Are today's tech/Internet entrepreneurs losing their "adventurous spirit"?

These two days I thought of a sentence from Romain Rolland: there is only one real heroism in the world, that is, still love life after recognizing the truth of life. The same is true for entrepreneurs: there is only one true spirit of adventure in the world, that is, after recognizing the nature of entrepreneurship, still do it without hesitation. First of all, what is the "spirit of adventure"? The spirit of adventure is a symbol of human evolution and vitality. We should have the courage to discover risks, control risks and take risks. The difference between people and animals is not only that there is no dream, more important is to create and conscious, adventurous nature and the ability to go beyond themselves! Of course, risk is not desperate, does not mean reckless and out of control. Scientific nature, regularity and creativity should be respected. We oppose all risks that do not speak science, violate laws, ignore lessons and endanger lives. Advocate the adventurous spirit that constructs and strengthens in scientific thinking. The word entrepreneur, borrowed from the French, originally means "an operator or organizer of an adventurous business." So the best entrepreneurs are naturally adventurous people. So I think every good founder has the unique "spirit of adventure" of that era. In the 1980s, Ren Zhengfei of Huawei, Liu Chuanzhi of Lenovo and Wang Shi of Vanke all did not follow the rules, and ventured out of the entrepreneurial road to create a unique enterprise of that era. In the 1990s, Alibaba Ma Yun, Tencent Ma Huateng, NetEase Ding Lei, which is not no one understand, even do not know their own future, and constantly explore, risk to create a belong to the 1990s Internet business empire? At the beginning of the millennium, ByteDance, Zhang Yiming and Meituan Wang Xing all took risks after experiencing failures and created the new power of mobile Internet. Reviewing the development process of these outstanding entrepreneurs, although there are a variety of different advantages, but also have the "spirit of adventure" must be their common. I don't think the modern founders have lost this spirit of adventure. Instead, they use it more scientifically to give it more meaning. Here I would like to share with you a story that I remember Wang Xing, founder of Meituan, mentioned in an internal speech a few years ago. Today's most popular people spend their holidays at the North and South Poles taking pictures of the auroras, but a hundred years ago, no one had ever been to the South Pole. In the face of the last unknown area on the earth, many adventurers want to be the first to plant the flag, but the last stretch of more than 2,000 kilometers is full of unknowns and challenges. If you are not careful, you may die on the road of exploration, so no one will easily try. It was not until 1911 that two expeditions, a Norwegian team of five and a British team of seventeen, embarked on this adventure at about the same time. The two expeditions were well-trained crews, ready at the same time for the final two thousand kilometers. The Norwegian team was the first to reach the South Pole two months later, planting the Norwegian flag. The British team arrived more than a month after them, a superficial difference. But the Norwegian team returned to base 21 months later, as planned. However, the British team was late, and the weather was very bad on the way back. They kept running into difficulties, and people kept falling behind. Finally, they were all killed and no one survived. It's not just the difference of a month, it's the difference between life and death. The Norwegian Expedition What did the Norwegian team do to win on this adventure? In the early stages of preparation, the Norwegian team was equipped with disaster tolerant equipment and practiced with Eskimos in the Arctic Circle to learn how to handle sled dogs. There was room for error in the adventure from the start. Sticking to a plan No matter what the harsh environment, the Norwegian team keeps pushing forward every day. This is an important principle of survival, a high degree of discipline, even in a limiting environment, if continuous progress is to be achieved. As soon as possible with controllable risks, the Norwegian team always took the lead according to the plan and was the first to reach the South Pole in the end, so did the entrepreneurs, who should try their best to be the first to segment the track and strive for monopoly advantage. Always remember the 80/20 rule, always the 20% of the head that accounts for 80% of the industry's profits. Although the Norwegian team did not have a big accident in the end, the founder should always be prepared for the black swan, which was the case in this epidemic. Many enterprises were closed without any preparation. Founder must have a firm belief, believe in themselves, to continue to take risks, to meet new challenges. Finally, I would like to say that it may not be that today's entrepreneurs have lost the "spirit of risk", but that the "spirit of risk" founders understand the situation, waiting for the opportunity to let them break out; As early stage angel investors, we firmly believe that the bottom of each economic cycle is the beginning of the great companies of the next cycle. Finally, I give the founders of this era four words: "be honest and surprising". I think this is also the "spirit of adventure" of this era.