Justin Sun has not changed, but the world has changed

From criticizing "competitors named Bo" in social media to joining the "retail investors vs. Wall Street" drama with Tron, the familiar Justin Sun seems to be back.

In recent days, Sun Yuchen has been following the trend, first challenging the popular public chain Polkadot, and then showing off his tens of millions of dollars in positions in GME and other stocks, making TRX the target of 200,000 retail investors in the WSB community. As of February 1, with the explosion of the instant voice chat room App "ClubHouse", Sun Yuchen made another move and announced his investment in the Chinese version of "ClubHouse" - TWO.

From the Buffett lunch to now, Sun Yuchen, who has kept a low profile for more than a year, seems to be back to "grab the hot searches".

During this period, the world environment and financial markets were much more absurd than Sun Yuchen's so-called "extraordinary behavior" in the past. Trump supporters besieged Congress, retail investors fought against institutions in a high-profile manner, and the U.S. stock market was even crazier than the cryptocurrency circle... Sun Yuchen, who did not play by the rules, seemed to have come to a world that was more suitable for him.

So, we talked to the 30-year-old Justin Sun about how this "rebellious" and wealthy young man, who has been starting a business for ten years, views his past, his current situation, and how he plans for the future. In his eyes, is the outside world's evaluation of him "fair"?

Out of control and convergence: the year when Justin Sun "disappeared"

Justin Sun is a business eccentric who is hard to match.

It took him less than 10 years to go from an ordinary small town youth to a well-known entrepreneur.

"Jack Ma's youngest disciple", "2014 Davos Forum Global Outstanding Youth", "2017 Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 Entrepreneurs", these elite labels, and his cynical and traffic-consuming behaviors, have made him a controversial symbol.

Before the Buffett lunch, Sun Yuchen's kindness was evident in all major business and social events, including paying off Luo Yonghao's debts, refunding deposits for ofo, and paying for medical treatment for former NetEase employees.

In the end, Justin Sun was even able to create a buzz for himself by distributing 50,000 yuan of "Dream Fund" to netizens, which made people marvel at his extraordinary marketing ability.

Of course, some people often criticize his high-profile style, and even call him a "startup performance artist."

In this regard, Justin Sun said, "Most of the time, I just interact with users through social networks, and in the end it turns into some big communication events. Before taking action, I sometimes consider the communication effect, but many times the expectations are very different from the final results."

Indeed, the direction of public events and public opinion may be like the swarm of bees described by Kevin Kelly, which no one can control or predict. The Buffett lunch made him realize for the first time that he was "out of control."

In June 2019, Justin Sun announced that he had won the Buffett lunch at a sky-high price of 4.56 million US dollars (over 31 million RMB). However, when the date was approaching, Justin Sun suddenly announced that he was in the hospital for treatment due to a sudden kidney disease and temporarily canceled the meeting, which caused an uproar in public opinion.

If this "reason" for breaking the appointment had happened to other entrepreneurs who were auctioned off before, it might not have caused such a big stir. But when it came to Sun Yuchen, people almost habitually thought that he was "making news to exploit Buffett." For a time, the Internet was full of condemnation of Sun Yuchen.

At that time, all major media reported Sun Yuchen's "rise to fame" as headlines, criticizing him for being unworthy of his position and portraying him as a negative example of an entrepreneur.

But after the readers have "eaten the melon", they may no longer care about the cause or the truth, leaving Justin Sun alone to face the "mess".

Even many people no longer cared. Five months later, in late January 2020, Justin Sun and Buffett met at a country club and had this eventful lunch.

When he himself commented on the Buffett lunch, he also expressed some regret.

"This incident is a setback for me. I really didn't expect it to cause such a big stir, nor did I expect it to be interpreted in various ways and cause so many people to criticize me all of a sudden."

"But there's no point in regretting what has been done." After that, Sun Yuchen spent a long time reflecting. He thought that this matter could have been handled better.

