EP 002 - Li Jun The Secret To Improving Your Team’s Productivity Full

Show video

welcome to the game changers podcast we sit down  with powerful industry leaders and uncover the   secrets to success in solving real world problems  i'm your host kenny owl i'm very happy to have   leigen founder of ontology to be here with us  today how are you doing man yes good hi everyone   it's pleasure to be here yeah christmas is coming  up right and yes yeah where are you now yeah   i'm in shanghai right now and yeah tomorrow is  christmas day already yeah i guess tonight have a   lot of celebration and shanghai yeah that's great  so um just really happy to have you here you know   like the reason why we want to do this video call  with you is there's a lot that we would like to   share with the world you know with the chinese  blockchain ecosystem and definitely the person   behind a very very strong blockchain project i  want to take this opportunity to introduce you   so why don't you tell us lesion where are you from  yeah actually i'm shanghainese i'm my family from   shanghai actually and so especially and my  education background is kind of i.t computer   science and also plus some finance and mba as  well and my work experience also is kind of   a major phase i'm doing a technical a lot of  technical works and it industry and then i'm   joining some financial institution to do the  financial product design and architecture et so   i have kind of mixed education both education and  work experience finance plus the i.t technology   so you've always grown up in shanghai right yeah  yeah yeah that's a city where you're from so   like 20 years ago you know what what was it like  in shanghai for you uh 20 years ago shanghai   actually in the history also is kind of financial  center in chicago even in asia sometimes i mean   before hong kong right in the several decades ago  and in that time i think shanghai have a lot of   financial concept for normal even normal people  we know the stock market the china is the first   the first stock market in shanghai and a lot of  financial institutions is there and the people   think always very easy to accept new mechanisms  especially in finance and also the new business   model etc so that and the people also is very uh  respect for the regulation and the legal et cetera   so i think financial is shanghai have a very  good environment for doing business and finance   the first time i met you um you told me that  before before ontology you are already in the   financial sector right can you tell us more  about that what were you doing yeah i i'm   working for the cfx cfx's china financial future  uh exchange the china largest future and option   uh exchange business contract uh exchange visa  and i'm doing the system design architecture   product financial production design and etc  so in during the time i have got a lot of   fintech financial technology background and  financial product design experience as well so   i think it's uh quite helpful uh  for the blockchain industry every   time every time we have a conversation i always  experience that you do have a lot of technical   knowledge which is very important right for  our industry so where are you right now within   this industry where do you see yourself you  know in the next upcoming five years okay um   in history i think the industry is still very  short history i'm i'm as one of the earliest   uh people joining this industry doing technology  and right now we already built some projects and   one of uh public projects and platform and  infrastructure and it's coming five years and   the challenge actually not only for me is for the  whole industry we have to build a real application   i mean we talked a lot about that they have  been a large scope so everyone is face those   kind of challenge uh in next five years but i  believe more and more people already have those   kind of concepts to how blockchain can have for  them not only in different industries also for   daily life and people's normal youth application  and etc so i think in coming five years   we have to do a lot of implementation in the rare  application and to into to the more large scopes   and the enterprise and different uh touch  and the users that is i think this kind of   task for me as you mentioned that there there's  already a lot of people with these concepts   you know the biggest challenge is how how do we  implement them right yeah because blockchain like   throughout the years have been so community driven  with all the conversations we've had you know   through the past years has always been hey how  do we like figure out where the real adoption is   right rather rather it's enterprise or rather  it's uh community driven but we'll get into   more of those later one one of the key points  that i want to i also want to ask you about your   personal life is how how big is your organization  now by the way last time last time we met i think   you guys had close to 100 people yeah country is  more than i think 100 and more than 150 right now   yeah you guys you guys have grown quite a bit yeah  yeah because we actually it's not only in focus on   the infrastructure level just i mentioned you need  a private reapplication you still have a lot of   other things you need to do like the ecosystem  you mentioned the community driving and we need   to build the ecosystem growth and another things  is you need a touch and price right and to   support enterprise to convert their  service a decentralized service   and also we also have a lot of media level  protocol the media lab like decentralized   identity and data exchange that is not directly  in the infrastructure level but you need another   team to focus this part so um as a platform  blockchain platform you actually need to   touch a lot of things you need to do a lot of  things building infrastructure infrastructure so so are you still traveling a lot um not  yet recently and uh but wait because we   already built a lot of local team in united  states and europe and even korea and japan   so i still believe the local people can well  be doing more good job yeah definitely you   know like developing local teams like having  having a very good relationships yeah you know   with your local crew is so important right like  like for you what about what about yourself like   you know every time we meet we talk about like  exercising right you know like elevating the   mind as a leader who's running you know quite a  hey 150 team for a blockchain project is quite   it's quite it's a very big size right like how do  you give time to yourself can you share with us   yeah i went more focused on the one  things is product and application i'm uh   i lead a product team directly and i have  a lot of time to focus on how to build a   decentralized product and you can have a real  application can have a go to real end