Beginning in 2015, in the months when the company's stock price was at its highest, Yan Ni, my sister and other family members and I began to sell some company shares one after another, cashing out almost billions of yuan.

At the same time, I traveled frequently to California on business to secretly prepare rocket projects.

I've been coming to Silicon Valley in California a lot since Wild Hope Group entered the smartphone space a few years ago.

Here you can catch the latest trends and industrial trends in the high-tech field in a timely manner.

I love California's sunny climate and the entrepreneurial vibe, especially in the Silicon Valley area of the San Francisco Bay Area.

In the first half of 2015, I traveled to Silicon Valley seven or eight times to interview potential partners and look at some of California's aerospace tech startups.

I gradually handed over the day-to-day management affairs of domestic companies to Zhang Qiang, Lao Dong and Tao Hai, and I only participated in major decisions.

At that time, the business layout of Yewang Group had been fully developed according to my plan, and the business of the listing system had basically begun to make profits, although the TV business and mobile phone business were not yet profitable, but the sales growth rate was very fast, and the problem should not be big.

The more challenging electric vehicle sector.

Automobile R&D is too expensive, and almost all of the profits of Yewang Group in the past few years have been used to subsidize the smart car sector, which has not fully met the capital needs of automobile R&D.

In addition, at that time, the domestic new energy vehicle market was still in its infancy, the sales of electric vehicles were still very low, the capital market was still waiting, and the financing was not smooth.

As a result, Yewang Auto's cash flow has been tight.

The group and listed companies have invested billions of dollars in Yewang Automobile Company, which is far from enough, the company's first electric vehicle product "Yewang 007" has not yet been mass-produced, and the self-built assembly plant is still under construction.

It is expected that at least another 30 billion yuan will be invested to reach the production capacity and sales volume of more than 200,000 units per year before the cash flow of the automobile company can turn positive.

Dong Jinping, the group's CFO, has been thinking of various ways to raise funds to support the development of the automotive sector, and the pressure is huge.

This was also my biggest stress and task.

But now, I have a much more worthwhile career, and the car company is on the back burner in terms of issues.

I believe that the management team of Ambition Group can solve the problems of the automotive sector.

I can't do that much. I'm not young anymore, and I'm going to live with it every day for the rest of my life.

The rocket project is my mission in this life!

In July 2015, I officially registered and established Kuang-Chi Technology Company in Stanford Industrial Park, Silicon Valley, and rented a temporary office of 300 square meters, and quietly started my space adventure.

I named the company Guangqi as a tribute to the first person in modern China to look up at the starry sky: Xu Guangqi.

Xu Guangqi was the first to introduce advanced European scientific knowledge, especially astronomy and mathematics, to China.

He was the pioneer of modern Chinese science and the first person in China to turn his gaze from the earth to the heavens.

It would be nice if there were more such people in Chinese history!

Otherwise, with the wisdom and wisdom of the Chinese people, the first industrial revolution would have taken place in China hundreds of years earlier, and we would not have been bullied by the Western powers for a hundred years in modern times!

The Kuang-Chi Project was kept secret from the beginning.

Kuang-Chi Company was independent of the listed company of Yewang Technology, and at first I was the only investor, and later added several core founding partners.

In fact, at the beginning, I didn't want to use all my personal money to invest in this project, but since the board of directors of Yewang Group did not agree to invest in this project, I had to give up.

The path to pursue one's dreams is often lonely. Not to mention the dream of exploring space.

I also don't want the shareholders of Yewang to know about this too early, lest they think that the chairman of the company is not doing his job properly and lose confidence in the company's development.

This is also the best arrangement of fate!

Such a shareholder structure enabled Kuang-Chi Company to continue to operate after the accident of Yewang Group.

Originally, I planned to select some young backbones from the domestic Yewang Group to join Kuang-Chi Company. In order to make the team more comfortable in the future, I even bought eight villas in the town of Attu, next to the industrial park, and also bought three latest Tesla Model Y electric vehicles for backup.

But then I decided to keep a low profile and not attract too much unnecessary attention, and only selected two assistants, Zeng Ligang and Li Hua, from Yewang Group to join the Guangqi project.

Li Hua is my assistant at Yewang Group.

Four years ago, after Yan Ni became pregnant for the first time, she could no longer work as my assistant. The human resources department of the group asked the headhunter to recruit Li Hua as my assistant.

Li Hua was born in an MBA from Stanford University in the United States, a 1.7-meter-tall Northeast girl, beautiful and capable, and is my right-hand man.

Before joining Yewang, she worked as a senior consulting manager in the internationally renowned MKC consulting company, with strong analytical and business skills, and is also familiar with the United States.

She can be responsible for the market analysis and partner development of the Kuang-Chi project, and can also assist me with some management work.

When Li Hua first found out that I was going to do a rocket project, she couldn't believe it.

