Li Guofei's 10,000-Word Interview: Seeking Wisdom Is About Constantly Breaking the Prison of the Mind
Two worlds that seem to have nothing to do with each other may, at their foundations, arrive at the same destination by different paths.
By Lili Yu
Edited by Jing Liu
One July afternoon, Guofei Li showed up right on time at a restaurant in Shenzhen's Nanshan district — wearing an oversized T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops.
The hotel has the air of a hermit hiding in plain sight. Its entrance is concealed behind hedges; inside, vintage stained glass, gold marble, and hand-painted wallpaper make visitors feel like they've stumbled into a fantastical voyage, the outside world instantly receding.
In the secondary-market world, Guofei Li carries something of a hermit's aura too. More often than not, he's a mysterious presence — heard of, rarely seen.
Since retreating from the public fund industry in 2002, he has neither touched a suit, tie, or leather shoes, nor given a single media interview. As a Cantonese, he not only wears slippers seven months of the year but lives by the maxim "keep everything low-key."
For most people, Guofei Li burst onto the scene through several essays on value investing.
A value investor in China can hardly bypass his investment lectures at Peking University and the Gaoli Academy in 2010 and 2018, or his writings like Out of Control and Investing and A Comprehensive Reflection on Tencent's Strategy. A well-known primary-market investor told An Yong Waves: "If Buffett is the best teacher of value investing, then Guofei Li is one of the best teaching assistants in China."
To Han Rui of Gaorong Capital, Guofei Li is a rare investor who can "simultaneously operate on a grand spatiotemporal scale and minute business data" and who is "truly humble." After achieving success, "it's easy to form judgments about others and their affairs," yet Guofei Li "more readily gives praise." Xi Cao of Monolith Capital admires the "focus and willingness to make concentrated bets" in Guofei Li's investing. Years later, he still remembers Guofei Li's emphasis on the workload required to research a company or industry — "equivalent to earning an undergraduate degree."
In 2004, 2007, and 2018, Guofei Li reaped substantial returns by successfully betting on Vanke, Tencent, and Ping An, among other well-known companies. Chen Guangming, founder of Ruoyuan Fund, believes that as a non-internet practitioner, Guofei Li's research depth into the internet industry surpasses that of the vast majority of market participants.
What may be most distinctive, however, is the system Guofei Li has built — one that integrates Zen, investing, and the evolution of both individuals and companies.
This is summarized in his new book Jobs, Zen, and Investing as the "method of personal evolution": If you truly love something, maintain intense focus, continuously sharpen your insight and creativity, pour your heart into it, and life can change dramatically — with all kinds of possibilities opening up.
Guofei Li says this is a feasible methodology he has examined rationally, "definitely not chicken soup for the soul."
He has personally verified the wonders this method has worked on his own life: the young man who "naked-resigned" from a public fund in 2002 and once considered switching to auto 4S dealerships later became an "investment world thinker"; the frail, sickly teenager can now complete marathons and Ironman triathlons with ease; the man with absolutely no artistic talent who at forty didn't know what aperture meant has won the Sony World Photography Awards' "Nature and Wildlife" category champion and numerous other photography and art prizes.
Interviewing Guofei Li produces a strange experience: investing, Zen meditation, running, photography, and the many intertwined paths of life — these seemingly unrelated worlds are fundamentally connected or converge by different routes. Making a good investment, building a great company, and living a good life are all about constantly breaking the cages of thought and finding the connections among all things.
In a sense, enabling more people to know this methodology is one reason Guofei Li, after 22 years of keeping a low profile, is willing to break his silence and speak with us. After all, "only a very few people are born knowing — they can look up and see the moon" (he stresses he is not among them), while most people "need to see the moon through someone else's pointing finger."
The conversation follows:
Finding the Sharpest Reason
"Once you've bought a company's stock, it's best to become that stock's opponent."
An Yong: In your recent essay My New Thoughts on Zen and Investing, you mention that all preparation in your investment career has been for making a very small number of "simple decisions." In 2004, you invested in Vanke "on the eve of its explosion." Was this the result of a simple decision?
