Code Brain | How Do Founder-CEOs Understand "Courage"?

As Clausewitz wrote in On War: "When facing the ubiquitous uncertainty of the battlefield, a leader needs two qualities: first, intellect — even in the darkest moments, to maintain some faint, dim inner light that points toward truth; second, courage — to follow that faint, dim light, wherever it may lead."

This article attempts to explore what kind of courage a founder-CEO truly needs.

01

The Courage to Face Common Sense

This is the most important. Being a boss is hard, "unhappy" — so much so that I constantly push The Conquest of Happiness on founders in my community. The author, Bertrand Russell — a thunderclap of a name, Nobel laureate, the kind of book Albert Einstein would have shared with tears in his eyes. Rumor has it that Zheng Huang, Pinduoduo's big boss, was deeply influenced by this book. After reading it, he summarized three takeaways. The first: "Have the courage to face common sense, use common sense to make rational judgments, and let rational intention guide your actions."

Many founder-CEOs lack the courage to face common sense. What is common sense in entrepreneurship?

First: Don't take advantage of others.

Your company is doing well, you want to fill a position with a budget of 20,000 RMB per month. You've interviewed many candidates, none suitable. Today HR reports finding a solid candidate earning 18,000 at their current company, but you could probably squeeze them down to 16,000 (specifics aside). As the boss, what do you offer? Can you resist taking this apparent bargain? Gaining means losing, losing means gaining. You might profit in the moment, but the real loss is greater.

Or consider this common scenario: veteran employees who've grown with the company find themselves paid far below "mainstream" external hires for similar roles. As boss, what do you do? Not raise salaries — the old guard probably won't leave immediately. Drag it out? The honest suffer, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Do you choose by common sense?

On the eve of Pinduoduo's IPO, the company could have raised the offering price by 20%. But Zheng Huang insisted on $19. He said, "Investors don't want a price hike when they're placing orders. There's a long road ahead; let's all make money together. Eating every last profit now doesn't match our values. Don't take advantage of others, even when we have the power to do so."

No wonder Zheng Huang made so much money! How many entrepreneurs slave away dreaming of ringing that bell? He didn't even attend the Nasdaq listing.

What impressed me deeply about common sense was Professor Xu Xiaonian at CEIBS. Tall and lean, always in long trousers and a long suit jacket over a mid-high collar thermal — never more than three colors, sunglasses after class. Last time he led our cohort to Israel, I sat next to him on the bus from Jerusalem back to Tel Aviv. We talked a lot. When we got to "new retail," he said retail fundamentally lacks network effects, weak Metcalfe effects, weak two-sided market effects. So focus on offline procurement, sorting, delivery — economies of scale there — while going online, "+internet" not "internet+". Going online isn't about becoming an internet company, but using the internet to amplify offline scale and synergy effects, pushing an offline-plus-online model, using numerous stores to reduce last-mile delivery costs, improving user experience through in-store service innovation. Reshaping retail isn't about using so-called internet thinking to transform offline stores.

He said development had been so fast, so many flashy models emerged, demons dancing — all disrespecting common sense. Ridiculously, we often need to prove common sense. Like "why must enterprises be profitable" — isn't this common sense? Yet we need to argue it.

Or take this: as boss, no one in your company is obligated to walk with you forever. You must understand your old brothers' reasonable choices — leaving isn't betrayal. This is common sense. You need courage to accept it. But be honest, how many bosses truly manage this? When it happens, perhaps you appear calm as a lake, but inside you're already surging.

When the company succeeds, it's everyone's credit; when it fails, it's the boss's fault — also common sense. How many founders genuinely accept this? They'll certainly believe it's their own brilliance.

Entrepreneurs wildly overestimate their abilities. Professor Gong at CEIBS put it classically: "70% of entrepreneurs believe their skills exceed 70% of entrepreneurs..." Also common sense.

02

The Courage to Show Weakness

Founder-CEOs mostly prefer showing strength over weakness. Showing weakness means admitting you're in difficulty, don't know what to do, hoping investors can offer advice. This approach often beats talking nonsense. Investors are undoubtedly among the sharpest people — they can spot BS instantly. Don't negotiate aggressively, don't play games. Be direct, transparent, proactive about problems. The more transparent and proactive you are, the more investors understand you, think from your perspective, building mutual trust.

