Sea集团简介与核心业务

Nicolai Tangen: Hi everybody, I'm Nicolai Tangen, the CEO of the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund and today we are in really good company. We are in Singapore. We're talking to Forrest Li, the founder and the CEO of Sea, which is the largest tech company in Southeast Asia, a market leader in video game distribution and in fintech and in e-commerce. An incredible journey and a big thank you for taking the time.

Nicolai Tangen: 大家好，我是挪威主权财富基金的首席执行官Nicolai Tangen。今天我们有幸邀请到一位重要嘉宾。我们在新加坡，与Sea (Sea Group: 东南亚领先的消费互联网公司) 的创始人兼首席执行官Forrest Li对话。Sea是东南亚最大的科技公司，也是视频游戏发行、金融科技 (Fintech: 金融与科技相结合的创新服务) 和电子商务 (E-commerce: 通过电子网络进行的商业活动) 领域的市场领导者。这是一段不可思议的旅程，非常感谢您抽出时间。

Forrest Li: Welcome to Singapore, Nicolai. Thank you for visiting us.

Forrest Li: 欢迎来到新加坡，Nicolai。感谢您的到访。

Nicolai Tangen: Thank you. I also should say that in the fund we are a big shareholder in Sea and so we follow it very very closely. But first of all, for those in Europe and the US who don't know Sea, what do you do?

Nicolai Tangen: 谢谢。我还应该说明，我们基金是Sea的重要股东，因此我们非常密切地关注着它。但首先，对于欧洲和美国那些不了解Sea的人来说，你们是做什么的？

Forrest Li: Sea is a Singaporean technology company with the mission to better the lives of consumers and small businesses through technology. So we are a technology company by heart and it has been 16 years when we started company. We primarily focus on Southeast Asia market as the first market and later on we also enter into some new market like Taiwan, like Brazil. Actually, interestingly, the name of the we chosen the name Sea as our company name is actually a short form of Southeast Asia. This is a kind of a shout out of our home market. We feel very proud of that. And today we primarily operate three businesses: video game business named Garena (Garena: Sea集团旗下的数字娱乐部门), and an e-commerce business named Shopee (Shopee: Sea集团旗下的电子商务平台), and more recently the fintech business named SeaMoney (SeaMoney: Sea集团旗下的数字金融服务平台). For Garena, it started as just a game distributor in Southeast Asia but later on we evolved to become one of the largest mobile game developer and publisher in the world.

Forrest Li: Sea是一家新加坡的科技公司，我们的使命是通过科技改善消费者和小型企业的日常生活。所以我们骨子里是一家科技公司，公司成立至今已有16年。我们最初主要专注于东南亚市场，后来也进入了一些新市场，比如台湾和巴西。事实上，有趣的是，我们选择“Sea”作为公司名称，它实际上是“东南亚”（Southeast Asia）的缩写。这是对我们本土市场的一种致敬，我们为此感到非常自豪。目前，我们主要经营三项业务：数字娱乐业务Garena、电子商务业务Shopee，以及最近推出的金融科技业务SeaMoney。Garena最初只是东南亚的一家游戏发行商，但后来我们发展成为全球最大的手机游戏开发商和发行商之一。

Nicolai Tangen: And a self-developed game from Garena named Free Fire. You have something like 100 million people playing this every day, right?

Nicolai Tangen: Garena自主开发的游戏叫《Free Fire》。每天大约有1亿人玩这款游戏，对吗？

Forrest Li: Free Fire today is the largest mobile game in the world by daily active users, as you mentioned, more than 100 million people play the game from over 130 countries on a daily basis.

Forrest Li: 《Free Fire》如今是全球日活跃用户量最大的手机游戏，正如您所说，每天有超过1亿人来自130多个国家玩这款游戏。

Nicolai Tangen: Do you play it?

Nicolai Tangen: 您玩吗？

Forrest Li: Yeah, I play a lot.

Forrest Li: 是的，我玩很多。

Nicolai Tangen: Well, I'm very pleased you're taking a break from playing to talk to us.