Justin Sun talks about entrepreneurial mentality on "Entrepreneurial Molecule"

In order to avoid a recurrence of this situation, Justin Sun said that he gave himself a year to think about another key word - "mission".

"If a person wants to go further, he or she must make more positive contributions to society. It is true that as a public figure, people pay attention to you, so you need to have a greater sense of responsibility than others."

Sun Yuchen, who was born in 1990, will be "30 years old and established" in 2020. Confucius said, "If you don't know etiquette, you can't establish yourself." This may also be an important revelation that fate gave to Sun Yuchen at the age of 30.

Judging from actual actions, "transformation" is also a keyword for Justin Sun in 2020.

From his Weibo homepage, we can see that Sun Yuchen's activities in the past year are mostly updating TRON and its ecological progress, and his opinions and views are mostly related to the blockchain industry. He is not like before, "concerned about everything, including other people's family affairs and world affairs."

His recent participation in "Retail Investors vs. Wall Street" and investment in the Chinese version of "ClubHouse", although not strongly related to Tron, are similar to the rebellious spirit advocated by Justin Sun. In addition, he has also started a business in the social field. Before investing in TWO, he also acquired the blockchain social incentive project Steemit. It can be said that he has a special liking for social products.

Maintaining a high profile within a certain range seems to be something that Justin Sun is born with and is not prepared to "change".

"It was fate that pushed me here step by step."

There are too many reports on Justin Sun in the media, but what people remember is often only how "weird" he is and how he "struggles for fame and fortune."

But amid the doubts from the outside world, Justin Sun's entrepreneurial journey has been fruitful and rapid. From being the representative of Ripple in China, to the founder of the voice chat social product "Peiwo APP", to the launch of the public chain project TRON, Justin Sun seems to have turned on a cheat, "the more he is criticized, the more popular he becomes."

He was throwing money around on Weibo and people joked, "This must be 1 million inherited from his ancestors. How come he only talks about it but doesn't look like he's going to spend it?" However, after he took the photo for the lunch with Buffett, doubts about his financial strength automatically disappeared.

But his success and brilliance are obviously not in line with the Chinese way of life of "a latent dragon should not be used".

Justin Sun is not a wicked person. He has not violated any law, and he cannot even be said to have undermined "public order and good morals." However, those who oppose him often start from the high point of morality and values, believing that he has undermined the down-to-earth rules of competition. The controversy is rare in the business world in recent years.

Regarding these criticisms, Justin Sun believes that many of them are "narrow and one-sided" personal remarks, or even fabricated "rumors."

Justin Sun said that since he has chosen to start a business, he must accept various supervisions, but some narrow and one-sided interpretations can easily mislead the public.

"Everyone has their own perspective and power to judge. I am an entrepreneur, and I don't have the energy to pay attention to all the comments about me. Besides, even if someone scolds Justin Sun, it may just be a temporary misunderstanding. Lies stop at the wise."

Faced with the label of "fame-seeker", Justin Sun believes that he has been misunderstood.

“The biggest misunderstanding of the outside world is that all my actions are linked to fame and fortune, as if there is nothing else besides these two points. Even the disappearance of a project worth hundreds of thousands of dollars can be linked to me (they confidently say how I participated in the sharing of the spoils behind the scenes), which makes people laugh and cry.”

"If I was just pursuing fame and fortune, then I would have gained a lot before I started my blockchain business. I have been in the blockchain industry for so long and my wealth has increased. Why should I continue to insist? Just like a person can only eat 5 steamed buns at most in one go, if you eat more, you will lose the pleasure of satisfying your hunger. The experience of fame and fortune also conforms to the law of diminishing marginal returns in economics."

In fact, Sun Yuchen's "out-of-the-ordinary" words and deeds also reflect his unique worldview as a post-90s generation.

In response to the question from Odaily Planet Daily, "Why are your values ​​different from traditional values?", Justin Sun briefly mentioned the term "generational gap."

