Living Museum of Learning
When a Startup Dream Meets the Next Generation
Among the many messages that filled our WeChat reunion, one stood out.
Chen Haiying, a teammate from Tianpai twenty-five years ago, sent me a private message.
We hadn't spoken in decades.
Back then, she was one of the young dreamers who joined our startup.
Today, she runs her own company with twenty to thirty employees.
As we chatted, she described entrepreneurship in just four Chinese characters:
九死一生。
Then she smiled and wrote,
"Only now do I truly understand how difficult it was to build a startup."
That wasn't admiration.
It was one founder recognizing another.
Our conversation slowly drifted away from entrepreneurship.
Instead, it became about someone much more important.
Her son.
His English was strong because he had studied in an international school since childhood.
He loved mathematics.
He loved computer science.
Yet he was beginning to doubt himself because his grades were only average.
Then Haiying wrote something that every parent understands.
"This is what he truly wants in his heart."
"It's like a tiny little sprout."
At that moment, I wasn't thinking about mathematics.
I was thinking about that sprout.
How many dreams disappear simply because they aren't noticed in time?
I told her there was no need to rush.
There were still four years before university.
Four years is enough time to grow in remarkable ways.
Then she told me his English name.
Cloud.
His Chinese name was 行知.
She chose the name because she hoped he would become someone who lives by 知行合一—uniting knowledge with action.
As she shared childhood photos of Cloud, she admitted something with great honesty.
She felt lost.
She wasn't sure how to help him.
Then she wrote words I will never forget.
"Today, after reading what you wrote, I felt like seeing a lighthouse in the darkness."
Those words humbled me.
Trust is one of the greatest gifts another human being can offer.
Twenty-five years ago, I was recruiting teammates to build a startup.
Twenty-five years later, one of those teammates returned—not to build another company, but to ask whether I could help nurture her son's dream.
Life has a beautiful way of completing circles we never knew we had begun.
Perhaps education is not about creating dreams.
Perhaps it is about protecting the tiny sprout that already exists inside a child until it grows strong enough to find its own sunlight.
