This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Lulu Chen, who has reported on tech in China for over a decade and is the author of the book Influence Empire: The Inside Story of Tencent and China's Tech Ambition. It's a fascinating look at not only Tencent but at the overall internet sector in China, focusing on the travails and the triumphs of some of the most consequential Chinese internet entrepreneurs. 5:31 – Motivation for and background of Influence Empire 10:15 – Ma Huateng and Martin Lau at Tencent 19:56 – How the Chinese internet sector went from copying to innovating 30:59 – Cutthroat company cultures 33:20 – What made Allen Zhang successful? 37:25 – The Tencent-Meituan food delivery coup 45:21 – Tencent’s position in the online game industry 51:58 – Understanding China’s 2020-2022 tech crackdown A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com. Recommendations: Lulu: The Gay Talese Reader: Portraits and Encounters by Gay Talese Kaiser: Cunk on Earth on Netflix See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.