About long-termism

Longevity in English. Long-$ TERM ism is really a new word. You may have heard similar expressions a long time ago. For example, "live long" is a long-term expression. The ancients said that they don't care about the gains and losses of one city and one pool, which is also a long-term view. There is also an English proverb that says, don't just pay attention to a sixpence coin under your feet and forget the big moon in the sky. The Moon and Sixpence also contains elements of long-termism.

Many years ago, there was a saying related to long-termism, which was called strategic loss. Many companies have been established for a long time without making money. They will say that we are willing to bear strategic losses, we don't accept unprofessional profits, we don't just pursue tactical profits and so on. It should be said that long-term doctrine is first of all a world outlook, that is, a perspective on the development of the world and events.

The story structure is what a person really wants, and it is finally realized one day, but there is an accident, then there is a reversal, and then there is an accident.

There was a man who wanted to be a pilot when he was a child, and finally one day, he became a pilot. But the first time he flew, the plane had an accident. Fortunately, he was able to parachute, but the parachute was broken and he couldn't open it. Suddenly he saw a tall haystack on the ground directly below, but when he fell down again, he found an iron fork on the haystack. But fortunately, he fell on the haystack and didn't touch the iron fork.

This story tells us that we should take a long-term view of the development of the situation, don't fall in love at first sight, and have the eyes of Churchill and 007 when encountering bad things. This is not the end, or even the beginning. This may just be the beginning of the prelude.

2. Longevity is a spiritual temperament and a very difficult thing.

Longevity is not only a world outlook, but also a personal spiritual temperament. Generally speaking, people who have a sense of security in their hearts often do not have a morbid fascination with security and money because of the turmoil and poverty in their early years. Such a person's spiritual temperament is often long-term.

For example, Zuckerberg, who is not a poor child, started writing software in college. Microsoft wanted to spend 2 million dollars to buy this software, but he didn't like Microsoft, so a poor student refused 2 million dollars.

Later, during the growth of Facebook, he encountered financial challenges and faced a financial crisis. Someone offered to buy the company for $500 million, but he still refused. We can say that Zuckerberg has a long-term spiritual temperament in his heart, and not everyone has a long-term world outlook and spiritual temperament.

If you are preparing to start a business, you can do some thought experiments for yourself. If you want to register your company tomorrow, but you won the lottery of 50 million dollars today, will you register your company tomorrow? If the answer is yes, then you are a long-term activist, otherwise you are a short-term activist.

Today, many people are advocating long-termism, which sounds like a compliment, but whether we are running an individual or a business, we must be alert when facing good things, because good things themselves must be quite difficult. Don't choose this thing just because it is good, or force others to choose it. Don't use the tone and attitude of "other people's children" to ask others and yourself.

In essence, this attitude means that when you see something good, you must choose this good thing. In fact, we forget that we can see many good things, abilities and qualities in nature.

Birds can fly, people can't fly, fish can swim when born, and so on. In our view, we may think that these are all good abilities and endowments. But will you choose these things because they are good?

In fact, all creatures don't think so. The characteristics of any living thing, that is, its external form and internal ability, are only a solution in a specific niche, and they have evolved for a long time. Let's not forget that it is genes that determine this trait, not others.

For example, an eagle tried to hunt and was hungry at night. It can say it's night, but do I still want to hunt? In fact, it is impossible. Hunting at night is the business of owls.

So long-term ism is a good thing, but it is also very difficult. Longevity is a world outlook and a spiritual temperament.

3. How to become a long-term company?

The persistence of an enterprise is often closely related to the spiritual temperament of the founder. The unrepeatable enterprise is closely related to the entrepreneur's personal spiritual temperament, and the genes related to his spiritual temperament are the energy to shape his spiritual temperament in his early years. Conversely, if a person's world outlook and spiritual temperament are short-termism, don't ask him to do anything long-termism.

Many years ago, a book called Longevity Company was very popular. To some extent, Changshou Company is a company with long-term culture, strategy and management methods. If you want to be a long-term company, you must be extremely sensitive to changes in the external environment, that is, you can feel something cold in the busy field, feel some temperature and energy in the cold reality, and take action quickly.

Another feature is that there should be a strong sense of identity and knowledge within the organization. Because long-term enterprises often struggle on the edge of profit and loss. So if your business is in this state for a long time, it is very important for people inside the organization to have a sense of identity with your vision and strategy. If not, it is difficult for your culture, strategy and management methods to pursue the long term.

Long-term enterprises also have a very important feature, which we can see clearly in Meituan. That is, although we do not seek to make big money quickly, or even rule out long-term strategic losses, we must have a very stable financial policy.

It is precisely because in the first stage of starting a business, Wang Xing experienced the experience of getting what he paid for many times, so he formed a strong sense of prudent financial policy and had very strict methods and processes to implement this prudent financial policy.

The above is an overview of our long-term, I hope it will be useful to you.