"Each generation has its own personality. Just like I find it difficult to understand the 'collective memory of the post-80s generation' because I didn't have these memories when I was growing up. Similarly, sometimes when I see some of the behaviors of the post-00s generation on the Internet, I also find them out of the ordinary and unbelievable. Perhaps it's just because of different experiences."

Can age and personality directly affect how entrepreneurs face the world? The answer is not absolute, but don't underestimate this factor.

In November 2015, Justin Sun talked about how to gain the attention of the post-90s generation at the Phoenix Financial Summit, which was quite insightful.

Image source: Phoenix Video

He mentioned that the post-80s and post-90s have very different ways of thinking and values. The post-90s are characterized by freedom, subversion and individuality. "I believe that this is also bringing profound changes to the values ​​of today's mainstream business society in China. To give a simple example, if an Internet product or model wants to acquire customers on a large scale, it cannot ignore the personalities and demands of the post-90s and even the post-00s.

Living in such an era, Justin Sun believes in this logic: "A good reputation is better than a bad reputation, and a bad reputation is better than no reputation. People born in the 1990s will not spend energy to blacken a company. Ignoring it is the real blackening."

He also gave an example, saying that someone scolded Lao Luo: Jobs redefined the mobile phone, and Luo Yonghao redefined idiot.

"It looks like he is scolding without mercy, but this person is very professional in his research on the two companies. I personally think this is Luo Yonghao's true love, but it just turned from love to hate. In fact, this is also a good thing for a company, because discussing a company, even if the voice is negative, means that it cares about and likes you."

It may be this kind of cognition that has led to his high-profile way of doing business. Moreover, as an entrepreneurial internet celebrity who has been in the traffic pool for a long time, Sun Yuchen's sensitivity to attention is indeed unmatched by others.

Be it anxiety or ambition, in Justin Sun's world, only by doing this can a company survive, especially a ToC startup.

We all know that Justin Sun is always confident in himself and his company, but few people have explored whether Justin Sun has the ability to match it. If he only relied on big words, could he have come this far?

Odaily Planet Daily asked him, what is the source of your confidence?

He said, as I wrote in one of my books, "This world is both cruel and gentle," and true self-confidence is acquired through hard work, not innate.

What this means is that Justin Sun is not an entrepreneur without a story.

On November 24, 2014, Sun Yuchen attended the recording of the "Maker 987" program initiated by "China Entrepreneur" in a suit and tie. Afterwards, he encountered the unforgettable "sizing up the liar" look.

Five years later, Justin Sun mentioned this matter publicly for the first time.

He wrote in his WeChat Moments, "I flipped through a photo with my friends on New Year's Day. In 2014, I was recording a show with Wang Xiaochuan. I will never forget the way he looked at me as a liar. He said I was a liar and would definitely fail, and that it was a shame to record a show with me. In the end, I couldn't even continue. Less than three years later, my company's market value exceeded that of Sogou. In life, the people who look down on you will spur you on more deeply."

Image source: "Chinese Entrepreneurs" program, recorded on November 24, 2014

This incident became material for many people to criticize Justin Sun, who was believed to have made outrageous remarks and attracted dislike from many senior entrepreneurs.

But few people actually watched the video. Wang Xiaochuan questioned Sun Yuchen from various aspects on how to promote the Ripple network in China, and Sun Yuchen's answers were actually very organized.

He has a very clear understanding and strategy of Ripple's promotion and application path, including how to gradually contact the regulatory authorities, how to carry out pilot projects without violating laws and regulations, and how to start with the points system when the clearing and settlement system cannot be directly implemented. Up to now, when it comes to blockchain + points system, no one should doubt its feasibility, and there are no less than ten large companies that have implemented trials in this scenario.

So, is this a scam? You can also watch the video yourself.

Of course, not all voices are negative and opposing.

In 2016, Feng Lun, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Vantone Group, was invited by Luyu Youyue to comment on Justin Sun. He said that he first met Justin Sun at an interview for the first batch of students recruited by Lakeside University.

