As a mage, I just want to pursue the truth

Chapter 196 Returning to China
Zheng Li has been away from China for a long time, and has been involved in the daily operations and management of Ke Chuang Bio almost entirely through remote communication and agency.

For a company like this, where the founder is still alive, even if the founder is overseas, it can guarantee strong control. Not to mention that Zheng Li is the absolute core figure of the Kechuang Biotechnology R&D team.

If Zheng Li inherited Ke Chuang Biotechnology from a direct relative, he would have inevitably faced internal struggles after staying overseas for so long.

As for the outcome of the struggle, whether one is sidelined or still keeps control of the company firmly in one's hands, it depends on one's personal ability.

Zheng Li’s first stop was to return to the headquarters of Ke Chuang Biotechnology in Suzhou.

"How is it? Did you find anything?"

"No, at least from the perspective of magnetic field, Zheng Li doesn't have any aura of a mage.

You have to know that after injecting the magic brain, the human body has the ability to cast spells, and the magnetic field of the human body will undergo certain changes. This change is as dazzling as lightning in the dark in the perception of other mages. "

The magician from China was specially invited to the dock of Gusu in order to determine whether Zheng Li could be Merlin.

There are many illogical things about Zheng Li, and although they can all be explained by his genius, what if?
"Is it possible that Zheng Li can cast spells without the magic brain? So you can't sense the different magnetic fields on his body?"

"It's impossible. The structure of human cells means that we can't interfere with the material world.

Magic is impossible without a medium to serve as a bridge between the material world and one's spiritual world."

"Okay, I'll temporarily lower Zheng Li's suspicion level."

After learning that Zheng Li had returned to China, the first thing the Chinese authorities did was to check whether he could be Merlin.

Yes or no determined the level of official reception Zheng Li received after his return to China.

If he is just the richest man in Asia, he can just contact local governments at all levels who support Zheng Li and Ke Chuang Biotechnology Co., Ltd. behind him.

If it is Merlin, or if a magic coin is mined, the importance of the reception will be increased.

"Mr. Zheng, long time no see."

The headquarters of Ke Chuang Biotechnology occupies a large area of ​​Jinji Lake in Gusu. Cheng Gang was full of emotion when he saw Zheng Li.

Who would have thought that when they started the business, there were only three people with 50 million in venture capital, and they could achieve a market value of 3 trillion and accomplish the myth of 60,000 times capital appreciation.

Kechuang Bio has become a classic case in the investment circle, and the value of hard technology is fully reflected in Kechuang Bio.

Another company whose hard technology has been frequently mentioned this year is Deep Blue Memory.

As the only company in the world that masters biological storage, and a Chinese company, it has attracted a lot of attention.

Because it is a central enterprise, DeepBlue Storage not only treats employees very well, but also does a very good job in managing confidentiality for its employees.

Any information related to the company is not allowed to be leaked.

The outside world's understanding of Deep Blue Storage is limited to its products, and most of the rumors circulating on social media are false.

Foreign investment banks value Deep Blue Storage at more than 60 billion yuan.

DeepBlue Storage is the world's number one unicorn company, and foreign capital is very coveted by it.

Not only foreign capital, but there are also many evildoers in China who want to get involved. However, a year has passed and no one has succeeded.

In this era, what the investment circle values ​​most in startups is your technological content and the R&D capabilities of your team.

Zheng Li also felt the same way. He could see with his own eyes that Cheng Gang had aged a lot, and his mental state was obviously weakened.

“It’s been a long time, but we have meetings online almost every week.”

Cheng Gang then introduced the senior management team of Kechuang Bio to Zheng Li.

The executive team introduced themselves one by one and shook hands.

Zheng Li had only seen most of these executives on the Internet, and it was the first time he met them in person when he returned to China.

After the pleasantries, Zheng Li sat in the middle of the conference room and looked at the executives sitting on both sides:

"Hello everyone, it's great to meet you in real life. I have been in Singapore for the past few years and all my meetings with you are online."

"It's a rare opportunity to come back this time, and I want to share with you what kind of company Sinovation Bio is and what our corporate vision is."

"In recent years, we have talked a lot about corporate vision. Take Brother Lei's rice as an example. The corporate vision is to allow everyone to enjoy the fun of technology."