Nicolai Tangen: 很高兴您能从游戏中抽身来和我们交流。

Forrest Li: Yeah.

Forrest Li: 是的。

从游戏分销商到科技巨头：移动互联网浪潮的助推

Nicolai Tangen: But how to go from a video game distributor to become a more than hundred billion dollar market cap company? Just how did it go about? How was what happened?

Nicolai Tangen: 但是，从一家视频游戏分销商发展成为市值超过千亿美元的公司，这究竟是如何实现的？发生了什么？

Forrest Li: It is an amazing journey. Although we started as a video game company, our ambition and our mission is always more than that. As we deeply in our heart believe in technology, I think there's a lot of other things in addition to games that can be done through technology. I still remember about 10 years ago when we received our Series B funding, we reached a billion dollar valuation. So we officially became a unicorn (Unicorn: 指估值超过10亿美元的初创公司). If I remember correctly, we're probably the first technology unicorn from Southeast Asia. And 10 years later today, as you mentioned, it's a hundred billion dollar market cap public company. Over these 10 years, we achieved a hundred times of the value. The biggest contributor for that actually is we rode the wave of the mobile internet revolution. 10 years ago was just the very beginning of all the smartphones and all the applications on the smartphones. Before that, there was the internet, there was PC game, actually we started as a PC game publisher, and there was e-commerce, but the addressable market was much, much smaller because you needed a desktop to access the internet and you needed broadband. Broadband penetration in a lot of our markets was still relatively low. But things completely changed when you have the phone, right? People can access the internet and do all the things anywhere, anytime.

Forrest Li: 这真是一段不可思议的旅程。尽管我们最初是一家视频游戏公司，但我们的抱负和使命远不止于此。我们内心深处坚信技术的力量，认为除了游戏，还有很多其他事情可以通过技术来实现。我仍然记得大约10年前，当我们获得B轮融资时，我们达到了10亿美元的估值。因此，我们正式成为了一家独角兽公司 (Unicorn: 指估值超过10亿美元的初创公司)。如果我没记错的话，我们可能是东南亚第一家科技独角兽。而10年后的今天，正如您所说，我们是一家市值千亿美元的上市公司。在这10年里，我们实现了价值增长100倍。其中最大的贡献者，实际上是我们抓住了移动互联网革命的浪潮。10年前，智能手机及其上的各种应用才刚刚起步。在此之前，有互联网，有PC游戏（我们最初就是PC游戏发行商），也有电子商务，但可触达的市场要小得多，因为你需要一台台式电脑才能上网，而且需要宽带。在我们很多市场，宽带普及率仍然相对较低。但有了手机之后，一切都彻底改变了，对吗？人们可以随时随地访问互联网并处理各种事务。

进军电商：源于女儿的灵感

Nicolai Tangen: But I mean you were a video game distributor. How did you come up with the idea of going into e-commerce? What was the thinking behind that?

Nicolai Tangen: 但是，您当时是一家视频游戏分销商。您是如何想到进入电子商务领域的？这背后的思考是什么？

Forrest Li: It's down to what is the fundamental value that technology can bring. I remember interestingly, 10 years ago, I sometimes brought my family to China for holidays. At that time I had a six-year-old daughter. We were very, very impressed by how much e-commerce has developed, especially mobile e-commerce in China. So on our trip, sometimes my daughter wanted this, wanted that. No matter what she wanted, it's just a few taps and swaps on her mom's phone, and the box was delivered to the door next day. Whatever she wanted, it would be in the box. To her, this was magic. I gave a lot of thoughts about it when we came back to Singapore. I think this is just a great business, and it creates so much value and creates so much joy and convenience to consumers. It's hard for me to swallow the fact such business, such thing, doesn't exist in Southeast Asia.

