This is a man who sees business as an ancient game, rooted in Chinese culture's ‘Wu Xing' where the five elements – wood, fire, earth, metal and water – come together in a mutually generative sequence.
You can see these phases in Li's business investments which include construction and energy, mining and technology, shipping and banking. Together they account for over 15 % of the market cap of Hong Kong's Stock Exchange.
Li loves a game before work too. In fact you'll find him at 6 every morning teeing off at the Hong Kong Golf Club with his playing partner, movie mogul Raymond Chow.
Whilst Asia rises, the old is still important. And that great old ‘Sage of Omaha', investor Warren Buffett, still knows how to play too.
Twice as wealthy as his Asian peer, Buffett loves to surprise his shareholders when they gather at ‘the Woodstock of business', Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting. Forget slick graphics explaining the complexities of financial markets, this is different.
As the lights dim, there's a roar off stage, and 80 year-old Buffett rides on, dressed in a leather jacket, on the back of a shining Harley Davidson. He grabs a guitar and starts playing a song. His review of the year. His shareholders love it.
In fact it's interesting how playful the world's most famous entrepreneurs are.
Mark Zuckerberg began writing software at the age of about 10. As his father once said ‘Other kids played computer games, Mark created them'. Whenever he came across somebody else's game, he would hack into the code, and change it to make it better.
Facebook itself started out as a game. Enrolled at Harvard to study psychology and computer science he was quickly distracted, famously creating a game called FaceMash which invited fellow students to vote for the hottest girls (and guys) on campus.
Soon he changed the game, under pressure from some of his peers and University administrators. Facebook was born. And a billion people followed.
The Guiyang Circle
LIVING IN THE ZIGZAG ZEITGEIST
More than half the world live inside a circle based 106.6° E, 26.6° N, and within 4100 km of Guiyang, Guizhou Province, in southwest China. A quick snapshot of our changing world demonstrates the dramatic change that are, or will disrupt every business:
• Middle world.. Global population has doubled in the past 50 years, with a shift from low to middle income groups, a new consumer generation (OECD).
• Young and old.. As life expectancy has boomed, now at over 70, and births have declined, from 5 to 2.5, we live longer, with different priorities (UN).
• Mega cities.. Urban populations will grow from 3.6bn in 2010 to 6.3bn by 2020, representing 96 % of the global population growth (World Bank).
• Flood warning.. By 2050 at least 20 % of us could be exposed to floods, including many cities, an economic risk to assets of $45 trillion (World Bank).
Brands come and go with much more regularity, products are built across the world, small businesses work together in networks:
• Business life.. Over 40 % of companies in the Fortune 500 in 2000 were not there in 2010; 50 % will be from emerging markets by 2020 (Fortune).
• Made in the world.. 55 % of all products are now made in more than one country and around 20 % of services too (WTO).
• Small is better.. 70 % of people think small companies understand them better than large ones. The majority of the world's business value is now privately owned.
• Corporate trust.. While 55 % of adults trust businesses to do what is right, only 15 % trust business leaders to tell the truth (Edelman).
Technological innovation is relentless, currently digital and mobile, but rapidly becoming more about clean energy and biotech:
• Always on.. 24 % of the world's population has a smartphone, typically checking it 150 times per day, spending 141 minutes on it (Meeker).
• Digital markets.. 80 % of websites are US-based, 81 % of web users are non-US based, 70 % of the value of all e-commerce transactions are B2B (IAB).
• Instant content.. Content on the internet tripled between 2010 and 2013; 70 % is now video. The half-life of social content is 3 hours (bit.ly).
• Future energy.. By 2017, there will be close to $11bn in revenue from 35-million homes generating their own solar or wind power (GIGAom).
Customers feel increasingly ambivalent about brands and companies. In a world of infinite choice, their priorities and preferences have changed:
• Bland brands.. 73 % of people say they wouldn't care if the brands they used disappeared; 62 % say they are not loyal to any brands (Ad Age).
• Customer emotions.. 70 % of buying experiences are based on how people feel, loyal customers are typically worth 10 times their first purchase (McKinsey).
• Service costs.. 7 times more to acquire customers than keep them, 12 positive experiences to make up for one unresolved negative experience (IBM).
• Family life.. The amount of time parents spend with their children continues to go up, fathers spend three times more than 40 years ago (Meeker).
THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT
When Henry Ford launched his Model T in 1908 his Detroit assembly line, his innovative product and his pioneering marketing machine transformed an industry. His efficient mass-production methods reduced prices, improved quality and created vast wealth. He dominated the market, and by 1918 half the cars in America were Fords.
It was the third wave of the industrial revolution.
The first wave of the industrial revolution had been about invention – from the forging of iron in the Shropshire valleys, the spinning jenny for making textiles, and James Watt's steam engine. The second wave was about application – Robert Fulton's steamboat on the Hudson River, Alexander Bell's telephone, and Thomas Edison's light bulb.
The third wave was about transformation, when the innovations take on a scale and can change the world – from the mass production of cars, railways and airplanes, to huge factories and modern medicines. This transformed people's lives, improving health and education, the growth of cities and international trade.
Whilst the industrial revolution had begun in the north of England, making Britain powerful and wealthy, it soon spread across Europe and to America, and in later years beyond, particularly to Japan. It was 250 years of disruption, after 7000 years of a society based around agriculture.
Waves of Digital Revolution
Now, as that age closes, we are in the midst of the digital revolution – embarking on the third wave of a new age that will change the world again, even faster.
The first wave, about invention, started with transistors that led to integrated circuits, the rise of computers and the miniaturization of machines.. from video games and mobile phones through to 1990 when Tim Berners Lee introduced the World Wide Web.
The second wave, about application, is well known to us today. Internet and mobile communications pervade our lives: shopping on Amazon with our Apple iPads, a world of knowledge through Google and Wikipedia, a world without borders through Facebook and Skype. First distracting us, now embraced as the way we live.
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