I know dozen of people in Espressif, including the boss.
A lot of Western employees left the company, or relocated because it's harder, and harder for a Westerner to live there with each passing year, 100% true.
Most of them delivered their value as being an interface with the extensive developer community who jumped on "better than nothing developer support" from a chip company.
Now, however, their Chinese clients outnumber, and outsize Western customers.
Espressif employee, and I'm not sure what your point is... the absolute amount of Western people working for us in Shanghai has only gone up on average, and globally it has skyrocketed (relatively speaking) since we opened thriving offices in Brno (Czech republic) and Puna (India).
It appears, at least in EU and US markets Tuya, and others, have 'abandoned' Espressif ( mostly replacing it with Realtek ICs) for their IoT solutions. It's nice to hear that Espressif is sound and well.
A lot of Western employees left the company, or relocated because it's harder, and harder for a Westerner to live there with each passing year, 100% true.
Most of them delivered their value as being an interface with the extensive developer community who jumped on "better than nothing developer support" from a chip company.
Now, however, their Chinese clients outnumber, and outsize Western customers.