Chinese workers abandon Silicon Valley for riches back home

Wang Yi, chief executive officer and founder of Liulishuo, poses for a photograph at the company's headquarters in Shanghai, China, on Thursday, Jan. 4, 2018. Wang's popular English teaching app Liulishuo, or LingoChamp, raised $100 million in July, putting him in the growing ranks of successful Silicon Valley alumni lured back to China by the promise of a brighter future. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

A few years ago, Wang Yi was living the American dream. He had graduated from Princeton, landed a job at Google and bought a spacious condo in Silicon Valley. 

But one day in 2011, he sat his wife down at the kitchen table and told her he wanted to move back to China. He was bored working as a product manager for the search giant and felt the pull of starting his own company in their homeland. Still, it wasn’t easy persuading her to abandon balmy California for smog-choked Shanghai.