Key Improvement Areas from Self-Analysis | Generated by AI
Based on the analysis of Zhiwei Li’s own writings and reflections in the codebase, here are the main pitfalls and areas for improvement:
Key Pitfalls/Cons
Financial Decision Making
- Made significant financial mistakes by not buying property early (missing 7,000 CNY/sqm opportunity that rose to 27,000 CNY) 1
- Bought house in 2022 despite knowing real estate economy was unsustainable, losing 1 million yuan by 2024 2
Attitude and Interpersonal Skills
- Admits to being “a little over confident” and caring less about people’s emotions or relationships 3
- Previously tried to change others (wife, parents, friends) instead of focusing on self-improvement 4
Learning Approach
- Tendency to program “towards Google” - searching for quick answers rather than deep thinking 5
- Prefers concise answers over thorough understanding, leading to superficial knowledge 5
Money Management
- Lost 45,000 RMB of investment money due to poor attitude and management skills 6
- Became “floating” and less willing to work hard after receiving investment 7
Social Pressure and Conformity
- Made housing decisions based on vanity and caring about others’ opinions 8
- Choices based on conformity rather than following personal interests in technology 8
Major Areas for Improvement
1. Financial Discipline
- Develop better long-term financial planning skills
- Reduce decision-making based on social pressure or vanity
- Learn from past mistakes rather than repeating patterns
2. Emotional Intelligence
- Balance confidence with empathy for others’ feelings
- Focus on self-improvement rather than trying to change others
- Develop better communication skills, especially with family
3. Deep Learning Habits
- Move away from quick-answer dependency on search engines
- Practice deeper thinking and reflection on technical topics
- Balance breadth of knowledge with depth of understanding
4. Investment and Business Maturity
- Develop proper wealth management skills before handling large sums
- Maintain work ethic and hands-on approach even after success
- Learn to distinguish between earned money and investment money psychologically
5. Independent Decision Making
- Make choices based on personal values and interests rather than social conformity
- Develop stronger conviction in own knowledge and analysis
- Reduce vulnerability to peer pressure and vanity-driven decisions
Notes
The analysis is based on Zhiwei Li’s extensive self-reflection across multiple blog posts where he openly discusses his mistakes and shortcomings. His willingness to acknowledge these issues demonstrates self-awareness, which is a positive foundation for improvement. Many of his challenges stem from rapid success without corresponding maturity in handling money, relationships, and social pressure. 9
Citations
File: _site/ml-job-en.html (L270-271)
<p>Life is tough. After dropping out of university after his first year in July 2014, Zhiwei has been working and studying in society for 9 years. He remembers that at that time, he came to Kunshan, China, a city near Shanghai. He was passionate, curious, and energetic. One day, after he logged off work, he met some people on the road trying to sell him houses. The price was around 7,000 CNY per square meter. As he had just started working as an intern software engineer, was busy learning things, and had just gotten his first salary of around 4,800 CNY, he didn’t listen to them. He thought that was quite expensive and that they were somehow cheating him. Now, he knows that those people were doing him a favor at that time because the price of those houses has climbed to around 27,000 CNY pe ... (truncated)
File: _site/ml-job-en.html (L272-272)
<p>In retrospect, and in essence, he didn’t have enough life experience to foresee things and knew little about how society works. Fortunately, he has learned so many things in these 9 years. He has tried so many things and made a lot of errors. But just like what he said, he now sees errors as lessons, as wealth. As long as one is healthy and has not gotten into much debt, everything can be started over. If you lose friends, you can make new ones. If you lose your job, you can find a new one. You just have to find things to do to live in this world. And you have to get busy to fight off slight depression or permissiveness that arises from the troubles of living itself.</p>
File: _site/ml-job-en.html (L292-292)
<p>Zhiwei decided today, too, that he will change only himself without trying to change others anymore. He will not change his wife, his parents, his friends, his readers, or his daughter. He will treat other people just like he treats his daughter. He just prepares the iPad and opens YouTube Kids to let his daughter watch English animations in China. And she likes it, and it is fine. If she doesn’t want to watch it, it is okay. As he already knows that the kids of his Indian, Singaporean, and Hong Kong colleagues are very good at speaking English, he wants his daughter to be able to be confident to talk and work with them when she grows up. And he still has conflicts with his parents about this. His parents want the baby girl to watch Chinese animations. One reason is that Apple TV in Chi ... (truncated)
File: _site/ml-job-en.html (L346-346)
<li>As you might see that Zhiwei is a little over confident. So please only contact him if you are okay with working with him. He begins to care less about people’s emotions or relationships. He cares more about the ideas, algorithms, and code.</li>
File: _site/review-2024-en.html (L226-228)
<p>It’s unfortunate that our family bought a house in Guangzhou in 2022, and by 2024 we’ve lost one million yuan. In 2019, I read He Qinglian’s book ‘China: Crumbling Without Collapse’ and already knew that the real estate economy was unsustainable.</p>
<p>One reason I still bought was that I had vanity and cared too much about others’ opinions. I’ve since quit using WeChat Moments and now, like you, only share on my blog or niche social media. Secondly, instead of following my interests in information technology and knowledge, I made choices based on conformity and comparison with others. Also, at that time I had just started working at a Southeast Asian bank through an overseas assignment for a few months, and my international perspective was still limited. Additionally, I was living with my parents, which easily led to ideological friction and created a desire for independent space. However, with the upbringing of my child, we had to live together. I lived in that house for one year before moving back to my parents’ house to live with ... (truncated)
File: _site/think-en.html (L206-207)
<p>In the past, when I studied programming, I directly googled for answers to problems. I was programming towards Google. When encountering problems, I hated to wait for answers immediately. When a solution required reading an English article, I couldn’t bear to finish it and instead looked for simpler and more concise answers. It was like Sister Bao Bao on Douyin saying, “Sister, focus on the main points.” I also googled for answers, but when faced with lengthy webpages, I said to them in my heart, “Brother, focus on the main points.” I have been studying programming this way for a long time, solving one problem after another by searching on Google. If you ask me what I have learned programming, I find it hard to tell you. However, I have been able to solve many problems.</p>
File: _site/profit-en.html (L382-387)
<p>Zhiwei: Firstly, after obtaining the investment, it is necessary to learn how to manage your wealth reasonably and use it in the right place. Wasteful spending is not acceptable. Properly using money is a skill. When you don’t have the ability to match this wealth, the wealth may be quickly spent.</p>
<p>It’s not just that you’re not using the money correctly, but your attitude will also change. For instance, when I received a 50,000 RMB investment from Li Xiaocai teacher, my attitude was still ambiguous. I quickly spent it on hiring people, no longer willing to work hard myself to recruit people personally, or to pull people into the group. I felt that I couldn’t manage it, so I wanted to train my management abilities by hiring people. The company hadn’t yet made profitable businesses, so I recruited quite a few people. My attitude became even more ambiguous, floating, and I felt that the company had money, so I was the manager.</p>
<p>If these funds were the money I had earned myself before, I would have felt that they were precious, but now this 50,000 RMB was investment money, not my own, and I didn’t feel the hardship of earning money, didn’t sharpen my knife on my employees, and therefore lost 45,000 RMB. My abilities weren’t yet up to managing these funds.</p>