Late one night, while scrolling through X, I came across an article. It gave me a glimpse into another side of Chinese entrepreneurs.
“Paideia” can be understood as an inner core: the complete educational and cultural system a society provides to shape its ideal citizens and personalities.
A few points stayed with me.
First, the article talked about four core forces: the Silicon Valley canon (toolkit), the Red canon (mobilization manual), the gray canon (underlying system), and the literary canon (inner world). Together, they form the intellectual core of China's tech elite. This four-in-one mix is so fresh~
Second, Huawei, one of the most representative companies of Chinese patriotism, turns out to have a completely Westernized management model—revolutionary-style mobilization internally, and McKinsey-style operations externally… I was genuinely shocked. The author introduces a concept called “corporate bilingualism.” The more I think about it, the more I feel… no wonder this is one of China's leading companies. It understands people and the human heart. Alibaba also has its internal “Jin Yong culture”—the employee nicknames, the way meeting rooms and offices are named… I really want to go see the big scene for myself. I’m so curious~
Then, when Mao and the revolution came up, I thought of a podcast episode I recently helped make. The guest talked about an approach to starting and building a business that is closely related to this! But the episode is not out yet, so I cannot say much. I have already organized some observations and thoughts related to it, though, and I’ll try to post them next week!
And Liu Cixin… he shows up so often in podcasts where investors and founders talk! The author says that Jin Yong and Liu Cixin are the Tolkien and Asimov of China’s tech world. That comparison is really interesting~
The author also points out that Chinese founders and investors are very good at learning from the strengths of the West and making them their own. The reverse is not true: the Western tech world knows very little about China’s Red canon, gray canon, and so on. This seems to support another point: when it comes to innovation, Silicon Valley is good at first-principles-style disruptive innovation (starting from underlying rules and creating entirely new paradigms), while Chinese people are better at systematic, integrative innovation (combining technologies, situations, and business models to build ecosystems). The two innovation models are different, so the two sides are bound to absorb information from each other in different ways~