western society. I can't speak freely in Canada. People get cancelled or jailed for speaking their mind in UK. US is not too far behind in that.
There is no meaningful pluralism in the West. They never make a long term plan they can follow for many years.
China has monolithic ( more so ) society with shared culture, language(s) and national identity that runs deep to the gene level. They don't don't allow foreign influence to erode it. It's much easier to make progress when people share the same long term vision and goals.
CPP is doing just fine leading the country into the future. Sure, it has a monopoly on power, but it also owns its mistakes and fixes them. Multiparty systems of the USA and the rest of the West are just two curtains on the stage, and when you draw the curtains you see the same people attending the same party.
Public officials aim to earn as much as they can in their short stay in power. After all, they only have a few years before they get replaced, better make use of the short time you got.
China IMO has a much brighter outlook for the future
Exactly when do you believe this decline started? I have some major concerns about the current trajectory of the USA, but it seems like nonsense to say that the US has been in decline since well before the Cold War ended.
> I can't speak freely in Canada
I wonder what it is that you want to say but can’t.
Comparing China positively against western nations and then griping about limits on freedom of speech in western nations seems suspect regardless.
> Elected officials aim to earn as much as they can in their short stay in power.
That’s true. Unelected officials can stay in power and accrue wealth for much longer than elected officials.
ever since they thought they won over communist/socialist ideas, i.e. with the breakup of the USSR
>I wonder what it is that you want to say but can’t.
Nice try, this won't provoke me.
>That’s true. Unelected officials can stay in power and accrue wealth for much longer than elected officials.
Sure, sure. The systems are setup differently but you are using the same logic for both coming from the assumption that power is used to acquire personal wealth.
For some (many) power isn't about acquisition of wealth but about responsibility, taking care of a hard chore. It's a mistake to think that Xi is in power for wealth.
I often draw a parallel with being a father. You have some power, but mostly you have responsibilities.
You seem to have redefined the timeframe significantly. Previously you indicated that the decline was happening even before the end of the Cold War.
I don’t believe that this is a true statement even since the fall of the USSR, though. I’d be interested in what data or metrics this claim of decline is based on.
> Nice try, this won't provoke me.
You’re so unprovoked that you didn’t even address the concern. You could have pointed at what you believed was problematic suppression of free speech (of which there are certainly some examples in western nations) without actually divulging your apparently controversial beliefs.
Bluntly, I believe your criticism here is dishonest. Pearl clutching about apparent suppression of free speech in the west while pointing to a nation that sends ethnic Muslim minorities to reeducation camps as a better system is deeply disingenuous.
> It's a mistake to think that Xi is in power for wealth.
> I often draw a parallel with being a father. You have some power, but mostly you have responsibilities.
This is a man who refused the traditional transfer of power within the CCP and had the Chinese constitution revised so that he could remain in power. This is absolutely a man who wants power and wealth.
You’re plainly biased.
America supposedly has no resources so we are exploiting other countries. Someone says China has no resources and suddenly the only resource that matters is the spirit of the Chinese people. Give me a break.
this kinda ignores the whole "Asia unification" that is happening right about now
Russia created connection from Iran to North Korea. SCO coordinates economy of the internalities. India-Russia-China are cooperating in BRICS. China stabilized Afghanistan and builds trade routes in the Pakistan. Even US' efforts of supporting Turkey-centered Pan-Turk organizations in the Middle Asia turn un-american as Israel-Turkey tensions are on the rise
China may have stuff limited. Whole Asia tho? Don't really think so
Americans have always been assholes and proud pedophiles. What are you referring to?
>Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I want to say that I am rooting for San Francisco.
Sure.
Upside: I’m glad someone is covering the topic.
Downside: the West is so fucked.
the UK is seriously broken, I always reflect on the energy generation statistics of the UK per capita
while in the US you see automated car washes, in the uk most car washes are Albanians n other immigrants etc
The Vampire Squid has its tentacles in all our orifices, and we won't be free till we cut it off or it dies of a heart attack.
Supermarkets and shopping centres, national assets (e.g., water) the story is the same. Then there's Amazon et al.
Profit generated in this country is by and large not spent here, and is certainly not taxed adequately.
This causes inequality by short-circuiting redistributive measures, either local economic multipliers or government spending.
What gains are felt are concentrated in service sectors which facilitate global capital, concentrated in London.
Source: UBS Global Wealth Report 2025
Of course US does has a much higher mean wealth…
Honestly I am shocked at the recent rise of anti-UK comments with horribly incorrect information or skewed views and curious about what is sourcing this.
Housing in Vienna is still affordable, only due to their very successful public housing programs. Public housing can be both beautiful and highly affordable if you want it to be, it's not like we don't know how to make good quality homes with lovely public amenities. It's mostly developers that want to skim on everything while selling it at the highest cost possible.
Poor system if this is the outcome: unaffordability.
To me it seems to be a combination of
- wealth inequality (eg 20/30 trillion dollars was printed and furloughed out in Covid, which funnels its way up to the holders of the most assets, seeing asset price inflation but no attempt to tax back the money printed). Repeat on different scales for unfair tax systems and poor infrastructure and and and
- urban planning (we think the ideal city is dense using seven storey or so apartment buildings and fairly aggressive anti-car (ie far less parking than seems possible) with better public transport and lots of pedestrian access. This describes almost no cities
- mortgages and other pro house incentives. You want house price inflation for decade after decade, just allow people to borrow a greater ratio against their salary — and allow married women into the workplace. Suddenly turning a mortgage limit of 2.5 x a man’s salary into 5x a dual couples salary. People bid up prices, forcing more couples to have two salaries to compete. And companies don’t have to increase salary to compensate … people combine salaries and go deeper into debt. Hell if you only had one policy weapon, forcing 2.5 borrowing against one highest paid persons salary is not a bad one. You won’t get re-elected however.
