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2015.08.27
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind came as a groundbreaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution and soon became a number one international best seller. Dr. Yuval Noah Harari breaks the mold with this book that begins 7,000 years ago. He analyzes the evolution of humankind from the mentality perspective with insightful and provocative words.
The economics underlines rationality. But how many people can remain rational all the time in life? The growing evidence suggests that humans are eminently irrational regarding choices. The Rational Animal starts from a bunch of interesting cases and analyzes the deep-seated reasons behind the so-called irrational acts. In line with the Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and Animal Spirits by Robert J. Shille, this book challenges the prevailing views of being rational in decision making, and presents a new alternative grounded in evolutionary science. It transforms the ways people think about decision making and helps to avoid irrational human activities.
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution is one of the most classic works of Richard Dawkins. In this book, Dawkins sifts through rich layers of interdisciplinary examples, tons of sophisticated images and living cases from plate tectonics to molecular genetics, and proves that evolution is undoubtedly more than a theory, but a natural process of everything. It contains great power, simplicity and beauty.
By Will & Ariel Durant
Will and Ariel Durant show their ambitions by asking themselves about the benefits of studying history at the beginning of The Lessons of History. They state “Only a fool would try to compress a hundred centuries into a hundred pages of hazardous conclusions. We proceed.” They later acknowledge the shortfall of being a historian, “Our knowledge of any past event is always incomplete, probably inaccurate, beclouded by ambivalent evidence and biased historians, and perhaps distorted by our own patriotic or religious partisanship.” This book sparks the wisdom and unique interpretation on history of historians. The authors distill the insights they have gained for years and inspire readers to rethink the meaning of history and social issues in reality.
The Noble Prize-winning economist Edmund Phelps makes a sweeping argument about how the economy grows, where the sources of prosperity hide and why they are under threat today. Edmund defines the prosperity of a nation as the prosperity of its people. Phelps dwells on the wellsprings of mass flourishing, the modern values, such as the desire to create, explore and meet challenges. These values are in line with Chinese policies for encouraging universal entrepreneurship, streamlining procedures and power, and promoting universal finance. Mass Flourishing is essential reading for anyone who cares about the sources of prosperity and the future of the West.
John C.H. Wu’s classic work on Zen, The Golden Age of Zen, has long been the primary sources for understanding Zen, a hugely influential branch of Buddhism. He uses light and illuminating words to interpret the thoughts and dialogues of the grand masters of Zen. This book is truly a masterpiece in which the very essence of Zen and traditional Chinese philosophies flow between the poetic lines. Although Buddhas are all enlightened sages, the author goes against personality cult and encourages self-reflection. He believes that individuals should have their ambitions rather than follow the Buddhas blindly.
Rewritten by: Luo Xinying, Edited by: Du Zhixin, Wei Yiyi
Over the past year, the bull market returned, with technology leading the way.
As I said back in October 2024, the rally that began on September 24 was not merely a rebound, but a reversal. Since then, China's capital markets have undergone a broad revaluation, moving from undervaluation toward fair value.
The Shanghai Composite Index reached its highest level in a decade. The "Yi-Zhong-Tian" trio—Eoptolink, Zhongji Innolight and TFC Communication, three prominent Chinese optical communications stocks—saw their share prices multiply severalfold in a single year. Cambricon's market capitalization briefly exceeded RMB 600 billion. Elsewhere in the technology sector, triple-digit price-to-earnings ratios and valuations exceeding RMB 10 billion became commonplace.
Some investors were greedy; others, fearful. Still others asked me: Are technology stocks in a valuation bubble?
My answer is that what we are witnessing is the hunger and anxiety of an era, reflected in the capital markets. Once you understand this, the current fervor for technology investing is no longer difficult to explain.
Investment has nothing to do with macroeconomics, but everything to do with geopolitics.
China-US relations will shape the investment landscape for decades to come. Geopolitics has played a major role in shaping the hunger and anxiety of our times, fundamentally reshaping the way we invest.
What, then, lies at the heart of China's hunger and anxiety?
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is already underway, yet China has not fully overcome the technological shortcomings left by the Third. There is no time to lose.
This is why some people wonder: Why do Chinese computing chip companies command such high valuations when their technologies still lag so far behind NVIDIA's? Why does NVIDIA trade at just 50 times earnings, while a company hailed as "China's answer to NVIDIA" commands a multiple of 300?
To me, this gets the logic exactly backward.
It is precisely because these companies cannot catch up with NVIDIA in the near term that they command a higher strategic premium. The wider the technological gap, the greater the strategic value.
The further something lies beyond our reach, the stronger our hunger. The harder it is to catch up, the deeper our anxiety. If China were to achieve a complete breakthrough in computing chips one day, valuations might actually come down.
Where can one find China's most spectacular natural landscapes?
Much of the answer, I believe, lies in and around the Hengduan Mountains: the Meili Snow Mountains, Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, Mount Gongga, Mount Siguniang, Jiuzhaigou, and many others. Vast differences in elevation and deep fault lines have given rise to landscapes of extraordinary grandeur.
Hard-tech investing follows a similar logic.
Technological gaps, discontinuities in capabilities, and missing links in industrial systems: a leap in difficulty brings a leap in valuation, and a successful breakthrough can, in turn, bring a leap in returns.
This logic extends well beyond computing chips. It is equally evident in memory semiconductors, commercial spaceflight, and other sectors where China still faces substantial technological gaps with other countries.
It was precisely this conviction that led CoStone Capital, starting in 2016, to decisively focus its investments on three areas: hard tech, emerging industries, and life sciences and healthcare. In this context, "hard tech" refers specifically to important industries in which China faces a technological gap with the United States.
Thanks to this forward-looking strategy, CoStone Capital established an early presence across the full value chains of key sectors, including semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and robotics.
Looking ahead, the frontiers of technological progress and industrial upgrading are boundless. Nor can the gaps in hard technology be closed overnight. The twin windows of opportunity presented by technological innovation and the development of homegrown alternatives to foreign technologies have only just begun to open.
The road ahead is long, but the future holds immense promise.
As an investment firm, CoStone Capital will continue to invest where the hunger and anxiety of each era run deepest, move forward with the tensions that shape our times, and extend our reach toward the most challenging—and most important—frontiers.
Spring 2026