The douchey founder who whined about seeing SF’s homeless has a dumb opinion on China’s internet, too

If you haven’t heard of Justin Keller, you might just want to turn around right now. Your life is better than mine. But the unfortunately-already-informed will know Keller as a US-based startup founder living in San Francisco. He recently penned an open letter to San Francisco police so entitled and obnoxious that it made national news. His full letter is here, but I challenge you to read even this small excerpt without throwing up in your mouth a little:

The wealthy working people have earned their right to live in the city. They went out, got an education, work [sic] hard, and earned it. I shouldn’t have to worry about being accosted. I shouldn’t have to see the pain, struggle, and despair of homeless people to and from my way to work every day.

Now, I would love to rail about the ridiculous entitlement of his letter, or even the extremely poor writing (for someone who’s so proud of having gotten an education, Keller doesn’t seem to have paid much attention in English class). But that has nothing to do with tech or Asia, and it’s been done to death anyway. So let’s instead turn to another of Keller’s recent douchey posts.

In the pedantically-titled “China… we need to talk,” he writes:

As of late, all we seem to hear about is China hacking. Forbes. Anthem Healthcare. Microsoft. Why is it that the citizens of China are so naughty and malicious on the internet?

He then notes that his startup has no paying customers from China, but it has been getting attacks from Chinese IP addresses. It’s enough to make him “seriously consider” blocking Chinese requests. “I know it can be dangerous to paint with broad strokes,” he says shortly before wondering: “Why is it that China is such a bad participant on the internet?”

First of all, Keller, although I’m not Chinese, I think it’s safe to say that no one cares if you block China’s access to your shitty startup. I don’t know what service your company provides because your website isn’t even working. So I’m pretty sure whatever it is, China can live without it.

Now, to address the rest of your stupid bullshit: China has well over 600 million internet users. Only a tiny, tiny, tiny minority of them are engaged in hacking. That doesn’t mean that China-originated hacking isn’t a serious problem, but the problem has nothing to do with China’s citizens being especially naughty or malicious. And in fact hacking is a serious problem everywhere. In the same time-frame as the major China-based attacks you mentioned in your article, huge US companies were also hit with successful attacks from hackers all over the world, including numerous attacks coming from US-based hacking groups.

I know your startup hasn’t generated any revenue from China, and to you that seems like a solid justification for blocking the entire country based on a few attacks. But allow me to suggest an alternative interpretation: perhaps the reason your startup hasn’t generated any revenue in China is that you’ve done a shitty job marketing in China.

Just a thought.

On to your broader question: why is it that China is such a bad participant on the internet? That one has a pretty simple answer: China’s government. That’s the source of most of the hacking, and the reason that a lot of the internet is totally walled off from China’s citizenry.