How 28 Young People Spent 33 Hours on an Island
A celebration means something when it's shared.
By Lili Yu, Zhiyan Chen, Muxin Xu, Qian Ren, and Lixin He
Edited by Jing Liu
What happens when hundreds of entrepreneurs and investors descend on the same island?
A week ago, on Bibo Island at Jinhai Lake on the outskirts of Beijing, a gathering for the young was underway. Named "WAVES," the conference evoked the restless momentum of a younger generation — though "young" here meant far more than age.
Over two days and one night, every person immersed in the experience was not merely a guest but a co-creator of this summit IP — fresh, kinetic, exuberant, even scream-filled, rather than stiff and formal.
What follows are vignettes from the field that illustrate this so-called "young energy." In a sense, these records constitute a sociological experiment, slicing vertically through China's commercial era at this very moment: struggling entrepreneurs scrambling to save themselves; investors parting ways; increasingly severe fundraising pressures seeping into the fabric of daily life.
Today, gathering is precious. Celebration matters.
Wang Shi's Wish
"36 Under 36" is an award 36Kr launched in 2016 for investors and entrepreneurs under 36.
At the WAVES conference, 71-year-old Wang Shi quipped: "If 36Kr holds a '36 And 36' competition next year, I'll be exactly 72 — I should qualify."
Fu Sheng's Dog Named "Sanwan"
Fu Sheng was first shaken by ChatGPT because of his dog, named "Sanwan" (Thirty Thousand). He asked ChatGPT to guess why. It answered: probably because the fracture surgery at the pet hospital cost 30,000 yuan. Stunned, Fu Sheng called Wang Xiaochuan to confirm ChatGPT's reasoning ability, then posted on Weibo: "I was the last person to believe AI could surpass humans. Today, I wavered."
This February, that same dog appeared in an example Zhou Hongyi cited during a media interview. Because of this, at his WAVES speech, Fu Sheng — who described himself as having "made a complete mess of AI" — deliberately called out his "old buddy" Zhou Hongyi: "How did my dog become his?"
"Everyone Is a Wave at Some Node"
The WAVES campsite was strewn with toys across the fields. Engineering professor Quan Xu chose an enormous peach-shaped inflatable for our meeting.
Though his company, Zhonghai Energy Storage, is riding a favorable moment — with a "perfect founder trio" of academician, CTO, and CEO, and a technical approach that is one of the few commercially viable solutions — having watched countless entrepreneurs rise and fall, he told us with clear-eyed sobriety: "Everyone is a wave at some node. After a while, it's gone." "But when the wave comes, we should try to make sure it's one we created."
AI Dread Triggered by a Flying Insect
A bug flew past an AI researcher on the Jinhai Lake lawn. The young scholar turned to those nearby and mused: In the future, this could evolve into an "electronic butterfly" with a camera, WiFi, and microphone. "Smaller than your palm, but smarter than you." In his view, this wasn't alarmism. "Maybe within five years."
This is the fear this wave of AI brings to most people. Even a researcher of AI theory worries he will soon be replaced.
Pain Grows Shorter, Joy Grows Shallower
One 36 Under 36 entrepreneur said he was happy about making the list for only one night. The "byproducts" of entrepreneurship were to blame: "Pain grows shorter, and joy grows shallower too."
The Secret to a Better Marriage
At WAVES, during an onstage conversation with Hurst Lin, partner at Gaorong Capital, Perfect Diary CEO Jinfeng Huang mentioned a key reason his relationship with his wife had improved lately: "Our nanny took leave, so we had to take care of two kids together." "When you face the same challenge, love deepens."
"Spring Is an Illusion"
As a panelist on the theme "The Gazed-Upon and the Forgotten," Zhiwu Lu, professor at Renmin University's Gaoling School of Artificial Intelligence, arrived early.
Amid the chorus of optimism about domestic large language models, he stood out as pessimistic yet clear-eyed: "I think this spring is an illusion, because so much of it is just fine-tuning on top of foreign base models." The row of LLM founders beside him exchanged uneasy glances.
The Big Female Lead Drama
Yin Yue, partner at ZhenFund, delivered a solo speech at WAVES telling her story: married and divorced, emotionally drained to the point of breast cancer, yet simultaneously landing her first IPO.
Audience members exclaimed afterward: "Like a big female lead drama." What many didn't know was the anxiety she invested in that speech: arriving a day early to rehearse, spending 20 minutes loading her script into the teleprompter. Afterward, she finally relaxed. On the way to Bibo Island, she played Zhao Lei's "I Remember" — the same song she'd used as background music for a video editing together her emotional journey.
The Strange Connection Between Large Models and Traditional Chinese Medicine
Yang Yuan, assistant professor at Tsinghua's Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences, moderated the WAVES AI session "No Longer Legend." He tried to bridge two unexplainable "black boxes": large models and traditional Chinese medicine.
His peculiar associative theory: TCM's concept of "shanghuo" (internal heat) is not observable fire but a sum of relationships; similarly, "learning" in AI large models is learning countless relationships.
