The Red Era: Living in Seclusion in a Siheyuan as a Boss

Chapter 614: Academic Master Liu Bencheng!!!
It's really like the arm is powerless against the thigh. A higher-ranking official can crush a person, not to mention that Director Ge is several levels higher than him.

Liu Yong had no choice but to pack up his luggage and go home.

One day, he was lying bored in the room of the Liu family's old house, staring at the mottled ceiling with empty eyes, his thoughts in a tangle.

Suddenly, someone called him from outside the door: "Third brother, third brother, are you in the room?"

"Who is it? I'm not here!" Liu Yong was too lazy to move. He seemed to be nailed to the bed, extremely lazy.

"Hey! Third brother, aren't you obviously in the room?" The man pushed open the door with a playful grin, poked his head in, with a sly smile on his face.

"Oh, who was it? It turns out to be Bencheng who's back!" Liu Yong raised his eyelids and saw that it was his cousin Liu Bencheng. He jumped up in surprise.

Liu Bencheng and Liu Yong hadn't seen each other for many years. The two brothers hugged each other excitedly.

"Third brother, I just came back, and why did I hear that you seem a little depressed recently?" Liu Bencheng teased his cousin Liu Yong.

Liu Bencheng is the youngest in the family of Liu Yong's cousin Liu Zhitai, and Liu Yong is the third among brothers of their generation, and Liu Bencheng is the youngest.

According to the Liu family's generation ranking "Hong, Yuan, Shu, Ben...", their generation happens to be the Ben generation.

"Who is talking nonsense outside? I'm fine!" Liu Yong felt a little embarrassed when he heard that. He has been a strong man all his life, but he doesn't want to act like a weakling in front of his younger brothers.

Liu Bencheng nodded in agreement: "I said it was just a rumor! My third brother is now a well-known criminal investigation expert in Yanjing City. What could possibly defeat you?"

"Haha, you've said all the good and bad things, what else can I say? You came here today, not to make fun of me, your third brother, right?" Liu Yong smiled and gently hit Liu Bencheng's chest with a teasing tone.

Liu Bencheng grinned, with a sly look in his eyes: "How could that be possible? I just missed you, so I came here specially to see you."

"Oh? You come to see me with empty hands?" Liu Yong pretended to be dissatisfied. He looked around, but the corners of his mouth rose slightly, obviously teasing him.

Liu Bencheng chuckled and said mysteriously, "Who said I came here empty-handed? I brought you two boxes of Havana cigars from America. Unfortunately, they were confiscated by my third sister-in-law just now!"

"Oh, what can I say to you? How can you let your third sister-in-law see this kind of thing?" When Liu Yong heard this, he slapped his thigh in pain. His wife has been forcing him to quit smoking recently. Now, his precious cigar is gone before he even gets it.

"Ding, dang, dang, look what this is?" Liu Bencheng smiled mysteriously and took out a box of exquisite cigars from his waist like a magic trick.

Liu Yong had been unable to suppress his inner restlessness for the past two days. The moment he saw the cigar, his eyes lit up and he couldn't wait to snatch it from Liu Bencheng's hand.

"High, it is high!"

"You kid, you are the smartest among us brothers since we were little!"

Then the two brothers smiled at each other, lit their cigars, and began to puff smoke leisurely.

"Xiaocheng, how long do you plan to stay this time?" Liu Yong said as he carefully opened the window, trying to dispel the smell of smoke in the house, fearing that his wife would come back and catch him in the act.

Liu Bencheng blew out a smoke ring leisurely, with a hint of smile on his lips: "Third brother, I won't leave this time. I plan to take root in China."

"Ah? You're not going back to America? What about your studies?" Liu Yong frowned when he heard this, and his tone revealed concern.

Liu Bencheng rolled his eyes helplessly and said jokingly, "Third brother, you really don't care about me! I've been graduating with my doctorate for almost a year, and you don't know?"

"What? You graduated with a Ph.D.? When did that happen?" Liu Yong looked surprised, obviously surprised by the news.

