As I mentioned in my first investor letter, my investing philosophy had deep roots in oriental philosophies. For this reason, I always find those investors who are able to master both eastern and western mental models extremely intriguing. On surface, lots of eastern mental models & philosophies resonate with well-known western principles already, but I also believe they have more unrecognized value to investing practices. I am planning to start a series to document all investors that fits this category, to document my lessons learned from them and to share with my readers their insights (many of which aren’t available in English media).
The first one is Shoucheng Zhang (Wikipedia Link). Zhang is an ingenious physicist, to say the least. He got admitted by one of the top universities in China purely by self-study after the Culture Revolution ended in 1978 when he was only 15, then went abroad and finished his PhD by 24. His best known finding is probably topological insulators, for which he was awarded a Dirac Medal in 2012. His work was estimated by Thompson Reuters to be able to win Nobel Prize in 2014 (Link). Zhang is also a tech VC investor. He is said to be one of the early investors of VMWare (as he’s a neighbor of the co-founder Mendel Rosenblum who is also a Stanford professor) and made hundred bagger on it. He officially started his profession investing career in 2013 by founding Danhua Capital (website link), an early/growth stage VC focusing on disruptive technologies.
Like Charlie Munger, Zhang also see Benjamin Franklin as an archetype. Zhang mentioned that he struggled at a young age on whether he should aspire to be a scientist or an entrepreneur, until he realized he really could be both after reading about Franklin, one of the greatest polymaths in history. Not surprisingly, he is also a fan of multi-disciplinary mental models. As a theoretical physicist, his application of quantum physics principles to investing (and life) is the most interesting insights among other thing. Additionally, contradicting to stereotype of physicists, he seems to have strong interests in Aesthetics.
Zhang’s key philosophy can be summarized by a quote he constantly mentioned in multiple interviews: “Complexity out of Simplicity” or “First Principle”. Before moving on, I think it would be beneficial to expand on the “First Principle” (Wikipedia link) as it initially appeared foreign to me. My understanding is that first principle is a thing/principle/notion which is in its most fundamental form and is self-evident without proof or deduction. That is where you want to start your learning/thinking process.
Some of my favorite thoughts of Zhang (paraphrased) are below:
Tao of Value 