Bravely voice your fears and vulnerabilities. Don't fear showing weakness. Displaying vulnerability is often the beginning of deep relationships with others.

When you bravely show vulnerability to someone, you signal trust to them, and signal that you need their support and help. Often this triggers their strong empathy, sense of participation, and desire to demonstrate their own power — hugely motivating for someone to show what they're capable of.

Gu, founder & CEO of HotMaxx, happened to discuss this recently. When the company faced major challenges, his approach was radical honesty — laying everything bare, brainstorming together — which ignited everyone's fighting spirit. I was fortunate to invest in HotMaxx early, when it was still called Tuituigou. Never imagined it would become a unicorn in two years. Some kismet there; I became his entrepreneurship coach.

The strong show weakness; the weak show strength. Once you learn to show weakness — there's a book called Weak Communication that says the world of public opinion is one of weak propagation; the strong in the real world are the weak in the court of opinion.

03

The Courage to Doggedly Recruit

Let's look at some stories. December 2014, after ByteDance's Series C, Yiming Zhang and Rubo Liang gave an interview.

"Once a female classmate's computer broke, Yiming Zhang ran to fix it. Back in the dorm, he excitedly said wow, this girl in her dorm is pretty nice. Then he kept going to fix computers, chatting on BBS, often asking her out, then confessing — rejected. 'After rejection, he showed zero discouragement,' Liang said. 'So what, he said, still kept asking her out.'

Once Liang, his girlfriend, Yiming Zhang, and this girl went to Beidaihe together. When Yiming Zhang had only a few coins left, he said let's spend it all. So Yiming Zhang and the girl took these coins to an internet café. When they came back, they were holding hands. This girl is now Yiming Zhang's wife.

Early ByteDance product manager Rubo Liang summarized Yiming Zhang's traits as 'good at reading people' and 'shamelessly persistent.'

These two skills were later applied to recruiting. Once he identified someone, he'd keep inviting them. Even rejected, he wouldn't be discouraged — sometimes asking again a year later. Many early senior technical talents were recruited to Toutiao this way.

Yiming Zhang once made an interesting analogy between marriage and entrepreneurship. Roughly: marriage involves a long courtship before getting the certificate, but finding co-founders takes very little time. If marriage is a sixty-year partnership and entrepreneurship six or seven years, shouldn't you spend one-tenth of that time 'dating'?

Visible here is how seriously Yiming Zhang took finding "partners."

The above comes from internet living fossil Lin Jun's book, Yiming Zhang Management Log. His Fifteen Years of Boiling and New Boiling Decade are excellent too.

I must bring up another old story. Lei Jun successfully recruited Weibing Lu, who within a year at Xiaomi rose from Redmi GM to Xiaomi China President; nine months later he became Xiaomi partner. Yet few know Lei Jun fell for Lu at first sight back in 2012 — in Shenzhen, at a phone gathering in OCT Harbour. He kept courting him, hoping he'd join Xiaomi. This went on for 7 years. When Lu left Gionee to start his own business and hit difficulties, Lei Jun's opportunity came. He told him: you shouldn't keep wasting time in the wrong direction. Join Xiaomi, I'll acquire and settle your company.

I also shared in my community what Genki Forest founder Binsen Tang said: when recruiting, look at their spirit and energy, never do one-night-stand hiring. Here's the original excerpt:

CEIBS Notes (Serial 16): "Last time at CEIBS listening to Genki Forest CEO Binsen Tang's share — no pretense, lots of substance. He said don't have 'one-night stand' thinking when hiring executives; there should be alignment at values, soul level. If the company hires someone just coveting their experience, that's one-night-stand hiring.

Like two people marrying — if he likes your looks and you like his money, it won't last. Instead look at whether this person cares about the company vision, mission, methodology, culture — matching at these levels. Not just so-called ability and professionalism.

The very term 'professional manager' is wrong. What's good, what's bad? Two dimensions: ability dimension, spiritual subconscious dimension (spirit and energy). Some people speak passionately, logically, very articulate — this is just ability. But you should pay more attention to their underlying stuff.

