David was sitting opposite me. Out of the window was a dreamlike night view of the Bund, with bright lights scattered on both sides of the Huangpu River. I turned to David and said, “You really know how to enjoy yourself, inviting me to such a romantic place.”
David took a strong drag from his cigar and spat it out quickly. His eyes narrowed to taste the aroma of the cigar in his mouth. He said, MD, we are almost 40 now.
I drank champagne and said, “Damn fast. I’m middle-aged in a twinkling.” By the way, can I write your story? You’ve graduated with a PhD, become a CTO partner at a unicorn company, have a successful career, and have a happy family. It’s so inspiring. Young people will be inspired by your experience, and you are a walking brief history of professional success.
David shook his head with a smile, shook his wine glass and said, “What can I write about? Aren’t you a successful person in the workplace?”
I said, that we write the story together, you are red flower, I am green leaf, so agreed.
With that, we looked out of the window together, quietly enjoying the bustling Bund night in front of us, thoughts back to 2002.
1. Some birds aren’t meant to be caged
In the summer of 2002, two years after graduating from college, I was working as a technical director for a software company. I met David at a recruitment fair. He was a young man who had just graduated from technical secondary school and his face was full of youth and acne.
I remember the first thing I said to him was, hello, if you are a fresh graduate, we require the minimum degree is undergraduate.
David was a little nervous. He trembled a little. I knew… Yeah. Can you give me a chance to see what I wrote?
I was suddenly a little curious, thinking that this young man was different from ordinary applicants, and he came with his work. I said to him, “Ok, LET me have a look at your work.”
David opens the heavy notebook, 2002, you know… The iMac desktop had just been released, the MacBook was still brewing in Jobs’s head, and all the laptops were as thick as bricks.
David: This is my web crawler. You can grab the resume information of XXjob. You can log in, send out your resume, and refresh your resume.
I was blown away, in 2002, by a hand-written crawler, not a browser plugin, written by a junior high school student, and you can feel the fear of being dominated by that power.
At my strong suggestion, David entered the company and became a software engineer with a salary of 3K. At that time, it was under great pressure to offer 3K to a fresh graduate of technical secondary school. At that time, 985 graduates got the offer of Founder Software, which was just 4K.
Acquainted afterwards just know, after David from small achievement belongs to medium level, is the ordinary schools in the county seat, and two years of study in high school is not admitted to the focus of the county high school, think he is not reading material in the home, even in high school, it is difficult to college in the future, as the eldest son in the home, it is better to read technical secondary school early out to work to earn money.
In this way, David studied electrical engineering in a technical secondary school. In school, David, who had no interest in learning, accidentally fell in love with computer programming, thinking it was so magical that he had a hunch that it would change the world deeply. At that moment, he knew that he had found the love of his life – programming, during the period of school he had taught himself programming, operating systems, network and other related courses, the trouble to find a computer teacher for help, also take the initiative to help the school computer room management, computer programming, so he would have more time during the period of school he returned to the school teaching system is developed, student management system, etc.
David’s enthusiasm and devotion to programming exceeds that of most professional programmers with professional training in the company. It can be said that he spends all his time programming and learning programming except eating and sleeping. His mastery of programming knowledge and skills has completely overwhelmed all programmers in the company, including me.
Four quarters of raises and promotions in a row, and a year later, no surprises, I was my boss, managing more than 20 programmers and supervisors.
It is said that prosperity depends on the mind, adversity depends on responsibility. David did not become proud at the moment of success, but was humble as always. He worked overtime more than usual and was more willing to help colleagues solve problems, which won everyone’s support, including me of course.
As the line in The Shawshank Redemption says, “Some birds aren’t meant to be caged, that’s all. Their feathers are just too bright.” David quit his job, this time for love.
David fell in love with a girl from Guangzhou and chatted on QQ all night long. This love also made David realize that there are other wonderful things in life as writing code, such as sudden love.
At this time the boy is slowly becoming a man, he wants to be like a man to talk about a love.
Make your first bucket of gold, buy a house, get married, go to school
David moved to Guangzhou and, with his technical strength, soon worked as a technical supervisor in a game development company. In 2003, the Internet was the era of “Four Portals”. David’s company developed a game with excellent design and experience, which was acquired by a portal giant. David turned magnificently and became the technical director of one of the “four Portals”, which ushered in a highlight moment in his career.
As the core creative staff, he got a reward of 300,000 yuan, earned the first bucket of gold in life, immediately made the down payment in Guangzhou, bought a house, you think in 2003 to buy a house, I don’t need to say more about the story.
David’s girlfriend has a bachelor’s degree. Maybe her family thinks that David’s educational background is a little low, or maybe David thinks that having a diploma will help him have a better career path, so David took the adult undergraduate examination and studied while working.