"And their development over the years has indeed achieved this. What about ours?"

"The statement on Kechuang Bio's official website is: Become a leader in scientific and technological breakthroughs."

"But have you ever thought about how to do it? This is a very ambitious goal, and it is not something I can achieve alone."

What Zheng Li was thinking in his heart could actually be achieved by me alone, but it was definitely impossible for me to achieve it alone without exposing my true identity.

"We invest 30 percent of our annual revenue into research and development every year, which is higher than Huawei. We can be said to be the company with the highest investment in research and development in China."

"It is not an exaggeration to say that we are already leaders in certain fields. In the field of brain-computer connection, we are not only leaders, but also standard setters in this field."

"At the end of last year, we convened a committee for the brain-computer connection industry and formulated the standards for brain-computer connection under our leadership. Neuralink had no choice but to obey even if it was reluctant."

"But this is only temporary. Looking at the companies that have been successful in the past from a historical perspective, there are only a few that can remain at the forefront of technological breakthroughs for decades."

"Take the American Telephone and Telegraph Company as an example. In the 1920s, they monopolized the telecommunications business in America and invested 3% of their profits from the telecommunications business into Bell Labs every year.

Inventions such as the radio telescope, transistor, digital switch, UNIX operating system, C language, etc. all came from Bell Labs.

As a result, Bell Labs, the pearl of AT&T, was sold to Nokia.”

“So I don’t expect Sinovation Biotech to always be a company leading the development of science and technology, but at least I hope it will be before I retire.”

"I still have at least 30 years before I retire. In these 30 years, I hope to do more research and make more contributions to society."

“I hope everyone can create a good working environment for researchers in terms of personnel and management.”

"Our company's profit margin is actually very high. There is no need to make profits just for the sake of making profits. I don't need you to show your dedication to the company by working overtime or forcing your subordinates to work overtime."

"For a company oriented towards R&D, the internal atmosphere of the company must be relaxed and comfortable so that R&D talents can have sufficient creativity and motivation."

“I am a workaholic myself, but I don’t expect my employees to be workaholics like me.”

Even though many executives have never met Zheng Li in real life, his workaholic status is a recognized fact within the company.

Even some middle-level managers sometimes use Zheng Li as an example when asking their subordinates to work overtime:
"The big boss works until midnight every day, 365 days a year, so what's wrong with asking you to work overtime?"

Although Kechuang Biotechnology has never advocated overtime under Li Miaomiao's management, it cannot resist the middle-level managers who graduated from large companies and then came to Kechuang Biotechnology and brought the overtime culture with them. Moreover, middle-level managers like this take the lead in working overtime, so even if their superiors don't like it, they can't say anything.

As for employees’ inner complaints, most of them have no impact on the status of middle management.

Zheng Li had seen this kind of situation before on an anonymous forum for employees, and he left a message directly below:

"If your work schedule is full, you can refuse unreasonable overtime requests."

However, this behavior cannot be completely banned.

The larger the company, the less likely top managers are to directly interfere with grassroots employees.

Especially when Zheng Li took the lead in working overtime, some middle-level managers would force their subordinates to work overtime to produce results in order to climb up the ladder.

For example, the pharmaceutical pipeline is at a stage where only the input can be seen but not the output because it has been burning money all the time.

At this time, it is obvious that the first to create a pipeline of results will bring the greatest benefits.

As the private enterprise with the highest market value in China, the competition within Kechuang Bio is no less intense than that within Huawei.

Therefore, the pharmaceutical pipeline is the most competitive sector within Kechuang Biotechnology. Among the thirteen research routes, each team wants to be the first to enter the clinical trial stage.

Not to mention that the salary packages offered by Ke Chuang Bio are no less than those of major Internet companies.

Compared with the work intensity in large Internet companies, employees will feel that if they receive this salary but their workload is not enough, they may face the fate of being laid off in the future.

Why has overtime become the norm in domestic Internet companies, whether they are large or small companies?

On the other hand, have you ever heard of any company working overtime among the Internet giants in America?
Moreover, foreign Internet companies contribute just as much to valuable open source projects as domestic ones.

