The Birth of Shanghai's First Conglomerate

Chapter 860 A Century of Family History
When Mu Qingqing first met Chen Pingsheng, she did not know his identity. After she found out, she left him completely.

Then came the restructuring of Tengying Group, which shocked the entire business community and caused a sensation in China.

Subsequently, the Economic Research Island was brought into the public eye, quickly becoming the most famous and mysterious place in the country.

Years later, after his wife's passing, the founder of the Chen family once again stood under the watchful eyes of countless prominent journalists.

What exactly does he want to say, and what kind of signal will he send to the outside world?

All of this is so eye-catching and has countless people eagerly anticipating it.

The Jiang sisters, including Jiang Wangzhi and Jiang Wangzhi, who had just completed their family reunion ceremony, were also incredibly excited as they looked at the elderly man on the stage, who was hailed as a legend by the domestic business community.

He was seventy-three years old, with white hair. If it weren't for the unfinished mission, he might have already joined his wife in death.

What could it be that even he hasn't finished?

Mu Qingqing stood very close to the front. There were no interviews today; only this god-like man spoke eloquently.

Chen Pingsheng sat there casually and leisurely, holding a black microphone in his hand, which could clearly convey his words to every corner of the banquet hall.

He said calmly, "Many of the people who came are old friends, so I won't say anything polite."

"I know what you care about most: how to make more money, or how to make your family more powerful."

"Unfortunately, the topic I'm going to talk about today is unrelated to that. Instead, I'm going to talk about the inheritance and responsibility of a family."

"My wife left less than a month ago, and during this time I often think about our past."

"I still remember that when she left, she asked me a question that still resonates with me. At the time, I didn't understand why she would ask that question. It took me a while to figure it out."

My wife asked me, "Do you remember when we lived together in a small rented apartment in Beijing, what was your biggest goal in making money?"
"At the time, I said that the greatest meaning of my making money was to give you the best life."

"Then my wife asked again, 'What if you make a lot of money?'"

“I was silent at the time because I had never thought about this question. Even when my wife asked me the question one last time before she left, I think she had already made the decision for me at that time.”

Chen Pingsheng said, "I spent the first half of my life building my family from nothing to something, and then I spent another ten years raising my children because I believed that the companies I had established would definitely be left to my children in the future."

"I believe many entrepreneurs share this idea: the world belongs to the family; only by having a family can one have a world."

"This idea is not wrong, because this is how China has come to be for five thousand years."

"But there is a big problem. I was born into poverty and have experienced a lot of hardship since I was a child. It was different when my children were born. Because of me, their father, they were born into a life of luxury. What is human suffering?"
"For them, it probably means living in a house of less than 300 square meters, driving a car worth less than one million, and wearing clothes that cost a few hundred or a thousand yuan each."

"Let's ask ourselves honestly, many family businesses involve people's livelihoods and basic industries. Given their backgrounds and the upbringing of the second generation, can they really help their employees and the company develop better?"

"The answer is definitely no."

Chen Pingsheng didn't like grandstanding or spouting empty rhetoric. He simply shared his practical experience and offered concrete insights. "Even with the dedicated training of the first generation, the second or third generation of a family can hardly compare to the elites who have emerged from the crowd among the group's tens of millions of employees."

"The simplest truth is that you are only focusing on cultivating your own children, while those outstanding employees in the group who have gone from ordinary interns to managers and presidents have all been on a narrow bridge, overcoming numerous obstacles to reach their current positions."

"Is their hard work and experience from childhood not as good as your training alone?"
"The significance of what I'm saying is not anything else, but that after more than 40 years of development, many of our companies, including project companies, have second- or third-generation senior executives working for us. Although I have repeatedly prohibited it, this situation has continued unabated."

"When everyone is trying to get their younger generation into the group today, hoping they will inherit the legacy of their predecessors who have worked so hard, have they ever thought about how this will infinitely increase the group's burden and slow down the group's execution?"

“If this continues, we former market disruptors will inevitably be surpassed by new innovators, because they have no burdens and are only focused on surviving and making their businesses thrive.”

"In her later years, my wife handed over the personal wealth she had accumulated over decades. Even now, I dare say that my wife is a true philanthropist, and I may not even be able to compare with her."

"The purpose of all this talk I'm giving you today is to completely transform Tengying Group, including Jingyan Island, from a family-run development group into a people-oriented socially responsible enterprise."

"The Economic Research Island will also lift the ten-year ban on outsiders entering the island, and every year countless representatives from various industries will be selected to participate in and implement the decisions made on the island."

"Tengying Group will also open up a group-wide complaint website, including an online information board, to welcome consumers and the public to supervise at any time."

"The only thing I will do in the next twenty years is probably to eliminate the interpersonal relationships within the group. The only way to completely eliminate this is to make the company, including the Economic Research Island, fully accept transparent management and supervision from consumers and the public. In this process, I will also provide the highest level of supervision to consumers and the public, ensuring that every good suggestion from them can be accepted and adopted by the company."

"If you want to develop a good and strong century-old enterprise, or even a group, I personally believe that the first thing you must do is avoid family businesses."

"After a family becomes wealthy, no matter how much they are nurtured in the process of passing on their wealth from generation to generation, the results are often unsatisfactory, at least not as good as those outstanding individuals from humble backgrounds who can rise among millions of people."

Chen Pingsheng simply gave everyone a brief speech, which, though unremarkable, was of unimaginable significance.

This left the wealthy families present feeling incredulous.

Even reporters like Mu Qingqing were thrilled by it.

Everyone originally thought that Chen Pingsheng, the founder of the Chen family, was a legendary figure in the business world.

The last twenty years of one's life should be spent consolidating the family's power and ensuring that the Chen family's descendants can enter the group's senior management or even become the dean of the Economic Research Island.

Unexpectedly, in his last twenty years, he was thinking about abandoning the family-style development.

This will transform the group into a fully transparent, fair, just, and socially responsible enterprise that is subject to supervision and management by consumers and the public.

The difference between the two is huge.

One approach is to continuously strengthen the family's influence, while the other is to continuously weaken it.

Undoubtedly, the founder of the Chen family chose the latter path in his later years.

For this reason alone, he deserves to be called a legend.

(End of this chapter)