Yu Peking University's Inspirational Speech: Innovation and Entrepreneurship with the Spirit of Freedom

The most terrible thing about a person is that he has a life without a mission. The most terrible thing about a country is that it seems to have a mission, but it is not easy for people living in it to save their lives. The following is an inspirational speech I carefully recommended for you at Peking University: "Innovating and Starting a Business with the Spirit of Freedom". I hope it will help you.

Yu Peking University's Inspirational Speech: Innovation and Entrepreneurship with the Spirit of Freedom

? Speech at the 4th Peking University Entrepreneur Forum.

Dear friends, brothers and sisters, good afternoon! Everyone may be almost hungry, and finally it's my turn to make a speech, so I'm very sorry for delaying everyone's dinner! Just now, Brother Yan Yan talked about the difference between entrepreneurs and investors with a very strict investor attitude and a rational attitude. In fact, for me, I prefer the irrational temperament of Peking University people. The idealism of Peking University people, even utopianism, is the guarantee of the endless spirit and thought of Peking University 100 for more than a year. So I hope there are more entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs among Peking University alumni. Of course, investors like Yan Yan are also good. We can use investors to support our entrepreneurial spirit and the success of our enterprise. For Peking University, I am most worried that its idealism will one day become realism, egoism and even vulgarism, and Peking University is now developing towards this tendency. For Peking University, what we need most, as Sister Lu Xinyu, director of the People's Daily Commentary Department, said in her speech in the Chinese Department, is persistence, not adaptation. If you must adapt, you can adapt to one thing. Peking University cannot be too far away from reality. Peking University must set foot on the solid land of China, follow the development of China, develop synchronously, and even lead the development of China in a certain sense. Our adaptation is to better adhere to the independent spirit and free thought of Peking University, to better adhere to Cai Yuanpei's free thought and inclusive school-running policy, and to better adhere to the courage and stand of independent thinking.

? After liberation, the motto of our Peking University was changed to patriotism, progress, democracy and science, which I think is not bad. But patriotism, what should we love? Do you love some policies that are constantly changing, or do you love some officials who talk about themselves without foundation, or do you really love this land, love its people and do something for this land and its people? I think this is the dividing line between true patriotism and vulgar patriotism. At the same time, I also deeply believe that the realm pursued by Peking University should be the long-term realm of a nation, the enlightenment of thought and the opening of wisdom, so that people can know what patriotism, progress, freedom and democracy mean to their lives and happiness. Democracy and science are the core ideas of Peking University. In fact, the May 4th Movement was mainly for Mr. De and Mr. Sai. Until now, we still call for democracy and science, which I believe is also the core spirit of Peking University. When we were young at Peking University, we raised our arms and shouted again and again, and gathered in a triangle again and again. I believe that our enthusiasm at that time was not for being an official in the future, although some people have already become officials. Brother nubo became an official first, and then resigned. There are not many people like him now. Of course, being an official, if you can be a good official, it is also a good thing, and you can serve the people to the greatest extent.

The reason why I can stand in the lecture hall of Yingjie Center of Peking University and talk about entrepreneurial innovation is also because China's democracy and science have indeed made some progress. This kind of progress is the result of reform and opening up, and it is also the result of people's desire. I appreciate Huang Nubo's persistence, because Nubo Ge didn't become a vulgar businessman after doing business. He has always adhered to his idealism, and even if he made money in business, he insisted on writing poems. No one bought his poems after they were finished (just kidding), but he still printed them and gave them to us with only one purpose, to spread the kind of ignition in his heart to others. I think it is this infatuation. Of course, this also includes Yan Yan's investment and his support for the development of Peking University. They have the same idea. Members of Peking University Enterprise Club have a lot of arguments, especially when facing specific issues, everyone can express different opinions freely, but in essence, because we share common values and bottom line, we maintain a very United team. This team created many miracles and set up the first alumni fund, which made money at the fastest speed and donated it to Peking University. This time, Peking University Venture Fund was established, and everyone enthusiastically joined. In a few days, 1 100 million RMB was raised to provide services for the younger brothers and sisters with entrepreneurial enthusiasm in Peking University.

