YouSaid · the spoken record

Bo Shao

lines on the record: 106
first: 2022-04-06
most recent: 2022-04-06
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“One company I didn't mention is this parenting thing, which I thought wasn't quite ready yet, it's called Parent Lab. Lab is a laboratory. I hope that company will help a lot of people. And in the next month or two, depending on where this podcast gets out there, hopefully people will find it useful.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It became something that added to my ego and then started to grab me and I start tracking how many people reply, how many people forwarded, how many people applauded. And it was not source of happiness.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And at one point, I think maybe three, four years ago, I said to myself, you know what, for the next quarter, three months, I'm going to place as a priority my inner work, whether it's therapy work or different experiences or not, I see that's finding the right teacher. We're not going to retreats. That's my priority. But only for three months because I wasn't ready and willing to commit too much. And once I made, however, even that temporary commitment. My progress changed. So, if there's one thing I can say, one more thing I can say is just it's around that giving yourself the space to make a commitment, at least a temporary commitment. See what happens. You say, well, this is only four months. I'm going to do this regularly or whatnot and place as a priority on top of everything else I do. And see what happens.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That we started this conversation, I think, talking about I find people who are dedicated inner work, like despicable work, disgust or whatnot, right? And it's so funny that my views are so different now. And for a long time, I didn't want to commit myself. And for me, inner work has always been kind of afterthought. I fit into my schedule, my calendar. I would do it maybe once a quarter, once a month or something like that. It was never my priority.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“However, when it comes to internal work, whether it's to understand ourselves or understanding ourselves as parents, parenting skills, finding a meditation teacher, all these things, what I find is most people don't spend nearly as much time finding the right teacher, finding the right material. It's almost like this kind of latch on to the first one, if it works great, if not, I give up on it or whatnot. It's not the approach one normally takes in other work, but for some reason when it comes to inner work, there's a bit of a almost casualness, maybe because they don't know there are better resources out there. So one thing that I would encourage everybody to do is when it comes to inner work, whether it's meditation or trying to become a better parent or whatnot, really spend the time, at least as much time as”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I guess I would say one thing, which is I think coming from a rational point of view, going back to rational, okay. And what I find is we spend a lot of time optimizing our lives, particularly our work, finding the right job, negotiating packages. We think about doing, you know, if we assign a task and work, we prepare a lot for it. We spend hours and days and weeks on working on particular things. If we need to learn a skill, Excel or whatever it is, we spend a lot of time learning it.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If anything, sometimes can even add to your ego. Oh, I had this experience, I'm enlightened now, right? For certain personalities, having some of these experiences actually could be negative.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What you see into them, back into our body, back into our daily lives and work and practice it and then overcome the patterns. And that's the hard work that maybe do not get much attention, I think.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But for me, it's incredibly, maybe the most important tool we have for healing and for opening up. But then one needs to do the hard work to integrate those experiences into our daily lives as a father, as a wife, as a spouse, as a friend, as a CEO, as an investor, as an executive, as an employee. All of those things, and we have so many patterns of behavior that's deeply ingrained in us over our childhood and growing up, that one or two or ten one-time experiences do not erase them. So a teacher might talk about waking up and waking down. And waking up is actually not easy, but it's easier than waking down. And when I say waking down means integrating the waking up experience.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But then you need to do the personal work so that you could experience that one-time insight more regularly in life and also to apply it in one's life is really difficult. I think spiritual experiences tend to be overvalued. Oh, I had this incredible breakthrough. I saw whatever God, the Buddha, or Guayin or this incredible vista of reality. But those”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think psychedelics is one of the most powerful tools that we are given, both for healing of trauma as well as opening ourselves up to a certain aspect of reality that has profound love and unity and safety that's inherent to us and to reality that we normally do not see. And those experiences simply just can be profound. For me These experiences are the starting point rather than the end points of one's personal journey. I think they play an incredible role to motivate people. It's almost like here let me take you on a helicopter tour of the terrain so you can see what the big picture is. You can see what the destination looks like. But then the helicopter will lend you back more or less where you started.