Zhang

In China, there is a old saying that “英雄所见略同”

In Russia, there is a saying, that “Все счастливые семьи похожи друг на друга, каждая несчастливая семья несчастлива по-своему” by Лев Никола́евич Толсто́й

Today, I will say great leaders have something in common.

In 1917, Lenin used Marxism to launch the October Revolution, and further created the Soviet Union in 1922; whereas in 1919, May Fourth Movement introduced Marxism to China, leading to the birth of Communist Party of China in 1921, and Mao further used Marxism to create the New China, the People’s Republic of China.

In 1991, President George H.W. Bush coined the concept of “Harmony” in his speech to Congress on “new world order”, where he said “the nations of the world, East and West, North and South, can prosper and live in harmony;” whereas during the 2005 National People’s Congress, President HU Jintao proposed the “Harmonious Society” concept.

As for losers, to be continued. . . .

The US’s economic crisis is partly a result of over-consumption, whereas Chinese economic crisis is partly from under-consumtion. If these two unbalanced rebalanced, the consequence of this global financial crisis will be much less severe.

Unsolicited Advice from L. John Doerr:

Always network – develop personal, lifelong networks.

Sustain a couple of mentors.

Network one person each day for 10 minutes.

Favor positions with external contacts: marketing, sales, developer relations,…

Take risks … “to ask permission is to seek denial”

Integrity is a binary state…

Life’s long: it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

In all, VC is a service industry, and the better to understand the business, the better the chance to succeed. 

[]Passion

[]Strategic

[]The big idea

[]long run

[]customers focus

[]Meritocracy

[]Mission, values

[]Mentors

[]Contribution

[]A whole life (that works)

[]Just to make meaning (including money)

[]Success AND significance

I had a great meeting with L. John Doerr on Friday, and I learned that the success is not that difficult from him, or perhaps any of us. By the way, he is a very successful venture capitalist, backing Google.

In the next few days, I will post several lessons and advices from him in terms of his definition of success. Here is the checklist number one: Execution.

“Everyone has a good idea, but the execution is the most difficult one.” If we have an idea,  just go for it. Don’t wait for the approval, which is another way of saying “no.”

N.R. Narayana Murthy (ಎನ್. ಆರ್. ನಾರಾಯಣಮೂರ್ತಿ) founded the Infosys about 20 ago with borrowed $250 from his wife. Now as long as you type the Infosys, you can find out what’s the market cap for this company. How can he turn a small company into a giant?

There are several reasons, but from a conversation with him, I learned that the role model is one of several important factors contributing his success. He admired two people in the world: one is Mohammad Ghandi, and the other is Lee Kuan Yew ( 李光耀). The common characteristics are the liberalization and economic reform carried by them to lead the two countries to the next level. They were the inspiring people to encourage Narayana to go as far as today.

From the conversation, he also mentioned that success is like going through the business cycle. The failure could strengthen your characters, making you stronger and leaner.

Also, social responsibility is also a concern to today’s world. He also mentioned that “goodwill to society is important. . . It also generate value to shareholders.”

These are some important issues interested me and I took some note on those.

Now it comes down to what I have learned form him, CEO, Chairman, engineer, etc.. A successful person can not be made in a day; the greatness stems from the hardwork, patience and resilient to failures.

To be continued…

I have just read an interesting article “2007 Harvard MBA Indicator Reiterates Long-Term ‘Sell’ Signal”, by Ray Soifer’95, HBS. at www dot soiferconsulting dot com

In the article, he corelate the Wall Street’s performance with the career choice by the HBS graduates. It is fun to read at least regardless of the accuracy of the prediction. He mentioned that

“If 10% or less of the year’s class take market-sensitive jobs (which I identify, using the Business
School’s current reporting categories, as investment banking, investment management,
hedge funds, sales & trading, venture capital, private equity or leveraged buy-outs), that’s
a long-term ‘Buy’ signal. If 30% or more do so, that’s a long-term ‘Sell’ signal.”

He also provided some data to prove his idea, such as “Historically, the Harvard MBA indicator has been more prolific as a source of ‘Sell’ Signals than ‘Buy’ signals. The last time it reached the 10% ‘Buy’ level was in the early 1980s, when the Dow traded below 1,000.”

Whether his theory true or not, we have to wait and see what will happen in the near future.

If there is a big buz word since the year 2007 , you have to dig a hole to find it out.

China is generate such an interest across disciplines. From academia to politicians, from Taiwan crisis to military spending, from Olympic to Human Rights, even the severe weather was published in the front page of some big-name newspapers. Here you will find something more fascinating. When you put “China” in a Google Search engine, it turned out more than one billion hit. ( “Results 1 – 10 of about 1,190,000,000 for china [definition]. (0.04 seconds) ” http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=china&btnG=Search, 2-8-08) While you put “Sex” in a Google Search engine, it turned out less than a billion. ( “Results 1 – 10 of about 943,000,000 for sex [definition]. (0.05 seconds”, http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=sex&btnG=Google+Search, 2-8-08)

What does this phenomena mean to the rest of the world? or simply mean for the Google robot? From this statistical analysis, we are focusing more on China than Sex. China is generating such a big buzz on its emerging power , especially its economic power. China’s GDP has time-and-time again shown the rest of the world its global impact which perhaps is leading this surge interest in China by the multidisciplinary. Wall Street is chasing the money in China, White House is debriefing the potential conflict with China, NGOs are doing more ground work in China, Human Rights Group are more critical of China, and higher educations are accepting more students from China . . . . It can go on and on and on. Now the issue is if the Chinese growth model is sustainable. Through the history, there is some balance between economic growth and the associated protection needed to be implemented, such as enforcement of law and protection of citizen’s rights. From grade school, we have learned that the triangular is the most stable, basic structure. For a stability of a nation, like China, it also need this magic triangle to protect from deterioration and destruction. Economic growth or economic policy is only one factor of this stable triangular. It also needs the enforcement of the law and the protection of citizen’s rights.

The Enforcement of law need means the nation needs to utilize the resources efficiently to enforce the law based upon the law without interference of outsiders. The Protection of citizen’s rights means the nation needs respect and protect the basic human rights, which has been in almost every nation’s constitutional law around the globe. The enforcement of the law and the protection of citizen’s rights are correlated, and with the economic growth it can keep the current stability. Otherwise, everything is going to change in a broad time frame. Look at the cyclic Stock Market, the global temperature, or even heart beat, everything is changing in a way which has to been a systematic way from the past. We can predict accurately, or at all, the future; however, we can at least learn some lessons from the past by analyzing the history. It is a double edged sword, it can cut both ways, but which way is the right way, we have to examine certain factors, such as . . . .

…To Be Continued…