Since I left China three years ago, I've been living alone in this Spanish-style villa in Atul, California.

The Santa Clara Valley, south of San Francisco Bay, California, is home to many of the world's leading high-tech companies, startups, and venture capital firms, and is known as the "Silicon Valley."

This is the place where HP, Intel, Apple, Yahoo, Google and many other great companies started, and it is a hot place for entrepreneurship in my heart, an ideal country, and a holy place that I longed for when I was in college.

But now, it's my place to work.

The villa I stayed in was located on a quiet street in the southeast area of Attu town.

On the street of this upscale residential area, I own eight villas, all of which I bought five years ago when the stock price of Wild Hope Technology was booming.

What was impulsive spending at that time now seems to be a stroke of genius.

Thankfully, I had a lot of money at the time and bought the property on impulse, which is now my main asset in the United States.

Now I live in one by myself, two are arranged for company executives to live, and the other five are all rented out, which can bring me hundreds of thousands of dollars a month.

In order to prevent recourse from creditors, these properties are not directly listed in my name now.

Wild Hope Technology Co., Ltd. was listed on the domestic Growth Enterprise Market in October 2011, as one of the earliest Internet video portal platforms in China at that time, it was sought after by the market as soon as it was listed, and its stock price went all the way up.

In the following years, with the gradual development of the company's platform ecological layout in film and television production, sports content, and media industries, the share price of Yewang Technology soared, once exceeding 300 yuan per share, and the company's market value once exceeded 200 billion yuan!

It's like riding a rocket into the sky!

I have become a dazzling entrepreneur and successful entrepreneur idol in China, and I have been called China's "Zeng Bus" by the media.

After more than 10 years of hard work, I finally achieved fame!

I have a successful career, I am respected, I have a lot of money, and I have all of them.

Since then, I have lived the life of a successful person.

Sought after by the media, admired by entrepreneurs across the country, and favored and invited by local governments, I was still a little intoxicated at first, with a full schedule every day, involuntarily, bright lights, and non-stop.

At that time I felt like I was the king of the world and the whole earth was under my feet!

But gradually it felt like something was wrong.

Every day at dinner, drinking, business trips, and meetings, I feel like a puppet, pushed forward by everyone, and often can't help but do some superficially lofty work.

I found that most of the things actually don't have a lot of value, and they are not what I want to do, but more of what others - the company's executives, shareholders, partners, and the government, need me, the chairman of Yewang Group, to do.

Over time, my passion for work was receding, my purpose in life became blurred and unchallenged, and my sense of emptiness became stronger and stronger!

I began to feel decadent and empty.

Life needs to be strived for, otherwise you will either be a captive of materialism or lust, or you will become a walking corpse.

After graduating from university, I worked hard all the way from our county town to the capital, and developed from a small company to a listed group with a market value of 100 billion.

This process of struggle gives me a great sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.

And now, I seem to have achieved all my goals, I don't seem to have a mountain worth climbing in front of me, and I don't know what kind of future goals I can set for myself.

I was like a mountaineer who had gone through a lot of hard work to reach the top of the mountain, but I didn't know where to go next.

After all, I'm in my early forties, and I'm not old enough to pamper me!

I began to feel lost and even miserable inside.

What do I do next?

What makes my life meaningful?

That's when I noticed the news from the American company SpaceX, whose Falcon 9 launch vehicle has successfully carried out several commercial satellite launches.

And, in September 2014, NASA announced that it had chosen SpaceX and Boeing to provide crew transportation for the ISS!

This is the first time NASA has chosen a private company to provide such a service, which is a milestone!

This shows that SpaceX's manned rocket technology has been recognized by NASA!

This news suddenly inspired my childhood dream: to fly to the sea of stars!

I remember when I was a child, when I was lying under the big tree in front of my house and looking up at the starry sky on a summer night, I was full of curiosity and fantasy about the distant Milky Way, fantasizing that one day I could fly out of the earth, go to the moon to see the Moon Palace and Chang'e, go to Mars to find water and a place to live for human beings, and fly to the depths of the universe to find other civilizations......

