Wu Xiaobo on Generations of Chinese Entrepreneurs Through the Story of Moutai

Wu Xiaobo argues that as China’s period of rapid economic expansion ends, opportunities to acquire wealth quickly through a story, a business-model innovation or a small technical change have diminished. He expects many future ventures to be smaller and tied to individual lives and specific needs. His advice to young people is to find something they enjoy and pursue it patiently.

Zhang Xiaojun introduces the conversation as a look at nearly a century of Chinese entrepreneurs and successive waves of business creation since reform, prompted by Wu’s new book about Moutai. The first part takes place in a car and the second while Wu signs copies of the book.

Asked how many entrepreneurs he has met, Wu says he has lost count. He has interviewed older business leaders and written about household appliances, clothing, beverages and internet companies; Moutai offered a different kind of traditional business to investigate.

Zhang asks whether Moutai is the single company with the longest history he has studied. Wu says he had previously researched modern-era entrepreneurs such as the Rong family and Zhang Jian in depth, but the Moutai book covers a longer span.

Before writing, Wu wondered why a company selling liquor could have such a high market value. He approached the subject without a fixed answer and says he found a Moutai different from the one he expected, shaped by both contingency and what he calls entrepreneurial spirit.

He cites Lai Yongchu as an example of early attention to marketing, brands and trademarks. Ji Keliang’s long involvement in Moutai also gave Wu a way to examine a state-owned enterprise over an extended period.

Wu says Ji did not resemble the stereotype of an entrepreneur who loudly communicates a vision. He appeared more like a stubborn technician and craftsperson. Wu believes that temperament helped him refine a product over time and stay committed through market and policy changes.

In Wu’s view, innovation in brewing need not look like dramatic technological disruption. It can also consist of sustained improvements to processes, temperature, fermentation starter and operational details. He argues that accumulated experience and data can give a traditional product a modern dimension.

Wu describes two potential sources of future competitive strength: command of technology and an ability to work with culture, aesthetics and history. Premium goods can connect with consumers’ emotions and identity; combining technical and cultural strengths may offer an advantage.

He sees modern strategic thinking in Ji’s craft-oriented approach, including a focus on core products, aged liquor and geographical origin. Wu notes that focus involves tradeoffs: protecting an origin or emphasizing the high end also limits certain expansion paths.

On surviving crises, Wu says Moutai had unusual historical conditions: its products served diplomatic and foreign-trade purposes, which sustained attention to quality. Other businesses cannot copy those conditions, he argues, but can consider how governance and rules preserve capabilities over time.

The management lessons he takes from the research are to value product quality, slow down and avoid rushing to reach every possible user. He uses Moutai’s sales and valuation at the time as an example of a company that can serve a limited audience rather than everyone.

Zhang asks him to summarize a century of Chinese business history. Wu argues that some early modern entrepreneurs pursued industrial development as part of a national salvation effort; economic reform later brought waves of founders from different backgrounds.

In his account, an early post-reform wave included township enterprises and rural entrepreneurs. Urban reforms around 1984 brought another group, followed around 1992 by intellectuals and civil servants entering business.

He calls the PC internet companies founded around 1998–1999 a fourth wave and the mobile internet businesses around 2012 a fifth. He believes a sixth wave is emerging, but its driving force is not simply a single technology.

Wu says the new generation grew up with different family circumstances and economic conditions from its predecessors. With rapid growth slowing and markets more mature, he expects motivations, routes and sources of capital to change. This is his generational observation, not a description of every young person.

Comparing earlier groups, he says rural founders had a strong desire for prosperity, many intellectual entrepreneurs around 1992 expressed public concerns, and the 1984 generation benefited from economic catch-up and market expansion.

He argues that PC internet founders developed a global outlook and awareness of capital earlier, using overseas markets and venture investment. Mobile internet entrepreneurs faced more urgent competition: group buying, ride-hailing and shared bicycles saw rapid spending and consolidation.