Liu Bencheng smiled and shook his head: "What a long time ago, I've been interning at Sequoia Capital for more than half a year, and you didn't even know about it!" There was a hint of helplessness in his tone, but more of it was anticipation for the future.

"Hey, hey, I'm really sorry, brother San. I was so busy with several cases last year that I didn't pay attention to anything at home..." Liu Yong said embarrassedly when he heard this.

"Third brother, don't think too much, I understand. However, no matter how busy you are at work, you have to take care of your health. I notice that you don't look very well recently. Are you too tired? I'm planning to go to Hong Kong recently. Would you like to go with me to relax and unwind?" Liu Bencheng blinked, with a hint of concern and expectation in his tone.

Liu Yong was slightly stunned after hearing this, and asked in confusion: "Xiangjiang? What are you doing there?"

Liu Bencheng raised a mysterious smile and said in a low voice: "Not only Hong Kong, I also plan to visit several countries in Southeast Asia. This is a big plan!"

Liu Bencheng is not an ordinary person. After graduating from graduate school, he taught in the economics department of a university in Yenching.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was a wave of young college teachers in China wanting to go abroad.

As soon as Liu Bencheng and his young colleagues meet, they start talking about how someone has been admitted as a doctoral student at a prestigious university, or how someone else has a scholarship of tens of thousands of dollars a year in a European country.

These days are different from the past. Universities are expanding their enrollments and experts and professors are flooding the market.

There are very few doctoral supervisors in China, and such a large economics department only has one doctoral program. It is natural to study abroad for a doctorate.

At that time, their salary was probably a few hundred RMB per month, and tens of thousands of US dollars was an astronomical figure.

Under the temptation of studying for a degree and money, no one could hold back any longer. They wanted to go abroad, go abroad. The only way was to go abroad. The situation was just like what Mark Twain described, when the young people along the Mississippi River were madly eager to become sailors on a steamer.

Of course, Liu Bencheng wanted to go abroad not for money, but to prepare to take over the family's financial business in the future.

Therefore, everyone is busy studying for TOEFL and GRE all day long. The most difficult part is the reading part of GRE, as the text is extremely difficult. Fortunately, mathematics and logic are no problem for them, and on average, their scores are pretty good.

Once my scores were satisfactory, I sent out a large number of application letters to many universities in North America and Europe.

It is relatively easy to be admitted as a graduate student overseas, but it is difficult to get a full scholarship, so you have to apply to several schools.

One of Liu Bencheng's friends applied to as many as 30 schools before he finally got accepted.

In 90, he also received an admission letter from Yale University as a graduate student. What made Liu Bencheng's eyes light up was the line of text on the letter: You are awarded a scholarship of XXX US dollars.

Liu Bencheng admitted that he was different from others. He didn’t lack the money, but he lacked the sense of identity!

After more than a year of hard work, Liu Bencheng finally boarded a plane to Sam.

After getting off the plane, Liu Bencheng found that the time on his watch was exactly the same as the local time. He had arrived at the opposite side of the earth, with a time difference of exactly 12 hours.

A person who has never flown abroad will fly to the farthest place from home.

When I first went abroad, everything seemed new to me.

Compared with the domestic situation, it was still very backward. As a university teacher, Liu Bencheng actually worked with a computer and had never seen a laser printer.

Liu Bencheng's mentor is a Czech who speaks English with a heavy accent.

The professor was very concerned about Liu Bencheng. Even though Liu Bencheng and his friends arrived two months later than scheduled, he still reimbursed them the scholarship for the first two months.

Compared with the rich boy Liu Bencheng, his friend Jiang Dawei suddenly had several thousand US dollars in his pocket, equivalent to more than 20,000 RMB.

He suddenly felt like he had made a fortune, and thought to himself that this was equivalent to several hundred times his monthly salary in China?
Going abroad is really worthwhile! Although his pockets are bulging, Jiang Dawei is still very stingy with money. When spending money, he always unconsciously converts US dollars into RMB, so that each dollar feels bigger than the mouth of a bowl.

Their teacher Jie K seemed to see through their thoughts. One day he said to Liu Bencheng and Jiang Dawei: "Only when you have a good life can you study well. Don't worry about money, you will have it in the future!"

