This is a rare video interview with Duan Yongping more than 20 years after his "retirement" from BBK Electronics.
In the first episode of the third season of "Strategy," a professional dialogue program produced by Xueqiu, Xueqiu founder Fang Sanwen and Duan Yongping engaged in a rare intellectual exchange on investment philosophy, corporate culture, and long-termism.
During the two-hour interview, Duan Yongping shared his views on various aspects, including investment, corporate culture, corporate management, the company, and children's education. The following is an excerpt from the full text, highlighting 50 key points for your reading.
01 About Investment
1. Cheap things can become even cheaper.
2. Staying rational is a difficult thing.
3. If you're truly skilled at investing, you don't need any advice. Just buy companies you think are good and hold them.
4. People care about what we have done, but the reason we are who we are is largely because of the things we don't do.
5. Investing is a very interesting thing. Not understanding it doesn't mean you can't make money.
6. If you can't withstand a 50% drop in a stock, you shouldn't buy it.
7. In the era of AI investment, anyone who tries to make money by looking at charts and lines is just a sure way to get fleeced.
8. The probability of making mistakes is actually about the same for everyone; it's just that some people don't repeat the same mistake.
9. Buffett's margin of safety does not refer to cheapness; it refers to how well you understand the company.
10. The saying "Buying stocks is buying a company" is something that only 1% of people truly understand, and putting it into practice is even more difficult.
11. Why is investing considered simple yet difficult? It's simple because you must understand the company, its business, and its future cash flow; it's difficult because it's hard to do that, as most companies are not easy to understand.
12. It's very difficult to make money in the stock market. Most retail investors lose money in both bull and bear markets, around 80%, so don't think of yourself as the special one.
13. I come from a business background, so it's relatively easy for me to understand other people's businesses, but I don't understand too many businesses either.
14. Why haven't you sold after holding onto it for so long and making so much money? The problem is, that money wasn't that much.
15. Is copying homework a sustainable investment method? It's difficult because copying homework means you're lagging behind.
02 About Corporate Culture
16. Corporate culture is closely related to the founder. You need to find people who identify with you and your culture.
17. Many aspects of our culture are constantly evolving as we grow. Our "Don't Do List" is also being added one by one. We only learn what we can't do through many painful lessons.
18. "Doing the right thing and doing things right" immediately brings up the issue of right and wrong... If we feel something is wrong, we can easily stop; if you're only thinking about whether you can make money, you'll find it very complicated.
19. What we say goes, so everyone feels at ease and there's a high level of trust between us... The bonuses employees receive are what they're entitled to. For example, when we give out bonuses, some people say "Thank you, boss," but I say that's inappropriate because these are bonuses paid according to the contract; you don't need to thank me.
20. There are two kinds of people: those who share the same path and those who walk the same path. If someone agrees with you, even if they don't fully understand, they will do what you tell them to do.
21. A good culture, most importantly, will eventually return to the right path, guided by a guiding star, showing it what it should be doing. This isn't about business; discussing only business makes it easy to make mistakes.
03 On Enterprise Management
22. Steve Jobs told Tim Cook, "When you're CEO, you make the decisions. Don't think about what I, Steve Jobs, will do. That's the right thing to do."
23. (Regarding partners) I trust them a lot, and I think that's very important. I'm not afraid of them making mistakes either.
24. The president of Matsushita told me: When I make a decision, I think about what Mr. Matsushita would think if he were standing behind me. I think to myself, I'm doomed.
25. I have a habit of leaving immediately if I encounter something unsuitable.
26. Your eyes should be on the users; their eyes are on the rearview mirror.
27. It's very difficult for a founder to leave a company; not many people can do it. What makes it difficult? It's because they don't want to.
28. I don't think age is necessarily a barrier. Warren Buffett is over 90, and he's doing just fine. He simply enjoys doing this, and he's been doing it all along.
04 Regarding children's education and growth
29. Everything parents do is to increase their children's sense of security.
30. I don't ask my children to do things that I myself cannot do.
31. Children will always have tempers, and they can express their emotions in their own words at certain times.
32. It's important to teach children about boundaries, what they cannot do, rather than constantly scolding them.
33. It is very important to give children a sense of security. Without a sense of security, it is difficult for people to be rational.
34. The most important thing in university is learning how to learn, how to study, and building confidence that you can learn when you encounter something you don't understand.
35. Everything parents do for their children is actually teaching them how to do things. If you scold them, you are teaching them to scold others; if you hit them, you are teaching them that they can hit other children in the future; if you lose your temper with them, you are telling them that they can lose their temper; if you are nice to them, you are telling them that they should be nice to others.
36. Doing exercises is indeed very helpful, but not everyone will figure it out. You need to find the methods from them and find the reasons from the mistakes you make. Only in this way can you learn the whole logic.
05 Understanding of a Company
37. I usually tell people that I only have three stocks: Apple, Tencent, and Moutai, and that's pretty much true.
38. When Apple finds that a product cannot add enough value to users, they stop using it. They don't do it for the sake of business; that's their culture.
39. What do you think of Apple's current price? It's not cheap, but I don't really know if Apple will ultimately succeed. Where will AI ultimately be applied? Won't it still be in mobile phones? Apple's price could potentially double, triple, or even increase again in the future, but I don't know.
40. I think Apple has a great corporate culture. They care a lot about making good products and about the user experience.
41. More than a decade ago, everyone was saying that Apple was going to release an Apple Car, but I said they would never make an electric car. What exactly could they do? Did it have enough differentiation? This is where I understand Apple better than most people.
42. I don't know how much search will AI replace. But overall, I think Google is still pretty good.
43. I watched a lot of Huang Renxun's videos. I admire him very much. What he said more than ten years ago is the same as what he says today. He saw it a long time ago and has been working in that direction all along.
44. I actually knew about TSMC a long time ago, but I didn't understand this industry. I thought they were very asset-heavy. But now I've realized that in the way semiconductor AI takes off, it seems that no one can escape TSMC. It has wiped out everyone else.
45. I think we should at least get involved in AI, so as not to miss out. It seems a bit inappropriate to completely miss out on it.
46. The electric vehicle business won't be very good; it will be exhausting because it has very little differentiation.
47. There are two types of baijiu: Moutai and others.
48. The most important thing about Moutai is whether it has a culture that can sustain it. Your core is Moutai's unique flavor and its target consumers' recognition of this unique flavor.
49. When Moutai was at 2600 or 2700 yuan, I really wanted to sell it. But what would I buy after that? Didn't those who sold lose even more? Because they bought something else.
50. Looking back now, I wouldn't have invested in General Electric; its business model wasn't good. I wasn't at that level of understanding back then.