There is a huge gap between superficial unity and actual struggle, and between superficial struggle and actual unity. As we all know, some people say that people have three lives: one is life, the other is life, and the third is mission. I think it should be the characteristic and bottom line of Peking University people to live these three lives together. We don't just live for our own lives. We don't risk our lives in troubled times. Now it's not troubled times. If there really are people who are desperate for money, fame and profit, if there are such people in Peking University, then we can say that this is not a Peking University person, or that this is a shame of Peking University. If we can live for our own life at a higher level, it means that we live with dignity, because life is dignified and respected by ourselves and others. I believe Peking University people are very willing to be a dignified person, that is, a person with his own life. More importantly, as long as you enter the North Gate, you must have your own mission. That is to say, while developing yourself, you must not only ensure your own dignity, but also strive to ensure the dignity of this country and nation, hoping to really make some contributions to the country. I think the most terrible thing about a person is that he has a life without a mission. The most terrible thing about a country is that it seems to have a mission, but it is not easy for people living in it to save their lives.

Therefore, although I think Peking University should adapt to the tide of the times, the development of the motherland, the great changes in high technology and lead high technology, I think Peking University people really have to stick to something. These things were said a hundred years ago. Chen Yinque's independent spirit and free thought, Cai Yuanpei's free and inclusive thought, I think these things will never go out of date, especially in China. Just now, Secretary Zhu said a lot of grandiose things about building a first-class university. We are very excited. But there is a joke circulating outside, and two institutions that are not even universities are still desperately arguing about who is a first-class university. Of course, these two institutions refer to Peking University and Tsinghua. Although this sentence is very mean and we love Peking University Tsinghua very much, I think half of it is true.

The symbol of a first-class university must first have a supreme tradition of respecting teaching and academic freedom. I don't think Peking University has it now. Peking University is an administrative leader, not a professor. Only when professors are fully respected can academic and ideological science take the lead, and a university with leading academic and ideological science is a real university. If Peking University can really realize the tradition of professor running the school as soon as possible, it will be on the track of a first-class university.

Secondly, I don't think Peking University really respects students' choices, because what students need most is to be able to choose teachers who can not only improve themselves professionally, but also bring them lifelong value. These life values include correct attitude towards life, great philosophical thoughts, profound understanding of society, insurmountable moral bottom line of life and great backbone. I think there are very few professors like Peking University now, which is not the result of students' choice, but the result of the university imposing professors on students. I especially hope to return these two traditions, the tradition of respecting professors and students, to Peking University. If they are dissatisfied with the professor, students should be entitled to expel the professor from the classroom. I think this is what a real university should have.

Third, we must uphold the leadership of the party, but I think ideology should not be the forerunner of academic freedom. As we all know, China once had a very unified ideological period, but the final result was a blank in China's ideological and academic circles. A place with a blank mind can't produce great people or great ideas, and of course it can't produce a great era. Therefore, Peking University has advocated academic freedom, ideological freedom and personality freedom since its establishment. I especially hope that the leaders of Peking University can do better in this respect. Although I know that such progress may need to conform to the characteristics of the times and need to be gradual, Peking University cannot do without such awareness. Students in Peking University can't enjoy being an official. The headmaster and the secretary are here today. You must understand your heavy responsibility, not only to instill boring ideas into students and regulate them by administrative means, but more importantly, to let students know what kind of people are really needed in a great era.

Fourth, we especially don't want to regard us entrepreneurs as role models for students to learn and publicize. I was surprised to find that entrepreneurs will be invited to give speeches at the opening ceremony and graduation ceremony of Peking University, telling students that these people also graduated from Peking University, and they have become billionaires, so you can also become billionaires. If a university regards people who make money as role models for students to learn, I believe it is spreading a wrong message and making students treat university life with impetuous heart. What students get is no longer what is really useful to them for life, but how to make money as soon as possible. There is nothing wrong with making money, but if a society and a university only respect the rich, I think this society is hopeless. I believe that these entrepreneurs never thought about doing business when they were studying at Peking University, because there was no business atmosphere at that time. I believe that Yan Yan never thought about investing when she was studying. Huang Nubo only thinks about how to write a good poem, and Hou Jun must think about how to fall in love with a beautiful girl from Peking University. But all this has not weakened their entrepreneurial genes and their ability to make money in the future. So I don't think a person's ability to make money can be educated, but I think a person's ideological ability and personality ability can be cultivated. I hope Peking University will publicize our words. Please publicize how we studied and lived in college. Peking University should be more proud of its thinkers, scientists and politicians. What we entrepreneurs can do is to come back and feed back Peking University through the accumulation of our wealth, so that Peking University can produce more thinkers, scientists and truly great politicians.

