Category: life
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(Arts and AI Series) The Entropy of Creativity: A Revolution or the Decline of Human Creativity?
AI and arts – it is such a vast and fascinating topic that I intend to keep writing about this. Let’s see where I will go with this. This topic fascinates (and worries) me because arts are the souls of human beings. Without art, we lose one of the most important markers as a unique…
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To Straighten a Bent Stick, You Must Bend It the Other Way
The above saying is actually from an old Chinese idiom. I have thought about it a lot, and have struggled with that too. Finally, I have concluded that it is true. Here are some of my thinkings that help me arrive at the conclusion. Imagine a bent metal tube—perhaps from a bicycle frame or a…
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Why do we crave for speed?
I am writing this at a ski place in New Hampshire. The spring sun is warm, and the air is fresh. I am sitting in the rest area directly overlooking the diamond slope where skilled skiers zip down the steep slope with curves and ease. I can imagine how exuberated they must be feeling. But…
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SOLAH: The 5 Functional Pillars of Every Business
I have always been pondering about how to convey the essence of a business. There are many aspects to a business, and it seems in business schools we tend to either say everything is important, or say a particular area is the most important. To me, that is the wrong idea. My sense is that…
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How to Know If You Have Made the Right Decision: Insights from Academic Research
Recently I was presented with a very interesting and promising career opportunity. After deliberating for a long time, I decided to turn it down with profuse gratitude. After the decision was made, I cannot help but wonder: Did I make the right decision? So I decided to ask ChatGPT. What I got was surprisingly better…
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2025: A Year of Uncertainty(?) and Growth(!)
It is 2025. What will it bring? It is fair to say that I have no idea. Looking back, who would have thought that the stock market would be one of the best years? I did not. The S&P 500 soared 24%, making 2023-2024 the best 2 consecutive years since 1990s. I remember one year…
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100% focus = Joy
I stumbled upon this idea while listening to “People I mostly admire”, one of favorite podcasts, where its host Steve Levitt interviewed Dan Gilbert, the famed psychologist professor at Harvard. You can read its transcripts here, and listen to the podcast below: Dan raised this idea that if you turn work into play, then you…
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Sometimes change is good just for change’s sake
“If you move a tree, it will likely not survive. But if you move a man, he will most likely thrive.” It is an old Chinese saying. And over the years I came to firmly believe in the profound wisdom of that. Looking back at my life, I have benefited from every major change I…
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Shakespear in Business
Photo credit: Bookstore at Shakespeare’s Globe, London, 2019 “ We at the height are ready to decline.There is a tide in the affairs of menWhich, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;Omitted, all the voyage of their lifeIs bound in shallows and in miseries.On such a full sea are we now afloat,And we must…
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Why China’s Economy is in Trouble
This is a short post reflecting on how exactly China’s economy is doing. There are a lot of statistics floating around such as GDP or export. But recently I watched a few videos which drew me to a single measure: Labor share of GDP. Labor’s role in GDP is important for several key reasons: Labor…
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Value Investing is about learning about everything
I had not paid much attention to the concept of value investing, as I thought I know everything there is to it: Do not chase fads. Invest in companies with solid money-making capabilities. Invest in the long-term. It turns out that it was wrong. There is so much more to value investing, if one wants…
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He was rejected by 90% of the investors
How well do you deal with rejection and failure? You may have heard the story of Starbucks. It is hard to imagine it, but back in the 1970s and 1980s, it was unthinkable to set up a “coffee shop” just to sell cups of coffee. Who would buy that? Any yet that was exactly what…
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Vacation is a state of mind
Photo: Ritz-Carlton, Orlando, Florida, USA, March 2023. It is winter here in New England, and we have been talking about where to go for the upcoming spring break. I am already late. Many couples or parents probably make spring break plans during the prior year. But we ran into an interesting problem. After checking out…