Interview on the AI Era, Industrial Revolution, and Future Civilization — Zhang Dingwen: The Future Does Not Belong to the Pursuers

Chapter 1 The Era Never Fails Long-Term Thinkers

If we draw a timeline of China's internet development over the past two decades, we will find that a new era has emerged almost every few years.

PC internet, mobile internet, social networks, mobile payment, artificial intelligence, smart hardware...

Every technological revolution has redefined how humans connect with the world, and reshaped a new generation of entrepreneurs.

Some succeeded by seizing a fleeting industry trend, some exited the market after missing an entire era, while another group of entrepreneurs focus on a different question — where is the era ultimately heading?

In conversations with Zhang Dingwen, he rarely talks about his own entrepreneurial experiences voluntarily, and seldom defines the past with the word "success".

Compared with topics that the outside world pays more attention to, such as financing, valuation, and mergers and acquisitions, the two words he talks about most are: the era.

He says that many people like to study what projects make money, what industries are the hottest, and what trends are the biggest. But what truly determines the fate of an enterprise is never a fleeting trend, but the era. Trends are temporary, while the era moves forward continuously.

True entrepreneurs should not chase after fleeting trends, but stand in the direction of the era's evolution.

This is perhaps the most distinct characteristic of Zhang Dingwen's more than ten years of entrepreneurial experience.

Every choice he makes seems to span a wide range of fields.

Internet, social networking, capital, technology, smart hardware...

But if we extend the timeline, we will find that all these choices always revolve around the same main line: the continuous evolution of how humans connect with the digital world.

Fortunate to Stand at the Dawn of a New Era

At the beginning of the 21st century, China's internet entered a stage of rapid development.

Back then, no one knew that WeChat would emerge in the future, no one knew that the mobile internet would completely change people's lives, and no one could accurately predict the development speed of artificial intelligence today.

Everything was in the exploratory stage. For many young people, the internet was just a tool for chatting, gaming, and entertainment.

But for another group of people, it represented a brand-new mode of production. Zhang Dingwen was one of the latter group during his university years. At that time, campus social networking sites were rising rapidly, and many students regarded the internet as a communication platform.

However, he began to think about another question: Why can people connect with each other through a set of programs?

While others were discussing whether the website looked good or not, he started to study the backend architecture. While others were browsing web pages, he had already begun to try to develop his own products.

Later, he used his spare time to participate in the development of campus internet products, attending classes during the day, writing code at night, and debugging programs until the early morning.

At that time, there was no concept of a startup company, no goal of becoming an entrepreneur, and no so-called AI as we know it today.

He simply thought: The internet is an amazing thing that can connect people who were originally unrelated. When recalling that experience later, he once said a sentence: What truly fascinates me has never been the code itself, but the possibility behind the code to change the world.

Many years later, when smart hardware and artificial intelligence gradually became new industrial directions, this thinking about "connection" still runs through his entrepreneurial logic.

First Lesson of Entrepreneurship: Users Do Not Naturally Translate into Commercial Value

After graduating from university, Zhang Dingwen officially started his entrepreneurial journey.

Like many young entrepreneurs, he initially believed that as long as the product was good enough, users would naturally come, and as long as the number of users kept growing, a business model would be established sooner or later. This kind of thinking was not uncommon in the early days of the internet.

Many entrepreneurial teams put growth first, and the number of users became the most important indicator. During those years, he participated in founding a photography community platform.

As photography culture continued to gain popularity, a large number of photography enthusiasts gathered on the platform, the number of registered users grew rapidly, and a massive amount of content was generated every day.

From a product perspective, everything was moving in a positive direction. The team even once believed that the company was already on the road to success. However, reality quickly taught everyone a hard lesson.

Servers became more and more expensive, bandwidth costs kept rising, the team continued to expand, and operating expenses kept increasing. The platform had more and more users, but revenue did not grow synchronously. That period of time was not unfamiliar to many entrepreneurs.

Checking the backend data during the day made him feel great, but looking at the financial statements at night made it impossible for him to fall asleep.

When talking about this experience later, Zhang Dingwen did not define it as a failure.

