W44 - Three-Year Work Anniversary Retrospective

These three years at Meituan were my journey from the peak of ignorance to the valley of despair. What remains uncertain is whether I’m on the left or right side of that valley now, or whether I’ve hit the bottom.

At the start of the year I thought turning thirty-one wouldn’t be dramatic. Instead, I met life with grand expectations, and life met me with violent storms.

First came macro shifts that made me feel, for the first time, how profoundly macro forces can impact the micro—especially the family unit. This year brought pandemic waves, a stock market crash, unemployment, decoupling, the Russia–Ukraine conflict, US inflation and rate hikes, and RMB depreciation. That combo made me long for a self-sufficient small-farm economy.

My present life is a mix of sorrow and joy. This year I experienced a real-life "Westworld" scenario that forced me to reassess trust between people and led me to seek psychological counseling for the first time. I had a failed attempt at pet ownership. My parents were stranded by outbreaks in our hometown for months while I could do little. The world is not as good as some claim, nor as terrible as imagined; waiting passively won’t solve anything. Still, some good things happened: I unlocked a new sport—jiu-jitsu—got engaged, renovated a home, and entered a new stage in my career.

The biggest change this year was probably a growth in mindset. I’ve become a doomsday pragmatist, always planning for the worst so that almost anything that happens feels bearable.

Reality forces us to measure everything on a longer time horizon and to view things through different value lenses.

Basic skills sharpening has become increasingly important. Keep a healthy distance from hype and maintain long-term focus on a subject. From now on I’ll hone architecture as a craft, learn to close the loop on operating a proposition, and better support team evolution.

Do the work of April and May; the answers will come in August and September.