“What impressed me most was that when we asked what we wanted to do after making money, Yuchen’s answer gave me the feeling that he was from Peking University.”

"He was even more excited about this than his business model. This reminded me of what Jack Ma once said about making it easy to do business anywhere, which is a very big vision. During our conversation, Justin made me feel a lot of excitement. In addition to being very serious about business, he was actually considering the vision behind the business."

Is it that we laugh at him being too crazy, and he laughs at others for not seeing through him?

"I have always focused on the value network"

"Justin Sun is a very smart and capable person."

After reading Sun Yuchen's complete interview in "Entrepreneurial Molecule", Kun Peng, the founder of a social product, told Odaily Planet Daily about his intuitive perception.

Of course, there are also negative voices criticizing Justin Sun for "jumping back and forth" in various industries and hot spots and "changing careers when one industry fails."

But in fact, from promoting Ripple, developing the voice chat product "Peiwo APP", to creating TRON, it can't be said to be a high-frequency change of track.

Starting a business is a nine-out-of-nine-failure situation, and there is nothing shameful about the philosophy of giving up at the right time and starting again.

"In my opinion, he is just an ordinary entrepreneur, not much different from us. It's just that he knows how to seize opportunities and is smarter than many of us," Kunpeng elaborated.

Sun Yuchen's speech in 2015 coincided with the O2O bubble and the capital winter, and the venue was filled with a sense of hesitation about the future. Sun Yuchen encouraged that the so-called temporary "failure" has another role for entrepreneurship.

"A healthy ecosystem is bound to be intertwined with subversion and counter-subversion. Subversion and failure are both good things. Don't take them too seriously. Some media have exaggerated failures in the past, talking about the choice between life and death, as if failure in entrepreneurship means death."

"From my perspective, speeding up the frequency of failure, reducing the cost of failure and learning from failure are the fastest ways to achieve success. Rapid trial and error, version iteration, and treating failure as a tool rather than a result are very important Internet values."

Although he has changed tracks, Justin Sun believes that he is still focused on the "value network".

“From Peking University to Penn, my earliest life plan was to become a lawyer or go to Wall Street. But in the Penn Investment Association, I learned about alumnus Musk and his Tesla. After recognizing its value, I also made huge profits from secondary market investment, and later switched to Bitcoin.”

In addition to the huge investment returns, the technical feasibility represented by Bitcoin also attracted Justin Sun.

"Just think about it, a network that does not go through international banks for clearing and settlement can complete cross-border transactions within an hour, quickly and cheaply. This is a very valuable thing."

As a result, Justin Sun gave up his doctoral studies in law, joined Ripper and returned to China to promote it, and later tried social networking.

“Whether it’s a payment network or a social network, they are creating a new value network, which is consistent with the current concept of blockchain.”

Justin Sun talks about social networks and payment networks on "Entrepreneurial Molecule"

Regarding the industry he is currently in, Justin Sun has stated on many occasions that he really wants to achieve the best in one field and will not leave blockchain.

"Blockchain has a lot of room for development, and it is worth my time and energy to invest in it. I have no plans to change my career path. Moreover, as Chairman Mao said: It is better to cut off one finger than to injure ten fingers. To truly develop blockchain and make Chinese people take the lead in this field is a very meaningful mission in itself."

How to view the blockchain or public chain value network? Justin Sun believes that the most important criterion for the development of a network is the network effect and ecological scale, which is also the core of the Internet value.

"The digital world needs to be viewed from a digital perspective, just like Tesla's price keeps getting lower and lower, but its market value keeps getting higher and higher, because its software forms a huge network. I was the first to propose the "value network", and in fact, the network itself is the value. As for the future direction, it is to continue to make the network bigger and more valuable, attract more users to join, and form a larger network, so that there will be a positive cycle and continuous expansion."