users   so i i'm kind of chief product manager yeah  right another definitely strategy and you know   the industry what is the correct direction people  still cannot confirm right now people always a lot   of people try to run different directions and to  try around different things and you have to very   focus on strategies and build a good strategy  currently the infrastructure level strategy is   quite clear because there are the build okay how  to build a blockchain industry or infrastructure   but the application level i mean the protocol  a real application you still need a lot of   exposing to more directions so you need to learn  more and to know more information i you know you   know i want to ask you how do you have time for  yourself yeah i mean i still have a stuff since   i'm actually i'm doing things very quick and yeah  i don't know a country average i mean a book for   example a book i can almost really finish a book  in half hour or one hour can read a book and   every day average every day i will reject these  three books what yeah so how many pages per book   normally if the business book maybe is 300 or  400 pages and but of course if you do any other   technology book or philosophy book maybe a little  bit slow but normally average and i just do a   a calculation and in the uh the past  year i i almost read 100 100 books   and so i can go to information very  quickly so i still have my personal life   let's remove let actually let's put ontology  aside for a moment let's talk about you you   know this is very interesting like i remember the  first time we met we were talking about exercising   yeah you mentioned that you're you're almost  you're doing a lot of swimming or running right   each day yeah yeah i i doing running uh  yes almost every day morning i would do   running in my running machine actually yeah  my home and i also do some swimming and so   i still have time and but of course doing the the  running for example i still where i have a lot of   why i'm not doing this outside because i have  like the ipad or iphone i will listen a lot of   information class and the news actually and that's  not also same time not waste time i didn't do it   i think it's so important for for for individuals  to work on themselves working working on yourself   you see essentially working for your overall  business right yeah because if you're if you're   able to stay elevated you know that's that's the  that's the topic i want to cover earlier if you're   able to stay elevated everything you do everything  you touch you know you really come with a very   very fresh creative and structured perspective  you know oftentimes i see a lot of leaders   they're not taking good care of themselves so  how can we lead an organization if we're not   even leading ourselves that's why i've always been  very proud of you you know i remember before you   you're you're telling me that you would you know  be running and spend a lot of time swimming like   even on your cardio and there's never  a time when you're late for anything so in regards you know in regards to books that  you've been reading like how how the heck are you   able to read three books in a day are you are you  doing like speed reading or normally i will read   in page one page by page we'll not just go through  that because why more and more quick for reading   is because when you read enough books i mean a lot  of books for example sovereign's books already you   already have kind of knowledge structure in your  mind even in different parts for example language   and philosophy and even management and business  you already have a structure once a new book   coming you will easily figure out okay which point  in my structure i can easily link all the kind of   knowledge together so you can you will got the  highlight points very quickly from the book   and you can read book first and first even some  philosophy if you have very clear structure in the   history and which kind of idea from which kind of  philosophy and you can easily figure out okay what   is this book talk about what a difference with the  the other ideas all the concepts so that will help   you more and more quick get to the highlights  yeah so so what what are some of the books that   you're reading like in in the past let's say  three months what what has caught your interest   uh recently i'm ready a lot of the  society a lot of societal knowledge and   it's because talk about how people be organized  how incentive in different kind of cooperation and   collaboration and people organization maybe a lot  of people books is about political political and   not voicings companies but this kind of ecosystem  mechanism and incentive mechanism organization   mechanism is very helpful for to build the even  blockchain ecosystem communication yeah like   like understanding of how of of people's  behavior and and in a way is like how do   you incentivize them to to collaborate right yeah  that's always been the challenge in the industry   yeah right yes yeah it's just quite actually  but a lot of things doing in this industry like   the dow the ao or other kind of things actually  the similar things already happened in history   just and they are using different kind of  technology where i use digital technology   and they have the internet they are using  other kind of traditional ways to do that but   the philosophy of principles behind that is  actually quite similar uh similar i mean so that   means actually history is always repeat itself  again again based on different environment and   technology but but in a way the message that  we're sharing is just the context could be the   same but we could be using just different formats  right now now we're doing more digitally yeah yeah   huh that's pretty that's amazing so what what  is your what is your working style like you got   150 people man are you are you like very what's  your everyday like is it appointments every hour   or you kind of let your team like operate  on their own like what's it like you know   for you yeah nine countries i will do more enable  people to do their their job more than management   for example i just gave some support if they want  okay what kind of direction and the strategy i   will discuss with you and i will give you some  suggestions for example products suggestion and   new product ideas sharing with you so this most  things is we we are doing the shining knowledge   information in the whole team sharing knowledge  yes sharing knowledge and information every people   no matter his product team and the technology  team or some business developer team they can go   to the same information from this kind of shining  mechanism and to make their decision by themselves   and of course we have our direction discussion  strategy to based on the strategy you can do the   things use your own approach to to for this kind  