From Investment Banking to Tech Builder, a rebel or a conformist?
Like many young, aspiring individuals born in the lates 80s, early 90s. Going to a good school, getting good grades and starting a career at a “proper” institution with high professional standards was the ideal path you took, and as close as you can get to a “right answer” in career planning. And I did exactly that.
After working in Morgan Stanley for 4 years as a trader, whilst I had met great people and built solid analytical fundamentals, I always felt something was missing. An earning for a post where you’re asked to do more and also see more of the holistic picture, and experiencing the impact that you were working on in people’s day to day lives.
I quit Morgan Stanley and joined Uber- the apogee of being a Tech builder- “ideas over hierarchy, making big bold bets”. Their mission sounded so catchy and empowering. Finally I was ready to see the hours of work I put in almost with instant feedback land on the market, shaping the way people move. I moved back to China to join Uber as a “launcher” in the early days and even had the chance to launch in my hometown (Xiamen). The business moved fast and I built it from ground zero to one of the largest cities in China, but around me doubting voices also appeared. My parents couldn’t understand why I was giving up a reputable corporate career for a little known brand that seemed to deal a lot with law enforcement officials and random taxi drivers. Uber, as a foreign player, was also facing intense competition with DiDi (a homegrown alternative). Eventually, Uber China was acquired by Didi, and I joined Didi as a founding member on its international expansion team.
This was then the “golden age” of Chinese companies globalizing (if there was ever a tech-historian, this is probably how we’d classify the period of 2016–2020). Didi was expanding globally and I raised my hand to launch DiDi Japan (without being able to speak a word of Japanese back then), a joint venture between DiDi and SoftBank. DiDi Japan grew from non-existence into the 2nd largest mobility platform in Japan in 15 months. Throughout my tenure as DiDi Japan CEO, I also witnessed the rise and fall of many tech businesses, especially the ones backed by the SoftBank Vision Fund.
I’d like to think of my path as rather rebellious, but I often also wonder to myself, isn’t this also the path of a conformist?
A rebel is defined as someone who resists authority or convention, “taking the path less traveled” as it were, but what happens to a rebel when many others are joining you on the same path? Does the narrow path less traveled become suddenly a wide high speed road for many traveling down a similar journey?
Meeting many like-minded individuals in the past decade of my professional career, I realized this switch isn’t as “unusual” as I had originally thought, and many others have followed a similar path in the search to find more meaning and impact for their work.
I decided recently (being encouraged by my partner), to share some systematic thinking and a growth strategy playbook of what I’ve learnt in the past, launching 0–1 tech businesses across China, Japan, US, Singapore and globally. And this will form the basis of my forum, thinking and sharing.
I sincerely hope that some of this knowledge and thinking might be helpful for you.
Whether you’re a conformist waiting to make that rebel move, or a rebel well on their way to instigating the next tech revolution.
