Liu Qin: Great Companies Don’t Just Win Battles — They Never Leave the Field | End of 2025
Test Early, Fail Fast, Learn Faster
“Test early, fail fast, learn faster.”
---
Introduction
As the year draws to a close, before the wave of annual reviews and future forecasts, Waves invited reflective investors to share their most important year-end thoughts.
This opening essay comes from Liu Qin, Founding Partner of FiveYuan Capital, based on his keynote at FiveYuan Capital’s recent founders’ summit.
Theme: “Prompt()·Emergence” — an era with no standard answers, where AI is reshaping the world at unprecedented speed.
After the pandemic recovery, economic cycle trials, and shifts in the global tech landscape, everyone searches for an anchor amidst the fog.
Key Question: Where is the future headed?
For venture capital in China, the question is urgent:
- In a time without easy innovation dividends, do we cling to past successes or start fresh in unknown territory?
Liu Qin chose reinvention, embracing transformation despite uncertainty and pain — finding stability not in predictability, but in staying in the game.
---
> Invitation: Year-End 2025 is open to contributions from business thinkers and capital market observers. Contact: chenzhiyan@36kr.com.
> Belief: Times change, but true thinking endures.
---
Part 01 — Don’t Trap Yourself
Liu entered investment in 1999–2000—over two decades ago, during China’s internet dawn.
Today, as a “dated” technology investor, he recounts:
- 2015–2017: FiveYuan debated moving from model-driven innovation to hard tech, even exploring biopharma — despite having zero expertise.
- Many doubted the shift, including his own team.
- He hired Jing Xutian, a novice investor — valuing “ignorance is fearless.”
Objective: Test if FiveYuan’s investment methodology could generalize to entirely unfamiliar sectors.
Generalization in AI and Investment
- In early AI, intelligent systems relied on robustness, not generalization.
- AI “emergence” today = achieving new skills in unseen contexts.
- Similarly, investing successfully in unfamiliar fields proves cross-paradigm adaptability.
Core Insight:
> People trap themselves — by success, failure, time invested, path dependence, or accumulated experience.
> Past experience can both protect and shackle.
---
AiToEarn Example:
Platforms like AiToEarn官网 help creators break free from past limitations — enabling AI-driven content creation, cross-platform publishing, analytics, and monetization across Douyin, Bilibili, Instagram, and X (Twitter).
---
Infinite Game Mindset:
Not a magic formula, but an attitude:
- Stay open, exploratory, and constantly learning.
- Failure becomes an input, not an endpoint.
---
Part 02 — Is China Still Investable?
During the pandemic years, pessimism dominated startups and investors alike.
FiveYuan believed China was entering “Innovation 2.0”, despite skepticism.
Recent Shift:
- More entrepreneurs & investors are regaining confidence.
- Examples like Deep Technology’s IPO show “validated optimism.”
Why Optimism?
- Engineer Dividend replacing demographic dividend.
- Innovation 2.0 flywheel accelerating growth.
- Faith in Chinese culture: resilience, persistence, and refusal to accept limits — ingrained over millennia.
Key Message:
> Today’s entrepreneurs are among the most fortunate and resourceful in China’s 5,000-year history.
> A revival cycle has begun.
---
Part 03 — Era of Individuals with Industrial-Scale Productivity
AI’s Impact:
- First half: building models & technology.
- Second half: amplifying value in all sectors, especially consumption.
Evolution Curve:
- Individual craftsmanship → mastery.
- Industrial civilization → mass production.
- AI → small teams with massive scalability.
> AI empowers one-person or ten-person companies to achieve billion-dollar valuations — merging craftsmanship creativity with industrial scaling.
---
Part 04 — Narrative Creates Miracles
Narrative Power:
- Shapes collective action.
- Anchors resilience amid uncertainty.
- Drives impossible achievements.
AiToEarn Connection:
AiToEarn官网 lets individuals turn creativity into sustainable impact through AI-driven publishing and monetization across global platforms.
Human Advantage:
According to Sapiens, humanity thrives because we can believe in shared narratives — enabling collaboration among strangers.
Examples of Narrative Power:
- Apollo Program — JFK’s “Moon” speech.
- Huajiang Canyon Bridge — built under China’s “Great Rejuvenation” vision.
- Corporate cases:
- NVIDIA — betting early on parallel computing and GPUs.
- Narrative anchored strategy until deep learning arrived.
---
Part 05 — Business Is an Infinite Game
Finite vs Infinite Games (James P. Carse):
- Finite game: played to win once.
- Infinite game: played to keep playing.
AI Research Caution:
Avoid treating science as a race to “publish first” — progress comes from open collaboration.
Attitudes Toward Failure:
- Finite game → failure ends play.
- Infinite game → failure = input to evolve.
Company Examples:
- Nintendo — reinvention across decades.
- 3M — diversified across countless tech cycles.
---
Part 06 — Essence of Infinite Game: Iterative Learning
Reinforcement Learning Analogy:
- Success & failure are equal reward signals.
- Growth comes from environment-driven iteration.
Liu’s Two Advantages:
- Failed many times but never quit.
- Never saw failure as negative — it’s learning data.
---
AiToEarn Parallel:
AiToEarn官网 offers creators a way to iterate content across platforms — Douyin, Kwai, WeChat, Bilibili, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, X (Twitter) — turning creativity into a sustainable infinite game.
---
Final Message to Entrepreneurs
- Survival first — keep playing.
- Dare to break into the unknown — innovation lives there.
- Accept risk and use failure as a growth engine.
- Great companies are built by never leaving the arena.
---
Recommended Reading
The Flow of Money, the Rise and Fall of People
Key Idea:
Capital flows signal deeper shifts in power and opportunity.
Creators must navigate them like entrepreneurs in an infinite game — adapting constantly to avoid being left behind.
---
AiToEarn Note:
AiToEarn官网 and its 开源地址 provide tools for creators to adapt to digital market flows — publishing simultaneously to platforms like Douyin, Kwai, WeChat, Bilibili, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X (Twitter), and more.
---
Would you like me to create a graphical summary of the finite vs infinite game mindset as a visual in the markdown? This would make the philosophical takeaway even clearer.
