See how far past you can see the future

I enjoy reading history, especially the history of ancient Rome. I used to hide in the library, spent a whole January reading Gibbon (Edward Gibbon) Six volumes of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", and later when I was studying in the United States also often ran to audit a Professor Romans lectures.

The result of liking history is that my mind often produces such thoughts: 100 years, 500 years, what will people think of us after 1000?

I can't ride the time machine to the future, but I do have the prediction that people living in the future will certainly take the point where we are now as a starting point for a new era. The name of this era is called the Internet.

Let's look at what happened in the past year:

The Washington Post, America's most prestigious newspaper, was bought by Amazon founder Bezos at a very low price;

Mobile phone industry Once the overlord of Motorola and Nokia respectively by Google and Microsoft acquisition;

Tesla electric cars with Silicon Valley genes are rising rapidly, robbing traditional car companies of their sites;

Internet companies have entered the financial sector aggressively;

............

The traditional industry is speeding up, and the Internet is taking over. I believe that after 100 years, people will not feel the existence of the Internet, because it is everywhere, as we are now very little aware of the existence of electricity-but more than 100 years ago, Edison invented the DC electricity in the eyes of ordinary people is a magical thing, and only the best of the rich like Morgan to enjoy.

A new era is beginning, the starting point is now. And the process of initiation was as thrilling as the founding of the Roman Empire more than 2000 years ago. People who live in this age are lucky because we are witnessing history.

And just as the Roman Empire originated in the Tiber River, like a few hills, the internet age has a cradle, that is, Silicon Valley. I have been in the Silicon Valley many times over the past few years, each time bring me different feelings and discoveries, just the same heart shock.

Two months ago, I saw Elon Musk in Silicon Valley, and that night he showed the latest Battery Swap technology at a grand conference. He drives a Model S and rushes into the middle of the stage, majestic from the car-the moment I thought of not Iron Man, but Caesar-he returned from the Gaul expedition, rode on a horse, led his army through the triumphal arch outside the city of Rome, his supporters on both sides of the cheers, And his enemies were shivering in the dark.

Compared with the Warriors of the Roman era, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs today have the same temperament: ambitious, Fenghuajuedai. More importantly, they all have a sense of mission to create history.

Young Zuckerberg, favorite quotation on his Facebook page, writes "fortune favors the bold" (Fortune favors the brave). This sentence is from the ancient Roman epic "Aeneid" (Aeneid), said that the Trojan warrior Aeneas Open the frontier, build the story of the Empire. He was fascinated by the culture of ancient Greece and Rome. His favorite video game is "civilization", and the game's winning goal is to "build a time-tested Empire". And Elon Musk was a Spartan warrior when he interviewed me:

Running a company is like a fight. If you want to win the next battle, you must Shangjian with your warriors.

Why did the Romans build a mighty empire? They were no wiser than the Greeks, and there were no Canaanites sailing, no Egyptians rich, no Gauls, but they defeated all. Similarly, why is Apple, why is Google, why is Facebook become the dominant internet today? Who's the next overlord? Seeing the future in history-this will be a clue and an axis that runs through my writing. And through Silicon Valley companies than to Chinese internet companies, is another axis.

Although the Roman Empire was later destroyed, the barbarians tread on the ground, but its influence stretches for thousands of years, becoming the cornerstone of modern Western civilization. I have no doubt that, a few years later, Apple,google,facebook,tesla ... These famous names will be destroyed, but history will remember them, because these companies have laid the foundation of the internet age, they have created an era.

And I, as a recorder, can witness all this happening, is my great honor.

I can imagine, a few years later, some early morning, an old man from the radio signal connected to the brain waves that Google no longer exist news, trembling off the use of years of Google glasses dejected.

One day, Silicon Valley will return to silence, even in a disaster to become ruins. But there must be new, ambitious young people, standing on the ruins of their predecessors, to be impassioned and to build their new empire.