Bombardier

"With Risley, everything is “absolutely over the top.” “On his boats, it’s the same way. There’s a crew of ten or twenty and there’s a Russian oligarch next door,” Smith said. “The guys I’ve talked to with more significant wealth than John would never build boats like he builds boats. That’s just way beyond their comprehension... spending that kind of money. They don’t understand this at all. But it’s pure John.” Similarly, Smith argued there’s “no rationale” for Risley to have a Bombardier Global—his largest jet. But “that’s not the point”—it’s the way Risley is with everything he does. “In sailing, he was a trustee of the America’s Cup. He was at the very pinnacle of sailing when that was his consuming interest. When he got into cattle, he had to go down to the island where Rockefeller is and get Rockefeller cattle. Whatever catches his imagination, he goes at it to be the best in it.” Smith gave a jolly laugh as he relayed a line from one of their mutual friends: “The great thing about hanging around John is you learn how to spend money.”"

"“When you have a hiccup, that’s when a personal relationship makes a big difference.” He also argued the value of Risley’s two Bombardier jets: a Challenger 350 and a larger Global, which are flown by a roster of five full-time pilots. “[ It’s wrong to say] that these airplanes are somehow frivolous,” Spavold said. “Those planes are essential.... I can’t have John Risley spending four or five hours [waiting] in an airport. He’s got to get off to the meetings and back again. These planes allow that to happen.”"

"But the arrangements could also be dangerous. Numerous companies avoided entering China in the 1990s due to the risks and uncertainties of IP protection. Once China entered the WTO in 2001, however, explicitly conditioning market access on tech transfer was illegal in most sectors. As President Clinton had put it: “We don’t have to transfer technology or do joint manufacturing in China anymore.” But the practice didn’t really end; instead, the pressure turned informal. The Chinese market was so large that foreign companies would sometimes “voluntarily” enter such agreements. A textbook example occurred in the early 2000s when China planned the largest high-speed rail network in the world. The potential orders to foreign companies were enormous, creating a Prisoner’s Dilemma among Siemens, Bombardier, and Kawasaki. In the end, all three agreed to transfer technology to state-backed companies in exchange for market access. By 2010, policy had shifted to favor local industry; the foreign companies struggled to compete in China, and the local companies began exporting their technology abroad. As one Japanese executive involved put it: “[The Japanese and Europeans] were afraid this situation would happen in the future, but they thought it would take more time. The Chinese catch-up speed was so fast; they could not have imagined they would be competing [with the Chinese] for contracts in the US.”"