Author: 清风学渣
Link: https://www.zhihu.com/question/10967114707/answer/1904046054904665233
Source: Zhihu
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I’ve seen a lot of discussions about Liang Wenfeng online. Yesterday, I happened to be on the phone with a close friend from my university year, and we talked about him too. So here, I’ll shamelessly piggyback^[1] on the fame of my old university classmate, Liang Wenfeng. Some netizens wanted to know what Liang Wenfeng was like during his undergraduate years before he got into investment and the AI industry, so this answer is to satisfy a little bit of that curiosity. I hope these “revelations”^[2] won’t affect Mr. Liang’s privacy. If they do, please remind me, and the author^[3] will modify or delete the post.

The author and Liang Wenfeng were both in the Electronic & Information Engineering program, Class of ‘02, at Zhejiang University.^[4] We weren’t in the same class but participated in the same Electronics Design Contest. Although we had some contact during our four years as classmates, we weren’t in the same dorm or class, so my impressions of him are limited and fragmented.

Impression 1: In our sophomore year, while the rest of us were dutifully attending classes, doing homework, and preparing for exams, Liang Wenfeng was already self-studying digital and analog circuits and had started his own engineering projects. What left a deep impression was that he handled everything himself—from circuit design, PCB, and microcontroller programming to creating a UI for software similar to a mini-player (back in 2004, creating a software UI was a highly technical skill). He modified a regular guitar into an electric one, where the guitar’s sound effects could be controlled via a UI on the computer. This design seemed incredibly impressive at the time; we all said “Wow!”^[5] when we saw it. He humbly said the guitar’s tuning wasn’t great and it would be even better if it could tune itself automatically. I suppose you could see this as a testament to the early seeds of his ideas about AI and intelligence.

Impression 2: He rarely attended classes; he self-studied most subjects. My guess is that he felt the professors’ pace was too slow and a waste of time, and that self-studying was faster. The downside was that he missed out on the professor “highlighting key points,”^[6] which put him at a disadvantage^[7] during exams. Liang Wenfeng’s GPA^[8] in our major wasn’t outstanding back then; he was in the upper-middle range and didn’t meet the threshold for graduate school recommendation^[9] (at Zhejiang University, the recommendation rate for regular majors was the top 5%). He was later able to secure a recommendation for graduate school thanks to winning first prize in the National Electronics Design Contest. More on that below.

Impression 3: In university, Liang Wenfeng cycled through several provinces in East China by himself. Apparently, he often just found a place in the wild to sleep on the ground^[10] at night, and he completed the whole trip without spending much money. This hasn’t been verified, but I learned about it from a hot post on the “88” BBS^[11] around the time of our graduation, titled “Liang Wenfeng, the Pride of ‘02 Telecom.” The poster was one of his electronics design contest teammates, so the credibility should be very high.

Impression 4: During the summer of his junior year, Liang Wenfeng and two other classmates from our department signed up for the National Undergraduate Electronics Design Contest. At the time, none of the three were top students in terms of grades, but their competition performance was outstanding. Liang was naturally the team’s key player. During the internal training at Zhejiang University, he single-handedly solved many of the design problems. In the final competition, their team won first place in the province and a national first prize. All three of them earned the qualification to be recommended for graduate studies at Zhejiang University. However, because the national prizes for the contest were announced in October that year, after Zhejiang University’s deadline for graduate school recommendations had passed, Liang had to start his graduate studies a year later. This is why there is a one-year gap between his undergraduate (2002-2006) and graduate (2007-2010) degrees. During that gap year, he supposedly continued to work on electronic sensor system design and products, which was his forte. I believe it was related to something like marine navigation. He handled the hardware, software, and algorithms all by himself. Any one of the electronic systems he built as an undergraduate would have been more than sufficient^[12] as a master’s thesis in electrical engineering.

Impression 5: Liang Wenfeng has always been low-key, ever since his undergraduate days. So much so that many students in our major didn’t know him well; they mostly heard about him after he won the national electronics design contest first prize in our senior year. That’s why, despite the overwhelming^[13] hype around DeepSeek recently, he just didn’t^[14] come out to post an article, say a word, or record a video. As his university classmates, we are not at all surprised by his low-key behavior. Most people don’t have that kind of composure and steadiness. (Addendum: Thinking back now, Liang Wenfeng wasn’t intentionally being low-key. Rather, his intense focus when doing things made him appear that way—it’s like Huang Yaoshi’s final assessment of Zhou Botong: “Old Imp, oh Old Imp, you are truly remarkable. I, Huang Laoxie, am indifferent to ‘fame’; Reverend Yideng sees ‘fame’ as an illusion. Only you, your heart is completely empty, you never even had the concept of ‘fame’ in your mind. In this, you are a cut above us.”)^[15]

