"Become the Vajra first; then be the Bodhisattva."
Reflections on the YUE07 Reunion: Mirrors, Parallel Lives, and the Practice of Worldly Engagement
Over the years participating in Sequoia China YUE Accelerator, I have barely missed a single semi-annual gathering. Three years—from YUE01 to YUE07. It feels long, given how much has happened to all of us; yet, in the grand river of human history and amongst the shining stars of the past, a three-year entrepreneurial journey is a mere blink of an eye.
For me, this high-energy environment has transcended simple learning:
1. Absorbing Frontier Insights: Every session offers high-density input. From macro-trend analysis and the frontiers of AI to peer panels, I gain external perspectives that constantly refresh my cognition.
2. A Rich Array of Founder Archetypes: This is a highly concentrated field of exchange. Guests, investors, and fellow alumni (both new and old) provide a diverse set of "Founder Samples." Founders often lack objectivity about themselves. By observing others—mirroring the excellence of the best and reflecting on the missteps of others—I can see myself more clearly.
3. Preserving the "Spirit": Sequoia gathers the most outstanding group within the Chinese entrepreneurial circle. It forces you to maintain a pursuit of high taste and holds you to an ambition for excellence, leaving no room for slack.
4. Accumulating Experience via "Parallel Lives": As a member of the inaugural cohort, I have witnessed the ups and downs of over a dozen peers over three years. This bystander perspective has allowed me to accumulate more than ten lifetimes’ worth of valuable, vicarious experience.
5. Cognitive Upgrade: "Entering the World": Everyone has blind spots. As one of the younger members of my cohort, my seniors shared profound experiential wisdom, revealing the gray areas and cruelty of the real business world. This shattered my early idealistic filters, grounding me in the mud of reality—a necessary step in true "worldly engagement."
Beware of "Fake Diligence": The Counter-Intuitive Cultivation of a Founder
Only after seeing reality clearly do I understand the true weight of the phrase: "Do your human utmost, then listen to the mandate of heaven."
Making things happen is a complex convergence of karma. Timing, location, and people—internal factors often carry only a small weight. It is like collecting puzzle fragments: success requires gathering every necessary condition; missing even one leads to failure.
Facing results requires both humility and severity: If we succeed, it is heaven’s favor helping me collect the external fragments. If we fail, it is a lack of cultivation—I lost a critical piece. Success is the "survival" of luck; failure is the "inevitability" of capability.
Precisely because the outcome is not fully within our control, a Founder must exert true, exhaustive effort on the few tiny variables they can control to fight for that singular possibility.
Regrettably, many Founders do not truly go all out; they use the pretense of effort to escape the real battlefield. As Wang Xing (founder of Meituan) once said: "Most people are willing to do anything to avoid the pain of true thinking." This should be a constant alarm bell for every Founder.
We must guard against three mechanisms of "escaping thought":
1. Biological Energy Preservation: The brain has evolved an efficient "energy-saving mechanism," preferring intuition and experience over high-energy deep logical reasoning. Deep thinking means building new neural connections, which requires massive energy and embraces uncertainty. Avoiding thought is essentially the brain obeying its primitive laziness.
2. Social "Action Bias": In the current environment, information overload and scattered attention offer cheap, instant gratification. Due to "involution" (intense competition), "busyness" has become a habit and is viewed as a value in itself. We easily fall into Action Bias—using tactical diligence to mask strategic laziness, filling the void and anxiety of "non-thinking" with endless "doing."
3. Psychological Defense (Ego): This is the most insidious trap. Zhang Yiming (founder of Bytedance) repeatedly emphasizes that a founder’s Ego must be small. It is easier said than done. Without Ego, you cannot start a venture; with too much Ego, you cannot finish it.The beginning often requires a massive Ego as fuel to build a "Reality Distortion Field," to withstand doubt, and to believe you see a future others cannot.
But the journey requires extreme truth-seeking. You must shatter that Ego to listen to the market, admit mistakes, and correct course. If the Ego is too big, it becomes earplugs, deafening you to the sound of cannon fire. Burn your Ego when you need to explode; crush your Ego when you need the truth.
