Prologue: A Goal Is the Certainty of the Future

Prologue: A Goal Is the Certainty of the Future In a person's life, the most important thing is not how high the starting point is, but how clear the goal. I have seen too many people — intelligent, hardworking, with abundant resources — who nevertheless achieve nothing their entire lives. It is not that they did not try hard enough; it is that they never knew where they were heading. Heading east today, west tomorrow — ten years pass, and they are still circling the same spot. I have also seen too many enterprises soar when the wind blows and crash when the wind stops. It is not that they were not big enough; it is that they never knew what kind of enterprise they wanted to become. A goal is the fundamental reason that ultimately widens the gap between one person and another, between one enterprise and another. A goal is the certainty of the future — you know where you are going, you know what you will become, and you know that every seed you plant today will, in ten, twenty, or thirty years, grow into a towering tree. In my entire life, I have done only one thing: study enterprises, study finance, and study how to enable a Chinese enterprise to cleanly enter the U.S. capital market. This is my lifelong goal. From the day I set this goal, all my learning, work, research, and entrepreneurship have revolved around it. I studied finance to understand enterprises; I engaged in investment to comprehend value; I researched U.S. stocks to benchmark against standards; I founded the Wu ROE to penetrate data; I developed systems to deliver certainty. Every step has served the same goal. Why choose the U.S. capital market? Because of the environment. What an enterprise can ultimately become depends on the environment in which it is tested, priced, and respected. The U.S. capital market is the most mature, transparent environment in the world that places the highest value on long-term worth. It can accept that you are not yet profitable, but it absolutely will not tolerate data fraud. It can grant an enterprise with genuine long-term value the highest valuation and the greatest respect. I want Chinese enterprises, in such an environment, to be seen, to be recognized, and to be invested in. To truly understand the capital market, one must return to its most fundamental logic. The core of the capital market is pricing, and the core of pricing is the stock price. What exactly determines the stock price? The answer is simple, yet profound: the stock price equals earnings per share multiplied by the price-to-earnings ratio. What is the price-to-earnings ratio? It is market sentiment, investor preference, and fluctuations in the external environment. Wars, pandemics, policy changes, and shifts in public opinion all affect the P/E ratio. These factors are beyond our control. But what are earnings per share? They are the enterprise's net profit divided by the total number of shares — the real money earned by the enterprise itself. Its growth momentum originates from the improvement of the enterprise's own resilience — as the enterprise continuously strengthens its intrinsic competitiveness, its earnings per share will grow continuously. Many people misunderstand