This is the real cause, the great cause, the most valuable cause for mankind!

Instead of trying to make money every day!

I've made a lot of money, but I'm still so empty!

"I'm going to build rockets and go to space!"

As soon as this thought came to me, my brain and body trembled with excitement as if they had been struck by lightning!

It seems to me that everything I have done in the past so many years is to prepare for this mission.

This is the ultimate task of my life, grand and difficult.

But my current career, ability, financial and physical strength, just in time for the beginning of this task.

When I told my closest comrades-in-arms, the directors and executives of Yewang, about this idea of mine, they were all shocked!

At that time, Yewang Group already had three major business segments of the listed company system, including Internet platform, film and television sports, and financial technology, plus three intelligent hardware product subsidiaries of TV, mobile phone and electric vehicle in the unlisted system, and Yewang Group had six main business segments, each of which had at least a business scale of several billion yuan and a team of several thousand people.

The business model plan I designed is to establish a content entertainment interactive ecosystem through the mutual support and integration of content, platform and terminal, so as to provide users with a one-stop entertainment experience.

Therefore, Yewang Group's business products, platforms, operations and management systems are huge and complex, and the requirements for operation management are very high.

The executives of Yewang Group and various sectors were recruited by me at a large cost from top leading companies at home and abroad.

I not only gave them the best treatment and options, but also gave them full respect and empowerment.

They are all very optimistic about the planning of Yewang Group, and everyone is convinced and motivated by the development vision I have outlined.

Under their management, the group has developed rapidly, and the company has developed into a leading Internet technology enterprise in China within two or three years after listing.

However, even such a brilliant team was shocked when they heard that I was going to make a rocket to explore space!

They feel that this project is really ...... and too wild!

Although we are bold and aggressive in the entrepreneurial world and capital market, these executives feel that my new project is still too radical and whimsical!

"Lao Zeng, do you really want to go to heaven!? You're not kidding, are you? ”

When I first presented my plan at the board of directors of the group, the vice president of the group, my little Tao Hai, looked at me with an open mouth and an unbelievable look and said:

"Isn't there enough business on Earth for us to do?"

"Haha, Lao Tao, have you forgotten how we felt when we were children looking up at the starry sky under the big elm tree at the head of the village?"

I smiled and said to him, "Back then, you always said that one day we were going to swim in the Milky Way in the sky!" ”

Tao Hai shook his head with a wry smile, holding back and not saying anything more.

Growing up, he has always been my most loyal friend, and even if he can't figure it out, he will eventually support me silently.

"Mr. Zeng, Yewang Group is an Internet platform company, although we have also invested in mobile phones, TVs, and electric vehicle projects, but the production of these products are OEM cooperation, we actually do not have much hardware research and development and production capacity, let alone the development and production of top difficult products such as launch vehicles."

Zhang Qiang, the president of the group, was recruited by me from a Fortune 500 multinational company before the listing, and his thoughtful thinking and rigorous style are the right-hand man I admire the most.

From a rational point of view, he is not without reason.

"I've thought about all of that. BUT DIDN'T THE AMERICAN SPACEX ALSO START FROM SCRATCH? Blue Origin's Bezos also used to be an online bookstore, huh? Aren't they all doing well now? ”

I said excitedly:

"So dream and determination are key! How many people laughed at us when we first entered the TV and mobile phone industry from a pure website, and now we don't do it too! I'm sure we can build rockets too! ”

"But how much does that have to be burned? At least tens of billions of ...... Our group's current capital reserves are not enough! ”

The group's CFO and general manager of the financial management department, Dong Jinping, who is old and respectful, muttered.

Lao Dong's biggest headache is to make money for the group's constantly expanding new projects.

"And, how do we explain it to our investors and stockholders? How many people will believe that we can build rockets, I am afraid that the stock price of listed companies will dive! ”

The only woman in the executives, the beautiful and sassy secretary of the board of directors, Guo Furong, is also a little anxious.