Three fundamental spirits at people's core: endurance, curiosity, drive. Many great entrepreneurs are supported by these three spirits. Similar to heart power, brain power, physical power — people with strong brain power suit being executives. Tang Seng surpasses the Monkey King because old Tang has heart power. The higher you go, the more you need people with heart power. Entrepreneurship means finding such people to join your team. Small business only needs brain power; big business needs heart power. Senior levels need mission sense; grassroots need execution. When evaluating people, focus more on essence, on spirit and energy, not so-called background, experience, eloquence."

And to find entrepreneurial companions aligned in spirit and energy, without the courage to doggedly, softly persistently pursue them, is impossible. The courage CEOs need isn't just in finding people — finding money and resources is no different. A brother in my entrepreneurship camp asked me, what's most important in finding investors? I said: have a strong heart. The road to funding is hard. Imagine being rejected by 100 people in a row — what's that feel like? And these aren't ordinary people, but investors with judgment ability? In the cold rainy night, below the investor's building, can you really withstand not doubting your direction and ability?

When finding resources, putting on a big smile, inviting and integrating, being treated coldly when you're practically groveling — do you really have the courage to not care? Can you lightly say it's fine, left hand clasping your right, saying these experiences will be stories you laugh about later?

04

The Courage to Face Layoffs & Retreat

In 2002, when Loudcloud was near bankruptcy, one company was willing to acquire it but required complete restructuring — one-third of employees would be laid off. Loudcloud's CEO and co-founder, Ben Horowitz (author of The Hard Thing About Hard Things), had planned to fly to New York for the announcement. His coach, Campbell, told him directly: "From the second you announce this, everyone in the company will only care about what happens to them. You must be there to deliver the message." He canceled his flight, deciding to stay in Sunnyvale to weather this turning point with everyone. Campbell warned him: "You need to be there all day, helping departing colleagues carry their things to their cars." This was comfort for both those leaving and staying, and it gave Horowitz courage to face the new day. "Everything we did after that was built on this foundation," Horowitz said.

Looking at failed companies in recent years, when major layoffs began, where did the bosses hide? One internal email, and people were kicked off work platforms, unable to log in. What departure care? Nonexistent.

Those skilled at losing don't perish; entrepreneurship is high-probability failure. Swiss military theorist Antoine-Henri Jomini said: "A good retreat should be praised as highly as a great victory."

Experienced strategists protect the most important assets, actively withdrawing. No battle is fought in vain — having fought personally, you surpass all who've only read military texts. Win or lose, battle makes you stronger. Accept losses, preserve what's most valuable: brand, credit, your own psychological energy, your core team. Alibaba once said: "Core teams are survived, not recruited." This from teacher Ning Liang, very incisive.

I also recorded CEIBS lecture notes in my community. About retreat. Courage to retreat is a virtue; for everyone it's a release. Dying in exhaustion, lone brave warrior — does it really matter? Must you drive it to total defeat?

CEIBS Notes (Serial 12): "Last week at CEIBS, the professor also discussed courageous exit as virtue." EasyGo founder Hang Zhou once reflected: "EasyGo wasn't what I most wanted to do; essentially, it wasn't the best fit for me." From this perspective, he said he didn't have that much regret. He simply used rational judgment to find the intersection between what he wanted to do, could do, and was viable to do.

His reflection: "EasyGo's later challenges had much to do with my personality and team traits. During EasyGo's Series A, one investor talked with us, signed a term sheet, but ultimately didn't invest. Later he commented that what EasyGo was doing didn't match my personal traits. I wasn't convinced then; now I must admit he was right. So at EasyGo, especially during the competitive subsidy phase, at many critical moments I didn't make the most reasonable choices — this related to my personality traits. Many think EasyGo ultimately lost due to external factors. External factors certainly existed, but I think essentially it was because what EasyGo did wasn't the best fit for me. From this perspective, I don't have that much regret."