Back to the topic of entrepreneurship and innovation, I don't think innovation and entrepreneurship is a technology transfer. Even at today's meeting, I think our speech is a spiritual instruction to the brothers and sisters present. Innovation and entrepreneurship is the result of environmental freedom and ideological freedom. Each of us needs a very stable social environment. We are especially grateful to China for its 30-odd years of reform and opening up, which has brought us social prosperity and stability. However, a stable social environment cannot be based on suppressing people's free creation and free thought. We need a relaxed market and market environment to operate on a stable social structure. Coase, an economist who has just died, once said that the early stage of China's reform has passed, and the early stage of China's reform is a marginal income reform, which is not only the result of the government's leading, but the enthusiasm of the people after the government relaxed the environment. He made a metaphor, a piece of open space next to the cement ground, forgot to lay cement on it, and as a result, private enterprises in China thrived on this open space. The leading role of planned economy did not make private enterprises prosper, but the act of relaxing the environment and thinking did make China's wealth increase sharply. The effective force to increase wealth is folk power. From the beginning, the private economy accounted for less than 1% of GDP, and today it is close to 65% to 70%. It is the government that wisely gives us the relative space of market economy and the consumption space of market resources. Coase went on to say that if China wants long-term economic prosperity and development in the future, then the ideological market will be the next unavoidable focus of China's reform. In any closed-minded era and any closed-minded society, it is impossible for the economy to develop continuously for a long time, let alone appear. On the one hand, the economy is booming, on the other hand, the people have no freedom of thought.

We are especially grateful to the government for providing us with a really good growth space over the past 36 years, especially for providing support and help to private enterprises. Today, the leaders of the municipal government came to attend the meeting, which also shows that the government attaches importance to this piece. But I think the government has not done enough, because they still give us opportunities for development with a master attitude and a condescending attitude. I just think it should be reversed. The person who creates wealth should be the master. The people create wealth to support the administrative operation of the government, and the government strives to serve the people. Therefore, the government should support the development of enterprises and society with a more efficient and transparent attitude and a more humble spirit. At the same time, we firmly support the government in opposing rumors and disturbing social order, and we firmly support the rule of law. However, we really don't want to accidentally make a speech in Weibo, be maliciously forwarded 500 times, and finally be found guilty of speech, or even locked up. In a stable society, all citizens can feel the best sense of security. Let's take root and start a business in this land that we love deeply, and share prosperity with the motherland. If people at all levels of a society are insecure, this problem should not be blamed on ordinary people. As ordinary people, they have no sense of security, because their houses may be demolished at any time; As entrepreneurs, they have no sense of security, because they don't know where their enterprises can take root, can they make a ten-year plan or a hundred-year plan; We also hope that every government official can serve the people happily and transparently in his post, instead of looking at the face of his superiors and accidentally losing his official and seat, he will always have only his superiors and no ordinary people in his heart; Of course, we hope to establish a better social order and a clean and honest government mechanism in China. China's fiscal revenue will actually be used by ordinary people to support the development of poverty-stricken areas in China, the development of education in China and the development of science and technology in China, instead of falling into the personal pockets of government officials.

All this must be guaranteed by sacred laws and law enforcement, without exception. We know that the government is determined to make China a place ruled by law, and we will work together to promote this. We don't want the law to be an exception. We don't want the law to be a tool to protect interest groups and privileges. We don't want the law to apply to people, because different backgrounds apply different crimes and punishments to the same crime. We hope that the law has nothing to do with the privileges of government officials, the money of entrepreneurs and the poverty of ordinary people. Law is a balance, no matter who it is placed on, it must be balanced by a steelyard. I hope that China's laws will eventually become a truly powerful tool to protect all people with independent spirit and fair judgment, and to protect the law-abiding people throughout the country.

Back to the topic of entrepreneurship, I always think that innovation is the release of ideas, and entrepreneurship is the release of spirit. All this is beyond the reach of money and technology. No matter how much money is invested every year, it is impossible to buy back the spirit of innovation and make the entrepreneurial passion fly. All this depends on what we have repeatedly emphasized, a real, relaxed, free and enjoyable environment. For entrepreneurs, we hope that one day we can really do what Liu Chuanzhi said. I don't think we can do it today. Today's speech shows that we haven't done it yet. One day, if we no longer have to worry about the safety of our enterprises because of a certain policy change of the government; Because of the temper of a government leader, he is worried about our development; We just need to face our competitors in business, concentrate on developing high technology, make use of our innovative ability and resources, face the cooperation between businessmen, and promote social development by paying taxes and serving the society. Then I think China at that time must be a country with just government, people-friendly officials and stable people. This is our real motherland. Thank you.