O'Shaughnessy Fellowships 2024 Nomination
O'Shaughnessy Fellowships | O'Shaughnessy Ventures
Include links wherever relevant 2000
这是一个我将10%的自己卖掉的故事。
我不确定这算是work，但它是我人生的一部分，那时有个挑战，我面对了它，想到了解决办法，现在，它对我的人生和参与了它的人都有长远的影响。
如果尝试在“work”的范畴里定义它，它更接近于一个投资工作。我是一个GP，从LP手里拿到了钱，投资的标的是我的人生——只不过，是用一种你没见过的方式。
2019年，我想辞掉作为商业分析师的工作，问题是，我当时还剩下40多万人民币的大学学费贷款要还。继续工作，我将有能力在几年内还清，但是，我真的很不想浪费青春去做我觉得失去了意义的事情。我需要work out一个计划，让一切都work。Here‘s what i have done:
像公司上市一样，我把我未来收入的10%“上市”了。任何人可以购买任何份额的“股票”，他们将在之后的每一年里，按照份额，得到我收入的一部分，作为分红。直到我人生的结束。
我打趣地和朋友说，我发明了现代奴隶制，用在自己身上，现在，我是个90%的自由人，10%的奴隶了。
但，这样不行。
我并不想一辈子都这样，所以计划的另一部分，是“强制股票回购”。
在2029年，我可以用约定好的金额，强制回购我所出售的收入分享权。这个金额是根据2009到2019年的二级市场平均回报率确定的。就是说，投资我十年，最差的收益结果是上一个十年的平均值。如果十年内的分红总额超过了预设的金额，那更好。如果没有，我会一次性补足到预设的金额。
再那之后，我重回一个100%的自由人。
在那之前，我转移了短期内的财务压力。
很难说这种一种股权还是债券关系，但金融概念越发变得不重要，因为在它真正开始之后，我逐渐意识到了这个实践对于他人的影响。
像上市公司一样，我会向我的20个支持者发送季报。季报里，我披露工作和收入，更重要的，我会披露我的生活、思考和选择。这其实很难，我必须用对自己的诚实对待他们。很多时候，困扰我的事情并不能反映在收入上，收入上的挑战也不总是和我的心境同步。我的支持者们以第一视角卷入了我的生活。我们有一个群组，一个人把它改名叫reality show。
一部分人一开始想支持我的原因是钦佩我的勇气，一部分人则更加好奇我如此选择之后的人生到底会怎样。因为季度信件，他们从中得到了比想象中更多的东西；他们不仅仅看到了，更是做到了。过去5年里，有些人告诉我他们开始反思自己的生活方式、人生选择，有些心烦意乱的人从信中获得了平静，有些想做出重大改变的人从信中汲取了勇气。
还有更多人，哪怕没有直接参与我的项目，他们也找我聊这件事。
要知道，2019年前后，blockchain领域的一些人开始研究叫做social token的概念。这些token关联的不是物理资产，而是一个人类。他们试图在偶像明星和运动员身上做实验。他们知道我在tokenization没有发展之前，就在做类似的事情，所以和我聊它的可能性。今天，类似的实验仍处于早期，我的观点是，不管是时长上和还是程度上，彻底把人资产化是可怕的方向，还记得卡尔马克思怎么说来着么？尤其是，当我想到“做空”一个人时，可以发生的事情——你是无法“真正”杀死一个公司的，但可以真正杀死一个人。
创作者经济的发展，也催生了更多关于UBI的关注和讨论，我观察到从西方到东方，很多社会正在寻找一些不那么绝对的、UBI的变形体。我也参与了在中国城市中和网络上对于UBI的实验和讨论。我申请这个grant的部分工作就与这些相关。
我不满足这样的好事，只发生在我自己身上，所以我也一直在探索如何将我的实践推广到更大的尺度上，让更多年轻人拥有更多失败的自由，这种对于人的意义感至关重要、并且不应该被经济上有特权的阶层垄断的自由。
This is the work i have done in the past that i am really proud of.
This is a story of me selling off 10% of myself.
I'm not sure if this qualifies as "work," but it's a part of my life. There was a challenge, I faced it and came up with a solution, and now it has far-reaching effects on my life and those involved.
If I were to define it within the realm of "work," it would be more akin to a work of investment. I'm a general partner, receiving money from limited partners, and the target of investment is my life—just in a way you've never seen before.
In 2019, I wanted to quit my job as a business analyst. The issue was that I still had over 400,000 RMB in university tuition loans to repay at the time. Continuing to work would allow me to pay it off within a few years, but I really didn't want to waste my youth on something I felt was meaningless. I needed to work out a plan to make everything work. Here's what I've done:
Like a company going public, I "listed" 10% of my future income. Anyone could buy "shares," and they would receive a portion of my income annually as dividends, until the end of my life.