On the contrary, he believed it was the most important lesson in his entrepreneurial process.

Because it made him truly understand for the first time: User value does not equal commercial value.

A product can have a large number of users, yet still fail to find a sustainable business model. In the internet world, more traffic does not mean more success. What truly matters is whether you have created truly irreplaceable value for users.

He later said: The photography platform did not make me money, but it taught me one thing more important than making money — the business model determines how far an enterprise can go.

Even today, this sentence still influences his product thinking.

What Entrepreneurship Changes Is Not Your Career, But Your Cognition

During the interview, another word that Zhang Dingwen mentioned most frequently was cognition. He said: The greatest significance of entrepreneurship is never to establish a company, but to continuously refresh your own cognition through repeated practices.

When he was young, he always thought that the product was the most important. Later, he found that the business model was equally important.

Then he realized that what really matters is neither the product nor the model, but the ability to continuously understand users, understand the industry, and understand the era.

He said: Entrepreneurship is essentially not about running a company, but about managing your own cognition.

Because how far an enterprise can go in the future largely depends on the cognitive boundary of its founder. An enterprise will never exceed the vision of its founder.

And vision is not just a slogan. It comes from continuous learning, continuous practice, and constantly overthrowing your past self.

Many entrepreneurs regard failure as an end, but Zhang Dingwen prefers to understand failure as a cognitive upgrade, because every detour helps him re-understand business.

Re-understand users, and also re-understand himself.

Where Is the Era Heading

Looking back today, China's internet has entered a new stage, and artificial intelligence has begun to reshape productivity.

Smart hardware has gradually become a new entry point to the digital world. Technology is still evolving, and the industry is still changing constantly.

But in Zhang Dingwen's view, one thing has never changed: entrepreneurship is never about chasing hot topics.

Instead, it is about constantly answering one question: What will people need in the next ten years?

That is precisely why he discusses competitors less and less, talks about fleeting trends less and less, and spends more time thinking about the long-term evolution of the industry.

Because truly great enterprises never succeed just by being one step faster than others.

They succeed because they saw a new era earlier than others.

Chapter 2 Cognition Matters More Than Opportunity

There is an interesting phenomenon in the business world: in the same era, in the same market, and with the same technology, some people see risks, while others see opportunities; some people just participate in it, while others can change the entire industry.

What determines this difference is not luck, but cognition.

When interviewing Zhang Dingwen, he once said a memorable sentence: "What truly widens the gap between people is never information itself, but the ability to understand information. Everyone sees the same thing, but draws completely different conclusions. What truly determines the future is not what you know, but how you think."

Over the past two decades, China's internet has experienced technological leaps almost every few years. From the PC internet to the mobile internet, from mobile payment to artificial intelligence, every change has brought new business opportunities.

Many people attribute success to "seizing the trend".

Zhang Dingwen does not fully agree with this statement. In his view, a trend is only a result, while cognition is the cause.

What truly matters is not who first hears a new concept, but who can judge what this change truly means behind it.

An Entrepreneur's Job Is Not to Find Answers, But to Ask the Right Questions

Over the years of entrepreneurship, the biggest change for Zhang Dingwen is not how much knowledge he has gained, but the way he asks questions.

When he was young, he would ask: "Can we build this product?" Later, he began to ask: "Why does this product exist?"

Then later, he cared more about: "If changes happen in the future, will this product still have value to exist?"

The three questions seem to be just different expressions, but behind them are three completely different ways of thinking.

The first question focuses on execution, the second focuses on value, and the third focuses on the future.

The reason why many enterprises develop rapidly in one stage but cannot grow sustainably is not because of insufficient execution, but because they asked the wrong questions from the very beginning.

The questions they ask are: How to grow faster? How to get more users? How to expand the scale?

Instead of asking: What is the problem that users really need to solve? If the industry changes, what value can we still create? What should be the most important capability of an enterprise in the next five years?

In Zhang Dingwen's view, the development trajectory of an enterprise is often not determined by answers, but by questions.

Because answers will keep changing with the era, but the right questions will continuously guide the enterprise to new directions.