Guofei Li: Buying Vanke was simple. 2004 was the year when China's foreign exchange reserves exploded three years after joining the WTO: currency was flooding the system, housing prices were certain to soar — Japan and South Korea had gone through the same process. This meant the real estate era had arrived. I chose Vanke because I believed it was the best investment target among property companies — bar none. Wang Shi had established a new rule of absolutely no bribery in this industry, and he built China's first professional management team, designing powerful inter-departmental constraint mechanisms from the Christian perspective of human nature being inherently flawed. This management system allowed Vanke to expand rapidly, standardize, and scale across cities.
An Yong: Besides Vanke, you also bet on Tencent. What year did you buy in?
Guofei Li: 2007.
An Yong: At the time, Tencent's business model hadn't fully emerged. Amid all the distracting information, how did you make your decision?
Guofei Li: A major concern then was the legality of Q Coins. A friend recommended I research Tencent; I didn't even know it was already listed in Hong Kong. He kept emphasizing that the legality of Q Coins might pose significant policy risk. I researched seriously for over a month, getting more excited the deeper I went — sensing this could be a massive investment opportunity. I opened a Qzone account, and my first post there was: "I'm here, I'm going to buy QQ, I'm going to get rich!"
An Yong: Was it because you saw its ability to repeatedly produce hit products?
Guofei Li: It was the terrifying stickiness. I hadn't yet read Kevin Kelly's Out of Control and didn't know the concept of connectivity. Earlier, I had read a book by a good friend about a foreign telecom company: after subscribing to its phone service, if other family members or company members joined, call fees between them dropped dramatically. This strategy led to very fast customer growth and very high loyalty. This was a network effect — the strong get stronger. The book's insight deeply influenced me. Researching QQ, I discovered that friends were spending more time and frequency chatting on QQ than on the phone. Even if you made an identical product, it wouldn't matter because all your friends were already here. QQ's network effect was unprecedented. Whether Q Coins were legal wasn't actually important — even if banned, other payment methods would emerge.
An Yong: The exploration of investing also seems like a process of discerning the principal contradiction.
Guofei Li: You have to find the sharpest reason.
An Yong: Can you share a lesson from a "simple decision" that didn't work out?
Guofei Li: When Huawei was sanctioned in 2018, from an investment perspective, buying Apple then was actually a "simple decision." In the high-end phone market, Huawei had already overtaken Apple in Europe and led by an even larger margin in China; being sanctioned meant surrendering the entire market. But very regrettably, I didn't buy, because I was then preoccupied with Apple's innovation capacity. I remember Duan Yongping came to Shenzhen then, and I consulted him on this question. He said it didn't matter much whether Apple released large-screen phones sooner or later, and whether whose camera was better was a matter of opinion. Apple's reputation and business model remained solid. Once Samsung released a waterproof phone and hyped its innovation; when I visited Duan Yongping's home in the US, he turned on the faucet, filled a plate with water, dropped an iPhone in, and said Apple had this feature all along — they just didn't advertise it. Of course, the key point here was that the sudden ceding of huge global market share — this reason was extremely sharp.
An Yong: Value investors all pursue high certainty, but whether something is truly certain is often hard to say. You've said that when something meets the "simple decision" standard, certainty becomes particularly high. Why?
Guofei Li: A "simple decision" means discovering something with particularly strong certainty amid extreme uncertainty, and this certainty is determined by very few dimensions — usually one or two. It's similar to the "Occam's Razor" theory that people are relatively familiar with. This theory has had enormous influence on Western philosophy and science, typically expressed as "entities should not be multiplied without necessity." There's a very important angle of understanding: when something happens, if there are two or more explanations, which is most credible? The one requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely correct — this is actually a probability problem. In my view, if the reasoning behind a decision isn't yet simple enough, it may not be the best decision — perhaps it's a very risky one. Better to wait, continue reading and thinking, until it feels relatively simple. I believe all of Buffett's decisions are "simple decisions." "Simple decision" sounds very simple, but it's actually extremely difficult — it requires very deep understanding of the essence of things, and understanding which dimensions are the principal contradiction at each stage. Buffett says he has done well in investing because he only wants to jump one-foot hurdles, not challenge himself to jump seven-foot hurdles. He said a legendary baseball player had a very high batting average because he only swung at balls coming from certain angles that suited him perfectly — simple, no?
