2 HN users recommended this documentary2 months2019–2022score 2.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN recommends it for a view of Shenzhen's hardware ecosystem and as a documentary pick on China's tech scene.
Bloomberg's Hello World episode in which Ashlee Vance visits Shenzhen, a hub of electronics manufacturing and cloning. He meets tech-fueled entrepreneurs working under an authoritarian regime.
“ran across this video and it absolutely blew me away.” (HN, 2021)
I had heard about Shenzhen for some years and then ran across this video and it absolutely blew me away. [this video] Any other interesting companies / products from there you'd care to share? My dji mini 2 is one of my favorite gadgets I've ever bought.
Here is a list of 20 documentaries I have come to love and return to when I come across them. There is no specific order to them. Enjoy! The * next to the number indicates the last 4 years. If you have seen one listed that you'd like to share what you think about please leave a comment with this structure [# in the list ] Comment... . i.e. [1] Loved learning about Noyce. What a guy. 1. Silicon Valley: Where the Future | PBS: American Experience [1:23:19] [2013] History of the how Silicon Valley came to be. William Shockley. Robert Noyce. Fairchild Semiconductor, The Traitorous Eight. Homepage: [link] Kanopy: [link] Where to Watch: [link] 2. Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Hardware | Wired UK: Future Cities [1:07:50] [2016] the evolution of “Shanzhai” – or copycat manufacturing – has transformed traditional models of business, distribution and innovation, and asks what the rest of the world can learn from this so-called “Silicon Valley of hardware". Youtube: [link] *2.1. The People's Republic of The Future | Bloomberg: Hello World [30:10] [2019] Shenzhen, tech-fueled entrepreneurs try to navigate an authoritarian regime. Youtube: [this video] 3. The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard | TPB AFK [1:22:07] [2013] The history of the Pirate Bay. Torrenting. Legal. Privacy. Homepage: [link] Youtube: [link] Where to Watch: [link] 4. Can’t Get You Out of My Head | BBC [6 Part] [2021] Adam Curtis takes you on "An Emotional history of how we got to this place." Economics. History. Power. Psycholo
Entrepreneurs navigating an authoritarian regime in Shenzhen
Interesting, slightly credible claim they got caught jaywalking through facial recognition and had their account automatically deducted with a fine. They are unsure how - [this video]
Report of jaywalking fines via facial recognition in China
> You'll never get away with an illegal U-turn ever again because the city will pull footage from peoples' internet-of-crap dashcams and the machine learning algorithms will comb the feeds and send fines directly to your mailbox with basically no human intervention. This is not a "in a few years" thing in some places: [this video]
Example of automated traffic enforcement already in use
Not trying to be rude, you need to be motivated enough to seek the answers yourself if its your truly important. If you want it badly you will find your answers. Here's a google sponsored inititive to help custom chip designers. [link] [link] Places like Shenzhen have a very good environment for this as well. [this video]
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.
Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed
5 Hacker News comments
From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.
Read more
Citations, criticism and jokes