Mr. Systrom, now 29, offered this as a parable for the roomful of would-be entrepreneurs who came to hear him talk at Stanford last spring: in the intensely competitive start-up scene here, success is as much about who you know as what you know. “Make sure to spend some time after the talk getting to know the people around you,” he told his audience.
He is right in both China and US. But in the valley, although people provide connections, most people provide knowledge and advice, just as Adam D’Anglo did for Instagram, but in China, people generally expect resources.