Founders—especially those who achieved small successes in school, work, or fundraising—often carry strong self-identity. Deep thinking implies challenging convictions you hold dear, or even admitting ignorance. The deeper fear is this: If I think and act with total commitment and still fail, it proves I am truly "mediocre."
To prevent this "genius" self-image from collapsing, many subconsciously choose "self-handicapping"—wasting time with busywork, video games, or doom-scrolling. This allows them to comfort themselves in failure: "I just didn't try hard enough, it's not that I lack ability." This psychological compensation protects the precarious illusion of the "genius."
Return to First Principles: Establishing Order in the Mist
A Founder lives by credit, carrying the trust of investors, teams, and family—carrying the "Karma" of the crowd. Since you chose this path, personal interests must be placed last.
1. Return to First Principles: Penetrate the Surface
Every founder knows the importance of this concept. But how many become the person others describe as, "He has an uncanny ability to catch the wind; he's nailed it four times in a row"? There are no secrets in startup methodology; it is all common sense. But true understanding is not just knowing common sense—it is the unity of knowledge and action (Zhi Xing He Yi). You must set aside time for deep thinking, learning to "fight with your left hand against your right," and ruthlessly critiquing your own conclusions. If you are certain of an insight, drill down like an oil rig. Do not waste energy on shallow impulses; seek inevitability in deep logic.
2. Face the "Fog of War": The Discipline of Focus
Startups are rarely about glorious slaughter. Mostly, you are wandering in the fog (finding direction), searching for water (fundraising), looking for teammates (hiring), losing teammates, or waiting for the wind. Often, you cannot even find the enemy; you don't even qualify to enter the battlefield. Silence is the norm. Know whether you are spinning in circles or taking root downwards.
Momentum is the team's accelerator. When there is no Momentum, the Founder must waste as little water as possible and lead the team to the next acceleration strip as quickly as possible. This is the job of the Founder alone. It requires rapid decision-making and the courage to face problems directly. Founders are often good at solving problems, but many are bad at discovering them or dislike facing them. Once a founder truly prepares to solve a problem, there is nothing left to worry about.
3. Build True Gumption: Courage, Optimism, Confidence
Do not only show confidence to yourself and your friends—that is "comfort zone confidence." Dare to show confidence to everyone; that is true confidence. Believe in the future you see, the future of your work. Who knows where you will be in 5 or 10 years?
To quote Feng Ji (Producer of Black Myth: Wukong):
"You can't only be confident when you've already won. That isn't confidence; that's just repeating the result. If you lose today, you might lose tomorrow, but so what? The factors influencing the result are too complex, so the outcome is inevitably uncertain. The only thing we can be certain of is the choice of what we are doing—doing concrete things, doing difficult things, doing things we believe in. When doing these, of course, we should be confident... With the mindset of facing difficulties head-on, failure isn't so terrifying; it won't easily knock you down. A life spent calmly engaging with unavoidable difficulties is a life lived on solid ground. Because it is hard, it is fun."
Read this often! You will find new meaning in it at different times.
The Angry Vajra and the Compassionate Bodhisattva
Finally, a bit of "politically incorrect" reality logic: In the laws of nature, there is no correlation between being "Formidable" (Great/Powerful) and being a "Good Person."
You can pursue greatness while still choosing to uphold high moral standards—being honest, trustworthy, and empathetic. But this is your personal choice. It is rarely a direct chip for success; sometimes, it is even a shackle. A person can only attend to so many things at once.
We must admit: A good person without power is ineffective. How many people can you influence? How much justice can you guard in this cruel world? Kindness without strength is often a synonym for weakness. In the brutal ecological niche of commerce, "Greatness" means holding the power of definition and resource allocation.
There is a Buddhist saying: "The Vajra (Guardian Deity) glares in anger to subdue the four demons; the Bodhisattva lowers their gaze in compassion for the six realms."
Please, first equip yourself with the thunderous means and strength of the "Angry Vajra" (Become Great/Powerful). Only when you have earned the ticket do you have the qualification to lower your gaze like the Bodhisattva and truly save sentient beings.
Become the Vajra first; then be the Bodhisattva.
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