An Yong: What mental models do you use to perceive essence?
Li Guofei: I'd like to introduce a thinking model I call "1, -1, and 0." Here's an example. Value investors all believe that "value investing means holding for the long term." But do you truly understand this statement? The proposition "value investing means holding for the long term" is the "1." The "-1" is the negation of this proposition. Are there cases where long-term holding doesn't make money? Think about it briefly — yes, there really are. There are two "-1s": one is if you buy a high-quality company in a highly cyclical industry, like finance or nonferrous metals, the volatility will be enormous. The other is if you buy at very expensive valuations — you might have to wait a very long time, and it could be quite painful. The 0 sits beneath both 1 and -1 — it refers to the reasoning that allows both 1 and -1 to hold true. Here, the 0 that allows the 1 to hold true is an exceptionally wide moat, little fear of competition, and the ability to generate relatively stable cash flow over the long term. Think deeper: the country where the company operates needs stable policies, and a high degree of rule of law and marketization, to provide strong safeguards. In other words, if investors lack confidence in a country's rule of law and marketization, then the foundation of value investing becomes precarious. The 0 that allows the first -1 to hold true is the inherent nature of cyclical industries. If you really buy this kind of company, you'd better understand which phase of the cycle we're in now, and you might need to take some action. The 0 that allows the second -1 to hold true is that Mr. Market tends to go crazy, often to extremes. You need to learn to take advantage of him — be wary when a company's valuation becomes too expensive. Using this tool well may help with insight into essence, and thus help you make "simple decisions."
"An Yong": So even a minimalist decision requires a process of maximal complexity.
Li Guofei: Only through maximal complexity can you reach minimalism. You need deep understanding of every dimension of a thing before you can grasp which dimensions constitute the principal contradiction at each stage, and then make "simple decisions" based on how that principal contradiction shifts. The Diamond Sutra says: "Let the mind arise without abiding anywhere." It means don't let your mind settle in one place and stop moving — nothing is eternally unchanging. What's the principal contradiction now won't necessarily be so forever. We must always be ready to shatter this attachment, to combine opposites in our thinking. Once you buy a company's stock, it's best to become that stock's opponent. Seek out people who dislike the company and talk with them. Examine whether their objections could undermine your investment.
Finding Wisdom in Zen, Not Comfort
"A blindly positive mindset may simply be self-deception."
"An Yong": Zen has brought you many insights for investing. How did you first make the connection between "self-form, person-form, sentient-being-form, and life-span-form" and the various parties in the market?
Li Guofei: One year, a friend and I went to Peru to photograph birds. While waiting for luggage at the airport, I suddenly thought of a connection — there's a passage in the Diamond Sutra: "No self-form, no person-form, no sentient-being-form, no life-span-form." I'd always felt that stock prices represent a kind of collective voting choice, a "sentient-being-form" corresponding to all investors in the market. "Self-form" corresponds to "my" continuously changing investment decisions. "Person-form" is the object relative to "self" — the fundamentals of the listed company being researched. "Life-span-form" corresponds to various macro changes. These changes all have temporality, a limited "lifespan." When I thought of this, I even specifically opened Baidu to search how various eminent monks and masters had interpreted this passage. Using the "four forms" to interpret investment — I found it sufficiently comprehensive and profound.
"An Yong": You said "simple decision" derives from minimalism, and minimalism originates from Zen. Clearly Zen has greatly influenced your investment philosophy. Why Zen rather than other spiritual resources?
Li Guofei: This stems from a rather unusual experience of mine. In 2002, when I left Penghua Fund, I was utterly lost. When Chinese people encounter life's difficulties, they don't tend to seek out psychologists — they turn to Buddhism or Daoism. Temples and Daoist monasteries are China's best psychological hospitals. At the time, I chose to seek help from Buddhist studies. I studied scriptures very seriously, even participated in some rather inexplicable rituals. But the more I studied, the more pessimistic and despondent I became — I nearly went off the deep end. Fortunately, I stopped in time. By 2007, when I re-read the Diamond Sutra and Platform Sutra, I gained unprecedented insights. Only then did I realize I had probably misunderstood Buddhism back then.