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For myself, as we work on this, one particular thing that has worked for me is something called hand-in-hand parenting started by this lady Patty Whiffler, and there's a website called Helen. I think if you search for hand-in-hand parenting, I find there are tools to be very useful for me. They has a particular emphasis on the relationship between children and parents. So that's a particular emphasis. But I'm not sure they would necessarily help everybody, but I think they can help a lot of people. Think there are other modes, you know, I don't want to mention it because I don't know them as well, but I think in the next couple of months our app should be ready for prime time. And then I think I'm hoping that will help a lot of people.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Best parenting tools, the best research around child psychology and development into something that's accessible and easy and customized for parents to understand. No, that's ongoing and we have a product, but I think we'll get better in the next couple of months when we launch the full version. But one of the things I find, the reason taking so long is I feel that there are so many different kinds of kids and the parenting challenges can be very different. And then certain ways of parenting works for certain kids in certain situations. And there's no one size fits all. So it's really important to collect all the tools out there and develop a framework, a knowledge graph, so that the right tools and modalities and tricks can be recommended to the right children, the right parents, the right situations.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“While we're working on it, and we want to see we, that means we are starting, I've started the company three, four years ago that have done now really three years of research and development, trying to collect.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“On top of them foundation, there are lots of tools that's actually very useful. I find that to be so important. It's shocking to me that now looking back that Being a parent is probably the most important job's life. Nothing more important. It's probably the most difficult job and we are least prepared for in our lives. We go to school for teaching math. We go to driving lessons to get a driver's license so we can drive. But to be a parent, there's practically no preparation.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then the third is what's in the relational field between a parent and a child and becoming aware of that relational field any moment in time is really critical because when that relational field is not right, no amount of teaching on the rational side and analytical side will help because the kid's brain is underdeveloped. So when they don't feel safe and connected, they can't listen. When a typical parent sees a child children not listening, maybe their reaction is try to say things more clearly, you know, repeat things. It doesn't really help. And what's needed is for the children to feel safe and connected. And then they will listen a hundred times better. So these three components, understanding the children inside of them, understanding ourselves, understanding the relational field, for me that's the foundation.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And our own childhood that would enable us to be a better parent. And so, in some ways, I went into a lot of these workshops thinking that I just need to learn a tool or trick or some kind of way, like positive discipline or whatever it is to be a better parent. And to a certain extent, those tools and modalities help, but foundational wise, I needed to become a better person, quote unquote, in some ways to be a better parent. And that has to do everything to do with our inner.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Developmental perspective both from a physical neurobiology as well from a psychological development perspective. And there's a huge amount of science out there that unfortunately hasn't been made available and accessible to parents, which is one of the things one of our companies is working on. And the second is as parents, why do we get triggered? Why did I get triggered in certain ways? My reactive patterns, which were usually formed very early on in my own childhood, maybe my only insecurity gets reflected in certain things. And then that's why we got triggered. So, for example, if a parent always wished they went to the best schools and they were feeding down on themselves for not having gone to the best schools, they're probably going to be more demanding of the child. And if the child has bad grades, they probably tend to be more triggered. So there's all sorts of things we need to understand about our own self.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And what's going on in their biology, in their psychology? And the amazing thing is we are, children are so different from us. We assume that they should have executive control of their body or of their mind or their actions. But the reality is, for example, for a boy, there are prefrontal cortex doesn't fully develop until they're in their 20s. So, when there are 12 expecting them to behave in a disciplined way is simply not right. So understanding what's going on inside of them is hugely, hugely important.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I definitely tried many different things. In some ways, I like you, Tim, that when I get on something, that's important, then I would want to get to the bottom of it. I want to learn the best or form the best. First of all, I would say that there are three components to being a good parent that I've learned. And these are not necessarily, they might be orthogonal to each other, meaning they're being good at one component doesn't mean necessarily going to be good at the second component. So the three components, in my view, is one is understanding what's going on inside of our children's heads.