Forrest Li: 这归结于技术能带来什么根本价值。我记得很有趣，10年前，我有时会带家人去中国度假。那时我有一个六岁的女儿。我们对中国电子商务，尤其是移动电子商务的发展程度印象非常深刻。所以，在我们的旅途中，有时我女儿想要这个，想要那个。无论她想要什么，只需在她妈妈的手机上轻点几下、滑动几下，第二天包裹就能送到家门口。无论她想要什么，都会在包裹里。对她来说，这简直是魔法。我们回到新加坡后，我对此深思熟虑。我认为这真是一项伟大的业务，它为消费者创造了巨大的价值、带来了极大的乐趣和便利。我很难接受在东南亚还没有这种业务、这种事情的事实。

Nicolai Tangen: But how do you go from having the idea to actually executing this? Because now you have what market share in Southeast Asia? You have close to half the market or?

Nicolai Tangen: 但是，您是如何从一个想法发展到实际执行的呢？因为现在您在东南亚的市场份额是多少？接近一半的市场份额吗？

Forrest Li: Yeah.

Forrest Li: 是的。

Nicolai Tangen: So you go from nothing to half the market in Southeast Asia. You beat Alibaba, TikTok and so on. How do you go about it?

Nicolai Tangen: 所以你们从零开始，在东南亚占据了近一半的市场份额。你们击败了阿里巴巴、TikTok等公司。你们是如何做到的？

电商策略：本地化解决方案与物流优势

Forrest Li: There are a lot of factors, but what we really, really focus on is coming out the local solutions. Because before that we were a video game company, a game company, and we pretty much had zero e-commerce experience. We never done e-commerce in other markets. So when we tried to address this business opportunity, we really went down to the fundamentals. We don't have a ready-to-go playbook from other markets. I say what is really matters in every specific market, what is the best solution for that. For example, I think a key differentiator for us over the years is the logistics capability we have built. We are the only e-commerce player today that has built up a lot of capability in terms of logistics. It's very, very important. Number one, this is a key thing for the customer experience, right? It doesn't matter how good things you buy, how cheap you buy, people really care where I can have it, can I have it on time, and can I have it in good condition of the parcel. So this is very, very important, but it's a very, very hard problem to solve. Southeast Asia is a very vast geography with a very complicated situation and roads. You know, a lot of places there's not a complete address system, there's no kind of postcode database. You always see that the customer just describe the address, the delivery point is, "Okay, you drive into the village and you keep driving, you see a mosque and turn right, and then after two big trees you see a red house on the left." That is the address. Definitely you cannot find such a place on Google Map. Over the time we have to build up our own address book with an address system based on all this information, and that has become very, very important.

Forrest Li: 有很多因素，但我们真正关注的是提出本地化的解决方案。因为在此之前，我们是一家视频游戏公司，一家游戏公司，几乎没有电子商务经验。我们从未在其他市场做过电子商务。所以当我们试图抓住这个商业机会时，我们真正回到了基本面。我们没有其他市场现成的成功经验。我认为真正重要的是在每个特定市场，什么是最佳解决方案。例如，我认为多年来我们一个关键的差异化因素是我们建立的物流能力。我们是目前唯一一家在物流方面建立了大量能力的电子商务公司。这非常非常重要。首先，这是客户体验的关键，对吗？无论您购买的东西多好，购买的价格多便宜，人们真正关心的是我能在哪里拿到它，我能及时拿到它吗，以及我能收到完好无损的包裹吗。所以这非常非常重要，但这是一个非常非常难以解决的问题。东南亚地域辽阔，路况复杂。你知道，很多地方没有完整的地址系统，没有邮政编码数据库。你总是看到顾客这样描述地址，投递点是：“好的，你开车进村，一直开，看到一个清真寺右转，然后经过两棵大树后，左边有一栋红房子。”这就是地址。你肯定无法在谷歌地图上找到这样的地方。随着时间的推移，我们不得不根据所有这些信息建立自己的地址簿和地址系统，这变得非常非常重要。

物流基础设施投资与人才投入

Nicolai Tangen: How much money have you spent building the infrastructure on the logistic side?

