Li Tianfang: From Silicon Valley to China, the mindset of entrepreneurs is changing

Li Tianfang, his well-known identity is the founder of the course lattice, a former Microsoft engineer, and an early member of the famous Big Data company Palantir. His unknown identity is a professional chess and Texas Poker master. The technology-streaming gambler, relying on Texas poker, won a car and a house, and finally sold his car and house to China to start a business, and its arbitrary, self-centered, seemingly revealing a wave of Silicon Valley fan. But as a typical Silicon Valley venture in China, his knowledge and mentality have changed a lot.

You have a start-up company experience in Silicon Valley and at home, what do you think is the biggest difference between the two sides?

I think the difference between entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley and in China is cultural differences, such as how to recruit, how to manage people, how to control and control, and the difference between the competitive environment. If starting a business is a 100-man hold of Texas Poker, the rules of Silicon Valley will produce 2 big winners and 18 small winners, while China is the 1 mega winners and 99 loser.

In addition to these two points, other aspects are actually quite similar. However, I found that domestic entrepreneurs have a more personal charm, such as I used to see in Microsoft, Gates is a super otaku. Some of the best entrepreneurs you see on the street have no personal charisma at all, making speeches that will keep everyone asleep. But the entrepreneur here is completely different, everyone is the leader, is the real leader.

One of the great benefits of a culture of leadership can be a particularly strong cohesiveness that can lead people through when the company encounters difficulties. But many foreign companies are coping with a different approach. For example, Palantir also has a very low time, the product is not used, but their lower level engineers are relatively free and confident, rely on this can bring the company together, this is a bottom-up force. By contrast, a lot of Chinese companies need a leader to pull them down when they hit a trough.

When you start a business in China, have you ever experienced the need for such "leadership qualities"?

I think I do not have this quality (laugh), we now rely on is small, so try to imitate foreign that set.

When we have encountered difficulties, I think the only reason we survive is small, cheap. When I was planning FM transition to the course grid, I thought that if we had 20 people dead, luckily we had only 5 people, we had a meal to solve the problem. We melt the Angel round 1.5 did not melt to the money, many at the end of 11 with us to finance the company, to 12, 13 VC market downturn, precisely and need the money when it died. Speaking of which, I think "small" may also be the goal that many Silicon Valley companies pursue.

But the company is not going to be small.

Of course, as the company grows, so does the way the management changes. There was no hierarchy at all, but one day I realized that I needed to be in one with 12 people, and I just went crazy. I consulted with many entrepreneurs about how the company grew from 15 to 50, and finally felt it was a process of decentralization, trust and responsibility. As an engineer, I understand the hacker spirit is to open the black box, into a white box, you have to see what is inside. But management is the thing that turns a white box into a black box, which has always seemed unnatural to me.

Trust is the case, you put a white box into a black box to each other, do not know what the other party is doing, do not know the process is good and bad. But when you get to the point where you have to learn to trust, you have to accept it, because you don't "trust" and you die.

I'm particularly curious about how you can get a Silicon Valley brain to adapt to the local

Two days ago just intend to write a blog, the topic is how to "diaosification", or How to "downgrade". I know there are a lot of returnee entrepreneurs, they live in the world trade, every day to go to three Li Tun play, rent a tall office, and occasionally come to Zhongguancun to run a trip to organize an activity to drink a little wine or something. That way I might think you're not putting yourself in the same position as the user, or even really getting close to your team's environment.

Once we also wanted a very Silicon Valley of the office environment, then feel that if your company does not have the corresponding connotation, or not overly cosmetic appearance. Sometimes we want to leave Beijing, go to some two or three-line cities in the university for a whole day, chat with users to see what they eat and what to play, even to class lectures, actually want to throw themselves into the same environment as the user. Personally, when I first came to China I like to play Texas poker, like skiing, and then put these hobbies together with some "tall" circle together to quit, I think this is very important.

In Silicon Valley, 80% of engineers think they will become millionaires sooner or later, believing that the technology and products are invincible and the cost of failure is small. If you're the founder, the worst case scenario is to sell the company to Google and be a hero for two years at Google. And if you're a senior engineer, a company is down and there are 10 of the best companies that invite you over. In China is not the case, in addition to products there are many decisive factors, no matter how much money you melt, how many users and dau, one step wrong will be full of loss. After the venture in China, the most important thing I learned was "treading on ice". Standing

Tell me about three local companies you admire most.

American Regiment, YY and pea pods.

The United States has its own insistence, its style and strategy in the year so fierce competition did not waver, and finally from a very serious market of homogenization.

YY attracted me is low-key and quiet, not before the success of publicity, deliberately keep a low-key approach, in the Internet circle a bit against the mainstream.

The pea pod is real dare to play, like a gambler who doesn't know how to leave the field. Earn 10 dollars, want to put in 100, earn 100 and all into the beat 1000, this kind of courage to give me the feeling is very Chinese style.