By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management
“When Heaven is about to confer a great office on a man, it first exercises his mind with suffering, and his sinews and bones with toil,” whispered Xi to himself, contemplating the ancient wisdom of Mencius, born 100yrs after Confucius and considered Confucianism’s 2nd sage.
“It exposes his body to hunger, and subjects him to extreme poverty; it confounds his undertakings,” continued Xi, alone on a long walk. “By all these methods it stimulates his mind, hardens his nature, and supplies his incompetencies.”
Xi’s intelligence services had sent him TikTok videos of Jensen Huang, the founder/CEO of Nvidia, who spoke this week at Stanford University, in the heart of Silicon Valley. Jensen was born in Taiwan in 1963, his ancestors having escaped from the Communists all those years ago. His family made their way to Kentucky, where Jensen was mercilessly bullied by racists and worked at Denny’s where he washed dishes and cleaned toilets as he made his way through school.
And now this remarkable man who in a parallel universe would have grown up as a Chinese national, is worth $80bln and built the firm which is leading the West into an unknowable future of artificial intelligence.
“Greatness comes from character and character isn’t formed out of smart people – it’s formed out of people who suffered,” said Jensen Huang to the captivated Stanford students.
“I was fortunate that I grew up with my parents providing a condition for us to be successful on the one hand, but there were plenty of opportunities for setbacks and suffering,” continued Huang, his wisdom racing across social media. Xi sighed, increasingly confused, marveling at Jensen's wildly popular reception, while his directive to Chinese youth to “eat bitterness” had left them lying flat.
“I don’t know how to do it for all of you Stanford students, but I wish upon you ample doses of pain and suffering,” said Huang, as Xi felt a growing sickness rise from within.
