Top all-time · #946
Dan Wang
Personal blog · danwang.coeconomicspolitics
Dan Wang's personal blog at danwang.co covers economics and politics. Since 2014, 69 different Hacker News readers have linked it 87 times, most often “How Technology Grows”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-01-01, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (21) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Dan Wang's blog on China, manufacturing, semiconductors and technological progress. HN readers cite his letters and essays, such as How Technology Grows and his piece on why few people major in CS.
- Recommended for · 6 comments
- In-depth on China and manufacturing; said to have predicted the 2020 tech crackdown; book Breakneck recommended.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 21 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
A materials culture and the secure transport of light: Essays here tend to be about globalization and technology.
Most-linked posts?
- How Technology Grows16 people · 17 mentions · first linked 2018-07-24
- Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future9 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2025-07-25
- Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)8 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2018-02-11
- Dan Wang: 2020 Letter8 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2021-01-01
- College as an incubator of Girardian terror5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2017-09-25
- Definite optimism as human capital4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2017-09-04
- China notes, July ’23: on technological momentum4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-07-18
- 2025 Letter3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2019-02-08
- Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation?3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2014-09-10
- China’s Weakness in Foundational Technologies3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-01-01
What Hacker News says?
I second scarmig's recommendation of Bill Bishop's blog, it's a great resource and he publishes free pieces regularly so you don't need to subscribe. Another great free resources is the sinica podcast. I also recommend following Dan Wang's blog, he works at Gavekal Dragonomics and generally writes in-depth about manufacturing and the semiconductor industry in China, but also China more broadly. His recent post at th…
Comment linking /2020-letter/
on “China CCP to Nationalize Jack Ma's Alibaba and Ant Group – Report”Submitted Why do so few people major in computer science? as a story · 424 points
HN discussionA part of Dan Wang's 2020 letter discusses this https://danwang.co/2020-letter/ This "industrial literacy" is dominated by Asia today.
Comment linking /2020-letter/
on “How Tech Loses Out”Submitted 2021 Letter as a story · 388 points
HN discussionThis isn't true, see the 'about' page. https://danwang.co/about/
Comment linking /about/
on “2021 Letter”Submitted 2023 Letter as a story · 262 points
HN discussion> It's because film is a visual medium, It happened with books too: See "Liar’s Poker", by Michael Lewis. He says that he wrote it "so that fewer idealistic college kids would dream of working on Wall Street. ... Somehow that message failed to come across ... They'd read my book as a how-to manual." http://www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk/~pel/misc/The-End-of-Wall-Street... https://danwang.co/liars-poker-by-michael-lewis/ Micha…
Comment linking /liars-poker-by-michael-lewis/
on “Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram”Submitted Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation? as a story · 141 points
HN discussionthe disparity between progress in the 'world of bits' compared to progress in the 'world of atoms' really has become quite stark. I would agree with you that there even seems to have been a regression in some domains. We've lost an engineering culture that connects to the physical world and real materials we deal with every day. Another good example is probably the kitchen. A kitchen mid 20th century looked very dif…
Comment linking /how-technology-grows/
on “In Pursuit of Production Minimalism”Submitted Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017) as a story · 130 points
HN discussionThat is a great video! It also reminds me of Dan Wang's essay on How Technology Grows: https://danwang.co/how-technology-grows/ . It introduced me to the Ise Grand Shrine, which is a wooden temple that's rebuilt and torn down periodically so that the knowledge of how to maintain it doesn't get lost.
Comment linking /how-technology-grows/
on “COBOL programmers answer call”Submitted What are hedge funds, and what social functions do they serve? as a story · 117 points
HN discussiondan wang. he wrote why so few people major in CS. interesting dude. https://danwang.co/ bill gurley, investor http://abovethecrowd.com/
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What are some great personal blogs/portfolios?”Submitted College as an incubator of Girardian terror as a story · 95 points
HN discussionDan Wang explores this idea in 'How Technology Grows' [0]. To summarize, he asserts that the main downside of offshoring is the loss of process knowledge (the tacit knowledge that is learned by doing and transmitted through culture). [0] https://danwang.co/how-technology-grows/
Comment linking /how-technology-grows/
on “Washington pressures TSMC to make chips in US”Submitted Definite Optimism as Human Capital as a story · 47 points
HN discussionI think it's great that there's a renewed discussion about the nature of productivity and growth and that people are starting to become aware that economic profit or consumer demand are not the same as progress on long term fundamental science and manufacturing. For way too long now we have all operated on the mainstream economic view that productivity growth is somehow like manna from the heavens and that we only n…
Comment linking /how-technology-grows/
on “You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook”Submitted Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation? (2014) as a story · 47 points
HN discussionQuite small, but does it matter? Yes it matters because there are 55,000 people graduating in computer science every year ( https://danwang.co/why-so-few-computer-science-majors/ ). How many of those do you think will be doing research versus getting a non research job? It's not as if for profit businesses do not have research departments, consider Microsoft Research for example. And they employ a grand total of aro…
Comment linking /why-so-few-computer-science-majors/
on “Going to university does not broaden the mind”Submitted Technological predictions: 1903 – 1970 as a story · 20 points
HN discussionNope, you are spot on. The broad argument is "Engineers are in power in China, lawyers in America." I see the US as no different as when Boeing and McDonnell Douglas merged; everything about making and building takes a back seat to line go up. Well, you can't eat, live in, build with, or go to war with line go up. The stock market is not the economy, nor your industrial and manufacturing base. But it keeps going up,…
Comment linking /breakneck/
on “Canada slashes 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs to 6%”Submitted Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future as a story · 18 points
HN discussionNot everything is a propaganda there is some truth to it, given Hong Kong is the only ground left for US to try to destabilise China to slow its growth. This is also the reason China took hardline on Hong Kong as they see it as strategic weak spot. Moreover actions of China in Hong Kong are supported by majority of people in China. This tyranny of majority exists in democracy too, what happened in Kashmir is 100 tim…
Comment linking /2020-letter/
on “Arrests of Hong Kong democrats shows why EU must reject China investment”Submitted Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017) as a story · 17 points
HN discussionI’m reminded of Dan Wang’s commentary on US-China relations: > Competition will be dynamic because people have agency. The country that is ahead at any given moment will commit mistakes driven by overconfidence, while the country that is behind will feel the crack of the whip to reform. … That drive will mean that competition will go on for years and decades. https://danwang.co/ (2025 Annual letter) The future is no…
Comment linking /
on “GPT-5.2 derives a new result in theoretical physics”Submitted Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future as a story · 14 points
HN discussionIt just occurs to me that I answered the wrong question: the comments that prompted mine were about where OP author Dan Wang went to college — NOT Girard. My bad. FWIW, Wang went to the University of Rochester in the U.S. Source: https://danwang.co/about/
Comment linking /about/
on “College as an incubator of Girardian terror”Submitted Two months of Soylent as a story · 14 points
HN discussionBy reading coverage in Nikkei and analysts that are on the ground in China. Notably Dan Wang, who totally called it 8 months ago: https://danwang.co/2020-letter/ > While promoting the status of science and technology with one hand, the Chinese government has with its other hand reined in the activities of consumer internet companies. I’ve never stopped lamenting the marketing trick that California pulled off to situ…
Comment linking /2020-letter/
on “The logic driving China’s big tech clampdown”Submitted Why do so few people major in computer science? as a story · 12 points
HN discussion