He put special emphasis on the last sentence.

Liu Bencheng agreed with the professor's words very much, but Jiang Dawei, who came from a rural background, was skeptical about what the professor said.

"Will I be able to find a job here and live as well as the locals?"

It was as if he went abroad not to seek knowledge, but to make money.

People nowadays may not understand that when you suddenly come to a place where the income is dozens of times higher than your original one, you will feel as if you have fallen into a gold mine, and you just want to grab everything you can get.

The country these days is not as rich and the people as in later generations, and few people who want to go abroad plan to return.

The primary goal for these people is to find a job after graduation so that they can stay abroad.

At this time in the 90s, Sam was in the stage of rapid development of IT, and it was easiest to find a job by studying computer science, so some international students turned to studying computer science.

Even students majoring in liberal arts have started to think about studying computer science. Even if they cannot get into regular schools, they will go to community colleges or even fake universities to study computer science. Since they have no mathematical foundation, the difficulty is imaginable.

Liu Bencheng has a friend who studies philosophy. He just can’t understand the loop statement “k=k+1” in computer language. He even complained that computer language has no logic at all.

Due to the enthusiasm for learning computer science, even Liu Bencheng's roommate and good friend Jiang Dawei, who had a full scholarship, was interested.

Under Jiang Dawei's instigation, Liu Bencheng also began to think about learning another skill.

One day, Liu Bencheng stammered to his professor, "Professor, I want to study computer science as a part-time major!"

After hearing this, the professor looked at Liu Bencheng in surprise and didn't say anything for a long time.

Later, he asked Liu Bencheng to sit down, and in a heavy tone he said something to Liu Bencheng that would make him remember it for the rest of his life.

The professor said: "No matter what major you choose, as long as you do well, you will have a bright future. As a student, you should not think about the future too early, but focus on doing well in your studies.

We do academic research not only to make a living, but more importantly it is a responsibility, a responsibility for mankind to explore the future.

It is important for a person to have an interest in academics so that he can do his job well. "

Liu Bencheng felt ashamed when he heard this. As a student of Xia Country, he was so short-sighted and had no ambition at all?
From then on, he never wavered in his determination to engage in economic work throughout his life.

Nowadays, there are many people who go abroad to study just to improve their lives. Liu Bencheng has many such people around him.

In later generations, in the more than 40 years since the reform and opening up, millions of people from China have flocked to study abroad, but not one of them has won the Nobel Prize.

We cannot help but explain the problem.

Do you think the Xia people are stupid and lack creativity? The Xia people are not stupid, on the contrary they are smart.

In the 1930s and 1940s, there were not many Chinese people studying abroad, but several Nobel Prize winners emerged, including Tsung-Dao Lee, Chen-Ning Yang, and Samuel Ting.

The question is, how many people in later generations can devote themselves to learning like they did?

Liu Bencheng's mentor works very hard. He is in his 50s, but he still arrives at the office early every day.

One Christmas, Liu Bencheng saw him walking towards the office on campus and immediately went up to him to express his surprise at his diligence.

The professor stopped Liu Bencheng from speaking with a gesture. In his opinion, it was natural to work on holidays.

This also influenced Liu Bencheng. He later visited several universities and research institutes and found that the professors and researchers there worked very hard.

Liu Bencheng feels that Chinese people are not necessarily smarter than others. If they are not as hardworking as others, how can they do better than others in scientific research?

Education in foreign universities is different from that in China. It is not as detailed. The tutors only provide directional guidance, and students find specific research topics by themselves by reading literature.

This was a great exercise for Liu Bencheng. Indeed, if a graduate student relies too much on his supervisor during his studies, it will be difficult for him to work independently after graduation.

Liu Bencheng's hard work paid off with fruitful results. His articles were published one after another in top journals in his field, and he obtained his doctorate degree in less than four years.

After that, after graduating with a Ph.D., Liu Bencheng successfully entered the famous Sequoia Capital in the United States to work and train.

