What are your thoughts on Zheng Li's decision to suspend his studies to start a business, and the fact that his company received a 50 million yuan investment from Lei Jun?

Compared to Weibo, Zhihu users are more interested in these kinds of topics, and this question has been pushed to the top of the trending topics list.

"Thanks for the invitation. All I can say is that it's great to be young."

I am a student in the School of Mathematics at Jiangcheng University, so I'd say I'm Zheng Shen's senior. Zheng Shen is practically a household name in the School of Mathematics, and everyone considers him the number one genius in the school.

Besides publishing in Nature, he has also published papers in ARMA, which is roughly equivalent to the CNS (Chinese Society of Nature) in biology. While not the absolute top-tier journals, it's still quite prestigious. And he's only an 18-year-old freshman.

It's fair to say that Zheng Shen is very talented academically, and he has a bright future if he continues down the academic path. At the very least, becoming a Young Thousand Talents Program member shouldn't be a problem, and with some effort, he could certainly become a Yangtze River Scholar. As for becoming an academician, that's another story.

But he chose to suspend his studies to start his own business; perhaps that's what youth is all about.

Here's an interesting anecdote from the School of Mathematics at Jiangcheng University: When Zheng Shen first arrived as a freshman, he told the freshmen group that there were no problems he couldn't solve, and everyone could ask him questions anytime, but it would cost money. I remember the fee was around 100 yuan for half an hour.

At the time, his classmates all thought he was bragging, but later they found out he really was amazing. Then he felt that making money this way was too slow, so he started a postgraduate entrance exam tutoring class for senior students.

I know more about the tutoring classes because my roommate went there. Zheng Shen said that you could ask him anything and he would waive the tuition fee if you could stump him. My roommate took a challenging question from last year's Peking University postgraduate entrance exam to Zheng Shen and he wrote it down after just one glance, which left my roommate dumbfounded.

The first thing he said to us when he came back was: "Zheng Li is amazing. This is the first time I've seen someone solve a problem as easily as drinking water."

These events clearly demonstrate that, in addition to his scientific talent, Zheng Shen has an extraordinary desire to make money, so his choice to start his own business is entirely understandable.

I never expected that Zheng Shen's entrepreneurial ventures would be so successful, attracting an investment of 50 million yuan right away.

From my perspective, Zheng Shen's entrepreneurial venture has a chance of success, and even if it fails, he can simply return to academia.

"Thanks for the invitation. I am the senior who went to Zheng Shen's tutoring class. As a senior, I felt quite ashamed to be tutoring a freshman. But after hearing that Zheng Shen published in Nature, I felt that it wasn't so shameful after all."

Later, I heard that Zheng Shen had published in ARMA, a top journal in mathematics. I felt that it was not shameful at all; academic achievement comes first.

Now that Zheng Shen has started his own business and received 50 million in venture capital from Lei Jun, I guess Zheng Shen no longer cares about the tutoring fee of a little over 1,000 yuan. I realize that I have made a huge profit!

I'm now considered Zheng Shen's personal disciple, and I can brag about that title later!

That said, Zheng Shen's tutoring classes have been very inspiring to me, both in terms of problem-solving approaches and overall understanding of the mathematical system. A casual remark from Zheng Shen can often give me a new perspective on the subject.

For example, he said that the essential difference between mathematical analysis and higher algebra is that mathematical analysis studies gradual trends, while higher algebra studies the transformation of space.

This statement perfectly reveals the essence of the two fundamental courses.

Having taken Zheng Shen's class, I feel very sorry that he went on to start his own business. It's a loss for the mathematics community and for Jiangcheng University that a top-tier researcher and teacher has gone into entrepreneurship.

The above answer comes from a stakeholder.

"I think it's Lei Jun's capital show, investing 50 million in his junior, who is a top genius who published in Nature at the age of eighteen."

It's a win-win situation no matter how you look at it. If the business succeeds, it would be the best outcome for Lei Jun.

Even if the business fails, Lei, the philanthropist, will gain a reputation for "spending a fortune to buy a horse's bones," which will benefit the company's future talent acquisition efforts.

In 2019, Lei Jun and Dami had a predominantly negative reputation on Zhihu.

Back then, a large number of fans who had invested real money to support the listing of rice in Hong Kong were badly burned by the halved share price of rice. Coupled with the failure of the self-developed chip Pinecone, Lei Jun was basically criticized on Zhihu.

What a waste of a young person's first time being cut short! This whole "philanthropist" thing is just like the fake medicine company, full of the same old tricks.

Consequently, he didn't have any kind words for Zheng Li.

"Thank you for the invitation. I think it's a good thing. You can tell from the name of the company Zheng Li founded that it is a biopharmaceutical company, which is in the same direction as the Nature article he published."

There are many such companies in the Yangtze River Delta. Zheng Li's talent in scientific research is beyond doubt, as he can publish in Nature. Combining the industrial advantages of the Yangtze River Delta with Lei Jun's network of resources, I am personally very optimistic about Kechuang Bio becoming an innovation-driven new drug R&D company.

Suzhou High-tech Industrial Park offers numerous preferential policies for innovative enterprises, including a 75% tax deduction for R&D expenses.

Our country doesn't lack internet companies, but it still lacks talent in the biomedical field. I personally think it's a very good thing that top talent like Zheng Li is dedicating himself to the biomedical field.

......

The outside world's disturbances did not affect Zheng Li. He was busy purchasing the necessary equipment from abroad and building a laboratory that was entirely his own.

With various equipment such as ultra-low temperature freezers, constant temperature air conditioners, centrifuges, pipettes, microscopes, and PCR instruments arriving one after another, Zheng Li felt as if he had returned to the Mage Tower.

Taking a breath of the filtered air, Zheng Li found it incredibly captivating. Although the equipment here was so primitive, this was where his career had begun.

In China, the cost of Phase I clinical trials is roughly between 8 million and 42 million yuan. Endorphins have a wide range of applications, and Phase I clinical trials can be compared to morphine.

Therefore, the sample size is not as difficult to find as for some rare diseases, and the cost of Phase I clinical trials is relatively lower.

Furthermore, before human trials can be conducted, thorough pathological and toxicological studies must be performed on animals before the technology can be applied to humans.

Before patent registration, endorphins need to be synthesized using the method mentioned in Zheng Li's paper published in Nature, and then these endorphins need to be used to conduct experiments on animals.

Clinical trials can only be applied for after sufficient experimental data is available.

Endorphins are long-chain organic compounds containing a large number of amide bonds. Zheng Li has already optimized the synthesis steps to a certain extent, but its laboratory artificial synthesis method is still very complicated.

Therefore, when recruiting laboratory personnel, experienced workers are needed, and such people can only be recruited in large numbers in the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions.

Until someone else is hired, Zheng Lixian has to synthesize endorphins himself, and his efficiency is equivalent to that of five ordinary operators.

Zheng Li's hands were very steady; he had completely controlled his body and dripped the amino peptide he had just made into a test tube.