Born into a family of TCM practitioners, Yuan first had this flight of fancy while pursuing his PhD in computer science. After a lecture, he suddenly realized that machine learning's side-channel attack method for cracking passwords resembled his TCM-practitioner father's pulse-taking: one listens to a computer's operation with a microphone; the other listens to the body's operation with a hand.
"Was He Named 'Zhang Jin Jian' Because He Wanted Oxford or Cambridge?"
A film and media professional came to WAVES through a Dark Current ticket giveaway. Over two days, she heard many unfamiliar terms: investment, fund, AGI.
Drinking Tiao Hai beer, watching investors and entrepreneurs collect awards on stage, she recognized none of the names. The small world of primary markets felt alien. When Oasis Capital partner Jin Jian Zhang gave his solo speech "Structure and Rhythm in Investing," she wondered: Was he given this name because his parents wanted him to get into Oxford or Cambridge? Later we asked Zhang. He joked: "Hahaha, then it should be Zhang Dian Dan." (Zhang attended University of Electronic Science and Technology of China and Fudan University.)
Four Failures in 18 Months, and He Wants Another Shot
An early-stage entrepreneur at WAVES who had "failed four times in 18 months" distilled four lessons: shared vision matters more than ability; cash flow control is critical; the business world operates in gray zones; and people matter more than the venture.
He believes anyone who chooses entrepreneurship is initially driven by something emotional. His own impulse came from the "hero's journey" diagram in The Hero with a Thousand Faces: a hero must heed the call, face trials, descend into the abyss, before being transformed, reaching the ultimate boon, and returning to bestow it.
He has his own interpretation of "boon." The boon of his first failure: seeing opportunity again after five years, he still wants to try once more.
Liu Guangyao's Alarm
Midway through his speech "Exiled Blade," former bosie CEO Guangyao Liu — with bleached white hair, dressed in a white suit — had his phone alarm go off.
A month earlier, his WeChat article "I, Liu Guangyao, Raised 500 Million, Resigned as CEO at 28" caused a stir. The alarm was reportedly set for a luxury goods dinner after his WAVES commitment. At 2:15 PM, speech concluded, Liu sprinted from the venue toward the airport. Behind him ran another group sprinting to see him: his assistant, conference staff, and several consumer fund partners.
Fundraising-Honed Guandan Skills
After WAVES Night, one 36 Under 36 investor organized an afterparty in a group chat: "Let's play guandan." The group reportedly played until 1 AM. A dual-currency fund investor joined in. His assessment: generally mediocre card skills, because "(we're used to) letting the LP win, right."
From "Director Tu" to "Little Tu"
Tulagu is founder of an AI audiovisual technology company six years in the making. He also moderated the WAVES panel "Imagination Is the Future." That day he wore gold-rimmed glasses and a pale yellow suit. After the session, Siqing Xu of Alpha公社, in his own formal suit, looked at Tulagu and then himself: "Next to you, my outfit seems so unimaginative."
Tulagu is a director and a researcher. People used to address him with the director's honorific "Director Tu"; after starting his company, it became "Little Tu." He said he doesn't mind.
To Be an Independent Spirit, Start with Dyeing Your Hair
On June 9, one of the earliest arrivals at WAVES was Hurst Lin, 58, DCM China's founding partner and managing partner, in a blue-and-white mixed shirt, multicolored jacket, and moss-green short hair.
Seeing 22-year-old Yuwei Mao in a black T-shirt for her generative AI platform Tiamat, he teased: "Young person, you need to wear more color!" Mao's own hair was streaked with blue-green. Thus began the largest age-gap conversation at WAVES — between a post-60s and post-00s — on the theme: being an independent spirit.
Ten Thousand Miles Outweighs Ten Thousand Books
One early-stage founder summarized that scientists must master "the art of speaking" when taking non-market funding.
For instance, when a relevant official praised him for his overseas PhD — "so well-read" — while calling himself uneducated, the founder must promptly reply: "Your ten thousand miles of travel outweigh my ten thousand books of reading."
"Stealing Compute" Across 30 Years
Tiamat founder Yuwei Mao's earliest entrepreneurial days involved蹭 school servers, then borrowing GPU cards wherever possible, even digging into Africa. To fund model training, she also became a content creator, "earning some ad revenue."
Across from her, DCM China's Hurst Lin had his own compute-stealing story. In 1995, Lin and classmates founded Chinese portal Sinanet at Stanford. "At first, we relied on stealing the school's compute." After six months of frantic appropriation, they were caught and shut down. The site later merged with portal Stone Rich Sight to become today's Sina. This also became Lin's entry point into VC.
15,000 Tons of Corn and the Tycoon
At WAVES, Wang Shi shared the pivotal leap that turned him "from a nobody into a tycoon": 15,000 tons of corn.
In the planned economy era, Hong Kong's insatiable demand for chicken and eggs led him into the chicken feed trade. Then rumors emerged from somewhere that chicken feed contained carcinogens. People stopped eating chicken, and mountains of corn piled up in the north. Wang Shi made a life-altering decision: buy all 15,000 tons. A month later, the panic passed. He made 4 million yuan.