This process made me discover that traditional Buddhism is naturally world-renouncing. The values it advocates differ enormously from worldly values, and this caused my cognitive confusion. Many people know that Buddhist teaching emphasizes seeking inward — but how? By chanting scriptures and bowing to Buddha every day, or finding a master for empowerment rituals, or eagerly going on mountain circumambulations. They think this is what seeking inward means.
So in this book, I appropriately separate Zen from Buddhism. Zen originates from religion (Buddhism) yet transcends religion. The theoretical essence of Zen is the truth the Buddha fully awakened to — dependent origination and emptiness of inherent nature. It is neither world-entering nor world-renouncing. Whether world-renouncing or world-entering, one can gain from Zen. Ordinary people engaged in the world and monastics practice very differently. There are many philosophical systems that lead to the essence of investing — many arrive via other paths. I happen to be one who came through Zen.
"An Yong": But in most people's impression, what people seek in religion is comfort.
Li Guofei: Many years ago, I participated in a Zen study society organized by a group of social elites. At the time, I asked one senior member who was very accomplished in Zen studies — how does Buddhist teaching help with stock trading? He thought for a long time and said: perhaps if you lose money trading stocks, you won't feel too sad. I pondered this — merely psychological massage, isn't that insufficient? If it can elevate the realm of our investing, then Buddhist teaching truly penetrates deep into people's hearts.
Someone buys a stock and it falls. After studying Buddhist teaching, they have a so-called "good mindset" — is that useful? It's not useful. If you bought the wrong stock, and the company's fundamentals have serious problems, what you need to do is close your position quickly. The better your mindset, the more unflappable you are — the greater your losses may become. Value investing requires deep understanding of a company's fundamentals. When it falls, if after reviewing you believe the fundamentals are fine, and you remain calm and composed — that is truly a good mindset. A "good mindset" that is blind may simply be self-deception.
"An Yong": In your book, you mention that Kazuo Inamori once said, "I firmly believe that things your heart does not intensely desire cannot draw near to you." Yet ideas that overly emphasize the subjective or idealist tend to be dismissed as chicken soup for the soul.
Li Guofei: Zen is not chicken soup for the soul. Chicken soup just smells fragrant but serves no real purpose. Dependent origination and emptiness of inherent nature — sounds very simple, but the wisdom is extraordinary, and it's genuinely useful.
We seek wisdom from Zen. First, we'll discover it's a discipline of mind-cultivation. It can make our minds more powerful. The enhancement of insight and creativity will have direct impact on our work. Second, it's a lifestyle characterized by the pursuit of extremity, which gives our lives more meaning. Finally, it's also a methodology for thinking — which I summarize as focus, minimalism, and the derived dimension-reduction thinking that follows. "Simple decision" is a form of dimension-reduction thinking. This methodology points directly to essence and can greatly improve our efficiency in thinking through problems.
"An Yong": You move between Zen, investing, photography, and multiple other fields with accomplishments in each. Is this the underlying secret?
Li Guofei: Zen has had an extremely significant influence on my life. To put it in one sentence: it can make our inner selves very powerful. We become more confident as a result. If you truly love something, if you study it with great dedication, pouring your heart into it, then myriad methods arise from the mind, and you can continuously evolve.
"An Yong": Investing requires high rationality; art requires high sensibility. You unify rationality and sensibility — does this relate to Zen?
Li Guofei: This is a very interesting question. Perhaps it really does. The Diamond Sutra says: "If one sees all forms as non-forms, then one sees the Tathagata." This can be understood as: when thinking through problems, don't be satisfied with merely seeing surface appearances — penetrate through appearances to seek dependent origination. That is, the conditions that allow things to come into being. Only then can wisdom and awareness arise. This indeed requires high rationality.
