In yesterday's article, I shared a recent interview with Vitalik. This interview well reflects Vitalik's values, as well as the values and culture of Ethereum.

In the past, I had no understanding of corporate values and culture like I do today, let alone any appreciation for them. At that time, like most people, I thought that so-called values and culture were too abstract, merely a superficial effort by companies to enhance their image, put on a show, and maintain a facade.

However, over the years, especially as I began to observe various projects in the crypto ecosystem and looked at individual stocks in the US, Hong Kong, and A-shares, I increasingly realized that corporate culture and values are not abstract at all. They often serve as a touchstone for companies in critical moments and are a relatively easy indicator when assessing a company's investment value.

Duan Yongping once said in his investment Q&A (the gist is):

A good leader can guide a company for ten years, a good board can guide a company for fifty years, and a good corporate culture can guide a company for a hundred years.

This highlights the importance of corporate culture.

Additionally, he often mentions two key indicators for judging a company: the profit model and corporate culture.

In my experience, I find that sometimes it is not easy to clearly see a company's profit model or to judge whether it can be sustainable, but sometimes it is relatively easier to determine whether a company's culture is "right" or "principled."

Gradually, I began to pay special attention to a project's corporate culture and values when evaluating a project or company.

In the crypto ecosystem I follow, almost all projects are actually led by their founders. Therefore, the corporate culture of a project often reflects the values of its founder.

In this case, looking at a project's corporate culture is equivalent to looking at the founder's values.

This situation also applies to the Hong Kong and US stocks I follow.

In the Hong Kong and US markets, most of the companies I focus on are high-tech firms. The majority of their actual leaders are also founders. Observing their corporate culture is likewise observing the values of their founders.

In the crypto ecosystem, I have used Ethereum as an example many times, so I won't elaborate further today.

Today, I want to share a journey of thought I had while looking at Hong Kong stocks.

About four years ago, during the pandemic, I was very optimistic about a mainland company stock that was listed in the Hang Seng Tech Index. This company spanned multiple sub-sectors, including electronics and home appliances, and had achieved impressive results in each field, with its products quickly capturing the market. What was particularly enticing was that the company's stock had significantly dropped below its issue price.

At that time, I felt that its stock was definitely worth buying.

However, my only uncertainty was: each sub-sector the company entered seemed not to be very profitable. Could it provide shareholders with sustained and substantial returns in the long run with such thin profits?

So, I hesitated.

Later, the company boldly entered a field that seemed extremely challenging in the industry (and to almost everyone).

I was on edge watching this.

What was impressive was that the company eventually launched a series of seemingly excellent products and quickly built a good reputation in this field.

However, soon after, its products were revealed to have a series of very serious issues.

In the face of these problems, the company's external attitude and statements disappointed me—this was clearly not a principled attitude.

According to the mindset I was instilled with since childhood, I immediately thought:

Perhaps the lower-level people were irresponsible and didn't handle it carefully? The leadership probably didn't know, right? The leadership should still be decent, right?

Later, the founder finally stepped forward and directly addressed the relevant issues in several live broadcasts. But these responses further disappointed me and finally made me realize that the founder's attitude towards these issues was the same.

This made me question the culture of the company:

What would the culture and values of this company be like with a founder who holds such values?

Would such culture and values be principled and long-term?

With a limited profit model and questionable corporate culture, can such a company sustain profitability in the long run?

From then on, I completely abandoned the idea of purchasing this company's stock.

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