Zhang observes that an older generation of entrepreneurs seems more emotional and inclined to ask about its identity, while a younger one appears more rational. She recalls Wang Shi asking where Chinese entrepreneurs’ traditions and spirit came from.

Wu says that in his history of modern Chinese business he wanted to bring commercial figures often overlooked in revolutionary narratives into view. He cites merchants and chambers of commerce participating in social mobilization during the May Fourth era as an example of business groups having political and public concerns of their own.

On the sources of entrepreneurial spirit, he stresses documenting historical inheritance and values. He sees entrepreneurs as products of their time and one occupational group in society, rather than a group to demonize, measure only by wealth or place on a pedestal.

Wu argues that modern Chinese businesses have had especially close ties to politics, sometimes through entrepreneurs’ active involvement in national affairs and sometimes through the effects of political change. He identifies the political environment and technological change as major forces shaping business opportunities.

He offers a broad comparison of Chinese and American business values. He sees Protestant ethics as one influence on US commerce and a spirit of change in Silicon Valley entrepreneurship. He also believes Confucian ideas about family and society influence Chinese businesspeople; these are his general interpretations.

Zhang asks whether entrepreneurs’ anxiety, concern for the nation and attention to government-business relationships have changed. Wu identifies the PC internet generation as an important turning point, with business models and capital sources that differed from earlier ways of obtaining resources.

He feels closer to the internet generation and believes its members gradually developed business innovations suited to China rather than merely following overseas examples. Moutai’s long-term operating logic initially felt more unfamiliar to him.

In Wu’s view, future companies may need to serve niche users patiently and build rules, capabilities and barriers in a particular field. He thinks learning from Moutai’s long-term approach may suit some businesses better than attempting to reproduce Tencent’s growth trajectory.

Asked whether entrepreneurial spirit is outdated, he invokes Drucker to argue that innovation and proactive problem-solving can extend beyond companies to government and nonprofit organizations. He believes that spirit remains important to social progress.

Zhang asks why he does not define the present generation as driven by AI. Wu sees AI as an important tool, but says that at the time of the conversation it had not created opportunities for everyone in the way earlier internet waves did. His assessment includes predictions about the future.

Using AI fashion design as an example, he worries that some niches could concentrate around a small number of platforms or winners rather than supporting many similar startups. At the same time, he believes individuals can use AI tools to serve particular needs.

Wu calls many potential small ventures “entrepreneurship for personal fulfillment,” such as businesses built around daily life, products or experiences. He argues that not everyone needs to build a large company and mentions the small tavern run by his daughter.

The conversation turns to generations. Wu rejects the idea that hardship endured by parents means their children will have none. Every generation faces different difficulties, he says, and parents’ achievements and expectations can themselves put pressure on children.

He recalls that when his daughter attended the same school he had, his recognition as an accomplished alumnus may have subjected her to comparisons. Parents may believe they are helping their children while the children experience those expectations differently.

He believes difficulties involving marriage, love, wealth and entrepreneurial setbacks recur across generations, while each generation also encounters problems its predecessors did not. He points to housing anxiety in his own life as different from his parents’ experience.

Zhang raises the issues of social mobility and wealth disparities facing younger people, citing a wealth-ranking story from the time. They discuss whether young founders will still produce companies on the scale of earlier internet waves, without treating a transient news ranking as systematic evidence.

Wu advises young people to find something they enjoy, create work they can sustain over time and avoid trying constantly to please others. He also acknowledges that not everyone in his own generation had the chance to choose the life they preferred.

He emphasizes that Moutai is one example of business management, not a model every company should follow. Its opportunity arose from long-term operations and product positioning as well as changes in the external environment and consumer purchasing power.

He believes an ordinary small business can learn from long-term thinking, rules and developing people without copying the expansion strategy of a large internet company. Businesses should select lessons that fit their own circumstances rather than reproduce a case mechanically.