In 2005, David got married to his girlfriend, and from then on, he became a pet wife monster. The QQ space was full of photos of him traveling with his beautiful wife to famous mountains and rivers and all over the world, which made us diaosi and single dogs jealous.
After three years of this kind of life, David was uncomfortable to become the senior manager of the “Big Four Portals”. Moreover, the era of the “Big Four Portals” has passed, and the Internet has entered the era of “BAT”.
Follow the former boss to start a business, become a father, graduate school
In 2008, David followed the boss of the previous company and came to Shanghai to join the Internet finance industry. As a technical partner, David gave full play to his technical advantages, such as C++, JAVA and mobile terminal, to build the underlying technical framework by himself. In the early stage of entrepreneurship, due to the lack of resources, he was able to put down his dignity and do some CRUD implementations without technical content.
During their stay in Shanghai, David’s wife was pregnant with their first child, and they fell in love with the city, so they decided to settle down and raise enough money for the down payment to buy a house in Shanghai. Writing here, I really want to be quiet. In 2008, the housing price in Shanghai was on the eve of the second round of crazy growth. David bought a house at this time, and the gap in life was opened in this way.
After contact with the financial sector, David think financial it was interesting, just enter oneself for an examination the fudan financial master, financial knowledge systematically, also had the opportunity to study with leading economics, it is said that the master is often go to the sea to the leader of class, the experience opened the David’s vision, is no problem of financial business experts.
In 2013, after five years of entrepreneurship, David’s company can only say that its business is ok. After all, there are more and more giants in the mutual finance industry, and it is difficult for small companies to get out.
It was at this point that David again chose to leave and embark on the next leg of his journey.
4. Independent entrepreneurship, artificial intelligence, PhD
In 2015, after one year’s preparation, David and his friends set up their own company, serving as the founder and CTO, focusing on the field of artificial intelligence and mainly serving the financial industry. At the right time and right track, with years of accumulation in the industry, David has acquired tens of millions of angel rounds, and the company has entered the fast track of development.
Busy is as busy as ever. Even so, David still keeps learning. After graduation from master’s degree, recommended by his tutor, David went on to study for a doctorate, majoring in the field of artificial intelligence. His company also set up research projects with the university and embarked on the path of production, education and research.
Last year, due to the business contacts between the companies, David and I had an intersection in work. The company I work for became David’s client, and we worked together again after more than 10 years. In the process of cooperation, I felt the change of his pattern and vision through these years of experience, as well as his wisdom of seeing through things. I was also feeling that at 40 years old, it was nice to meet old friends again.
What is the midlife crisis, but you are lazy and bereaved and forced
Life is like a long-distance race, many people have good cards but play them badly. Compared with David, most people have won the starting line in their career path, but so what? Many people have been in the workplace for years, only to discover their age and ability mismatch at 35. Actually, there’s no such thing as a midlife crisis. It’s just that you’re lazy and sad and pretentious.
David: Can you give some advice to young people?
1. Find what you love and do it.
David is luckier than most people because he found what he loved to do early and stuck to it. Most people I know change jobs and industries so frequently that they end up unhappy. Success must be through long-term accumulation, thick and thin hair, you only see the success of the scenery, they behind the sad you may not know.
As Steve Jobs said at Stanford: ” And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”
The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.
Two, never stop learning, always grow up.
The counter-attack from secondary school students to doctors may not be suitable for most people, but at least do not stop learning, to always grow up. The Queen of Spades in Alice’s Adventures, once said: “In our place, only keep running to stay in place!” This is especially true in the workplace. How can a company survive in the fierce competition? It can run faster than its competitors. If employees can’t keep up with the pace of the company, they will be eliminated by the company.
At one point, Musk was caught nibbling on a thick book of Soviet rocketry. He later explained that it wasn’t because I wanted to learn about rockets, but because I couldn’t find talent. Successful entrepreneurs like Musk are willing to cross over to learn the arcane art of rocket-making, so why not acquire the knowledge and skills you need to do your job?
Go with the flow, so in business, so in life.
Review several professional experience, David from game company was “four portal”, become “four major portal” company technology executives, later in the financial industry, the Internet, and then to create artificial intelligence company, notting have is not for those routes, always stand in the forefront of technology, become the tves, hard work at the same time, choose of the circuit is very important.
Life is also to go with the flow, fall in love at the age of love, marry when it is time to get married, when it is time to buy a house to bite the bullet decisively (since 2008 has been holding cash on the fence, until 2014 to move, I have tens of thousands of horse animals running).
Go with the flow of life, is not torturing yourself, not torturing family, not torturing others. Feng Tang said, find a person to love each other, even if it is for the people.
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