Nicolai Tangen: 你们在物流基础设施方面投入了多少资金？

Forrest Li: Well, it's a sizable investment, but we have been very, very smart and very, very cautious in terms of the capital. Most of our facilities are on a lease basis. We don't really purchase land, we don't really purchase building. But I think it's less about the money, it's about the effort and it's about the determination. We are not a logistics company, and we don't have the in-house logistics team that has been very, very good experience really focus on things. But we have a lot of very, very smart talent. Do you really want your best talent to work on those challenges? Most of the people they say they probably don't want to work on those things, but if you want to build up a successful e-commerce business, this is the thing you have to work on. That's why we assign our best talent and the smartest ones to focus on those issues. They put a lot of effort to figure out every single point A to point B for the route, what is the best way, what is the optimized way for delivery, which is the cheapest cost and with the shortest time. This is very much a bottom-up effort.

Forrest Li: 嗯，这是一笔可观的投资，但我们在资本方面一直非常非常聪明和谨慎。我们的大部分设施都是租赁的。我们不购买土地，也不购买建筑物。但我认为这更多地关乎努力和决心，而不是金钱。我们不是一家物流公司，我们也没有经验丰富的内部物流团队来专门处理这些事情。但我们有很多非常非常聪明的人才。你真的愿意让你最优秀的人才去应对这些挑战吗？大多数人可能会说他们不想做这些事情，但如果你想建立一个成功的电子商务业务，这些就是你必须处理的事情。这就是为什么我们指派我们最优秀、最聪明的人才来专注于这些问题。他们投入了大量精力来规划从A点到B点的每一条路线，找出最佳、最优化的配送方式，以最低的成本和最短的时间完成配送。这很大程度上是一种自下而上的努力。

Nicolai Tangen: What are the key factors that you have to tick in order to beat these competitors? What are the other things other than logistics that you think are important?

Nicolai Tangen: 你们需要满足哪些关键因素才能击败这些竞争对手？除了物流之外，您认为还有哪些重要因素？

客户至上与长期愿景

Forrest Li: Many, many things. But I think what really matters to us is a very long-term horizon. We believe in this business, and we do this business. We see Southeast Asia as our home market, and we foresee ourselves will be an e-commerce supplier here forever. So whatever we build is a very, very long-term focus. We care not much about the competitors. Over time we have gone through several rounds of competitions. Competitors sometimes come and go, they come by waves and they also leave by waves. But we are the one always stay here. This is our home ground. So we have been very, very focused on to build up the customer satisfaction. I think we're very obsessed with our customers, right? On a daily basis, our NPS score (Net Promoter Score: 净推荐值，衡量客户忠诚度的指标) is getting better. Are the customers just more happier? Are they happier to buy things on Shopee? Are they buying more? Are they buying more frequently? And they give us more trust. So I think that is really the advantage we want to build and to make a sustainable success here.

Forrest Li: 很多很多。但我认为对我们来说真正重要的是一个非常长期的视野。我们相信这项业务，并且我们正在做这项业务。我们视东南亚为我们的本土市场，我们预见自己将永远是这里的电子商务供应商。因此，我们所做的一切都着眼于非常非常长远的未来。我们不太关心竞争对手。随着时间的推移，我们经历了多轮竞争。竞争对手有时来来去去，他们像潮水一样涌来，也像潮水一样退去。但我们是永远留在这里的。这是我们的主场。所以我们一直非常专注于提升客户满意度。我想我们对客户非常痴迷，对吗？每天，我们的净推荐值 (NPS score: 净推荐值，衡量客户忠诚度的指标) 都在提高。顾客是否更开心？他们是否更乐意在Shopee上购物？他们购买的更多吗？他们购买的频率更高吗？他们是否更信任我们？所以我认为这正是我们想要建立的优势，并在这里取得可持续的成功。

关键指标与电商未来发展

Nicolai Tangen: So what are the numbers you look at on a daily basis from this part of the business?

