Reflections on a Late Night in Xuzhou, May 2024
First Paragraph: From our perspective, we don’t have a strong advantage in businesses involving licenses or channels, but we do possess a technological edge—that’s the first point. Comparing web3 to traditional finance, it’s less mature but incorporates some more advanced concepts and mechanisms. While it may not achieve full decentralization, it can likely make financial processes more transparent. Then there’s timing. We are currently in a trough of the economic cycle. When the next wave of economic prosperity arrives, new technologies and concepts with structural advantages will replace or partially supplant the old ones. The current prevalence of “shitcoins” indicates it’s entirely in its infancy. Overall, compared to traditional finance, it holds bright prospects and abundant opportunities, and our technological strengths can be fully leveraged. Additionally, it offers a novel form of labor organization (compared to traditional companies) or at least provides new tools for traditional corporate structures, making the digital nomad lifestyle possible. This also aligns more closely with our ideal way of living.
Second Paragraph: Over the past two years, we’ve tried various ways to make money, and I have some subjective feelings about them. I think I can just chat casually about this, typing on my phone as thoughts come to me. Some of these ventures felt comfortable, others less so. Some money felt right for us to earn, some didn’t.
- Copy-trading business: Modeling people has always made me somewhat uncomfortable. It’s not just because we haven’t succeeded at it now; I felt this way even when we were making money initially. Engaging in speculative strategies, perhaps the markets we operate in are too mature, giving a sense of fishing in a vast ocean where a slight misstep can capsize the boat, leading to being swallowed as fish food. Or it’s like gold prospecting: you dig for a long time and only hit dirt; you might strike a low-grade ore deposit and still face a “mine collapse.” There’s also the chance the next swing of the pickaxe could hit a rich vein, but the feeling during the digging process is undeniably too lonely.
- Raising funds to build a product and sell SaaS: This is genuinely difficult. We’ve hit walls for over half a year. However, I still believe that Yuan, envisioned as everyone’s investment operating system, is a great and worthwhile endeavor. This likely requires a strategic approach—starting from one part and gradually expanding to others. Although we hit a wall starting with a to-B quant platform, combining it with web3’s strong speculative atmosphere to try some to-C attempts seems perfectly viable to me. This is something I feel can be pursued as a mission. I have a definition for “mission,” which I can discuss later. In short, it’s of a very high order.
- Arbitrage: We’ve reached a consensus that this is the money we should have been making all along. My expectation for this is to establish a stable cash flow to support our other ventures.
- Attempts like “shitcoin” sniping or participating in “primary markets” driven by KOL pump-and-dumps: Firstly, I feel this tests human nature too much. Every time you follow a big influencer’s call and engage in PvP, it’s draining. I tried it a few times, with wins and losses, ending up slightly down overall. I have no doubt there are tricks and even methodologies to be summarized here. But I think if it can’t be automated, investing energy into this is highly inefficient and not worthwhile. It falls into the category of money-making methods that don’t make me feel comfortable.
- Finally, running a fund: Regarding funds, I have a feeling it shouldn’t be rushed. There needs to be a powerful profit engine behind it to support its operation. If this engine runs well, everyone is happy; if not, everyone loses. Looking at our history, introducing the fund mechanism was arguably premature. It consumed some of our credibility among friends (because we set expectations of quick, substantial profits for investors but didn’t deliver). This itself consumed a lot of our energy, making us clumsier than we could have been. In hindsight, perhaps we shouldn’t have been so hasty.
Ultimately, it really comes down to the issue of energy allocation. Where do we allocate our energy on specific problems? Choosing a direction. This is the most important meta-question.
Third Paragraph: Regarding mission, I think I can use an example to illustrate my feeling about it. In his fourth year of university, Che Guevara didn’t want to continue studying. He and an older friend hit the road, planning to ride a small, beat-up motorcycle north from Argentina. The motorcycle broke down along the way. They said they wanted to see North America. Traveling along the route, they passed through Chile and witnessed the harsh living conditions of copper miners there. They met a communist couple. At that time, the Communist Party was declared illegal in Chile. That couple was displaced, drifting from place to place, shivering at night without even a blanket.
Although the figures of this couple grew increasingly faint, almost disappearing from view, the exceptionally resolute face of the husband remained indelibly etched in our minds. I remember him inviting us straightforwardly: “Come, comrades! Let’s eat together! I’m also a wanderer with no fixed abode.” His few words subtly conveyed a disdain for our aimless, dependent wandering.
Guevara wrote this in his diary.
Guevara was deeply shaken by this man. They themselves were aimless, but this couple, despite their hardships and lack of legal status, remained so steadfast.
They were medical students. Later, they went to a leper colony to care for the patients. When they left, they made a toast. The 24-year-old Guevara realized that people are essentially no different, especially on the South American continent. Although divided into many countries, they share cultural roots and speak the same language.
This ultimately led him to choose his mission—a communist mission. He eventually went to Cuba and, with Fidel Castro, achieved the Cuban Revolution.
So, roughly speaking, this sense of mission is: there is something this person is destined to do. Regardless of whether it seems useful or what purpose it serves, for this person, it is the most meaningful thing. They feel this thing must be accomplished, and they believe it will be accomplished at some point within the next hundred or thousand years. They don’t care if they themselves ultimately complete it; they must contribute their part. Starting from such a future, it guides every fleeting moment of their present life. In the end, they dedicate their precious time to this mission.
It’s also possible that a person never finds a mission. Such a life isn’t necessarily bad, but I believe a life that has found a mission is inevitably a good one.