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thou was sort of shocking because you would imagine that you would never do what was done to you that he didn't like. But I was repeating the same thing, and if my wife didn't stop me, I would have been worse, far worse. So one of the things that my father, for example, did to me is if he got really angry, he would threaten to throw me out of the home. I did that to my son. and I was very traumatic for him. He still remembers it today. Even for like two seconds, closing the door on him. It was so bad, but I didn't know what else to do. That was all I knew. When I got desperate as a father when something happens outside of my control, I got desperate. So I guess I resorted to what worked because from a short-term perspective, what my father did to me worked. I became obedient.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Give them support when they need it, emotional support in particular when they need it. And I also just did not enjoy being a father. I remember my wife will remind me to go spend time with my kids once it's eight o'clock at night or something like that before they go to bed before they went to bed. And my thought at time was, why should I? And I felt some kind of resentment being called to do my job. It was really funny thinking back, but back then I really didn't enjoy it. And that got me thinking a little bit, hey, there's something missing here that people talk about being a father, being enjoyable, but I really didn't enjoy it. And also I know that I knew that I was doing something wrong because I was repeating some of the mistakes that my father made.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then a third, which I think is probably the biggest one that I couldn't avoid looking at, was being a father. I was a terrible father for a while on the Chinese Twitter, Weibor, I was a very reasonably popular and a lot of people followed me. And my model, I guess, whatever I wrote right under my name was a perfect husband, but a so-father. And I think I was giving myself too much credit. I don't think I was a so-so father. I think I was a terrible father looking back. I didn't know how to be one. I knew how to be a teacher. I knew how to be a disciplinary, but I didn't know how to be a father the way I understand it now. And I didn't know how to spend time with them. I did not know how to give them love and attention. I didn't know how to...”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of course, this has a lot to do with how I was brought up. And I'm still in the process of understanding and feeling it fully. But I've told myself for the longest time I don't need any friends, at least that's the conscious thought. The deeper down realization happened much more slowly. And I think it's still happening as we speak. It's a continuous journey of discovery and being free from those patterns I developed. So that's the second thing that, you know, in terms of friendship and relationship with other people, I see myself with genuine different way. I see Jenny with other people in a different way. That's what got me thinking a little bit. It's okay if I'll continue on this route.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When I'm in a position, I'm a board member, investor, or somebody who could educate or whatever or help. Then I feel comfortable. Like this relationship has substance. But if it's simply a friendship, a part of me doesn't understand it. Like it doesn't feel Take an interest in the inside of me. And I didn't have that trust.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was not a rational decision. I think deep down if I were to answer honestly, is because I think I don't deserve a friend. I think I thought, and there's still a part of me probably still thinks that. There is something wrong with me. I don't deserve any friends, that nobody would really take an interest in my feelings and in what I have to say unless what I have to say is useful.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Even though I've known them for 10 years and she knows them for like one day. So that sort of started sound like, you know, am I missing something? Is friendship something I value? Because up until a few years ago, I didn't consider myself as having friends. But I always told myself I don't need friends.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I remember one time she was, we were having dinner with a friend and the friends start talking about how he lost his father and my wife just stood up and went to hug him. And I was dumbfounded. It never would occur to me to do it. She's telling a story, I'm listening, but I was not in touch with the emotional content of the story And my wife clearly was, and she is one of the most empathetic person alive that I know. So some part of me started wondering what's going on, what am I missing? And also I noticed that I could work with people for a decade and not become friends with them. But she would then go to dinner with their significant other, the four of us will go to dinner or lunch. And then she becomes friends with them.