The Night Outside the World: An AI Era Unfolding in Real Time
At the wharf along the Huangpu River, massive blocks of ice first made landfall at Buming Dock. Over the next four hours, they'd be chopped up and dropped into everyone's beer, melting faster with each clink of glasses — bringing a little cool vibe to an overheated Booming Night.
01
Beyond the World, Limited-Time Server Opening
Player Onboarding
At a pier along the Huangpu River, massive blocks of ice were the first to make landfall at Buming Wharf. Over the next four hours, they would be chopped up and dropped into everyone's beer, melting faster with each toast — bringing a cool vibe to an overheated Booming Night.
This was the second Booming Night and the fourth year since BlueRun Ventures launched Buming, its founder ecosystem IP. Over those four years, we've organized gatherings in Silicon Valley, Tokyo, and Singapore; created spaces for deep connection in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Shenzhen; and iterated on Buming Startup Camp year after year. We've accompanied more and more AI founders on their journey from Buming to booming. Entrepreneurs resonate here, drawing more people to actively seek out Buming. That's why this party received 1,200+ applications from the AI investment circle — nearly double last year's number — forcing us to find a larger venue at the last minute. Many said that of all the events around WAIC, we were their one and only. As night fell, the lights of the "Lujiazui Trio" across the river dissolved into scattered stars. The AGI Bar served up bottomless foam; someone knocked back 15 cups in one night. The five-hour music set was AI-generated by Sonicite. We even rented an AgiBot Lingxi robot, which used AI to generate its own OOTD for the evening.
Party players logged in one after another. A Messi fan crouched down to pet a small robot wearing the same jersey — it even had the same haircut. The Scream burst in suddenly; this guy was willing to wear the full costume in sauna-like heat because he wanted to scream for all AI founders. At the skin shop, people tried on hundreds of masks to embody whoever they most wanted to become, then walked through the 2001: A Space Odyssey tunnel. AI hardware was part of the play too — someone immediately gravitated toward the sold-out-everywhere VITURE glasses, donning an exoskeleton as their silicon skin. Just as BlueRun Ventures is one of the few early-stage VCs in China to have hit top-tier foundation models, embodied intelligence, and applications, Booming Night players came from across the AI ecosystem: well-known entrepreneurs, LPs, business leads from major global tech companies, must-follow influencers in AI, and star portfolio companies from the BlueRun family. Of course, our strict curation ensured the highest concentration of young, active AI founders in the room — as in all Buming spaces, entrepreneurs were the protagonists of the night.
02
Leave Old Answers Behind
Go Find the Next New Question
"In this new cycle, where will we sit in value creation, and what role will we play?" asked Terry, BlueRun Ventures' managing partner, pointing to the headband he wore with a big bright yellow question mark. "I'm here to ask questions. I don't have answers."
Terry stepped down after less than 30 seconds to grab drinks and chat. Many of our invited guests did the same — shedding their titles, putting on masks, and losing themselves in the crowd.
Booming Night doesn't do the "elders don't raise their glasses, juniors don't start eating" thing. There's no hierarchy between veterans and newcomers, no one-way speeches or "leaders speak first." Anyone can start a conversation at any time; every insightful thread of context finds ears that understand it. In the Small Talk rooms, we repeatedly saw industry heavyweights and our own LPs failing to grab seats, squeezing shoulder-to-shoulder with everyone else, pressed almost against the glass doors, standing the whole time just to listen — and having to fight for the mic when they wanted to speak. Terry waited ages at one talk before finally finding a chance to "unmute," opening with: "I've been holding this in forever, I can't take it! You're being way too extreme, so let me come at it from the other extreme..." In this egalitarian, relaxed atmosphere, people gradually got real.
Big names abounded at Buming Wharf this night, but the "main character energy" approached zero. Someone becomes a main character when they stop being curious — but at Booming Night, everyone's head was full of question marks. This is precisely the trait Buming wants to protect: facing the new world opened by AI, always preserving passion and an open heart, daring to break through old answers, venturing into uncharted territory where nothing is settled, and asking a new question.
03
Buming's Reward Mechanism:
Play to the Extreme
A shovel flashing with golden light. A table full of token coins.
A giant Kardashian face, manifesting token abundance for all.
Every wave of onlookers to the Gold Shovel game would be shocked: "You're giving out real compute?"
Yes. That simple, that crude. No empty gestures — only your shoveling skills matter. BlueRun Ventures partnered with Moonshot AI, PPIO, Volcano Engine, Google Cloud, AWS, and other leading providers to reward the best players with real money.
The game wasn't that simple: you had to close your eyes, keep the shovel as close to the tablecloth as possible to scoop from the bottom, then flip what you'd gathered into a tray in your other hand. The "flip" had to be decisive — like many things, timing was everything. The hardest part was that everyone around you would mess with you, directing you, pretending you'd struck gold and shouting, calling you "the human dexterous hand!" — exactly like the current state of AI entrepreneurship. True Buming players block out all noise, focus on their own feel, and prepare for that decisive moment.
04
Bye Bye!
All the Jargon and Pressure
Last year we noticed that the mini-games with zero connection to AI were the most popular — AI founders fighting to pick up ping-pong balls with chopsticks, thrilled whether they won or not, a scene you only see at Booming Night.