Sequoia Capital was founded in Sam's Silicon Valley in 1972. It is a company that has always been committed to helping entrepreneurs achieve lasting success. To put it bluntly, it is a famous venture capital company.

Liu Bencheng feels that the founder of Sequoia Capital, Don Valentine, is a true legend. He is the godfather of venture capital in Silicon Valley and one of the four giants in the venture capital industry.

The companies it has invested in include Apple, which launched the personal computer revolution, Atari, which pioneered the game console industry, Oracle, a well-known database company, Cisco, a network hardware giant, Yahoo, a new network legend, and a host of other well-known companies.

Sequoia’s leader Valentine focuses on investment strategies for new “tracks” and “aircraft carriers”: the name of Sequoia Capital can always be seen in every hot industry or company.

Valentine has also become an investor who truly influences investors.

In the late 50s, Fairchild Semiconductor, the famous "Huangpu Military Academy of Silicon Valley", invented the integrated circuit, and Valentine, who had just graduated from college, became the company's first salesman.

As the entire semiconductor market grew, Valentine's personal sales in 1961 alone exceeded Fairchild's total sales of the previous year.

As a result, he was soon promoted to sales manager for the western region.

Eight years later, with the mission of "keeping running", Valentine became the co-founder of Sam National Semiconductor.

In 1972, Valentine left National Semiconductor and set up camp in venture capital.

Before that, he tried his hand at the industry by investing in a few small projects upstream and downstream of the semiconductor industry and made some money.

Valentine felt that he had figured out the trick to investment and decided to devote himself to it and spend the rest of his life in it.

So he joined Capital Group, created a venture capital division, and named his institution "Sequoia Capital" after the largest and longest-lived redwood tree in California.

In order to raise funds, Valentine knocked on the door of Salomon Brothers.

Solomon, the young banker, crossed his legs, glanced at Valentine's resume, and said contemptuously, "Sorry, we only apply to graduates from Harvard Business School!"

So they sent Valentine away.

The reason is that Valentine graduated from Fordham University, which is just an unknown fake university in the United States.

Salomon’s bankers were not alone: ​​at the time, venture capital was truly a Harvard affair.

The start was not smooth.

It took Valentine a year and a half to raise Sequoia Capital's first fund.

He then spent another year studying how the fund operated.

By the time Valentine invested in his first project, his company, Sequoia Capital, had been established for three years.

After joining Sequoia Capital, Liu Bencheng focused on studying Valentine himself and the growth history of Sequoia Capital.

The first case he discovered for Sequoia Capital was a $60 investment in game maker Atari, with Mayfield and two other investors following suit.

A year later, Atari was sold to Warner, and Sequoia Capital received a four-fold return.

It is worth mentioning that early venture capital projects were mainly pure technology projects. Many investors were bankers and were not technically proficient. They often asked Valentine to evaluate the products and technologies of start-ups. Therefore, Sequoia Capital has a unique advantage.

Apple's Steve Jobs once said: "Venture capitalists at that time were like your mentors and provided a lot of help to startups.

Because early venture capitalists, like Valentine, were once founders or executives of high-tech companies.

This background allows investors to share their talents and experiences like mentors in addition to investing money.”

Valentine's investment style can be summarized in one sentence: "It is better to invest in a company with huge market demand than to invest in a company that needs to create market demand."

Because it overemphasizes the importance of the market to a company, over the years this phrase has been extended to the more popular "bet on the track, not the racer."

Valentine explained that one of the reasons for "betting on the track" is that talented entrepreneurs are actually very rare.

He said that he had only met two entrepreneurs with superhuman insight so far: one was Robert Noyce of Intel, and the other was Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, who is now in a sensitive trough.

Coincidentally, Liu Bencheng had also heard the same words.

By the way, it was at an internal family gathering that his great-grandfather Liu Zhiye seemed to have said the same thing.

Liu Zhiye also predicted at the time that in the future, high-tech companies like Microsoft, Intel, Nvidia, Apple, Amazon, etc. in the United States would be worthy of key investment.

Liu Bencheng discovered that over the years, Liu Zhiye’s predictions had all come true one after another.

Is this what great minds think alike?
(End of this chapter)