Guo Furong is a die-hard loyalist, I invited her from the position of public relations director of a film and television company with a lot of rights and wrongs, and trained her to become the public relations director and board secretary of Yewang Group, and she is very grateful to me.

She was telling the truth.

The other executives who didn't speak also looked at me with puzzled eyes, silently hoping that I would listen to everyone and reconsider this somewhat crazy idea.

I looked at the group of close friends, was silent for a while, and said, "Let's be here today!" ”

I understand their feelings.

It is not easy for Yewang Group to get to where it is today, and it has condensed everyone's hard work and sweat.

Such a bold project is a huge challenge to our current technical capabilities, capital reserves, and talent reserves.

Such a huge challenge means a huge risk.

Such risks affect the vital interests of every executive, every employee, and every investor.

All senior executives and key employees of the group hold shares of the company.

At that time, the company's stock price was more than 100 yuan, and many of them were already multimillionaires and millionaires.

If the stock price falls sharply because of the whims and wrong investments of the company's chairman, everyone's wealth will be greatly affected.

Although I am the majority shareholder of the company, I am afraid that I do not have the right to force everyone to take such risks like me.

How can I get the company and the team to pay for my personal dreams?

I was caught in a hesitation.

When I got home that night, Yan Ni warmly greeted me for dinner, saying that the meal was ready, while it was hot.

I don't have much of an appetite.

I've been thinking about it:

"To be passionate? Or is it rational? Dream or reality? ”

Now life has been very good, I have a career and status outside, and I have two lovely children at home.

Do you have to toss and take such a big risk again?

It's hard to make a choice.

Yan Ni saw that I was absent-minded when she was eating, and knew that I had something difficult to do in my heart.

Not only is she my wife, but she also worked as an assistant for me in the company before giving birth.

So she asked me:

"My dear husband, great husband, is there anything that worries you?"

Hearing her tease me like this, I laughed a little and asked rhetorically:

"Nizi, do you want me to go to heaven or to earth?"

"How?"

She was immediately interested.

So I told her about my rocket plan and the reaction of the company's executives, and asked her:

"Do you think I should hold on?"

"Dreams still have to be had, what if they come true?"

Yan Ni thought for a while, and suddenly said to me with a smile:

"I have absolute confidence in my husband! Whatever you decide to do, I'm rooted! ”

I was a little moved for a while.

How can I have such a good wife.

"Wife, the luckiest thing in my life is to marry you, a virtuous helper!"

"Husband, I'm going to say something nice today!" Yan Ni said happily:

"Don't worry, I will always be your strongest backing! How can you be worthy of your evaluation of virtuous helpers? Ha ha! ”

"My wife is awesome!"

I praise her from the bottom of my heart.

The affirmation of loved ones is more important than anything else.

Even if it's sometimes wrong.

Many people are friendly and positive to people on the outside, and never easily deny others, but when they come home, they like to criticize this and that with a straight face, which is really a complete fool.

With my wife's affirmation, I strengthened my determination.

In a person's life, as long as they don't want to get by, they actually want to find a meaning, a reason for existence.

A life without meaning is certainly painful; Most people who are not in pain have given up or become numb.

In fact, although many people are still alive in the world and walking in the world, in fact, the soul has already died, but the body is still in the process of maintenance, and the death is delayed.

I suddenly felt that maybe the meaning of my life was not to be a successful Ambition Group, to become a successful entrepreneur and a billionaire.

Perhaps the purpose of my coming to this world is to explore space on behalf of the Chinese for the future of mankind!

As the world's second largest economic power, how can China not have its own private space technology company to compete with SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic in Europe and the United States, and to explore the way out of the future for mankind together?

The Chinese have never lagged behind in contributing to human civilization!

That's it!

With my new life goals in mind, I silently began to plan and prepare.

In this way, I took the rest of my life to a path full of hardships, tribulations, risks, and unknowns.

It's just that I didn't realize it at the time, and I even secretly went on the road with joy......

no zuo no die……