Conclusion: Liang Wenfeng created his own success in his own way. He didn’t live his university life according to the requirements of a traditional good student, nor did he study the worldly arts of social navigation.^[16] He is a prime example of “Be Yourself” among Chinese university students, and an example of a modern educated youth changing his own destiny (and perhaps even the nation’s destiny) through entrepreneurship. High-Flyer AI^[17] was just the appetizer,^[18] and DeepSeek is just the beginning. As his old classmate, I am thrilled to see the outstanding contributions he has made to the world’s technological development, and I am honored to have seen the fledgling eagle before it embarked on its great journey.^[19]

I hope the sharing above can be of some inspiration and encouragement to the tech youth of China. Chase your dream, and be yourself！

1. ^{^}

   Piggyback (碰瓷, pèngcí): Literally “porcelain bumping,” a type of scam. In modern internet slang, it means to associate oneself with a more famous person to gain attention, akin to “clout-chasing.” It is used here in a self-deprecating, humorous way.

2. ^{^}

   “Revelations” (爆料, bàoliào): Literally “exploding material.” Slang for “a scoop” or “an exposé.” The author uses it playfully as the information is positive, not scandalous. 

3. ^{^}

   Author (答主, dázhǔ): Literally “answer owner.” The standard term for the author of an answer on the Q&A site Zhihu.

4. ^{^}

   Zhejiang University (浙大, Zhèdà): The common abbreviation for 浙江大学, one of China’s top C9 League universities.

5. ^{^}

   Wow! (哇塞, wāsāi): A common exclamation of surprise and amazement, similar to “Whoa!” or “Cool!”.

6. ^{^}

   “Highlighting key points” (划重点, huà zhòngdiǎn): A common practice where professors tell students exactly which topics will be on an exam, enabling effective cramming.

7. ^{^}

   At a disadvantage (吃亏, chīkuī): Literally “to eat a loss.” A common phrase meaning to suffer a loss or be at a disadvantage.

8. ^{^}

   GPA (绩点, jìdiǎn): Grade Point Average.

9. ^{^}

   Graduate school recommendation (保研, bǎoyán): A prestigious path where top-performing undergraduates are directly admitted to graduate programs without taking the national entrance exam.

10. ^{^}

    Sleep on the ground (打地铺, dǎ dìpù): “To make a bed on the floor.” Implies sleeping in rough conditions, often when traveling on a tight budget.

11. ^{^}

    “88” BBS: “88” most likely refers to the Zhejiang University student BBS (Bulletin Board System), a popular online forum for students in the pre-social media era.

12. ^{^}

    More than sufficient (绰绰有余, chuòchuò yǒuyú): A Chinese idiom meaning “ample” or “more than enough.”

13. ^{^}

    Overwhelming (铺天盖地, pūtiān gàidì): An idiom meaning “covering the sky and blanketing the earth,” used to describe something widespread and all-encompassing.

14. ^{^}

    Just didn’t (愣是, lèngshi): An adverb emphasizing stubbornness or an unexpected outcome, like “he just plain didn’t...”

15. ^{^}

    The quote from The Legend of the Condor Heroes: This famous quote from Jin Yong’s wuxia novel is used to illustrate that Liang’s low-key nature is not a cultivated indifference to fame (like the characters Huang Yaoshi or Reverend Yideng) but a natural state of being so focused on his work that the concept of fame is entirely absent from his mind (like the character Zhou Botong), which is presented as a superior state of being.

16. ^{^}

    Worldly arts of social navigation (人情世故, rénqíng shìgù): An idiom referring to social etiquette, nuances of interpersonal relationships, and the unwritten rules of navigating society.

17. ^{^}

    High-Flyer AI (幻方, Huànfāng): The Chinese name for the quantitative hedge fund Liang Wenfeng co-founded before DeepSeek.

18. ^{^}

    Appetizer (前菜, qiáncài): A starter course before the main meal.

19. ^{^}

    “The fledgling eagle before it embarked on its great journey” (雏鹰在鹏程万里之前, chúyīng zài péngchéng wànlǐ zhīqián): A metaphor combining two elements. “雏鹰” is a “fledgling eagle.” “鹏程万里” is an idiom from Zhuangzi meaning “a journey of ten thousand li like a roc,” signifying a vast and brilliant future.