This year we upgraded hard, bringing a full bowling lane straight onto the wharf. No gutter balls allowed — clear the pins any way you want.
We know you've been sick of all that jargon — "not A but B," "get to the conclusion first" — this time you can finally overthrow it all in one go!
Not long after it opened, a girl walked over carrying her laptop. Before she asked the rules, we thought she needed WiFi.
Instead, sis came in with a shot put throw and smashed straight through the backboard at the end of the lane.
Later, everyone who saw that "great rift" would smile knowingly and say: "Now you know how much pressure we're under in AI entrepreneurship?"
Whether deep-diving on business or playing brain-dead games, as long as the vibe matches, anything goes.
05
Everyone Matters
Don't Forget the Rest of the World
A girl cosplaying Asuka, who'd even switched her phone case to match, got to talking with a guy carrying Thor's hammer.
Asuka herself worked in investment. After looking at dozens of consumer AI projects, the product that stuck with her most was an AI magnifying glass — kids could take it outdoors to look at plants and chat directly with it about botanical details. "This is such a parent-energy-saver!"
At this party, we didn't talk about conferences; we focused more on real AI needs in daily life — perhaps small, but absolutely genuine.
At the wharf entrance, we also built a Question Wall, inviting our own parents, food delivery drivers, and elementary school kids to share their curiosities and confusions about AI.
We wanted to present founders with more diverse perspectives from beyond the AI investment bubble, reminding everyone that while heads-down chasing the vision, don't forget to look up and see what's happening in the real world.
This is a line of source code Buming wants to write into the founder world: Everyone matters.
Remember that young man who arrived early, landing with the ice blocks?
He was a bit awkward at first, repeatedly asking if there would be chances to talk that evening. Later, he stood before the Question Wall for a long time, picked up a pen, and carefully wrote out answers to each question.
06
With Sincerity, Speak Truth
Bring Something Real Into the World
"A twenty- or thirty-minute session — I thought it'd be casual small talk, didn't expect it to go this deep." That's how Philip, a BlueRun Ventures investor, reflected after moderating a Small Talk room conversation.
Philip was dressed as the Statue of Liberty; the torch in his hand became a microphone, passed between participants.
The conversation always seemed to circle back: as AI grows more powerful, how do humans position themselves? The "AI replaces humans" narrative is too clichéd. In the Small Talk rooms, we heard some new stories: one founder said his five-and-a-half-year-old daughter had made an agent called "Kids' Animator," scripting stories with it every day. Another said he suddenly received a message from his parents: "We're in France." He hadn't known — the two elders had independently planned the entire trip using DeepSeek. More interestingly, once they arrived in France they ran into Gemini street promoters, and used Gemini to navigate eight days of local travel. The session moderated by BlueRun Ventures investor John left the deepest impression through his series of counter-questions. When someone asked him, "AGI is developing so fast, what do you capital people think?" he'd invite them to step back and first define: what is AGI, what is capital?
At the Buming Startup Camp this January, he threw a similar series of counter-questions at entrepreneurs. This is classic Buming style. We encourage mutual challenge, even arguments; mushy consensus is forbidden. We only do true, critical friendship. Later, someone in the room challenged John right back: "You counter-question this, counter-question that — are you just here to oppose us?"
John said: "We float among various concepts, possessing a false sense of being cutting-edge, of being critical. Actually, a lot of the time we don't know what we're talking about. We understand the world through language. Only genuine exchange can bring something real into this world."
07
Do You Dare to Cold Start?
Late at night, the DJ had the dance floor boiling. A robot originally scheduled to debut at WAIC came to Booming Night first and busted out a floor routine. The crowd gasped: Is AI going to replace humans at clubbing too?! Everyone looked at each other; for a moment, no one dared step up.
In the end, it was that same guy dressed as the oil painting who jumped into the dance floor and battled the robot up close, leaning over to shout at us: "I'm a real b-boy, competition level!" We'd lost count of how many times that night we'd been stunned by founders' slash identities.
With our encouragement, a self-proclaimed hardcore introvert in a No-Face costume also rushed the stage for a dance.
Later he posted on Xiaohongshu: super excited, unlocked a new life first.
See, people can break through themselves at any time — sometimes they just need an investor's nudge.
08
Context Expires
Human Connection Keeps Updating
At closing time, the check-in wall at the wharf entrance — empty spaces left by luggage tags taken away — were filled in with Polaroids.
Everyone wanted to take photos home as mementos. A few discovered that their own photos had already been taken by someone they'd been chatting with.
We're so glad founders generated so much genuine clash and real seeing this night. Just as Buming has signaled for four years — "Entrepreneurship is lonely, but entrepreneurs are not."
May we continue to inspire and accompany each other in more spaces created by Buming.
And — next year we'll bring more film, shoot duplicates.
At 1:40 a.m., a friend from Moonshot AI sent a message: had wanted to join that AI dating segment, but got called back to the office for overtime. Attached was the Kimi K3 launch tweet that went viral within hours.
The sun rose again. Booming Night name tags already hung on suitcases, heading to WAIC, heading to AdventureX.
From beyond the world back into the world, the journey continues.
End.
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