Nicolai Tangen: 那么，对于这部分业务，您每天关注哪些数据？

Forrest Li: Wow, there's quite a lot. It starts with the daily orders, the GMV (Gross Merchandise Value: 商品交易总额), the active user numbers on our app, the purchase frequency. For every delivery, we don't look at every single delivery, but we look at a cohort basis: what is the average delivery time, is this meeting our expectation, is it getting better than last week? What is the customer service satisfaction rate? How soon we resolve the customer complaints, the issues? All those small things. It's not only for us, we also track all the merchants. You know we have a chatbot for the customer service. It's not only between us and the customers, it's also between every single merchant and the customers. We want to make sure all the merchants on Shopee platform also provide a very good customer service. We also check them, we rate them in terms of how quickly they respond to a customer inquiry. So this is, and we have certain incentive to encourage them to do it better.

Forrest Li: 哇，有很多。它从每日订单量、商品交易总额 (GMV: Gross Merchandise Value: 商品交易总额)、我们应用程序上的活跃用户数量、购买频率开始。对于每一次配送，我们不关注每一次单独的配送，而是以队列为基础进行观察：平均配送时间是多少，这是否符合我们的预期，是否比上周有所改善？客户服务满意度是多少？我们解决客户投诉和问题有多快？所有这些小细节。不仅对我们自己，我们还追踪所有商家。你知道我们有客服聊天机器人。它不仅是我们和客户之间，也存在于每个商家和客户之间。我们希望确保Shopee平台上的所有商家也能提供非常好的客户服务。我们还会检查他们，根据他们回复客户咨询的速度给他们评分。因此，我们也有一定的激励措施来鼓励他们做得更好。

Nicolai Tangen: What do you think is going to be the future development in this business? What are the next developments?

Nicolai Tangen: 您认为这项业务未来的发展方向是什么？接下来的发展会是什么？

Forrest Li: I think fundamentally the core of the e-commerce is how do you make sure it's number one, it's more affordable and more accessible to more people to have more people to enjoy the benefit of the e-commerce. This is related to a lot of work in the supply chain optimizations. At this moment, we are not just matching whatever the merchandise with the customers, we also put a lot of effort to work with a lot of upstream suppliers and how to make their product more attractive, more competitive. We provide a lot of them the market information what really customers want and to help them to do better businesses. Again, so delivery is a big thing. It's a very, very important part in the whole e-commerce experience, and there's still a lot of more we can do. You can always make it cheaper and faster. So we're going to keep doing on that. We also noticed there's a certain new trend in the industry, more recently the live streaming. That is a new way of selling things and the engagement with the buyers. Also, that could be a way to do e-commerce customer service. You can just sitting there do the live streaming to answer questions, whatever questions you have on the product. So we embrace that format. We want to make sure whoever want to sell through live streaming, it can also sell on Shopee. The industry will continually evolve. But I'll say this will be just gradually, and the fundamental things will not change: just make things cheaper and faster to customers for whatever you can do.

Forrest Li: 我认为，从根本上讲，电子商务的核心是如何确保它：第一，更经济实惠，让更多人更容易获得，让更多人享受到电子商务的益处。这涉及到供应链优化方面的大量工作。目前，我们不仅将商品与顾客进行匹配，我们还投入大量精力与上游供应商合作，研究如何使他们的产品更具吸引力、更具竞争力。我们向他们提供了大量市场信息，告诉他们顾客真正想要什么，以帮助他们做得更好。再者，配送是一个大问题。它在整个电子商务体验中扮演着非常重要的角色，我们还有很多可以改进的地方。你总是可以做得更便宜、更快。所以我们会继续在这方面努力。我们也注意到行业中出现了一些新的趋势，最近是直播。这是一种新的销售方式，以及与买家的互动方式。此外，这也可以成为一种电子商务客服方式。你可以坐在那里进行直播，回答关于产品的任何问题。所以我们拥抱这种模式。我们希望确保任何想通过直播销售的人，也能在Shopee上销售。这个行业将不断演进。但我认为这只会是渐进式的，根本的东西不会改变：无论你能做什么，都要让商品对顾客来说更便宜、更快。

AI在电商领域的应用

Nicolai Tangen: And so what part of the technology are you working on just now to develop further?