of direction i i experience a lot of uh in in this   in this conversation i re i i experience a lot of  structure and framework yeah creating a sandbox   for the teams to bounce around their ideas right  within this sandbox which is incredible and and um   i remember there was a time last year i saw  a pose that you made on wechat you guys are   implementing training you guys are providing  training for the team yeah how how often are you   guys doing that like i i remember that time you  guys were implementing scrum yeah yeah yeah most   most we are doing as a scrum mechanism is because  uh currently we are building the application step   by step we are not set a very big target and with  the long term it's very short term maybe two weeks   of vision aversion and step by step and also doing  some training and i think is i mean in the company   level maybe uh training is one year one  or two times but normally every week's   week every week we will do a lot of discussion  and uh about products and broadband business those   kind of discussion meeting also kind of training  everyone will share their information their ideas   and their concepts and for in different uh  for different points people will challenge   each other and to learning things from each  other what i experience right now is structured   sandbox implementation freedom freedom for the  teams to to create and also co-create together   what kind of challenges do you see  right now for you and your organization   you know in order to reach a vision you mentioned  implementation but what is that challenge   that you guys face now that you guys you believe  that you and also ontology needs to overcome yeah   actually two challenges one is uh if you give  people uh more space to to doing their things   by their own always own approach and to have  some creative just mentioned but once while   maybe some direction have been be confirmed okay  we need to do these things through those things   in the implementation or all the execution phase  you have to have a very good management test where   people need to touch okay i need milestone i  need to have a good result those kind of also   you need to have a balance between them people  always cannot always i just thinking i just   do the corrective but when i do the implementation  i'm doing things very not very good that is not   acceptable so you need to have a balance people  when you do things you need to do good things and   you need on time and need to have a good result  but for the new idea you maybe can open your mind   to do more things to training more things another  is challenge from a whole industry because   currently the blockchain industry which direction  just mentioned which kind of application is killer   killer app like the internet in the people's  theater is doing i mean the trial one for that   so we need to try one more and to very clear to  figure out which kind of location which kind of   direction will have a potential become a large  application in a large scope so that is people   how people to figure out when your vehicles  have a very clear direction you need to do   maybe you need to build a more big team or large  team oh for sure for sure that is another model   very like the currently internet industry and  you need to have another kind of management   mechanism to support this business so in the maybe  in the same time i mean same period blockchain   company or organization they will have a different  management mechanism for different kind of things   so you have to figure out things to balance that  and to to to manage it in different ways when   when it goes back to the team members holding  themselves accountable accountability is so   important right yeah it is you know even even in  our organization the different teams we work with   how do we make sure that hey we are responsible  and accountable for the things that we do   you know really really like putting a heart and  passion towards it and with the teams too and also   the second the second part is how when you mention  about trial run you know with blockchain it's not   like we're building as individuals anymore  we we need to we need to have structure yeah   you know that's why the enterprise adoption  you we talk about that all the time   that that part is so important right yeah so now  can i ask you a question okay how a lot of a lot   of folks from the west i'm i'm a lot of a lot of  folks from the west they're saying that especially   in north america right in the united states  there is there they're saying that ontology   essentially is a neo 2.0 yeah i would like you  to share how do you feel about that give us some   feedback yeah actually i think it's i think it's  quite normal because the team have a very close uh   relationship with your team as well people really  okay you are kind of uh kind of neo you have a lot   of cooperation with you as well but when you check  details about the technology part infrastructure   even the struct strategy and the vision  anthology is quite different with neo maybe new   but currently the things is because uh blockchain  industries we still have not a lot of large scope   rare application to touch the normal users even  investors they're actually difficult to to they   all the concept of the idea about projects is  from luxor marketing okay how you define yourself   actually in the infrastructure  level most blockchain infrastructure   will be very similar for example the question  until you have a question and a portal question   cosmos question what is difference between those  kind of culture most people don't know it's just   because okay whose marketing voice is more more  voice i think okay this project is for this one   but the next phase i think is two things is i  mean the technical community they will touch   more details about infrastructure protocols they  will easily figure out difference between projects   and another thing is real application and more  and more epic reapplication to touch to the end   user and the normal people people will figure out  okay you are a difference between each other just   i have an example before talk to you and twitter  and facebook if you define it all is social   network right but when you use the application  you will easily find the difference between   you and not okay makes mistaking what is  twitter what is facebook even e-commerce   you also can figure out okay what's difference  between alibaba and and uh yeah yeah so that is   uh i think you still have a more application to  touch the users that's very true you know what   i really agree with what you just said yeah so  how is ontology different you know from eos and   tron if it defines horizontal kind of uh trust pro  branch to real world and digital world that means   we are not only supports only real-world mechanism  like tokenized or some digital ss game or etc