Justin Sun hopes to build the next generation of global Internet and financial infrastructure in the next decade. "This goal is big enough to deserve more time and energy from me to explore it."

“The value of TRON is the real support for my personal wealth”

Over the past year, Justin Sun's behavior has indeed become more restrained, but when talking about his own projects, he still seems to be able to speak wildly.

“I hope that TRON’s earnings conference will be a feast of IQ. People with an IQ below 150 will not be able to understand it at all. (By then) TRON’s price will be the square of TRON’s status. (So) we must do a good job of development and raise our status.”

With such ambitions, Tron has been working hard in recent years, keeping up with the hot topics in the circle, whether it is IEO or DeFi.

By the second half of 2020, Justin Sun frequently appeared in social media to speak out in support of Tron. He also stepped up production of a video program "Brother Sun Says" aimed at the wider cryptocurrency community, and has aired more than 10 episodes to date.

Sun's encouraging words are often circulated in the social network, "We must work hard in 2021. Isn't it for this day that we have waited so long for (the bear market)?"

“How do we do it? In 2021, for TRON, we will further improve the performance of the public chain and continue to rapidly narrow the gap in scale with Ethereum.”

There is no doubt that Justin Sun is not like many public chain founders who cash out and leave after pushing the project online or call it "communityization". From the beginning to now, Justin Sun has been the real leader of TRON.

Sun Yuchen always wears TRON accessories when he appears in public. Image source: Blockchain Guest

Not only on stage, according to industry insiders close to TRON employees, "Justin Sun is still quite concerned about all matters of the project, big or small, and is involved in them all."

But Tron’s style seems to have inevitably inherited Sun Yuchen’s “exaggerated” style.

Justin Sun told Odaily Planet Daily, "In the past four years, Tron has continuously invested about 1 billion in research and development costs every year. At present, Tron's global team is about to reach 1,000 people. I want to lead the team forward, so I will not follow others and cash out to live a carefree life."

Justin Sun seems to find pleasure in his current job as always. "I am only 30 years old now, and being able to lead the TRON team to achieve breakthroughs one after another and realize my personal value is indeed a kind of pleasure that I hope to gain."

In order to relieve work pressure and challenge his own limits, Sun Yuchen spends the most time on fitness outside of work, and occasionally participates in interactive discussions in the community.

I remember that Chen Weixing, founder of PanCity Capital, and other industry insiders have said on different occasions that Justin Sun is one of the most diligent entrepreneurs in the industry. It seems that this is true.

Odaily Planet Daily also asked Justin Sun about the positions and cryptocurrency trading strategies that everyone is curious about.

But Sun Yuchen does not want to reveal too much about his personal wealth. "One thing I can tell you is that most of my wealth is tied to Tron, and the value of Tron is the real support for my personal wealth."

In addition, being in the cryptocurrency circle, many people inevitably make various investment strategies. Sun Yuchen said that he does not speculate in the secondary market. "Investment and other things are also professional people doing professional things. My biggest investment is to do a good job in the TRON project."

"What you do is more important than what you think"

Justin Sun is undoubtedly a 90s kid with a flamboyant personality, a personality that started with his rebellious high school days.

The rebellious tactics were almost comical. "Only writing essays in the Chinese language exams, answering questions in Chinese in the English exams, and filling in the blanks in the history exams with the names of the class teachers, and if not, they would use their own name: Justin Sun."

Later, when he went to university and entered the business world, he always presented himself in a unique way.

Whether it is hard work or talent, Justin Sun knows how to become an unforgettable online celebrity. Under this controversy, we should also see that he is still a hardworking, smart and qualified entrepreneur.

Justin Sun hopes that these personalities can be given a certain degree of understanding and respect. In turn, he is also trying to understand what the "responsibility" of a public figure is.

He also said that what matters more than opinions is what you do. "I can only let people see my actions and change their opinions about me."

In 2021, Justin Sun set himself a keyword "mission". At the age of 30, he is determined to lead Tron towards a bigger goal.