One of China's earliest entrepreneurs recalled: "Starting a business back then wasn't hard. The hard part was deciding to do it. Those who dared basically succeeded." A young entrepreneur on site sighed sincerely: "An era where you could profit from information asymmetry — that's gone for good."
The Partner Drank into the ER
Two days before WAVES, a PR head at a RMB fund urgently contacted us: their scheduled investor couldn't make it. Reason: drank into the ER by an LP. The day before the conference, their replacement investor also bowed out. Same reason: drank into the ER by an LP.
Perhaps to prove the story, the PR even sent a photo of the investor sitting at the hospital entrance, vomiting into a plastic bag.
To the Counties, To the Middle East
During WAVES invitations, some GPs couldn't attend because they were busy fulfilling "reciprocal investment" obligations.
Others were en route to the Middle East. One investor had just returned: "A intermediary told me they've already seen more than a dozen waves of Chinese investors coming to raise funds."
The Most Intense Power Couple
Xu Han, CEO of Dongsheng Intelligent Technology, began his new venture in hell mode. At the worst point, his company had less than 10,000 yuan in the bank. For a period, he developed phone-call PTSD — "every call brought bad news." To commit fully, he later put a bed in his office and moved in. He achieved consecutive years of doubling revenue, becoming an industry leader.
This entrepreneur, who claims he could live in his office 365 days a year, has a girlfriend also at WAVES who regularly works until 5 AM for a week straight. "We're both frequent couch sleepers, but I have it rougher — my couch is only 1.8 meters," Han said with a laugh.
The CEO of the Future
Being able to count — that's the defining trait of Hongdong Huang, former co-founder of Zhangbei, former CEO of Blue and White Porcelain, and now founder of Danke Skin.
He makes no secret of his rigor on profit margins: "All stores are asset-light, small-scale operations, under 200 square meters, opening costs between 1-2.5 million yuan, average ticket 2,000 yuan, payback period 1.5 years..." In our interview, he kept emphasizing: future CEOs must "return to business fundamentals." "Fundraising used to be relatively controllable; now it's uncontrollable, so counting money and turning profit have become consensus."
The Youngest Day of Your Life
At WAVES, Song Yao participated in two panels — as CEO of Orienspace and founding partner of SEE Fund.
The year he sold his AI chip company DeePhi, which he had built from scratch, for $300 million, Yao was just 25. Afterward, he could have become CEO elsewhere, continued in AI chips, or gone into investing. Instead he founded Orienspace. Because building rockets had fascinated him since childhood, and he disliked repetition.
At the end of one panel, he mentioned the phrase he has long used as his WeChat signature: Today is the youngest day of your life.
The Crashing Groom
WAVES Night was held on Bibo Island at Jinhai Lake. On Xiaohongshu, it's known as "Little Switzerland," a popular wedding photography spot. During the dinner, a groom filming a video pointed at the conference in his frame: "I'm at Jinhai Lake, great weather, and there's a business forum next door."
"So You Were Here Too"
In the WAVES Night crowd, you kept hearing: "You look familiar." "Long time no see." "So it was you." Rumor has it two people shook hands seven times that evening, still strangers each time.
The freest, most socially fearless beings were the pets. A golden retriever and a Yorkshire terrier weaved between the award stage, tents, and lawn.
The Beached Wave Machine
Marco, CEO of Taoxin Mary, had endlessly envisioned it: somewhere between the Jinhai Lake grass and water, a few-hundred-square-meter wave machine or container pool, young people in swimsuits riding surfboards amid the spray, playing and screaming.
But concerns over prohibitive costs and time constraints kept the vision from materializing at the WAVES campsite. "So next year's WAVES shouldn't be at the beach — it should be in the mountains!" he exclaimed to us.
Resonance
Yiming Yang, CEO of Moying Technology, had rarely attended large gatherings since returning to China to start his company three years ago. Hearing so many at WAVES discuss long-term strategy and global tech trends, he finally found a long-missed feeling of "great minds think alike."
Another overseas-returned entrepreneur felt the last time he'd experienced this atmosphere was as a Stanford student: "Not just grass and champagne, but also space to discuss the life of the mind."
"Like a Sky Full of Stars"
Approaching the WAVES Night venue from afar, you might mistake it for the center of an era: orange high-beam spotlights ringing the stage swept across the hillside. A girl in a strawberry dress, someone walking alone from the hillside portable toilet back to the venue, people weaving between booths for food and drink — they kept running into the light, briefly illuminated by the stage lamps.
That night, everyone had their own way of being present: a group spontaneously kicked off their shoes to play frisbee barefoot; lovers celebrated a birthday before everyone's eyes; college classmates reunited after five years apart; someone's car got stuck in the mud at departure, and they spent forty minutes pulling it out by hand.
One woman said to her companion, twice: the insects flinging themselves at the lights at night, "like a sky full of stars."
Image source | Dark Current
Layout | Meng Du