At the same time, Zen holds that all things are fragile and will certainly be disrupted. Art places high emphasis on originality, encourages breaking conventions, and letting the mind arise without abiding anywhere — traditionally considered a very sensual force. Art, entrepreneurship, and innovation are very similar. Why does Western education place such importance on artistic cultivation? I believe this is an important reason. Sensibility or rationality — these are actually the mind's power manifesting in different aspects. They cannot be separated.
The Internet Tech Industry Is Still in the Fighting Stage, Let Alone Defending Territory
"The advancement of technology and new business models both require moderate loss of control."
"An Yong": In 2018, your A Comprehensive Reflection on Tencent generated enormous response. How do you view Tencent today?
Li Guofei: 2018 was a peak for Tencent. Since then, it can only be described as mediocre. WeChat Channels has made progress — it's what Pony Ma called "the hope of the whole village" — but the gap with Douyin remains enormous. Apart from Allen Zhang's department, which is still constantly tinkering and seeking breakthroughs, other departments feel lethargic. Even its once near-monopolistic gaming business is now being challenged by new-generation gaming companies.
I think Tencent is a classic midlife crisis — entropy increase is severe. That pioneering spirit of conquering territory and crushing all competitors is long gone. Every new business seems half-hearted, especially new businesses related to hard tech and underlying technology — while others are running, they too stand up and jog along. Tencent implemented some entropy-reduction measures at the end of 2018, but with little effect. If Tencent doesn't rally soon, it will properly become a retirement home.
"An Yong": Some believe Huawei is China's most evolutionarily capable company. Whether in 5G equipment, smartphones, GPUs, energy dispatch, or even recent new energy vehicles, it can rapidly catch up. What key thing has Huawei grasped?
Li Guofei: Huawei's most important management theory is entropy-reduction theory. Greater openness, breaking stability — once they seize an important opportunity, they throw money and people at it relentlessly. This is the most essential thing in their bones. Huawei has achieved perfect fusion between the Red Army's warfare methods and modern Western management. It makes everyone both trembling with caution, unable to slack off, while also being able to reward merit and never shortchange those who contribute. Spiritual motivation alone is useless — you must respect human nature.
"An Yong": How do you view the predicament Alibaba currently faces? You once praised Alibaba's management as very entropy-reducing and highly combative. Now what aspect of Alibaba do you think has gone wrong?
Li Guofei: I once felt Alibaba could be mentioned in the same breath as Huawei, because of its lofty ambitions, extremely excellent long-term strategy, and various systems designed to enhance corporate vitality. I even bought quite a bit of its stock, but in the end basically made no money — this was a lesson. Reflecting now, I feel Jack Ma's retirement and leadership change had too great an impact on the company. No matter how impressive the systems once were, no matter how profound the entropy-reduction thinking, the leader remains most important. An outstanding leader can create all manner of dependent origination, with myriad methods arising from the mind, making the company ever stronger. An unsuitable person, however, can ruin even the best hand. After a company changes leaders, you still need to observe for a while. For evaluating a leader, I think the "four powers" model from mind-power Zen is quite good — it points directly to the essence of human capability.
"Dark Current": Conquering and defending territory require leaders with different temperaments.
Li Guofei: In fiercely competitive industries like mobile and internet, you're always fighting — there's really no such thing as "defending territory." In recent years, whether in the food delivery war with Meituan or the hundred-billion-subsidy battle with Pinduoduo, Alibaba showed a certain stiffness, preoccupied with gains and losses. This left once-impregnable moors riddled with holes. Fortunately, Alibaba has proven capable of self-correction, having recently made personnel adjustments. I wish them well.
"Dark Current": As some internet giants grow larger, they're encountering new questions about fair competition, monopoly, and the like.
Li Guofei: These issues should be constrained within the legal frameworks of fair competition law and antitrust law. Relying on administrative orders won't be effective. Society is heatedly debating whether capital should be orderly or disorderly, even talking about setting up traffic lights for capital. Actually, in a rule-of-law society, anything not prohibited by law should be a green light. Having both red and green lights — that's Shennan Avenue, not the boundless sea and sky. Having to stop at every intersection to ask authorities whether you can proceed — how can you innovate? Even Steve Jobs would get depressed.
