The World Is Cheering China’s AI Win. On the Ground, Nobody Has Time to Celebrate
The same competition that makes Chinese founders and engineers move faster than anyone else is the reason he was popping pills in the middle of a meeting. It is cutting throats, and everyone is exhausted, and nobody can afford to stop.
My CEO friend was one of the first group of entrepreneurs to promote the agentic AI concept for enterprise in China. As a person with a strong international tech background and global market sensitivity, he started to build agentic AI products for individual customers and enterprise clients in late 2024. I tested his first product in early 2025. It was so good that it gave me goosebumps.
However, shortly after, major tech firms such as Tencent and Alibaba started to produce their own enterprise-targeted agentic products. Leveraging their abundant ecosystem and financial capability, they quickly swept the whole enterprise market.
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The international press piled on too. Evan Osnos devoted a long New Yorker piece, “The Future, Made in China,” to how the country now produces 70% of the world’s drones, EVs, lithium batteries, and solar cells, and deploys more industrial robots than the rest of the world combined.
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2025-2026 Madison 4k-3rd grade Early Literacy Screener report: The bar moves faster than the kids.
Joe Gothard, Becky Kundert and Sonia Spencer Remarks on Madison’s K-12 Literacy Crisis.
2026-2027 Madison K-12 $pending continues to grow, fueled by a 9.7% (!) property tax increase. Total spending will be at least $706,000,000 for 25,003 students, or $28,236 per student.
May 2026 Madison School District Presentation: 7,095 adults for 25,003 students (3.52 students per adult!)
2024-2025 Early Literacy Screener Map.
Map: Foundations of Reading Results: 2015–2024
Where have all the students gone?
3,887 Madison 4 year old to third grade students scored lower than 75% of the students in the national comparison group.
Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average k-12 tax & $pending. This despite our long term, disastrous reading results. May, 2026: 7,095 Staff for 25,003 students; $pending > $26k per student!
Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability
The taxpayer funded Madison School District long used Reading Recovery…
The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.
When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?
