Chapter 3 "Chinese-style failure" Part 2: The trouble of original sin of entrepreneurship

"Original sin" is an imported religious term, but it is an authentic Chinese torture in the business world. Over the past 30 years, the Chinese entrepreneurial class has undergone several changes in its public image.In the initial stage of reform and opening up, they were capable people and reformers who got rich, and they were a group of people who had the courage to break the old system and change their own destiny.At one time, they were even regarded as the leaders on the road to common prosperity and the "new heroes of the country".At that time, the praise of entrepreneurs gradually became the mainstream voice of society. Just like the American society in the early 20th century, China entered an era of worshiping business and believing that technological progress would wash away all poverty, injustice and sorrow. The young The intellectual world also began to recite the famous line of Henry Luce: "The businessman must be regarded as the greatest profession."

With the increasing degree of social commercialization, especially the gradual widening of the gap between the rich and the poor, people began to question the legitimacy of entrepreneurs' wealth accumulation.In a transitional country with a gradual system change, any commercial breakthrough and innovation may conflict with the current legal system, so there are countless "gray areas". There have been various gray behaviors. In October 2003, at an entrepreneur forum held in Mile, Yunnan, the host asked hundreds of entrepreneurs present: "Who dares to say that you have never paid bribes? Please raise your hands if you have never paid bribes!" Wang Shi, chairman of Vanke, recorded: "The bosses here started to look at me and I looked at you. After a while, some people began to raise their hands. The posture of raising their hands was very slow, as if they were guilty of guilt, and finally five or six people raised their hands. I think in the atmosphere at that time, everyone defaulted: in most emerging companies, there must be bribery, and it is abnormal not to bribe.” Obviously, the question of original sin is not only part of the truth, but also a result of the widening gap between the rich and the poor. Caused by public psychological imbalance.The "reformer halo" of entrepreneurs has gradually faded away, and they have gradually become an independent, high-ranking "golden class" who is always surrounded by a layer of questioning eyes.

In the past few years, in all the descriptions of the growth history of Chinese companies, "original sin" cannot be avoided. It seems to be the sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of entrepreneurs.No reckoning, denial, or moral critique of original sin can fully solve this heavy problem.Through the 19 cases collected in "Big Defeat II", we discovered the following facts: The "original sin" of enterprises is an inevitable phenomenon in an era of change.In an era of transformation, any change means a breakthrough to the existing system.Therefore, the "natural" zone has the nature of violating the existing laws and regulations. This is not the "original sin" of some people, but the "original sin" of an era.The characteristics of this transformational era have prevented many entrepreneurs from fully standing under the sun, and it has also caused many seemingly "accidental" fallouts.

The "original sin" of enterprises is the product of lagging system construction.The "bottom-up" feature of China's enterprise reform determines that institutional reform often lags behind the practice of enterprises, and entrepreneurs naturally develop the professional habit of "detours ahead".This eventually became one of the reasons for the breeding of "original sin" in enterprises.Sometimes, "original sin" is even the result of political and business collusion.In the Tieben case, we found that in order to promote the launch of the steel project, the local government had taken the initiative to advise the enterprise, dividing the project into smaller pieces, and circumventing the existing reporting system.When the company is finally punished, all of this becomes evidence of "original sin".

The "original sin" of enterprises is the product of "regulatory vacuum".In many corporate cases, we have seen that entrepreneurs took risks because their behavior was not tolerated by the system, but the relevant government regulatory departments surprisingly did not abide by their regulatory responsibilities, so that violations became rampant.As a result, those adventurers either achieved supremacy, or caused extremely tragic tragedies.This feature is particularly evident in the capital market. In the case of Luliang's "Chinese Academy of Sciences" and Tang Wanxin's case of Delong, the bold and obvious violations of the regulations have reached the point of being well known to passers-by, but for a long time But there was no trace of the supervisor, so that when it collapsed, it also caused major social consequences.

Today's Chinese business world is still in a period with too many unspoken rules.As the scholar Yu Qiuyu observed about Chinese history, “Our history is too long, our tactics are too deep, our military tactics are too big, our black box is too big, our inside story is too thick, our tongue is too greedy, our vision is too complicated, and our predictions are too dangerous. Both 'over-conceived'".We still lack respect for a simple and universal business logic, lack of compliance with fair and transparent game rules, and lack of awe for humane business ethics.All of this makes the myth or tragedy of Chinese companies inevitably cast a layer of inexplicable gray.

In this era, in the eyes of many people, there is no right or wrong, only endless growth.In fact, the maturity and establishment of a country's business laws are often inseparable from the practice and encounters of that generation of entrepreneurs.Ron Chernow revealed a phenomenon in "Rockefeller Biography": "Rockefeller and his generation of business giants showed unparalleled intelligence and greed in business, and directly proposed to the United States about economies of scale, wealth distribution, There are some very difficult questions about what kind of relationship between business and government should be maintained.” This interaction eventually promoted the maturity of economic legislation and business spirit in the United States.The discussion, reflection and liquidation of "original sin" are also signs of the maturing of China's business environment.

In this sense, "original sin" will ultimately be an embarrassing but unavoidable "black spot" in the process of creating a great century.