After reading Out of Control, you'll understand that disruptive business models aren't planned; they're unpredictable. They're vigorous, adventurous exploration — the product of apparent disorder and失控. Take bike-sharing: many people lost their money, but nobody complained, because it was their choice and they bore the responsibility themselves. The key is this: give me opportunity, I consent, allow "out-of-control" development and boundary-pushing in technology and business — only then can we collectively foster an atmosphere where people dare to invest.
Moreover, major tech companies form a massive technological ecosystem, among a nation's most important drivers of technological progress. Imagine: without Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, where would American technology be? Some cutting-edge advances like ChatGPT require these giants' cost-be-damned investment. Treating them well is a matter of national fortune.
"Dark Current": You mention Steve Jobs frequently in your book. Which younger-generation Chinese companies do you think have been deeply influenced by Apple?
Li Guofei: I spoke with Da Wei at miHoYo — they've deeply studied Apple and Huawei. Their methodology of concentrating most of the company's energy on one game at a time resembles Apple, while their high-intensity, high-incentive organizational mobilization resembles Huawei. I also spoke with Li Xiang at Li Auto — they release only one car per year, with the L7-L9 being essentially variants of the same vehicle, drastically reducing R&D costs. This learns from Apple's extreme focus and pursuit of perfection methodology. Very sophisticated thinking.
"Dark Current": Having studied many listed companies with wide moats, do you think there's an inevitable growth logic to them?
Li Guofei: Two things are crucial. First, leadership is decisive to a company's growth. A company's evolution cannot surpass its leader's evolution. Second, enhancing vitality — entropy reduction — is extremely important. Alibaba originally gathered ordinary people, but Jack Ma was a remarkable teacher. He built a remarkable dojo, elevating everyone's mental power, letting everyone know how to accomplish remarkable things.
"Dark Current": Some say the internet is a rare ideal business model with scale effects in human history. Will there be similarly large opportunities in the future?
Li Guofei: Over the past twenty years, Chinese and American internet companies have both developed well, improving global efficiency and bringing prosperity worldwide. We've all enjoyed this enormous dividend.
For the next 10-20 years, or even longer, it will be AI's world. Its contribution to improving human efficiency will be even more significant. In this sense, I'm very optimistic about the world's future — AI will create enormous wealth. Ordinary people should choose good companies, buy and hold. This will be an excellent opportunity for another great wealth explosion. For many years, our internet giants like Alibaba, Tencent, and Meituan developed business models that even surpassed their American counterparts. In this AI wave, the government should trust them and incentivize them.
Fully and Accurately Understanding Buffett's Theory
"If you're buying a mediocre company, don't apply his theory."
"Dark Current": When did you first encounter value investing?
Li Guofei: When I left Penghua Fund in 2002, the state share reduction hadn't been completed. There was basically no value investing in the market — only chaotic companies rose. I was extremely pessimistic about the Chinese securities market's future; this was my main reason for leaving the fund industry. After China resolved the state share reduction in 2004, value investing in China truly began.
"Dark Current": When did you feel you truly understood value investing?
Li Guofei: There's a book called Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist, about Buffett's value investing. It came out in 1997; I read it then and didn't understand it. In 2004, I revisited it. Perhaps it was returning from a hundred battles to read again, combined with my deep study of dialectics at the time — something clicked. Reading it, it suddenly became clear. So many people say value investing is: you either get it or you don't.
"Dark Current": You've mentioned in past articles that when studying Buffett, you would combine China's actual conditions to build your own system. How is that system coming along?
Li Guofei: That was my thinking over a decade ago. Actually, for value investing, there is no such thing as a system that only suits China. Whether in China, Europe, or America, the primary question in value investing thinking is always future cash flow.
I've seen articles saying value investing means low PE, high dividends, good赛道, industry leader, etc. Frankly, this isn't entirely unrelated to value investing, but it's not closely related either — or rather, it doesn't touch the most essential thing.
Additionally, I want to emphasize: the companies Buffett chooses are extremely exceptional companies, exceptional to the point of one-in-ten-thousand, the crown jewels of the market. If what you're choosing are mediocre companies, or even fairly good ones that fall far short of this extremely exceptional standard, it's best not to apply Buffett's theory.
