CEO Yang’s View | True Strength Doesn’t Rush to Prove Itself: Understanding the Power of Long-Termism Through Zhao Yun
From Zhao Zilong of Changshan to PSF’s long-termism: what carries people through cycles has never been a single battle that made their name, but a lifetime without losing composure
In history, some figures are remembered because of a single battle; others leave their names because they stood at the peak of power. But there is another, rarer kind of person. He may not have held the highest rank of his age, may not have commanded the most resources, and may not have left the grandest record of military achievements — yet as time stretches on, people see his value more and more clearly.
Zhao Yun is exactly such a person. When people mention Zhao Yun, most first think of Changban Slope, the white horse and silver spear, seven charges in and out, and a body made of courage. But when you actually read the Records of the Three Kingdoms and the historical material preserved in Pei Songzhi’s annotations, you find that what is most worth studying about Zhao Yun may never have been “how many men he could fight,” but a deeper question: how could a man who lived through turbulent times and campaigned for decades keep such a steady character? Not arrogant in victory, not rattled in defeat; not contending for credit, not greedy for gain; fearless before the strong, able to read the situation; bold enough to remonstrate with his lord, and mindful of letting the common people recover and rest. He advanced when it was time to charge, and personally covered the rear when it was time to retreat. In such a man, what is truly powerful is not any one ability, but that his entire character system is extremely stable.
This also made me rethink the long-termism PSF has held to all along. Running a company is like life: what decides how far you ultimately go is often not how high you once stood, but whether — as the environment keeps changing, interests keep tempting and setbacks keep coming — you are still the person who knows why you set out. So I want to use eight words to understand Zhao Yun anew, and to remind ourselves as well: loyalty (zhong), courage (yong), wisdom (zhi), steadiness (ding), humility (qian), restraint (jie), people (min) and vision (yuan). These eight words are not only Zhao Yun’s character. They are also the eight strengths I believe a true long-termist should have.
1. Loyalty | True long-termism begins with “not changing your choices lightly”
Zhao Yun was not originally Liu Bei’s man. The Records of the Three Kingdoms says that Zhao Yun first followed Gongsun Zan and only later followed Liu Bei, becoming his “cavalry commander.” This seems unremarkable; what truly deserves attention is the decades that followed. The late Eastern Han was an extremely realistic era. The lord of today might be destroyed tomorrow; the man who holds a city today might be a refugee tomorrow; talents switching houses and warlords forming and breaking alliances were simply the norm of a chaotic age. And Liu Bei’s early circumstances were in fact poor: he was not from the beginning the King of Hanzhong holding Yi Province. He lost Xu Province, relied on Cao Cao, joined Yuan Shao, fled to Liu Biao, and spent a long time in wandering and hardship. If a person’s loyalty is built on “I follow whoever is strongest right now,” then Liu Bei in his early years was clearly not the best choice — yet Zhao Yun stayed. So the “loyalty” I understand is never merely obedience to one person.
True loyalty is this: once you have chosen a path you believe in, you do not easily change it because of momentary gains or losses.
This is also the first and most important lesson of long-termism. Today’s world makes it far too easy to change direction: see that AI is hot, and everyone goes into AI; see that the capital market is hot, and everyone talks capital; see that some industry is making money, and everyone rushes in together. The result is that many companies have done twenty different things over ten years, yet not one of them has truly accumulated into the company’s own capability. True long-termism is not refusing to change. Rather: methods can change, tools can change, tactics can change, but core values cannot change every day.
Over PSF’s journey so far, I have come to believe more and more that a company’s real moat is, in the end, not how many resources it has now, but what it chooses to believe in over the long term.
2. Courage | True bravery is not not knowing the danger, but knowing the danger and still being willing to bear it
Changban Slope is the most famous story of Zhao Yun’s life. The novel writes it as seven charges in and out, cutting down countless generals; but even if all the literary embellishment is stripped away, the core of what the official history records is still shocking enough. Cao Cao’s army pursued Liu Bei, Liu Bei’s forces scattered, and while everyone was busy fleeing, Zhao Yun carried the infant Liu Shan in his arms, protected Lady Gan, and finally brought them out of danger. What is truly worth thinking about is not how many enemies Zhao Yun killed, but that when order collapsed he still remembered his responsibility — that is courage. It is easy to talk about mission in ordinary times, easy to talk about ideals when the company is making money, easy to talk about responsibility when applause is loudest. What is truly hard is this: when things start to spin out of control and everyone thinks of themselves first, do you still remember what you are supposed to protect?