I jokingly told friends that I invented modern slavery and subjected myself to it—now I'm 90% free and 10% enslaved.
But, that's not okay.
I didn't want to live like this forever, so another part of the plan is the "compulsory share buyback."
In 2029, I can force a buyback of the income-sharing rights I sold for a predetermined amount, determined by the average secondary market return from 2009 to 2019. Essentially, investing for ten years guarantees at least the average return of the previous decade. If the total dividends of the ten years exceed the predetermined amount, that's even better. If not, I'll make a lump sum payment to reach the predetermined amount.
After that, I'll revert to being 100% free.
Before that, I've relieved short-term financial pressures.
It's hard to say if this is equity or debt, but financial concepts matter less as it progresses, as I've gradually realized its impact on others.
Like a public company, I send quarterly reports to my 20 supporters. In these reports, I disclose my work and income, but more importantly, my life, thoughts, and choices. It's challenging; I must be as honest with them as with myself. Many times, the issues that trouble me don't necessarily reflect in my income, and the challenges with income don't always sync with my state of mind. My supporters have been intimately involved in my life from a firsthand perspective. We have a chat group; someone renamed it "reality show."
Some initially supported me out of admiration for my courage; others were curious about what life would be like after such a choice. Through the quarterly letters, they've gained more than imagined; they've not just seen but experienced. Over the past five years, some have told me they're reconsidering their lifestyles and life choices, others troubled have found peace, and those desiring significant changes have found courage.
Moreover, many others who are not directly involved in my project reached out to me to discuss this matter.
Around 2019, some in the blockchain field began experimenting with the concept of "social tokens." These tokens aren't tied to physical assets but to a person. They experimented with celebrities and athletes. Knowing that I was doing something similar before tokenization, they discussed its possibilities with me. Today, similar experiments are still in their infancy. My view is that completely commodifying individuals, whether in terms of duration or extent, is a frightening direction. Remember what Karl Marx said? Particularly when I think about the potential consequences of "shorting" a person—you can't "truly" kill a company, but you can "truly" kill a person.
The development of the creator economy has also sparked more attention and discussion about UBI. I see that many societies, from the West to the East, are exploring less absolute forms of UBI. I've also been involved in experiments and discussions about UBI in Chinese cities and online. Part of the work for which I applied for this grant is related to these.
I'm not content with such opportunities being limited to just myself, so I've been exploring how to scale up my practices to a broader level, allowing more young people to have the freedom to fail, the kind of freedom that is essential for the meaning of life and shouldn't be monopolized by the economically privileged.
This is the work I've done in the past that I'm truly proud of.
(The relevant links are in Chinese. I could send them to you if you want to read the details of the plan)
First-of-its-kind columns and databases on public goods, benefiting 1.5 billion Chinese speakers worldwide and beyond.
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我的独特洞察是关于当代所有华语社会的，不只是中国。
我可以罗列我较为罕见的经历组合：
我共同创立了中国最早的、将真实生活中的社区关系映射到区块链的web3项目；我写的阅读量最高的商业人物采访超过了1000万阅读；我是中国最早参与组织和传播holacracy和sociocracy工作坊的人；我参与组织了在中国发生的创作者基本收入的实验项目；我在新加坡、伦敦、北京、上海、巴黎都至少生活过两年以上的时间。
由此，我可以说，没有人比我处于更好的位置来写这个专栏，但实际上，这些经历和我的处境本身没有那么重要。
重要的是，这个专栏所需要的独特洞察是什么？我能不能满足实现这个目标所需要的？
那么，这个专栏要的是什么？
It's only going to be boring if 这个专栏只是去采访、报道和汇集全世界每个华语地区关于公共物品的实践。it's going to be less borin if 它不只是为了记录而记录，而是为了inspire、为了创造更多人参与公共物品建设的激情。
真正的最有意义的终极目标是，探索当代华语社会的叙事。不是中国，是华语文化。
当一个普通人想到华语文化，他会想到中国。但这是不完全对的，台湾、香港、新加坡是长久以来的华人地区，在马来西亚、越南、印尼，有足够声量的华人社区；在泰国、法国、美国、阿根廷，有正在成长的新型的华人移民的二代社区。
正在此时，人们在其他华语地区探索非常多中国大陆不能做的事情，新的华人移民正在世界各地实验数字城邦和pop cities，华人移民的后代们在用去中心化社区的方式连接和发现在父辈文化上共同的彼此。
在各式各样、完全不同的社会环境里，他们的文化印记是如何影响他们设计公共物品的？华人的文化要求他们如何看待“公共”的含义？孔子式的绩效主义、庄子的天人合一、乡绅文化的治理逻辑是如何影响他们的公共物品建设的？
如果能够回答这些与华语世界有关的问题，我们就能更好地回答属于全世界的问题：在成为supernational的个体时，我们在多大程度上会是national印记的延伸？建设网络城邦的时候，不同于西方的文化可以提供什么别的思路？在构思AI和Blockchain主导的新时代元叙事里，基于民族文化、而不仅是技术的叙事是否还有意义？
因为最终的最终，我觉得，叙事的核心不是我们创造了什么工具，而是这些新工具揭示了我们是什么样的自己。
公共物品建设是洞悉这些问题的好视角，因为它关乎一个文化如何看待个体与群体的关系、既得利益者和未得者的关系、privileged和underprivileged的关系。