"Dark Current": In 2004, after re-reading The Buffett Biography and feeling you understood value investing, what did you do?
Li Guofei: I judged that real estate would definitely do well, and I bought Vanke. If I'd bought other real estate stocks, I might have made more, but given the choice again, I'd still buy Vanke. Because I didn't know what weird twists real estate might take, and buying the best company lets you sleep soundly every night.
"Dark Current": So value investing is also a matter of happiness?
Li Guofei: If someone makes money amid war, there's no happiness to speak of. With value investing, if you believe your buying logic is correct, you can maintain relative calm in the face of violent fluctuations — this is a life with happiness.
Not only that, you can be quite leisurely. There's a Gates interview where he says he went to see Buffett and found that in Buffett's calendar, only four days in the month had anything scheduled. So Buffett has abundant time every day to do what he likes. Someone busy to death with no time to think can't do investing well. Besides reading and writing, I enjoy running marathons and photographing animals around the world. Finding something suited to your nature is fortunate.
"Dark Current": Duan Yongping said he really disliked Tesla, but Tesla later rose many times over. What do you think?
Li Guofei: This is an excellent example. I once visited his home; he pulled me into his garage, lifted the Tesla's rear trunk lid, and said when it rains, water flows along the opened lid into the trunk. He said this product is complete garbage — the company has no value.
In his cognitive world, only companies with extremely perfect products and extremely high customer satisfaction can catch his eye. Anything below this standard, no matter how much it rises, has nothing to do with him.
He thought Tesla's product was garbage, so he didn't buy it — and his heavy position in Apple is strongly connected to this. Precisely because he didn't buy Tesla, he could go heavy on Apple. He only buys what he can understand. He says he can understand very few things. He took Buffett's concept of focusing on one-foot hurdles to the extreme, which is why his investing has been extraordinarily successful.
The Wonder and Possibility of Life
"Photo editing is also my meditation time — constant颅内高潮."
"Dark Current": When you left Penghua Fund in 2004 and fell into life's confusion, did you think about what to do next?
Li Guofei: I wanted to start a BMW 4S dealership with a classmate from my EMBA at Peking University's Guanghua School of Management, but we didn't get the license. If we'd gotten it, there might be no me today. And in those years away from the securities market, the stock market fell from 2200 to 998 — blood flowed like rivers. I happened to avoid it.
"Dark Current": You also mention in your book that dialectics is another important spiritual resource for you besides Zen.
Li Guofei: Dialectics has also greatly influenced me. Thinking models like "1, -1, 0" bear some resemblance to Hegel's "thesis-antithesis-synthesis." Doing something — you can do it this way or that way. Integrating the essence of both methods might be better, possibly evolving to a higher level. This is "thesis-antithesis-synthesis." Hegel believed this is how things evolve and develop. Struggle is not the main cause of evolution — fusion is. I suspect our understanding of dialectics has some deviation.
Many great things are fusions of contradictions. Before Deng Xiaoping, nobody dared imagine market economy and socialism could combine. Huawei combined the Red Army's operational system with Western management systems. Singapore combined Confucian values with Western political institutions featuring separation of powers. Now East and West are in fierce competition — who wins? I believe whichever side considers itself of pure blood and blindly rejects the other will certainly lose. Whichever side can learn more and better from the other will win.
"An Yong": You wrote that your photography has broken through in the past year or two. Where did this progress come from?
Li Guofei: Last May, I took a post-processing workshop taught by Duan Yueheng, widely considered China's master of black-and-white photography. On the first day, I was completely stunned — my whole worldview shattered. He overturned everything I thought I knew about photography. He didn't care about photographic "truth." He treated Photoshop as a wild, utterly free form of expression. He said art is about breaking rules, and he encouraged us to break rules too. I was deeply inspired.
After six days of learning, I went home and dove headfirst into editing. I couldn't stop. For a while, I was spending ten-plus hours a day at home working on images. I used to meditate regularly, but I no longer had time for it — or rather, editing was my meditation. Constant endorphin rushes in my brain. I had to set alarms, or I'd lose myself completely.