So I believe the highest realm of courage is not charging fastest, but not forgetting responsibility at the most dangerous moment. Entrepreneurs are especially so. What we face every day is not swords and spears but uncertainty: market, capital, talent, technology, policy, competition, partnerships — every one of them can change suddenly. A real leader cannot wait until all information is complete before deciding; sometimes you can only make a decision, under sixty percent of the information, that you must bear one hundred percent of the responsibility for. This is the modern entrepreneur’s “Changban Slope.”
3. Wisdom | True wisdom is telling “emotion” apart from “strategy”
Another thing about Zhao Yun that is well worth studying is that he opposed Liu Bei’s campaign against Wu. For the Liu Bei camp, Guan Yu’s death was not merely the loss of a senior general; it was a multiple blow to brotherly bonds, political prestige, Jing Province interests and Shu-Han strategy. At that moment, advocating war was easy, because advocating war fits the emotions — but Zhao Yun offered an extremely calm judgment: “The enemy of the state is Cao Cao, not Sun Quan.” What is truly remarkable about this line is not that Liu Bei later lost the Battle of Yiling and so proved Zhao Yun “right,” but that at the very moment group emotion ran strongest, Zhao Yun could still ask: who is our real enemy? That is strategy. Many companies ultimately fail not for lack of capability but because they waste huge resources on “proving themselves right.” A competitor says something, and they must hit back. A partnership collapses, and they must win back face. A rival enters the market, and they follow immediately. In the end everyone in the company is very busy, yet has forgotten: where were we going in the first place? So I have always believed: do not destroy a ten-year game for a moment’s anger. A true decision-maker must be able to distinguish: what is face? What is emotion? What is interest? What is strategy? Swallowing a short-term loss sometimes wins an entire era.
4. Steadiness | Not advancing recklessly in victory, not losing order in defeat
If I could pick only one word to represent Zhao Yun, I might choose “steadiness.” During the first Northern Expedition, Zhao Yun and Deng Zhi suffered a setback at Jigu. It was not a victory, yet the Records of the Three Kingdoms preserves a line that business leaders should ponder again and again: “He gathered his troops and held firm, so it did not become a great defeat.” They had already lost, but did not collapse. I think the value of these few words is no less than any “great rout of the enemy,” because a truly mature commander knows not only how to win but, more importantly, how to lose. Investing is the same, running a company is the same, and life is even more so. No one can guarantee every decision is right, so truly high-level risk management has never been about pursuing “never making a mistake.” It is this: even if you judge wrongly, you cannot let a single mistake destroy everything.
This is “steadiness.” Not overestimating yourself in good times, not denying yourself in adversity; not losing discipline when the market is manic, not losing judgment when the market is panicked; not giddy in good times, not rattled in bad; not proud when ascendant, not dejected when falling. I believe this is the core ability that truly carries one through cycles.
5. Humility | Truly capable people are in no hurry to let the whole world know
Zhao Yun’s fame in later generations is enormous, but if we return to the official history, he was actually a relatively reserved man, with no flamboyant political performances and no record of scrambling for power and profit. This makes me think of an important question: why do truly strong people become less and less eager to prove themselves? Because they know time will speak. Companies are the same. Many companies, at their weakest, are the ones most fond of telling the market how strong they are; once real capability begins to form, they gradually fall quiet, because you begin to understand: a brand is not shouted into existence, credit is not written into existence, resources are not photographed into existence. Real strength is accumulated, over ten and twenty years, from one matter, one team, one project, one promise. So the weak are eager to be seen, while the strong focus on being tested by time. Slow accumulation before a burst is not doing nothing — quite the opposite: it is continuing to accumulate talent, knowledge, capital, institutions, credit, technology and relationships while no one is applauding, so that when opportunity arrives, others suddenly discover: it turns out you had been preparing for ten years.
6. Restraint | Know what to do, and even more what not to do
After the setback at Jigu, the Biography of Yun records, there were still surplus supplies in the army, and someone was preparing to give rewards to the troops, but Zhao Yun said: “There is no gain in this campaign — why should there be rewards?” No victory, so why take a reward? The line seems simple, but behind it is a very high standard of self-discipline.
He did not dress up “we lost, but we retreated well” as a victory. Handling the aftermath well is simply one’s duty; one cannot turn a defeat into merit merely because no greater loss occurred. This is “restraint.” A company’s real governance capability is likewise judged not by “how much it can do,” but by how many things it clearly could do and chose not to. That the law permits something does not mean it should be done; that the market is chasing something does not mean we must follow; that it earns money in the short term does not mean it serves long-term interests; that everyone else is doing it does not mean we must too. So a company’s truly precious asset is, in the end, not even the figures on the balance sheet, but the market’s belief that there are certain things this company simply will not do. That is credibility, and it is the most important foundation of long-term capital.