we   also have can link to a real application i mean  the off-chain application led currently under   from enterprise even from other industry as well  so that means ontology infrastructure and protocol   like decentralized identity and decentralized data  exchange they will support the real application   also can be digitalized and decentralized that is  ontology more focused on yeah uh yeah this is why   i noticed that ontology has been integrating with  a lot of traditional businesses lately especially   with enterprises right yeah yeah we actually  build a lot of modules and fundamental protocols   i mean besides the blockchain infrastructure and  those kind of protocols modules that can support   uh reapplication enterprise actually small  enterprise even some public governance and   other kind of individual cooperation they can  use this kind of module id data reputation uh   build their business cooperation and even kind of  live for cooperation and as well so we think it's   decentralized integrated centralized service  as well so that is ontology more focused so   in the past few years obviously there was a huge  blockchain boom right in the past few years and   and lately the general market has hasn't been as  excited yeah i would say what have you learned   you know in the past few years and being in  this industry what are the top three things   what have you learned okay uh one thing  is i think the vision and idea or some   is valuable you know before people think okay  owning real product and a real service and even   making money mechanism is valuable but the vision  still is valuable when the people think okay this   kind of direction we are waiting to do we are  waiting to join even we are waiting to support   this kind of new mechanism this is valuable  so actually when you look back the history   this kind of vision in in my practical and  all the other canvas they still have lots of   power a good power even you have no product  in in the initial phase that is where uh   land so how to define the vision is  important yeah uh yeah another thing is   finally you need to depend on your real  service the private real value to your users   to your supporters that is that also is history  already told us like uh 20 years ago dot com industry have facing a lot of when it goes down  and the real i mean the real application real   product will goes up again so that is another  thing to do that and another industry level you   have found your special space for yourself i mean  not only blockchain because currently the business   models even technology is very easily be copied  and be lent especially from those kind of big   company large companies they they already they use  the investment or other kind of they actually is   tracking all the kind of new technology new idea  new business model you cannot only depend on that   to protect yourself you have to find some new  mechanism that you cannot call it just like   decentralized mechanism it's difficult to be  corporate by the other big companies because   they were impacted the current business model so  in the future that is for i mean for the start of   new community news starts up new vr media or small  company enterprise this kind of space is important   very interesting you mentioned three key things  here you know one is uh vision yeah the second   it's really putting out your product and service  yeah and then and then the third is how do you   how do we constantly invent innovate yeah  you know really build up a community right   yeah yeah that's huge so one one key point that  i also want to talk about is earlier we mentioned   you know there there's so much competitive drive  in the industry especially in our industry but how   how can we work together as a collective rather  than working individually because because still   we're talking about blockchain as decentralization  people should be coming together but at the   same time there's so many organizations  still working in their own silos right   yeah one question i have for you is hey how can  we work as a collective i think it's one thing is   where we maybe have the same vision or at least  a similar similar vision and for example people   believe the decentralized cooperation for that  is good for that so every project i mean every   individuals and uh should have to to to  enlarge the scope for the whole industry   not only do the competition internally and each  other okay you do the things i do a similar things   just because i i have a good marketing i can  i can beat you in this part that is nonsense   actually because very small industry compared with  the other industry blockchain is very very small   so we need to launch our scope and  to touch more new things and to to to   build more things new things uh to do the things  so actually not to do the only do the competition   in this phase so i think i already saw a lot of  projects i mean some the top level projects people   are doing the new things actually as not only  focus okay not only focus other projects but focus   what kind of new things i can do for the users for  the enterprise yeah right um so one very important   question i want to ask you legion in this  conversation um what is it that you've learned   you know and something that you can share with the  world and is um what you think yourself what kind   of things you think yourself is quite different  with people other people think you think your   to mention okay maybe you have a clear vision  clear concept about your project even yourself   but the people the outside maybe they  have used their own uh own approach   to to to think about you just imagine okay why  ontology is different so it's new and honest   so when you even you have a good vision and good  technology good product you still have very good   ways to touch people's dead people to understand  you so in this world how to shine information   how to let people to understand you how to learn  people accept your your ideas is quite important   that is not only can be done by technology also  a lot of other things need to do so that is a   new lesson a lot of new lessons and we need to  learn from that i acknowledge the region for   being open yeah you know and also being being  someone who's very understanding and you do know   the relationship part yeah so important as well as  understanding where people are coming from right   and that that's a very rare i would say that's  a very rare characteristic that we would find in   many people cool man um well this wraps up  our call you know um it's always been very   it's very exciting to speak with you my friend  okay okay thanks okay yeah okay thank you for   listening to the game changers podcast we  hope you enjoyed today's episode if you're   keen to learn more check out our other episodes  that's all for this episode see you next time

2021-04-03

Show video