I love photographing wildlife, which sits at the margins of art photography — very niche. I believe animals possess a spiritual quality. Expressing an artist's inner emotions through that animal spirituality actually moves people more easily. Bada Shanren, the painter from the late Ming and early Qing, was a brilliant exemplar of this. Doing something innovative in this marginal space, injecting some thought into it — it catches people off guard in a refreshing way.
Art especially emphasizes breaking boundaries. It tests your creative power. Someone could imitate Zao Wou-ki perfectly, but it's useless, worthless. Investing can lead to awakening emptiness; so can photography.
"An Yong": Were writing a book and pursuing photography unexpected turns in your life?
Li Guofei: Life is strange. I never thought about writing a book. In 2010, I gave a talk at Peking University that somehow spread widely. That gave me confidence. I wrote more articles after that, and the response was decent. Jobs, Zen, and Investing was published this year — it felt like a natural progression.
I was physically weak as a child. In middle age, I trained hard: first half-marathons, then full marathons, then swimming across Taiwan's Sun Moon Lake, and eventually I even completed an Ironman — goals I wouldn't have dared dream of in my youth.
As for photography, I had zero artistic talent growing up. At 40, I didn't even know what aperture was. In my first year learning photography, I won a major award from Chinese National Geography. A few years later, I took second place in National Geographic China's competition. Most recently, I won the 2020 Sony World Photography Award in the Nature and Wildlife category. This year I was invited to the very professional "Shanghai PHOTO" exhibition — something I couldn't have imagined even a year ago.
I believe life can evolve continuously, provided you truly love what you do and pour your heart into it. Then many possibilities open up. I do want to emphasize: whether in investing, Zen, or photography, I'm only just beginning. I can't speak of any real achievements. I'm sharing these experiences only in the hope of offering some inspiration.
"An Yong": I heard Duan Yongping rarely reads, yet he's achieved remarkable depth in investing. How do you think he evolved?
Li Guofei: He's said online that he might have a mild reading disability — he can't recall finishing a single book after college, and when he looks at books, he mainly just flips through them. He's also minimally social, keeping company with only a very small circle of familiar friends. He's probably accustomed to thinking alone. For him, exchanging with most people would just waste his time. He's very happy living in his own world.
This suddenly reminds me of Tencent's Zhang Xiaolong. He's also barely social — he says he's socially anxious, prefers being alone, and therefore wanted to build a social tool to help himself. Supposedly he may have said that every meeting with another person is a black hole in his life.
Once when I visited his office to chat, I mentioned I'd seen an Elon Musk interview where Musk said the odds we're living in base reality are one in a billion — I couldn't wrap my head around it. Zhang thought for a moment and said he might understand. He stood up, walked to a whiteboard, and drew a line representing time, seemingly starting from the birth of the universe, speaking as he thought, thinking as he spoke. I nodded politely throughout. I didn't actually follow what he was saying. He smiled, eyes shining, completely absorbed in his own world. That left a deep impression on me.
In this world, there may be a tiny number of people who simply know from birth. They look up and see the moon directly, while most of us need a finger pointing to see it. I deeply admire such people. I've had to grope my way forward with great effort, practicing hard to achieve even slight understanding.
"An Yong": What do you think the so-called search for wisdom is actually searching for?
Li Guofei: Jobs is my idol. With a spirit of pursuing perfection, he spent his life seeking wisdom, constantly breaking through himself. To pursue wisdom is to continually break your own cage, to glimpse a more beautiful world. The moment he died was the peak of his life's wisdom. In this sense, his life was perfectly complete. In the signed books I give friends, I write: "Pour your heart in, keep evolving" — let's encourage each other.
"An Yong": An investor wants to ask you — if you couldn't do investing in this life, what career would you choose?
Li Guofei: I dare not think about it — I love investing that much. If forced to choose, I might become a philosopher. Though probably a third-rate one.
Image source | Li Guofei's photographic work Guarding the Original Mind, Attaining Great Freedom
Layout | Du Meng
