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August 26, 2024 • 37min
#362 Li Lu
Founders
This episode covers the early life of Li Lu, based on his memoir "Moving the Mountain: My Life in China from the Cultural Revolution to Tiananmen Square." Li went on to become a highly successful investor partnered with Charlie Munger, but this book was written when he was just 23 and had fled China as a wanted dissident after the Tiananmen Square massacre. It provides a remarkable account of Li's incredibly difficult childhood during China's Cultural Revolution and his path to becoming a student leader at Tiananmen Square.
#362 Li Lu
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Key Takeaways
- Li Lu had an incredibly difficult childhood marked by poverty, abandonment, and constant upheaval during China's Cultural Revolution
- From a young age, Li developed key traits that would serve him well later in life: intense curiosity, a thirst for knowledge, keen observation skills, and a fighting spirit
- Reading and education became Li's path out of poverty - he saw books as a way to travel the world and communicate with people everywhere
- Li witnessed firsthand the hypocrisy between Communist propaganda and the reality of how those in power actually behaved
- The Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 forced Li to flee China as a wanted dissident at age 23
- Li went on to remarkable success in the U.S., earning three degrees simultaneously from Columbia and becoming a renowned investor partnered with Charlie Munger
- Li's early life experiences shaped his later approach as an investor - seeking "accurate and complete information" through exhaustive research
Introduction
This episode covers the early life of Li Lu, based on his memoir "Moving the Mountain: My Life in China from the Cultural Revolution to Tiananmen Square." Li went on to become a highly successful investor partnered with Charlie Munger, but this book was written when he was just 23 and had fled China as a wanted dissident after the Tiananmen Square massacre. It provides a remarkable account of Li's incredibly difficult childhood during China's Cultural Revolution and his path to becoming a student leader at Tiananmen Square.
Topics Discussed
Li's Early Childhood and Abandonment (02:00)
The episode begins with Li's earliest memories as a young child in a boarding school for preschoolers:
- Li was the only child without a family, left behind when other children went home on weekends
- He was constantly hungry, dreaming of eating lizard meat
- Other children bullied him for being dirty, poorly dressed, and having "problematic" parents
- Teachers encouraged factions and used physical punishment to control children
"I was scrawny. I wear the same jacket and pants all year round. My clothes were covered with holes and patches. I was always dirty."
Developing Key Traits (06:01)
Even as a young child, Li began developing traits that would serve him well later in life:
- Curiosity and critical thinking - Li questioned things other children accepted, like the supposed danger of lizards
- Confidence - "Gradually, I realized that the most important thing was confidence."
- Fighting spirit - Li stood up to bullies, enhancing his status among other children
- Keen observation and imagination - To learn about the outside world, Li asked detailed questions of other children and developed "a keen sense of imitation, narration and imagination"
Constant Upheaval and Difficult Living Conditions (10:01)
Li's childhood was marked by constant moves and difficult living conditions:
- By age 9, Li had lived with at least 9 different families
- He lived for a time with "Big Dad" and "Big Ma", a poor family with 6 children in a tiny two-room shack
- When "Big Dad" died in a mining accident, the family collapsed and Li had to leave
- Li briefly lived with his parents in a single small room "no bigger than a room in a student dormitory"
"I felt superfluous being shunted from house to house and gradually inferior. Perhaps the world did not welcome me. I wanted to grow up fast so I could make money and support Big Ma."
The Tangshan Earthquake (18:03)
At age 10, Li survived the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, the deadliest in human history:
- Over 300,000 people died in the earthquake
- Li witnessed horrific scenes, including stumbling over a severed arm
- He discovered the crushed bodies of Big Ma and her children in the ruins of their home
"When I looked down through the hole, I saw six pairs of blue and black legs lying there. All their upper bodies were crushed under the roof...Big Ma was kneeling over the two little ones when the earthquake came. She must have knelt over their heads to protect them with her back."
Witnessing Hypocrisy of Communist Officials (20:03)
Throughout his childhood, Li witnessed the hypocrisy between Communist propaganda and how officials actually behaved:
- At the orchard commune, party officials had better food and living conditions despite preaching equality
- Li observed: "The party leadership had said that we're all the same, that we should never take a piece of thread that was the public property, that we must be honest."
- This disillusionment likely contributed to Li's later involvement in pro-democracy protests
Discovering His Parents' Past (22:04)
As a child, Li knew little about his parents or why they were considered "problematic." He eventually discovered:
- His parents had studied abroad in the Soviet Union
- They were considered "intellectuals" and sent for "ideological remolding" through farm work
- Finding photos and hearing their stories gave Li a sense of history and purpose
"From that night. I felt I had a home, a father and mother. I felt I had a history and a goal."
Education as a Path Out of Poverty (24:04)
Li's father encouraged him to pursue education as a way to improve his life:
- His father explained the concept of college entrance exams and competition
- Li embraced this goal: "I now knew what I wanted to do. I want to go to college. I had found my road to paradise."
- Li developed an intense study regimen, waking at 4:45 AM and studying until midnight
Discovering the Power of Books (28:04)
Access to a school library opened up a new world for Li:
- He was astonished to see thousands of books for the first time
- Li realized: "In books, I can travel to every corner of the world and communicate with the people there."
- He began reading voraciously, especially biographies of scientists
Student Activism and Tiananmen Square (32:05)
The book culminates with Li's involvement in the Tiananmen Square protests:
- Li witnessed horrific violence as the military cracked down on protesters
- He saw tanks crushing tents with people still inside them
- Li's name was put on a list of wanted dissidents
"People could not believe that the government could have shot at its own people. The tanks never stopped, and they ran over the bodies. The soldiers were mad. They killed whoever was in their way."
Escaping China (34:05)
The book ends with Li's escape from China:
- He used smuggling routes to escape to Hong Kong (then still a British colony)
- At age 23, Li left behind everything he knew to start a new life
"I looked back on my life so far. I had grown from an unwanted child to a fighter in Tiananmen Square. And now it was a criminal wanted by the government...I didn't know what kind of life awaited me. I just knew that I was on my way."
Conclusion
Li Lu's early life was marked by incredible hardship, constant upheaval, and witnessing of traumatic events. Yet through it all, he developed key traits that would serve him well later in life: intense curiosity, a thirst for knowledge, keen observation skills, and a fighting spirit. His embrace of education and reading as a path out of poverty set the stage for his later success.
The 23-year-old Li who wrote this memoir could not have imagined his future success as an investor partnered with Charlie Munger. But the seeds of that success are evident in his early experiences - his drive to seek "accurate and complete information" as an investor clearly stems from his childhood of questioning official propaganda and seeking truth.
Li's story is a remarkable testament to human resilience and the power of education to transform lives. It also provides valuable context for understanding the experiences that shaped a generation of Chinese who lived through the Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen Square era.