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“black and white television, which felt totally fine for all my life. And without having seen a 80 inch color television, the 9-inch black and white looked completely adequate and comfortable. And I think that's where I was back then. My life didn't have a lot of color, didn't have joy, I never cried really. I never laughed, never smiled really, I never even felt lonely, interestingly. I felt alone, but not lonely. But I think some of these things showed up a little bit like, oh, I'll sort of start wondering, what am I missing? There's a little, little, little things I think, but very small. On that alone, I don't think I would have embarked on a journey. Another reminder was how different my life was with Jenny, my wife versus with other people. And also I see how she behaves with other people in a way that's sort of beyond my comprehension.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I found an almost disgusting, despicable back then, actually. So I had no interest. But live, I think, has a way of, if one pays attention, I guess, to send little reminders. So the first reminder I got was, hey, I was still the same me with some of the same kind of patterns of behavior, the same level of happiness and joy that I had before this big success. And looking back, I realized that compared to the life I have today, the life back then was more of a black white television and today is more colorful television. It's hard to describe the difference if I only watched black and white television all my life. The reason I use this example was because I grew up with a nine inch.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“First, I would say that I had no interest in any kind of inner work for a long, long time. In fact, I would look down on people who go to retreats or meditations, whatnot and say, what the hell are these people doing? They have better things to do in life.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it was a disorienting because I think I built a picture that most people probably do that somehow you sort of when you reach that level, your life will become different. In some ways, I wasn't even sure what I was searching for. But whatever I was searching for, I felt like, well, if you get that kind of success, whatever you search for you would have found it. But actually it didn't happen. I was doing the same old me and very little changed.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was 29 years old. I was surprised actually because after the first few months of ecstasy, I was famous on TV all the time and everything, life was the same as before.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Be in a very incongruent jackal and hide kind of scenarios where I will be just lecturing my employees in a very kind of analytical and judgmental way. Then my phone would ring. I'll pick up. I became like a little kitten talking to her in small voices. I love you and I miss you, blah, blah. And I went back straight to the old straight faced robot that I was.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the biggest mystery in some ways is that she loves me back. She loved me and loves me back, even though I was very flawed at the time. But I guess in front of her, I was emotional. I was extremely passionate. I was considerate. I let all the things I suppressed, I think, show up in a way that was not conscious. It was out of my control. And without her, I don't think I would be the person that I'm today. So it's not only I have a live companion and my best friend, but also that being with her enabled me to blossom, whatever that was hidden deep and buried blossomed. Now, to be clear, I only was that way with her for the longest time I was still the same cold, unemotional analytical. For many years after that.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was in business school and she was in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. So she was the last year, a last few months of her time there. And I was doing my first year of business school. And I fell in love, became very irrational. I started just basic things. I believe that she is meant to be with me and I meant to be with her. I know fear, no worry. I went all out.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think I met her and I just simply fell in love with her head over heels. A truck hit me and I didn't even know what happened.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was in the B2B business e commerce, but he launched the e commerce B2C, C2C e-commerce business right around the time when I sold my company. And the company is called Taobao. The new company started is called Taobao, which became the biggest e-commerce player in China after about 10 years or so, while eBay really struggled despite having a huge head start. People say the rest is history.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We can do a whole session on this, but I want to be very short about it. But it's basically, it became successful, became the largest e-commerce company in China. We sold it to eBay for a price I couldn't say no to in 2003. And I retired after that. And unfortunately, I was planning to run it, but a family tragedy prevented me from doing it. I needed to be with my wife to support her. So I end up not running the firm a couple months after I sold it. And then eBay did not do well. I still feel sad about it because it was my baby. And for many reasons, a multinational company like eBay couldn't do well in China. So we went from 80 plus percent market share in e-commerce down to 5% in a matter of a few years. Jack Ma at the time.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“out of the egoic kind of self and with no attachment also another key thing was no attachment to the result because the more attached I became the more agitated and I was thinking that wouldn't work and then I fail and it actually be times when I was basically cried because I could do 20 30 times in a row and either they were wrong or it took too much time so that it doesn't count I need to get 10 times right under the right limit every day And the limit kept decreasing as I became more successful. My father said it that way. So sometimes at the end of my rope and I needed to blank my mind and also not to feel any kind of attachment to how I do. And that's when I did my best work. And to me, that's in some ways just meditation. And I think I was able to develop that muscle without knowing that it's actually...”