They offer low rents and therefore a large part of tenants dont compete on the private market, therefore pulling overall rents lower.
“”” This compares with London around 20%, paris 24% and NYC 9%
So yeah that makes a huge difference…
To some extent seems like it would also provide a margin of safety given homogeneity effects eg https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/working-pa...
Have you considered… not rationing housing?
As in, you can actually pay people to build more houses, houses are not a fixed resource. Likewise roads, schools, shopping centres etc., they're all things you can just pay to get built. Only thing a little harder amongst the usual talking points is hospitals, but that's because medical qualifications take so long, not because you can't do it.
Home construction per year over in the last century in the UK: https://fullfact.org/economy/house-building-england/
And Germany since 1950: https://www.dba-bau.com/news/seit-1950-wurden-in-der-bundesr...
Note they were higher in the past.
The issue is all the things blocking supply. As long as supply is blocked, prices will go up, Period
2. Chinese investors buying up and not living there is effectively a myth. There just are aren't very many of them.
3. What's special about "Chinese"? If a rich NYC finance person buys a vacation home in SF is that ok? How about a Brit or German?
Bear in mind that obviously the mean salary in London is going to be far higher than the median (the finance industry will skew it), while I'm not sure that's as extreme as Mississippi. Additionally median salaries reflect a lot of service jobs and similar labour. Dubai has a lower median wage than either London or Mississippi, but people don't think of it as economically broken.
Comparing California (an extremely large state that I presume has cheaper housing outside major urban areas) to a city seems a bit of a poor comparison.
I don't disagree that the UK has high energy costs.
at the very least, pretending that health insurance isnt another tax is a common way to derail these discussions.
But buy a £50k Rolex and yes there is vat.
But "majority" just means half.
Between "The standard rate of VAT is 20 per cent, with around half of household expenditure subject to this rate." - https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/...
And Figure 10.2 on page 6 of https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN05...
I'd say it's very close to even odds that the other poster is correct to say "No vat on the majority of spending".
Compare to £250 a week in rent and £100 a week in food and it’s peanuts.
If you compare SF or LA to London, then you'll find:
City | Median Wage | Median House Price | Ratio SF | 104k | $1.5m | 14.42 London | 67k | $890k | 13.28 LA | 73k | $1.1m | 15.07
London ends up being slightly more affordable despite lower salaries.
The whole analogy was a bit meaningless - it wasn't an apples to apples comparison. The writer mixed geographic and demographic scales to make a point that could just as well be about the unaffordability of large cities.
Compare the housing costs of London to the housing costs of San Francisco and then swap out those Bay Area salaries with your “slightly above Mississippi” wages and you’ll see why London looks so broken to people used to LA/SF/NY.
San Francisco is much much more expensive, I'm not sure why that means London is "broken". It's just got a different economic dynamic.
In the UAE, a Big Mac meal costs approximately 35 AED ($10). On the other hand, a manual car wash - approx. 1-2 hours of labor - can cost you around 20 AED.
In other words, you could get two manual car washes for the price of a Big Mac.
(1) the middle class (and above) who have money to spend on services
(2) the migrant working class, the bulk of whom send every last extra penny back home as remittances to support family
The second class of people are not considered as a market for the majority of services in the UAE. In the case of food, when they do eat out, they frequent traditional, low cost/quality food establishments.
As for why a Big Mac costs that much, labor definitely doesn’t have much to do with it. My impression is that prices continued to get pushed up as long as sales didn’t take a hit - which means it’s mostly pure profit.
Not a great car wash but probably $5-10 on the low end.
One should be uncomfortable the Arab States are doing so well. They have no democracy but seem to be thriving. Not expected post 9/11 imo.
That said, I don't think those states are doing *well enough* to justify such a fear. What we're looking at from the outside are basically the promo reels from a version of Disney Land made for people whose childhood dream wasn't to be a princess or a knight, but a CEO with a Lambo; what the kids see when they visit Disney has little in common with the effort needed to present the park.
They're just arbitraging cheap labour in your face instead of some farm field or factory overseas. For resource to local population ratio, it's supremely optimized - cheap migrant workforce does all the shit job locals don't want to do, don't have the numbers to do, without need for onerous social safety net of citizenship.
It's economically "fine", as in as "fine" as can be trying to pivot desert city from oil. It's morally broken because labours occasionally be slaves, even though largely everyone wins. UAE gets cheap labour, labour countries get remittance, labourers get life changing pay.
Like west already does this shit in some sectors (agri) and get cheap calories, UAE can't supply enough labour in all sectors and get cheap everything.
Dubai isn’t sold as a place to belong long-term. Most people move there knowing it’s temporary. The Bay Area is drifting in the same direction too with the increased cost of living around here. (but the same could be said about most big cities, maybe?)
This is terrible for normal people, and slightly bad for the investors, but only a crisis or organized government action can reset the damage done by decades of investment in already existing buildings.
The former is much more likely to happen.
From my experience the ratio of savings was similar, but the ppp of course favored US for absolute numbers.
> The Bay Area has all sorts of autistic tendencies. Though Silicon Valley values the ability to move fast, the rest of society has paid more attention to instances in which tech wants to break things.
> There’s a general lack of cultural awareness in the Bay Area. It’s easy to hear at these parties that a person’s favorite nonfiction book is Seeing Like a State while their aspirationally favorite novel is Middlemarch.
It's refreshing to read someone addressing this aspect of the Mecca of the tech word.
For the reasons above the tech elites are the ones I trust the less and fear the most when they are involved in national and international politics. And I think the current state of the US is directly caused by the rise of post dot com Silicon Valley.
153 more comments available on Hacker News