The Real Business Competition Lies in the Understanding of "Cause and Effect"

Many entrepreneurs like to study successful cases, look at what others have done, what business models others have used, and why others succeeded.

Zhang Dingwen prefers to study failures. He said: "Success is often accidental, but failure usually follows patterns. Understanding failure is more valuable than replicating success."

In his view, many people look at business only by focusing on results.

Some companies have high valuations, successful financing, and rapid growth, so everyone starts to learn from these results.

But what entrepreneurs should really study is not the results, but cause and effect.

Why can this company form today's competitiveness? What investments did it make five years ago that others cannot see today? How long have its culture, organization, products, and R&D been accumulated respectively?

These are the real reasons that determine the fate of an enterprise.

He compares the development of an enterprise to planting a tree.

Many people envy a tall tree, but few are willing to spend time studying its roots. In fact, a tree that grows to 20 meters high does not succeed because of its efforts in the last year, but because it started to take root underground many years ago.

The same is true for enterprises. Brand is the result of years of product accumulation, profit is the result of years of user trust, and organizational capability is the result of years of talent cultivation.

A true entrepreneur should not focus on the "effect" every day, but on the "cause".

Because as long as the cause is correct, the effect will appear sooner or later.

From Product Thinking to System Thinking

Many entrepreneurs share a common characteristic: they like to solve problems.

But as the enterprise develops, Zhang Dingwen finds that what entrepreneurs really need to solve is no longer a single problem, but systematic problems.

If the product is not good, you can optimize the product. If the team is inefficient, you can optimize the process.

But if similar problems keep recurring in the entire organization, it is not an execution problem, but a system problem. What an enterprise really needs to establish is not a single capability, but a system that can continuously generate new capabilities.

This system includes product methodology, organizational collaboration mechanisms, talent growth paths, and the transmission of values.

In his view, the sign of a truly mature company is not that the founder solves problems every day, but that the organization can solve problems continuously.

Because the larger the enterprise becomes, the less the founder can be the only source of solutions. A truly excellent organization will turn experience into mechanisms, turn mechanisms into culture, and turn culture into the capability for the enterprise to grow sustainably.

True Vision Means Accepting That You Can Never Fully Grasp the Entire Future

As the interview drew to a close, the topic returned to "vision".

Many people understand vision as having grand goals and a broad perspective.

Zhang Dingwen offered another perspective. He said: "Vision is not about thinking you know everything, but about knowing how much you still don't know. The real danger is not the lack of ability, but stopping learning."

He believes that the most important quality of an entrepreneur is not to predict the future, but to continuously revise themselves.

Technology, the industry, and users will all change.

The only thing that cannot stop changing is the entrepreneur's own cognition.

Therefore, he always maintains a habit — continuously learning about new industries, new technologies, and new business models, while constantly overthrowing conclusions that he once thought were correct.

Because a real cognitive upgrade is not about accumulating more knowledge, but being willing to let go of the biases you have already formed.

There is no forever-correct method in the business world, only methods that need to be constantly updated.

A true entrepreneur does not talk about the future while standing in the present, but constantly revises the present in the future.

Chapter 3 Product Is Not the End Point, the Entry Point Is the Answer

In Zhang Dingwen's entrepreneurial journey, product has always been a key keyword.

But if you simply define him as a "product-focused entrepreneur", that would be too simplistic.

From exploring early internet products, co-founding the mobile social platform Tantan and Jiayuan, to later deeply integrating technology ecosystems, smart hardware, and financial services, his thinking has undergone a clear transformation: from making a good product, to finding an entry point that can carry the future ecosystem.

This is also the key to understanding Zhang Dingwen's business logic, because in today's business world, products themselves are no longer scarce.

What is scarce is entry points, and even more scarce are entry points that can occupy users' minds for a long time, connect multiple services, and continuously generate new value.

A Good Product Aims to Become an Entry Point

One of the most important changes in China's internet over the past decade is the migration of "entry points".

In the PC era, web portals were the entry points. In the mobile internet era, smartphones and super apps became the entry points. In the short video era, content feeds became the entry points. In the AI era, human-computer interaction methods are being redefined