Can the US Beat China’s Engineering State?

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a16z

Science, Innovation, Business, Entrepreneurship, Culture, Disruption, Software Eating The World, Technology

4.4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 6 October 2025

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From high-speed rail to electric cars to batteries to AI, it’s clear that China can operate with incredible speed at massive scale. Can the US still compete? We sat down with Dan Wang, a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of “Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future” to discuss.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I want people to get out of these rigid frameworks like socialist, capitalist, neoliberal, autocratic
0:08.5	to think about the U.S. and China.
0:11.3	I want both Americans as well as Chinese to demand better from their government.
0:16.6	What works really well in China?
0:18.8	And what do we have in the U.S. right now?
0:20.8	There is no winner here. There is no loser here. It's not a race. Nobody gets to hit the win button. We should be having some sort of better synthesis. The U.S. and China aren't just competing on technology. They're competing on how to build. In today's episode, I'm joined by Dan Wang, author of the New York Times bestseller Breakneck.
0:38.9	Dan is a Chinese-Canadian writer and analyst whose annual China letters became must-reads and tech and policy circles.
0:45.9	He's lived and worked in Shanghai, Beijing, and Hong Kong, and now is a research fellow at Stanford's Hoover History Lab.
0:52.4	Also here is Steven Sinovsky, board member at A16Z and
0:56.1	former Microsoft executive. Stevens spent over two decades at Microsoft, leading Microsoft Office
1:01.8	and later the Windows Division, including Windows 7 and Windows 8, and he spent time in China
1:07.3	during his Microsoft years working with engineers and factories on the ground.
1:11.6	Together, we cover the big themes of breakneck.
1:14.0	America as a lawyer-led society, China as an engineer-led state, and what happens when
1:19.2	those worldviews collide?
1:20.7	We get into urban life in Shanghai versus San Francisco, why Cal-Train still doesn't work,
1:26.1	and what industrial policy looks like on both sides,
1:28.9	and why this rivalry will likely last decades, not years. Let's get into it.
1:36.6	Dan, the book is Breakneck. It's a New York Times bestseller in just under two weeks. Congratulations.
1:41.1	Thank you. What is the conversation that you hope to create with the book? Would you want people to take from it? I think that I want people to get out of these rigid
1:50.3	frameworks like socialist, capitalist, neoliberal autocratic to think about the U.S. and China.
1:57.9	I want both Americans as well as Chinese to demand better from their government.
	...

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