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it turns out that I learned how to meditate when not knowing that it was meditation. I have a very good ability to focus because of that. And I think the meditation I did was when I tried to add the poker cards together, when I was very young, and to add 50 cards, 52 cards together in that 12 seconds, I needed to get rid of all thought. If I start worrying If I start trying to consciously add it, it wouldn't work. It wouldn't be that fast. So I need to get myself out of the way. I remember looking up into the sky or into the ceiling. And just there's a particular way I blanked my mind. Mind can still see, of course, but there is a particular process of suppressing thought, I guess, or getting.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I remember getting this huge book of words that I needed to remember. And I just spent several, probably one or two months just studying that book, remembering every word.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So what happened was when I was applying for college in the US in 1990 when I was in China in my junior year high school, I couldn't provide standardized testing results because SAT was not offered in China at the time. Now I think it is. So I can take the Tofo, which is the English test for foreigners, which I passed and did very well in, but the school still wanted some kind of standardized test. And GRE being the graduate record examination, which is for PhD programs. And that was offered in China. So I took the GRE test and aced it. I think I got 2260, I think it was like the third highest in the country at that time or something like that. And that helped the application process. But one of the GRE, I don't know, it still does or not, but it has had a verbal section, which is basically testing your vocabulary.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was plan B. No, there was no backup. I think we'd have to dissolve, I think. Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't know what the existing investor would have done, but I think it would be hard pressed for them to. A lot more money without profitability insight.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, right. And he said they need to just withdraw together. And I gave him my prepared spiel. And he said that he will go back internally to see what he can do. Now, if I had said that, thank you, I understand, or this is so, if I didn't make a specific request and it didn't prepare, this would have been over. Instead, I made a specific quest that has a chance of being honored, and then I had a very good friend who went to boss and tried to reason and try to cajole. So eventually we did get 5 million. And then I begged many people to put in half a million or a million or whatnot. And eventually we were able to raise $20 million. And that's how the company survived and thrived.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I remember quite the first Boston was our banker to try to raise money for us. And we had a lead, which shall remain unnamed. Who's willing to write a initial was 50 and then became 20. The one day I looked at and I read Wall Street Journal and on the front page it says this firm is in trouble. When I read that, I said, uh-oh, that's not good news. They're probably not going to honor their commitment. So I thought about what I'm going to say if the firm calls me to renege on their verbal commitment or their term sheet. I decided to ask them for $5 million instead of 20. I said if you give me $5 million, I'll first guild trip them saying how much trouble they got me in because I was counting on their money and all that. And I'll make a request. I need five million, not 20. If you give me five, I will raise the rest of the 20.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's right. I think I should say, okay, we have no more money and we all need to take a pay cut. So I think we all took like a 50% pay cut. Existing investors holding it up a few million dollars to bridge us. They were ultimately willing to do that, which I'm very grateful for. And then we went on a fundraising tour. And of course, I think it was around February or March in 2000, the market crashed. The initial reception was very positive. Without knowing the companies that we're going to write you a $50 million check. But then the market crashed and all of it basically went away.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I recall that our logo looked like two E's facing each other, two E's with the other one being a mirror image of the other E facing each other. And I wrote the TV commercials around sort of like I wrote this logo of two E's. One is orange, one is green, sort of talking to each other or playing with each other or something like that. That I do recall. What they actually said to each other, I do not recall anymore.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we had commercials made. It was very exciting and all that. And we got a lot of users. And of course, our website crashed all the time. And at one point, I was afraid to go onto my own website. The thinking being that I might be the last straw that breaks the candles.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Clearly things were not working and then we need to, I guess what you call in Chinese will be large in Ku Yao Dai, which means like you have to tighten your belts, I guess.”
2022-04-06 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT