Recording History

It was probably the first time I felt really really excited about my job. For the past year that I have been working in the asset management industry, things have been going to shit. It was a great learning opportunity and because people are so nice and sharing, I really don't mind working hard. And when I tell people I enjoy what I do, I do really mean it. But aside from the few DD meetings that eventually led to new mandates, I wouldn't really describe my experience as particularly "exciting". I would rather use intense, nervous, or even scary to portray what I have seen and heard. So many unimaginable things happened, and happened so quickly. It is hard to think about tomorrow. It is good enough to think that I can survive today.

Of course I could now see the admiration and respect from people's eyes that are almost nowhere to find when I tell them I work at BlackRock one year ago. Yet this piece of news is going to not only reshape but totally shuffle the entire industry going forward.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=az.1_LqREECQ


This is the first time in my professional life that I felt truly excited, it was the feeling of taking the ride of something really big, something that touches everyone's life, and something that have so much upside potential when you open your eyes tomorrow--something that could really wake you up early in the morning and go straight to work, energized and be prepared that there is something new for you to fight for. The tone of the market has been improving for the past couple of months. Not to say that I am getting optimistic, but it must be a signal to ourselves, and to everyone else, that maybe we have past the deepest darkness and could finally say good morning to the dawn.

When Andrew commented on the new business we are going to become, he used this phrase "category killer" for several times. Sometimes people would advocate you should spend more time to improve your weakness. I give credit to what there people are saying but more importantly I think we should strengthen what we are already good at. Either you move a part of you from bad to average, or you take a part of you from good to remarkable. If you are anyone like Larry Fink, you will probably choose the latter. It will take too much for anyone to even think about getting into an already well-established and well-divided industry. But if you can be very very good in one of the adjacent sectors, one day you will have the leverage to convince the other industry leader to join force. Maybe smart people are simply lazy, but smart people are ultimately smart. If you have become the category killer in your own sector yourself, the sheer reputation will lead you a long way already.

Why some people have be burn themselves inside out just to excel in everything? It's almost impossible anyway. You don't need to try that hard to prove to anyone you are this good in everything. You just need to be good at one thing or two.

But be very good.