Kechuang person·Hexun.com CTO Yang Yang: The Way to Practice from a Technical Independence to a Business Driver

Yang Yang, CTO of Hexun.com
He is well versed in financial services such as securities, funds, futures, foreign exchange, and is a practical expert in digital transformation. He is good at considering and solving technical problems from the perspective of products, operations, and sales.

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Text | babayage
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I can't remember how many times I was rejected by Yang Yang, but "Science and Technology" never gave up. The reason for this obsession is that Yang Yang's growth process is unique. At a time when the inherent paradigm and empirical methodology are gradually failing, Yang Yang's life beliefs and values may be more suitable for the coming era.

Coping with illness and building a tightly balanced life
Keywords: balance "to neutralize", not just to pursue a single goal

As a teenager, Yang Yang was a "π" talent. He was familiar with literature, history and philosophy, loved and systematically taught himself finance, but he applied for the computer major during the college entrance examination. "I really can't remember why he made this choice in the first place"—— This is a bit unexpected. After a deep chat, I learned that the fuzzy memory is not prevarication. The root cause is that Yang Yang suffered from depression in high school, and he had some difficulty in reading the memory of that period.

The struggle with depression continued until he graduated from college, and this was not even the biggest boss he encountered in the Novice Village of Life-Yang Yang was also a hepatitis B patient. This kind of chronic disease with a natural cure rate of only 3 to 5% is not. Fatal, but also enough to make people feel the inconveniences of life.

Others’ 18-year-olds are full of fantasy and longing, but Yang Yang’s 18-year-olds had to expend a lot of energy to fight illness. The experience of the novice village of nightmare difficulty and his literary, historical and philosophical skills have produced a subtle chemical reaction. Regarding the disasters that befall him, he does not hold the one-dimensional mentality such as "optimistic face" or "deep depression" in his heart. It is to construct a three-dimensional life model to deal with problems (and still use it today). He calls it a "tightly balanced" life, which can be summarized as "based on a clear non-single goal, with a high saturation resource utilization rate and high Based on accurate resource allocation, we strive for the most efficient guarantee that each goal can be achieved."

Talking about goal-oriented people often emphasize the advantages of a single goal, but life is not a project. Yang Yang, who started from the bottom of a pit, does not accept a life of struggling just to climb out of the pit: "Depression can be solved, so cooperate with treatment and take medicine on time; If hepatitis B is difficult to solve, then establish a set of life disciplines that can work with it, strict taboos, and strict fitness. Also plan enough energy to achieve growth in life. Balance is the most important thing. I don't want to make all my efforts. Just to cure the disease, we must take care of growth."

The unique circumstances have created Yang Yang's unique life beliefs: rationality, self-discipline, multi-objective balance, and execution.

Taking fitness as an example, he would list all the constraints like doing architectural design and then make judgments: there must be sufficient exercise effect, it must be easy to persist, and it cannot rely heavily on external conditions...Finally, he chooses "running, Tai Chi, swimming "The combo set has persisted to this day.

After confirming the goal, pursue the best effect as much as possible, practice Tai Chi to find a famous teacher, and learn to swim to find a famous coach. A friend smiled and asked "Is it necessary?" But Yang Yang himself knew that getting the maximum effect with limited investment was the only way he could level his disadvantages at the starting point and achieve rapid growth.

"My understanding of life is a painstaking practice. There are many twists and turns and obstacles. I have to know what I want, and then I will spare no effort to achieve it." Yang Yang said this sentence in a daze. , Seems to think of a lot of past things.

With careful planning and heavy investment, in order to be able to fight against illnesses while maintaining growth, Yang Yang’s university life is almost unrelated to entertainment-style social interaction. His only leisure time is used by him to cross time and space to make friends with Li He, Nietzsche, and Keats, "I Comparing fatalism (laughs)".

Kungfu pays off, and the God of Destiny seems to be convinced by Yang Yang's more real energy. When Yang Yang graduated from University, he not only recovered from depression, but also developed a superb programming skill.

From lone wolf fighting workers to one-shoulder entrepreneurs

In his senior year, Yang Yang became acquainted with Capital Online. Soon after joining the company, he caught up with Capital Online’s cooperation with Coremail and decided to develop a complete set of mail systems by himself. This was the smash hit 263 Mail. Yang Yang took advantage of the opportunity to become the 263 mail system development team. One of the core backbone.

The next two years are the purest and most technical two years of Yang Yang's life, and also the most perverse and maddening two years. "Give me the most awesome X module, and other people don’t mix it up. In my opinion, they are all silly X. Looking at it now, this is because the Internet industry had a huge room for growth in the past. In an upward elevator, as long as you have the ability, how to toss and how to express your personality is okay, but when the elevator goes down It’s better not to be like this when you are working.” It is precisely because of this experience that Yang Yang respects the individuality of the technical people in the future R&D management work. “After all, I am here too”.

As mentioned above, Yang Yang's tightly balanced lifestyle is at the core of a clear and firm sense of purpose. After working for two years, Yang Yang, who had formally recovered from depression, was convinced that being a front-line technician could not effectively achieve his life goals. Going abroad and starting a business became the two choices before his eyes. After thinking about it for a long time, at the end of 2001, he decided to accept a friend's invitation to leave his job and start a business and join the corporate mailbox track.

In 2001, it was still in the post-Internet bubble era. Internet entrepreneurship was basically unable to attract investment, and it was all started with self-funded investment. Moreover, although the mailbox is the main tool in the start-up phase of the To C Internet, it does not make money. Only the To B corporate mailbox seems to be a business model that can achieve a closed-loop capital. , Some of them entered the To B market from mailboxes, and eventually became the pioneers of To B technical services in China.

Compared with the working period, Yang Yang's state has completely gone to the other extreme in the four years of starting his own business. During his working period, he was arrogant and solitary. Sales have never done anything else, including collection of debts."

Under the hard work of starting a business, Yang Yang’s personality has changed a lot. He began to understand that the achievement of a career cannot be achieved by fighting alone and understanding the differences between people. "For example, when it comes to recruiting people, I just started it myself. 4k salary, 7k feel very righteous, people say that I go to another company to start 10k, you will naturally learn what is meant by'different positions, different thinking'".

Some gains come from success, and some lessons come from setbacks. Yang Yang quickly passed the initial period of confusion, calmly digesting everything he had experienced, and transformed it into a supply for evolutionary growth. Unable to pay wages, being PUA by Party A, going to court with clients, watching partners fall apart... Yang Yang is calm and calm in his mind, and tries his best to resolve it if he can, and accept the reality if he can’t, "I even learned a lot of things. For example, in the current job, the supplier hates me very much, saying that I am too cruel to them. In fact, this is what we learned when we were tortured by some big factories and big parties (laughs)".

With more and more troubles encountered in the course of entrepreneurship, Yang Yang is determined to change his life.

In 2006, an accidental opportunity to get along with Jiang Tao, then CTO of Hexun.com, and Hexun that year urgently needed a team with excellent technical ability to complete the bottom-level reconstruction. I needed to change. The other party was full of sincerity and kindness. Eventually Yang Yang and seven or eight brothers joined together.

Taoism first and Confucianism
Reconstruct the outlook on life

From the time of university, through 263 periods and entrepreneurial period, Yang Yang's life goals are mostly concrete, intuitive and realistic. After experiencing all the twists and turns of entrepreneurship, Yang Yang found that something in his heart was awakening, which was the lower limit and righteous thoughts that existed before depression. "I realized this and made up my mind. I can no longer rely on small repairs and small supplements to optimize. My own life style, but it needs a massive reconstruction."

This time, he no longer quantifies and materializes the goal of growth, instead he builds a belief in the principle dimension (build a principle-centered life): constantly strive to create actual value with technology. In the next 8 years and 4 months, Yang Yang’s title stopped at "CTO Assistant and Director of Technical R&D Department and Director of Testing Department". It seemed that he was too stable. In fact, this position can best use his technical expertise. , Continue to output high value.

In addition to maintaining high output in the career field and fighting hepatitis B with extreme self-discipline, Yang Yang devoted all his remaining energy to improving his cognition and refreshing his spiritual strength. "Before, I not only believed in fatalism, but also deeply influenced by Taoism. I wanted to actively pursue the heights of life, but my sensibility would appear negative. After joining Hexun, I read many books on philosophy and psychology, and continued to absorb the wisdom of the philosophers. Try to be more positive."

Yang Yang's self-evaluation of the three historical figures who have the greatest influence on him:

1. Li Mi, a politician in the mid-Tang Dynasty, the veteran of the Xuan, Su, Dai, and German dynasties. The admiration for him represents my past. The husband is indisputable, and the world cannot compete with him. He is very capable, and he can even pass the problem of heir-making that has his head off. , Good at defending oneself in a self-defeating manner.

But in retrospect, most people are Confucianism followed by Taoism, and because of my personal experience, I reversed this order, so sometimes it was too negative, so later I started to read a lot of Confucian works.

2. Wang Yangming, "Mind is reason, unity of knowledge and action". I am relatively proficient in the inductive method in my life, and I am currently raising the intensity of deductive thinking. The deductive method emphasizes first principles + MVP + data verification. In my opinion, there are many similarities with the unity of mind as reason and knowledge and action. "Mind is reason, unity of knowledge and action" is a kind of epistemology. Accepting this epistemology will focus more on inner drive rather than external object drive when doing things, and it is not easy to be deceived by short-term benefits. This kind of epistemology will make a person turn to inward seeking, starting from me, and constantly improving self-cultivation. Small achievements rely on individual skills; great achievements rely on team support; the greatest achievement depends on those you don’t know, unseen, and unexpected people who support you from the heart and make you successful. And how these people come to you depends entirely on your personal cultivation.

3. Zeng Guofan, "Everyone can do something in the middle of a person", of course it is not that simple. Fortune and mental strength are Zeng Guofan's strengths, not a real ordinary person, but after all, his life experience is based on the experience and experience of the general public. Thoughts are more abundant. Wang Yangming is too genius. I will give you an answer directly so that you can comprehend it. You don’t even know what the problem is. Zeng Guofan is relatively easy to learn. It is a template-based textbook that continues to frustrate and grow. The combination of Confucianism and Taoism), gradually grows, and is in line with the psychological maturity curve of most people.

The next lesson in life practice: data-driven innovation

In 2014, Jiang Tao, then CTO of Hexun.com, decided to leave, and the opportunity to take over the position of CTO was in front of Yang Yang. For Yang Yang's tightly balanced lifestyle, including variables at the level of "Serving as the CTO of Hexun.com" undoubtedly means huge variables, but after repeated consideration, Yang Yang decided to accept the challenge. In the end, the core reason that prompted him to make up his mind was because he found a path of practice worthy of long-term challenges, and being the CTO allowed him to deploy more resources to challenge.

This road is: use digital means to open up the business chain of enterprises, and truly realize technology-driven business growth. "This road will be very long and difficult to go, but for the enterprise and myself, there is endless room for imagination." In addition, looking at this issue from a purely personal growth perspective: in order for everyone to maintain a relatively favorable position in the future class division or class jump, they must also form an alliance with the machine, and the most basic condition for understanding the machine thinking mode is digitalization.

Interestingly, it seems that God wants to reward Yang Yang for his firm belief that in 2017, his hepatitis B surface antigen disappeared, becoming the lucky 5% of hepatitis B patients. This is undoubtedly a surprise, but it has limited impact on Yang Yang's life. Apart from joy, he still insists on a high degree of self-discipline, "only occasionally I can have a hot pot with my friends." An infinite game of life originally planned, but ended with a slightly comedic trophy of a limited game.

Technologist: Why do you think that the digitization of the business chain is an extremely important and worthy of all in your life?

Yang Yang: As a history lover, I am used to thinking about problems by induction for most of my life, but with the in-depth practice of deductive thinking and a full understanding of the post-financial crisis era, I have come up with a Conclusion: The past success paradigm and mature experience will continue to fail. Only continuous and correct innovation can help companies achieve a long-lasting foundation in a new era full of uncertainties.

In order to achieve continuous and correct innovation, it is necessary to have a sufficiently detailed, sufficient and profound understanding of the company itself, business, market, and technology. The underlying logic is to achieve a closed loop through the MVP of the physical world and data feedback. This is the only possibility to help the enterprise smoothly enter a new era.

Just now I used the elevator as a metaphor for the relationship between individuals and the times. Enterprises are also individuals. The elevator has changed the direction of driving. The route is full of rapids and shoals. Technical people must not only continue to play the role of providing driving power, but also strive to lead the way through digital means. The role of an employee is to create a strategic map of the digital dimension for the enterprise.

Technologist: In your description, this great vision is also an extremely difficult challenge?

Yang Yang: Yes, digital transformation has been promoted by Hexun for many years. It is just that the CDO (Chief Data Officer) has replaced many people. There are very good friends who can't keep it, and there are also those who don't match their relative characteristics. In addition, in the specific implementation process, how to grasp the fire is also a science, radical and conservative have their own problems. Digital transformation is a revolution for any company. There is resistance brought by inherent cognition, and it is also a problem caused by insufficient capacity. We will proceed very cautiously, steadily but firmly.

Technologist: You have promoted the implementation of the digital performance system in the R&D team, and you plan to extend it forward. What is the purpose of this move?

Yang Yang: The improvement of the overall efficiency of a company requires a consistent digital performance system. For example, if the department that implements digital performance increases the efficiency by 10%, then does the company's revenue increase by 10%? Obviously it is not that simple, because this part of the performance is likely to be consumed in other links, and only by digitizing all links and realizing the holographic digitization of the business can we truly gain insight into the business and improve, iterate, and innovate based on comprehensive and accurate insights. This is a matter of opening the bow without turning back the arrow. Since it has already started, I think it is my mission to complete it finally.