7. People | True high-level capital is not about how much you take, but how much you leave behind
After Liu Bei took Yi Province, someone suggested distributing the fields and houses of Chengdu as rewards to meritorious officials. This was reasonable: everyone had risked their lives, and now that the realm was won, rewarding merit seemed only natural. Zhao Yun, however, objected. The Biography of Yun records that he argued the people of Yi Province, who had suffered the ravages of war, should have their fields and houses restored so that they could “live in peace and resume their livelihoods.” I think these words are very important. They show that Zhao Yun was no longer thinking simply about “how victors divide the spoils,” but about how a regime could last. True wise governance is not letting the victors take the most, but getting the whole system running again: the people can live, commerce can recover, production can continue, only then can the government levy taxes, society becomes stable, and the regime gains legitimacy. This is “people.”
Applied to today — when we talk about enterprises, venture capital and capital markets — the principle is exactly the same. True high-level capital does not plunder value; it lets value keep growing. If the founders win and the investors win, but employees lose, customers lose and suppliers lose, this business model is hard to sustain. A truly good ecosystem is one in which everyone taking part becomes better off because of the platform. That is the highest efficiency of capital.
8. Vision | A true master does not fight for a moment’s victory but plans a ten-year game
The last word is “vision.” I increasingly believe that many truly important things in life cannot be measured in a single year. Some things look like a loss today and are called credit five years later; some things show no results today and are called a moat ten years later; some people exchange no benefit with you today yet may become the most important partners of your life twenty years on. So long-termism has never meant “slow.”
True long-termism is this: using a ten-year yardstick to decide what to do today.
This deeply echoes Chapter 40 of the Tao Te Ching that I have always loved: “Reversal is the movement of the Tao; weakness is the function of the Tao.”
Many people think strength means always moving forward. But Eastern wisdom tells us that true strength also includes retreating, guarding, enduring, concealing and waiting — even having the courage to stop when everyone else is charging madly ahead, because you know what you are waiting for. From Zhao Yun to PSF, what kind of people do we truly want to become? As PSF has developed to where it is today, I have become clearer and clearer about one thing: what we truly want to build should not be only a company. Companies have large and small; markets have bulls and bears; industries have cycles; technologies will be replaced and business models will keep changing. But some things should outlive the business model — how we view profit, how we face setbacks, how we treat friends, how we use capital, how we bear responsibility, and, where no one is watching, what kind of person we still choose to be.
If I must organize this spirit into a model that can be passed on, I would call it: PSF’s Eight Virtues of Zilong
Loyalty to keep one’s purpose, courage to take on tasks;
wisdom to read the situation, steadiness to meet change;
humility to nurture capacity, restraint to guard oneself;
the people as the foundation, vision to complete the game.
Loyalty keeps us true to our original aspiration.
Courage lets us dare to bear responsibility.
Wisdom lets us tell emotion from strategy.
Steadiness lets us pass through good times and bad.
Humility lets us keep learning even in success.
Restraint lets us know which money we must not earn and which things we must not do.
The people let us know that every enterprise must in the end return to the value of human beings.
Vision keeps today’s applause and setbacks from deciding our tomorrow.
Taken together, these eight words are, I believe, the character model of a true long-term leader: judging heroes not by a single battle, and settling success or failure not by a single moment. The most interesting thing about history is that it eventually re-evaluates everyone. Some who commanded the world in their day are left with only a name a hundred years later; some who did not stand at the highest position in their time are still studied, respected and talked about a thousand years on. So what we should truly pursue is perhaps never “how many people see me now,” but, once time has passed, what I will have left behind. This is also the deepest layer I have seen in Zhao Yun.
A truly strong person does not rush to prove himself, and true long-termism is not believing you will always win, but believing that even if you do not win today, you are still accumulating; even if no one sees you today, you are still training; even if you are in adversity today, you still hold to your principles. Because what I am preparing for was never a single battle, but a lifetime’s campaign. So if I had to sum up Zhao Yun in one sentence — and remind PSF of itself — I think it would be: cultivate virtue in good times, cultivate ability in adversity; not proud when ascendant, not rattled when falling. Keep your edge sheathed and build your strength thick; do not fight for a moment, quietly await your time. The real victory or defeat in life has never been in any single battle. The real success or failure of a company has never been in one year’s revenue. How far a person can ultimately go depends not on how fast he once ran, but on whether, along the long road, he has always known why he walks. So it was with Zhao Yun. So it is with companies.
And the long-termism I understand comes down to just this: having sharpness without needing to show it everywhere; having strength without needing to prove it all the time; having ambition without letting ambition override principle; having wins and losses without letting a moment’s win or loss define oneself. Time is the long-termist’s last friend. An enterprise truly worth building should also be able to withstand time.