This is because foreign Internet companies do not update versions, release new features, and iterate products so frequently.

Domestic Internet companies have taken small steps and rapid iteration to the extreme.

However, Ke Chuang Bio is not an Internet company or a biopharmaceutical enterprise. Simply piling up workload will not produce results.

This result cannot be achieved by just piling up people.

If piling up people was effective, China would have caught up long ago in the field of biomedicine given the number of graduates in related majors in the country.

“In addition, let me talk about the company’s short-term goals. In terms of endorphins, I have completed the research and development of the first phase of industrial production methods.

The subsequent optimization work was handed over to the company's R&D team. The goal is to reduce costs and optimize the production process, but the quality of the product cannot be reduced."

The production of endorphins places very high demands on the production workers, and appropriately simplifying the production process can improve production efficiency to a certain extent.

"In addition, for lithium metal cathode materials, graphene coatings actually have a lot of room for optimization. The current three-dimensional structure of graphene may not be the optimal solution.

The structural design of the lithium metal cathode may not be the optimal solution. We have made many attempts in this area over the past six months, and we can increase investment appropriately in the future.”

"The rest is brain-computer connection and innovative drug research and development. We are a leader in the field of brain-computer connection, which is also what I am mainly responsible for."

"The next step is to convert electrical signals into neural signals, and then develop virtual reality. This process will be very long."

"During the research and development process, the company's revenue growth can only be provided by innovative drugs."

“Then we have to create a good environment for the staff to really improve their efficiency.”

“We are not a CRO, so we don’t have such a strong sense of urgency about the time point.”

CRO refers to a pharmaceutical research and development contract outsourcing service organization. Since it takes orders from customers, there will be strong time constraints, and you must provide certain results by a certain point in time.

Therefore, when CRO companies receive projects, overtime is the most serious.

"Finally, I'm glad to see you all in person."

Zheng Li gave a speech in front of the senior executives today. He knew that after he finished speaking, all relevant parties would get the original manuscript of his speech.

He speaks only to be more in line with the habits of normal people, and the content of his speech is more in line with his age.

If it wasn't for reducing the suspiciousness of this vest, Zheng Li wouldn't have said so much.

Zheng Li’s attitude towards overtime and even his attitude towards work is very simple: it doesn’t matter whether you work or not.

You work when you want to work, and don’t work when you don’t want to work. Most of the work can be optimized with the help of artificial intelligence, and the remaining R&D work depends entirely on your own conscience.

However, this idea is not applicable to the current situation, and primary artificial intelligence cannot achieve large-scale replacement.

And it is impossible for Zheng Li to take out artificial intelligence.

"Cheng Gang, what are your plans after you retire?"

Zheng Li and Cheng Gang met alone in the office he had not been in for many years.

Zheng Li and Cheng Gang had already communicated beforehand, and Cheng Gang later stepped down from the position of general manager on the grounds of old age and lack of energy.

Cheng Gang: "I'd rather do some angel investment in the biopharmaceutical industry to see if I can discover some valuable companies."

"Also, I should take good care of myself in my old age. If I live to be 80, I still have more than 20 years left."

With the support of Kechuang Bio, Cheng Gang has made considerable profits in the capital market in recent years.

Except for the first business investment in two mRNA vaccine companies which ended in failure, the investment company under his name has made both profits and losses in subsequent investments.

After these years, Cheng Gang's investment company has become somewhat well-known in the industry.

After Cheng Gang retired from the position of general manager of Ke Chuang Bio, he personally participated in the operation of the investment company. As the co-founder of Ke Chuang Bio, he is still very attractive in startups in the biopharmaceutical field.

Zheng Li: “Maybe you have discovered the next scientific and innovative biotechnology company.”

"That's good. If I take good care of myself and live to be a hundred years old, it won't be a problem."

Cheng Gang smiled bitterly: "It's not that easy. A company like Kechuang Bio is a miracle."

"The probability of discovering two miracles is lower than winning the lottery."

"I don't expect to discover another company of the same level as Sinovation Biotech. As long as I can invest in a company listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board, I will be satisfied."

“In life, you can’t always expect to repeat your peak, so it’s necessary to lower your expectations appropriately.”

(End of this chapter)