近代以来的华语社会一直在跟随启蒙运动之后西方社会的进步，我们把公共物品建设的事情交给殖民性质的外国政府、再然后交给自己的中央政府，我们很长一段时间里都没有社会力量建设的公共物品。但是当下，得益于去中心化的技术和其带来的思潮，我看到全世界的华语社会都在尝试创造点什么全新的、有意义的东西。
没有比此刻更好的时间开始写它们，关于新一种类型的华人是如何塑造公共物品和公共文化的。尤其是，它不仅仅关乎一种文化，它关乎的是全新metanarrative中的多样性。
以上，我不确定你们是否从任何其他人那里听到过这样的洞察，它们是我关于专栏的个人insights。如果有人也这么想，请麻烦你一定将我们联系在一起，我和他们必须一起做事情。
My unique insight on public goods pertains to all Chinese-speaking societies of the contemporary era, not just China. What these societies are building significantly contributes to the diversity of global culture.
I can list my relatively rare combination of experiences:
I co-founded China's earliest web3 project to map real-life community relationships onto the blockchain; the highest-read business interview I wrote exceeded 10 million views; I was among the first in China to organize workshops and disseminate ideas on holacracy and sociocracy; I organized an experimental project on basic income for creators in China; I have lived in Singapore, London, Beijing, Shanghai, and Paris for at least two years each.
From this, I can say that no one is better positioned than I am to write this column. However, these experiences themselves are in fact not that important.
What matters is: what unique insights does this column require? Can I meet the requirements to achieve this goal?
So, what does this column need?
It's only going to be boring if the column merely consists of interviewing, reporting, and compiling practices related to public goods from Chinese-speaking regions in the world. It's going to be less boring if it's not just about documenting for the sake of it, but rather to inspire, to ignite passion for more people to participate in the creation of public goods.
The real, most meaningful ultimate goal is to explore the narratives of contemporary Chinese-speaking societies. Not just China, but all Chinese-speaking regions.
When a person thinks of Chinese-speaking culture, he thinks of China. But this is not entirely accurate; Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore have long been Chinese-speaking societies, and in Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia, there are significant Chinese communities. In Thailand, France, the United States, and Argentina, there are emerging communities of second-generation Chinese immigrants.
At this moment, people in other regions are exploring things that mainland China cannot do. New Chinese immigrants around the world are experimenting with network states and pop cities, and the descendants of Chinese immigrants are connecting and discovering their shared culture through decentralized communities.
In various, completely different social environments, how do their cultural imprints influence their design of public goods? How does Chinese culture dictate their understanding of the meaning of "public"? How do Confucian meritocracy, Zhuangzi's unity of nature and man, and the governance logic of the traditional gentry shape their building of public goods?
If we can answer these questions related to the Chinese-speaking world, we can better address global issues: to what extent do we carry national imprints when becoming supernational individuals? When building network states, what alternative perspectives can different cultures offer compared to the West? In conceiving a new era narrative dominated by AI and Blockchain, does a narrative based on culture, rather than just technology, still hold significance?
Because ultimately, I believe, the core of the narrative is not what tools we create, but what these new tools reveal about ourselves.
The building of public goods provides a good perspective to understand these questions, as it concerns how a culture views the relationship between individuals and groups, between haves and have-nots, and between the privileged and underprivileged.
Since the Enlightenment, Chinese-speaking societies have been following the progress of Western society. We handed over the task of constructing public goods to colonial governments, and then to our central government, and for a long time, we lacked social forces to build them. But now, thanks to decentralized technology and the ideas it brings, I see Chinese-speaking societies around the world trying to create something new and meaningful.
There's no better time than now to start writing about how this new type of Chinese people is shaping public goods and public culture. In particular, it's not just about one culture; it's about the diversity in the new global metanarrative.
I'm not sure if you've heard such insights from anyone else; these are my ideas about the column. If someone else thinks the same way, please kindly connect us. We must work together.
Why do you want to work on this?
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