Silicon Valley Wang Chuan: Why Is Practicing Long-Termism So Difficult?
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Silicon Valley Wang Chuan: Why Is Practicing Long-Termism So Difficult?
Long-term commitment requires having sufficient resources to withstand surface-level fluctuations.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsMy investment club has been around for over eight years. The other day, I was chatting with a friend about our first meetup in City A back in 2016. Around twenty people showed up, but seven years later, only he remains in the group. In contrast, at the same time, ten members gathered in City B—seven years on, six of them are still active. The City A meetup took place at a Yunnan restaurant owned by one of our members—elegant setting, vibrant atmosphere, delicious food, and lively discussions. The City B gathering, however, was held in a much smaller room, with a noticeably duller mood. Yet the retention rate difference between the two cities after seven years is staggering—one completely unexpected and deeply thought-provoking.
In internal club discussions, I recommended several investment opportunities early on. Thanks to thorough research and disciplined execution, holding these long-term yielded solid returns. The most dramatic example is Tesla. Starting in 2015, debates were fierce, with strong arguments on both sides—some even shorted the stock. Others grew tired of the endless, tedious arguments and left the group. By summer 2019, Tesla’s share price had fallen more than 30% from its 2015 peak. After four years of debate, the skeptics seemed vindicated. Then came a sudden surge—over twentyfold gains within just two years—and everything became history. See my earlier article for details.
Why is practicing long-termism so difficult? Why such a stark divergence between members from City A and City B? After careful reflection, my conclusion is:
It all comes down to scarcity of resources.
Maintaining long-termism requires sufficient personal resources to endure surface-level volatility. Even if you intellectually understand a situation through first-principles thinking and see clear progress across multiple dimensions, if your portfolio still shows paper losses after four years amid relentless negative media noise, it's nearly impossible to withstand pressure from bosses, clients, or family—and thus continue holding.
Most members in City B are private entrepreneurs with solid financial foundations. They don’t face urgent pressure to get rich quickly or rely on investment income to survive. Since they aren't managing others’ money, there's no short-term performance pressure—making it easy to stay committed for seven or eight years.
In contrast, many in City A are either early-stage founders or climbing the corporate ladder, under intense pressure to deliver immediate results and constantly chasing quick wins.
Even when they encounter great long-term opportunities, they often sell too early and capture limited gains—or during bear markets, despite inner conviction, they're forced to cut losses due to performance pressures.
Worse yet, many haven’t done deep enough research. At the slightest negative headlines or shiny new distractions, they lose discipline.
The path of least resistance for an individual or group is usually where they receive the strongest positive feedback—this depends on their network structure and the range of choices that network affords them.
Resource scarcity fundamentally means a lack of options. Options honestly determine the path of least resistance—far more accurately than any passionate oath or promise ever could.
Here lies a disturbing paradox:
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Due to resource scarcity, people repeatedly fall into scams promising effortless wealth;
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Due to resource scarcity, even when they stumble upon good opportunities, they cash out prematurely after small gains, unable to patiently wait for a sapling to grow into a towering tree;
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Still due to resource scarcity, what they constantly hear and see consists mostly of noise and misleading, harmful information.
When you see a friend years later still doing things the same way—laborious, inefficient, showing no real progress, even regressing due to age—and refusing to truly change despite advice, you feel an instinctive physiological pain, followed only by a sigh.
No one starts life resource-rich. How can those with scarce resources achieve long-term transformation? I highly recommend a new book by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy: “10x Is Easier Than 2x.” Here’s a summary of its core message:
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Most people instinctively believe wealth grows by doubling down on current efforts—this is 2x (two-times) thinking.
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Long-term, achieving 10x growth is actually easier than 2x. When you adopt a 10x mindset, you’re forced to actively filter out, abandon, and reject opportunities with limited long-term potential (even outright scams). You become hyper-focused, pursuing only those activities capable of generating tenfold growth. This filtering applies to people too. Such rejection initially conflicts with daily habits—many resist, feeling strong emotional pushback. Hence, one must calmly sit down, rigorously think through the logic, and fully grasp why decisively abandoning low-value behaviors or opportunities is essential for long-term 10x success.
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By firmly rejecting numerous low-value opportunities, you gain more time. With more time, you can focus deeply on research, enhancing your ability to identify and capture high-value opportunities using first-principles reasoning at the foundational level.
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Because your system design forces continuous accumulation of small new advantages, eventually you’ll break through and realize your 10x dream.
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Return to step one: re-examine your daily work and learning, re-filter and abandon old low-value habits, and begin the next 10x cycle.
Let’s run a thought experiment: suppose you want to increase your net worth one thousandfold over thirty years. Sounds huge, seemingly impossible—your first reaction might be: “No way!” But break it down: that’s a tenfold increase every ten years. (For simplicity, we ignore taxes.) Break it further: roughly 3.2 times every five years.
How do you achieve 3.2x in five years?
Simple backward calculation suggests needing about 26% annual returns. But reality isn’t linear—markets swing wildly like a manic-depressive between bull and bear phases. To capture outsized returns, most of the five years may involve waiting, accumulating knowledge and resources. Only when conditions align—when others panic and lack capacity—do you act: after comprehensive analysis of qualitative and quantitative fundamentals, if you’re confident an investment will likely return far more than 3.2x over five years, then you deploy capital.
Once this framework is understood, you must shut out most market noise and temptation. Say no to almost everything: speculative invitations seeking free rides, uncertain short-term trades, unfamiliar areas, high-research-cost ventures, opportunities where upside doesn’t vastly outweigh downside risk, anything not in a self-reinforcing monopolistic state, etc. Let “five-year 3.2x minimum” become a simple, brutal red line. Avoiding anything beyond this line becomes an automatic discipline.
Saying “no” brings sudden clarity. You now have abundant free time to conduct in-depth research at your own pace, continuously uncovering novel opportunities that others fail to truly comprehend or execute. When outsiders attribute your success to luck, survivorship bias, or hindsight, you simply smile and stay silent.
Further reasoning: to enjoy the fruits of your labor decades into the future, you must rigorously invest substantial time and resources into maintaining physical health and autonomy. Otherwise, in old age—facing dementia, hunched posture, osteoporosis, incontinence, chronic pain, cardiovascular diseases—wealth becomes meaningless.
Thus, you’ll find time and motivation to practice Tai Chi, Zhan Zhuang, yoga, running, swimming, intermittent fasting, and keep up with cutting-edge anti-aging technologies. This grants you additional years to experience tenfold growth across unforeseen, emerging dimensions.
As sci-fi author Frank Herbert famously said: “Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.” The rigorous, ongoing discipline of rejecting low-value pursuits is precisely the liberating path of long-termism toward high-value growth.
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硅谷王川 Chuan
