Roelof Botha

And so we had a period where it was really interesting to be able to share knowledge and share ideas and sort of figure out how we can build a globally interconnected set of systems and companies.

And life just got too hard for that, honestly.

And we saw just more division between the two countries.

So we embarked on global separation just over two years ago.

And what used to be Sequoia China is now an independent business called Hongshan.

and they're off to the races.

I think there's a real challenge in China right now.

Some stat I got recently, in 2018, there were 51,000 companies started in China.

In 2023, it was 1,200.

How many?

1,200.

You had a 98% reduction in the number of companies founded in China.

Because if you're an entrepreneur in China, why would you want to start a company when the government regulations are so uncertain?

Which, by the way, is an interesting warning sign for me for us in America as we think about AI policy and AI regulation.

The more uncertainty we create for founders, the more difficult it is for them to actually take that risk, take that leap to start a business.

But Chinese entrepreneurship is still strong.

So you see many Chinese entrepreneurs now operating in Latin America.

They moved to Singapore.

They're in Japan.

They're moving to Europe.