Getting off the plane in Shanghai, I always have a sense that a once-in-a-century global shift is occurring and opportunity is everywhere.

Detractors of Moritz's essay claim that long work hours in China is "

," but I don't sense most people in China feel this way. Far from a dystopian workaholic state, I see in China a sense of optimism, feeling of upward mobility, and pace of improvement that is extraordinary. With the horrors of Mao still in recent memory, I (and I think many in China) see it as very inspirational that so many people have the opportunity to now work hard, provide for their families, and take them to Disneyland on the weekend.

It is also worth noting that the majority of managers I've worked with in China have been women. While they might not see their kids left often as they'd like, they are able to give those children a life their parents could have never dreamed of. Tens of millions of moms are also able to provide incredible role models to their children of what a smart, hard-working woman looks like.

From my experience, the U.S. can learn a lot from China about women and work. A significantly higher percentage of Chinese tech companies have C-Suite women leaders than their U.S. counterparts. One senior female executive told me that she agrees with Warren Buffet's assertion that the U.S. economy has been operating for much of its history at "50% capacity" because of attitudes towards women. While there are obviously systemic gender inequities China must work through, I have personally never been in an environment that felt more meritocratic and less devoid of gender politics than when I am working with a Chinese team.

The younger generation in China is optimistic, hard-working, aggressively upwardly mobile, and adopting new tech trends and a furious pace. We should only expect China's pace of innovation to increase as they take over levers of power.