****__Reflecting on it now, how did our generation eliminate the previous one? It wasn't because we were more diligent or smarter, but because we were more willing to embrace new tools. By Wu Xiaobo (WeChat public account: Wu Xiaobo Channel) 1 My first computer was purchased in 1995, costing nearly half a year's salary. My colleagues thought I was crazy. The institution I worked for had excellent benefits, from housing and gas stoves to New Year rice and East China Sea hairtail, everything was distributed. Pens, notebooks, and ink for writing were available on demand. "You little rascal, spending money on a 'writing tool'?" an old gentleman said to me seriously, "You're writing for the country, why use your own money to buy a computer?" What they didn't anticipate was that with a computer, my writing speed greatly increased. The cumbersome newspaper clippings were digitized into electronic documents, making retrieval incredibly fast. More importantly, I became one of the first writers in China to dial-up internet, which opened a door to the world for me. Reflecting on it now, how did our generation eliminate the previous one? It wasn't because we were more diligent or smarter, but because we were more willing to embrace new tools. ********************************************************In 1985, the first batch of industrial workers using computers 2 Just as cars replaced horse-drawn carriages and the internet replaced print media, it wasn't because horses weren't strong or print wasn't refined, but because of the revolutionary iteration of tools. In the United States, doctors are considered to have the highest professional threshold. To become a skilled doctor, you need to study at least 3,000 medical books, tens of thousands of papers, and clinical reports, requiring ten years of investment. This is the so-called "10,000-hour genius law." Last year, IBM developed a learning tool based on cognitive technology called "Watson," which took only 17 seconds to learn this knowledge. A medical school called Baylor used IBM Watson to select 70,000 scientific articles from 23 million candidate documents, and within just a few weeks, accurately identified seven proteins that could modify p53 (an important protein related to many cancers). Before using the Watson solution, such discoveries typically took the entire life sciences industry seven years to complete. In the face of new tool revolutions, all values are reconstructed, including the meaning of time and the definition of ability. ****************************IBM's "supercomputer" Watson 3 In recent years, many of my peers have developed a "fear of elimination." During an EMBA class, a post-70s student in the jewelry chain business lamented that business was hard and consumers were increasingly unpredictable. I asked him, "Do you have customer management tools?" No. "Do you know about the new DIY model for jewelry services abroad?" No. "Do you encourage young people in your company to start internal ventures?" They don't know anything. "Have you used online banking or shopped online?" Why would I do that? That's the secretary's job. I said, "Get your tuition refunded and go home to wash up and sleep." Not long ago, I went to Antarctica with about thirty business friends. One, Jerry Zhao, came from New York, over sixty years old, dressed colorfully. Old Zhao had been in the sock business for over twenty years. Last year, he sold socks on Taobao and managed to become the second in the subcategory, with sales of over 60 million yuan, but he lost several million. However, when he saw me, he didn't seem discouraged. This year, he slowed down his investment in Taobao, turned to cooperate with Vipshop, and also acquired and launched a new internet sock brand. On the cruise ship to Antarctica, he pestered me to introduce him to "Biyao" and "Miniso," saying, "I saw their models on your public account, quite interesting, maybe we can cooperate." The post-70s jewelry student is old, but the post-50s sock old Zhao is still young. ************Post-50s old Zhao "acting wild" in Antarctica 4 Once, when giving a lecture at a middle school, a teacher stood up to debate with me. He said that we can't divide generations by post-80s and post-90s. Based on his over ten years of teaching experience, post-95s are the "new new generation," and their difference from post-90s is greater than the difference between post-90s and post-85s. Such discussions are heard all the time. Among the post-60s, people think the "old three grades" and the subsequent "unified exam generation" are two types of people. Among the post-70s, people think 1976 is a watershed. Among the post-80s, people think the first batch of seven-digit QQ users are the hallmark of internet natives. Such generational divisions will never be conclusive. The elimination of one generation by another never happens because of age. Whether one uses the same tools is more significant for generational division than age differences. **************Tool usage is more significant for generational division than age 5 Tool changes are only related to two factors: speed and efficiency. Speed can break through the original cost logic, while efficiency changes the distribution model of benefits. Kurzweil's book "The Singularity Is Near" proposed the "law of accelerating returns." According to his calculations, the progress of the entire 20th century can be achieved in just 20 years in the 21st century, meaning the development speed in 2000 was five times the average speed of the 20th century. In 2000, it would take only 14 years to achieve the progress of the entire 20th century, and from 2014, it would take only 7 years to achieve another 20th century's progress. By this calculation, human technological progress in the 21st century will be a thousand times that of the 20th century. This thousand-fold increase in speed is clearly non-linear, and its core driving force must come from the rapid iteration of tools. In this sense, the aging speed of tools in the 21st century is definitely faster than the aging of human age. Whenever a tool revolution occurs, the vested interests in the original ecosystem often cannot adapt. Their thinking and operating systems have formed inertia within the original tool system, which is too comfortable. Change means smashing everything, and in hesitation and fear, new competitors are already at their throats. Therefore, the success rate of transformation and upgrading is very low. Only those with great courage can betray their past successes. .......................................................... The copyright of this article belongs to "Wu Xiaobo Channel" Welcome to share. If you need to reprint, please contact us for authorization. ........................................................