05

The Courage to Face the Mundane

BOSS Zhipin's Zhao Peng once said something wise: truly liking something isn't liking its result, but liking its daily routine — the twists, tedium, repetition, boredom along the way. Andy Grove said something similar: "A manager and a housewife have something in common — the work is never done. And management, like life, is mundane. Never-ending." I once posted a book review:

Quality Booklist Series (Serial 24): "Past 2 a.m., long story short, can't resist recommending Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day. 300+ pages, lingering aftertaste." This was especially championed by Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, who found new life perspective from it, helping him decide his next life step — that was when Amazon was just starting. The main content is a British old butler's memories during a six-day trip... The table of contents is simply Day One Evening, Day Two Morning, Evening, Day Three Morning, Evening like that.

This book doesn't give you thrills, passion, or catharsis. In its melancholy, some vast, slow force pushes you. Like the Soft Palm technique. No, maybe more like a steam iron, pressing out the wrinkles in your soul, triggering continuous thought.

Kazuo Ishiguro said his starting point for The Remains of the Day was to write "how you wasted your life for career achievement, and how you let your personal life slip away." He said: "Creation is for expressing certain regrets, relieving sorrow — never a means to vent anger or mania. His creation aims to provide people with 'the courage and confidence to move forward slowly,' to offer spiritual solace to those beyond solace."

I also happened to see Bill Gates recommending another sci-fi book by him — anyway, this writer is formidable, Nobel laureate.

Entrepreneurship is advancing 30 kilometers daily. Don't dream of legend and excitement, hoping to fall off a cliff and find the Nine Yang Manual. At the end of the day it's fundamentals, and fundamentals are mundane.

Basketball has fancy moves, but winning comes down to three fundamentals: dribbling speed, shooting accuracy, and the more underlying stamina. There's never such thing as accidental success, no thrilling touching stories — those are all writers' word games for clicks, starting with a keyboard, the rest pure fiction. You must approach, learn, observe, think, question, jump into the water — not expect someone to hand-hold you through some secret manual.

"Most people think war is composed of struggle; it's not — it's composed of waiting and suffering..." The guy who said this once fought in the Sino-Vietnamese War, later started a business, now does investing.

06

The Courage to Learn New Things

In early Tencent, this joke circulated. For the first year-plus, Tencent hadn't considered security; OICQ's communication protocol was unencrypted, fragile, transmitting in plaintext. If hackers wanted to mess around, they could arbitrarily access user data. Later Pony Ma realized this was a problem, and ordered programmer Huang Yejun to develop encryption software. Two-plus weeks passed; Pony Ma wanted to check progress, so he went to find Huang Yejun. Huang had gone out to play ball, not at his desk. On the desk lay a book face-down: Principles of Encryption.

Pony Ma picked it up, turned it over, and was shocked — Huang Yejun was reading Chapter One, Section One, titled "What is Encryption." Wu Xiaoguang at the neighboring desk witnessed this scene. In a later interview with me, he laughed telling this story, then said: "In the early entrepreneurial years, we all learned while doing. Looking back now, kind of scary, but at the time it felt like it should be this way — what else could it be?"

And shortly after the Toutiao app launched, Yiming Zhang realized the importance of personalized recommendation engines, immediately gathering all product and tech leads in the Jinqiu Fund's sixth-floor office for a meeting. Core agenda: whether to launch the personalized recommendation engine project. Many people worried Toutiao lacked the "DNA" and capability, but Yiming Zhang insisted: if we don't know how, we'll learn.

At the time, Xiang Liang, a University of Science and Technology of China graduate, was at Hulu responsible for video recommendation research. At the March 2010 RecSys China recommendation systems conference, influenced by CSDN editor-in-chief Liu Jiang, he wrote Recommendation Systems in Practice. When Yiming Zhang learned of this book, he contacted Xiang Liang wanting an electronic copy. Xiang Liang refused on grounds that it wasn't published yet. Yiming Zhang felt waiting would seriously delay Toutiao's recommendation capability progress, so he found materials online and imagined his way through writing the first version of the recommendation engine.

When you're out in the world, what's most important? It's "getting out there" — start doing. Don't know how? Learn.

I also heard this story: Xiaonei started without core competitiveness, just 3 people. But after selling Xiaonei, the industry generally felt this team's product and tech were decent. China Mobile wanted to do social products, felt Xiaonei's team had decent product and tech, so they invited Xing Wang and Huiwen Wang to discuss. China Mobile's people asked what your core competitiveness is. The two looked at each other awkwardly for a moment. Xing Wang quickly reacted: "Courage."