However, after all, she had read an MBA and had seen the world, and as I asked her to do some research on the commercial aerospace industry, she slowly realized that this was a sunrise industry with unlimited development potential.

So when I told her that I was going to take her to the U.S. to join the Kuang-Chi team full-time, she was excited.

"Mr. Zeng, thank you for looking up to me so much, I am willing!"

"It's going to be very hard, I can tell you in advance, there's nothing over there, you have to take care of everything except technical things, and you'll be used by me as a man."

I deliberately scared her.

"I'm strong, Boss is welcome to use it!"

Li Hua replied with a big grin.

"Hahaha!"

I couldn't help but laugh.

Silly girl! A stupid chick who can pretend to be stupid.

Zeng Ligang is my nephew, my cousin's son, and I sponsored him to complete his undergraduate degree at the University of Science and Technology of China and his Ph.D. in materials at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

My cousin didn't go to college and was still a farmer in his hometown.

Ligang is gifted and intelligent, and he has been studying well since he was a child, and I like this nephew very much, so I have been sponsoring him to study, including tuition and living expenses to study in the United States.

He had just returned to China the year before last, and I had arranged for him to work as a materials engineer in the R&D department of an electric vehicle company, and now I want to do a rocket project, and I need him just in time.

I need someone who is absolutely reliable on the Kuangqi Project.

What's more, MIT's aerospace engineering program is the best in the world. Li Gang can find me the much-needed technology R&D talent from his alumni.

Both assistants were extremely capable, loyal, and ambitious young men.

Ligang has a technical background, introverted and calm, Li Hua is good at communication and coordination, the two are more complementary, they can match men and women, and they are not tired of work.

They and I formed the original founding team of the Kuang-Chi Project.

I have the feeling of excitement and anticipation for the future when I just quit my job from the tax bureau in my hometown when I was young and went to the sea to start a business.

On October 2, 2015, during the National Day holiday, I flew to San Francisco with Zeng Ligang and Li Hua.

I arranged for Zeng Ligang and Li Hua to set up camp in the No. 16 and No. 19 villas next to the No. 18 villa where I lived, respectively, to prepare for a long-term battle here.

Zeng Ligang and Li Hua are both in their early thirties, unmarried, and it is time to do business.

Silicon Valley is a haven for young people with dreams, ready to do something with me.

The office has been rented and it is time to recruit a core team.

None of us are rocket R&D professionals, and the first person to be recruited for the Kuang-Chi project is a rocket design master, the chief designer.

I gave Li Gang the task of recruiting people, and he should be able to find a few such talents among his MIT alumni.

The United States is the largest country in the aerospace field with a large number of talents, and I set up Kuang-Chi's headquarters in Silicon Valley to attract the world's top technical talents and absorb the advanced aerospace technology of the United States.

China has recently developed rapidly in the field of space, and has built its own space station.

However, China's aerospace is still dominated by the national team, there are not many private enterprises, and even fewer directly develop launch vehicles.

China's aerospace industry talent reserve is relatively insufficient, and outstanding talents are in large central enterprises such as the Aerospace Science and Technology Group, which is difficult to poach.

Kuang-Chi's search for talent has not been easy.

An unknown small company that has just been established wants to build rockets, even in Silicon Valley, not many people believe it.

There are so many startups in Silicon Valley that more than 90% of them don't survive for three years.

Many of the top talents are still recruited by powerful star technology companies such as Apple, Google, and Facebook.

If you want to build a world-class company and attract world-class talent, building a world-class team is the key.

What do we need to rely on to attract the best talent?

The salary should be high, the options should be available, and most importantly, it must rely on the power of dreams!

In my vision, Kuang-Chi Technology will be a development-oriented co-creation space technology company.

Regardless of the ownership structure, core team, work process, and development plan, the company will maintain development and co-creation collaboration to the greatest extent, giving all employees the greatest sense of ownership, participation and initiative.

Kuang-Chi's mission is to help mankind truly go out of the earth and set off to the moon, Mars and space.

Who can guarantee that the earth will always be habitable for human beings?

Will there be a nuclear war? Will there be an asteroid hitting the Earth?

Will there be a day when we run out of resources?

Perhaps humanity is the only civilization that still exists in the knowable universe, at least in this three-dimensional universe.

It is related to the future survival of mankind, even if there is a risk of 1 in 10,000 and a possibility of 1 in a million, it is worth making a long-term preparation, a Plan B.

What could be more important, greater, and more exciting than this company mission?

However, it turns out that to be a great company, it is not enough to have a great mission.

Dreams are easy to plump, and reality is often skinny.

Rockets take off to burn fuel, and even more so to burn money first.

It was only later that I deeply realized what the owner of Virgin Galactic, the famous British entrepreneur Richard Branson, said:

"Want to go bankrupt? Let's build rockets! ”

Flying to the stars is destined to be a very long road, which will eventually consume the rest of our lives.