@hxiao: Pingcap has inspired a large number of Chinese people building open-source software companies over the past decade. When I started Jina in 2020, investors advised me to look at Elastic and MongoDB externally, and Pingcap and Zilliz internally. Six years later, I still frequently see at various meetups pin…

Pingcap has indeed inspired a large number of Chinese people building open-source software companies over the past decade. When I started Jina in 2020, investors advised me to look at Elastic and MongoDB externally, and Pingcap and Zilliz internally. Six years later, I still frequently see various innovations from Pingcap and Zilliz at meetups regarding agent/memory. Anyone who has started a business knows how hard it is. Sometimes the founder's passion remains, and they can roll up their sleeves to pivot a few times and get back in the ring, but the team has aged — not necessarily physically, but mentally. That's why I have great respect for the Pingcap and Zilliz teams. I think the growth mentioned in the article is indeed crucial for startups. There's a saying: 'Growth without revenue is a disaster; revenue without growth is boring.' In Silicon Valley, people often talk about upside, saying things like 'joining so-and-so or buying so-and-so's stock has huge upside.' I think it's the same principle as the story in the article: when others use your product, they're betting on the greater upside you offer compared to Google or competitors. Regarding the article's claim that 'if people under 25 don't use your product, you're finished,' I don't think it's absolute. In Silicon Valley (SF), there's a crowd of young high-agency people, always SF-maxxing and token-maxxing, naturally thinking that getting traction in their circle is an achievement. But a lot of money comes from the boring, chore-like, public sector areas. Those people have entirely different mindsets and styles from the SF crowd. At times like this, a company's taste really matters, especially when it goes through a midlife crisis: either pretend to be young and cool — wear shades, act aloof, double down on being edgy — or don't pretend, just be a fashionable old-timer, like a vintage Ferrari — still a boss even when old. If you get stuck in the middle, unable to master the young vibe yet unwilling to settle for the old, the company will eventually be dragged down.