Nicolai Tangen: 那么，目前你们正在进一步开发哪方面的技术？

Forrest Li: Well, there's many, many things, but if you have to call out a very, very specific one, actually we are very, very excited to see how much AI can help to improve the businesses. We have already seen some very visible progress. For example, considering the transaction volume we are dealing with on a daily basis, it's such a big business. We handle millions of customer inquiries on a daily basis. Behind every purchase there's a lot of inquiries. The customer always want to know, "Is it something really good to buy? What is the color do you have? I already made a purchase, when can I receive it? Where's my parcel? If I don't like it, what can I do? What else do you sell?" Now, 80% of such inquiries is handled by AI chatbot (AI Chatbot: 基于人工智能的聊天机器人).

Forrest Li: 嗯，有很多方面，但如果非要指出一个非常具体的，那就是我们非常非常兴奋地看到人工智能聊天机器人 (AI Chatbot: 基于人工智能的聊天机器人) 能在多大程度上帮助改善业务。我们已经看到了一些非常显著的进展。例如，考虑到我们每天处理的交易量，这是一项非常庞大的业务。我们每天处理数百万的客户咨询。每一次购买背后都有大量的咨询。顾客总是想知道：“这东西真的好买吗？你们有什么颜色？我已经买了，什么时候能收到？我的包裹在哪里？如果我不喜欢怎么办？你们还卖什么？”现在，80%的此类咨询都由AI聊天机器人处理。

Nicolai Tangen: Oh wow.

Nicolai Tangen: 哦，哇。

Forrest Li: And the satisfaction rate is very, very high. We do the AB test. For some we ask the chatbot enabled by AI to do the customer service, some is by human being, and we compare the satisfaction rate, and actually it's on par.

Forrest Li: 而且满意度非常非常高。我们做了AB测试。有些由AI支持的聊天机器人提供客户服务，有些由人工提供，我们比较了满意度，实际上是旗鼓相当的。

Nicolai Tangen: Wow.

Nicolai Tangen: 哇。

Forrest Li: Yeah. So now even we use AI tools to train our customer service representative. Even we use an AI tool, a kind of an AI service trainer, to train the human customer service representative. So that's very interesting.

Forrest Li: 是的。所以现在我们甚至使用AI工具来培训我们的客服代表。我们甚至使用一种AI工具，一种AI服务培训师，来培训人工客服代表。这非常有趣。

游戏业务发展：平台化与社交化

Nicolai Tangen: What about the gaming business? What is the latest developments there?

Nicolai Tangen: 游戏业务方面呢？最新的发展是什么？

Forrest Li: The latest development actually to us is Free Fire is already a very, very successful game. Increasingly we notice the game is beyond the game, actually it's really become a platform. If you think about Free Fire as an app on your phone, it's a mobile game, it's a huge aggregator of traffic. Increasingly we see when you have that traffic, whatever the new game content, the new game play, you can just keep adding into this platform, enter into this game. So the game is really become not just a product, a finished product, it become a service and it become an evergreen platform. I think this is very, very powerful. Now we even can identify a lot of social trend in the game. People really talk about what is the hot topic in their community, in their society. Actually last year, there was a very famous hippo that became very, very famous in Thailand and suddenly became a global phenomenon. Everybody said, "Oh, this baby hippo is so cute, it's so adorable." Within two weeks, we built this hippo into the game. It became an in-game character, and there's a lot of in-game custom pet related to this hippo. It's really, really loved by the gamers. The Thai gamers feel very, very proud to say, "Oh, this is a local game, so local, they care what we care here." Globally everybody said, "Oh, this is so cute hippo and want to go to Thailand to see it." So it's beyond the game, and we see a lot of social media post about the in-game character of these hippo also make Free Fire more famous beyond the gamer audience. I think this is some new trend we have been observing. I'm a big believer, I think the game is increasingly become the primary entertainment and social tools for the younger generation.

Forrest Li: 对我们来说，最新的发展是《Free Fire》已经是一款非常非常成功的游戏。我们越来越注意到，游戏已经超越了游戏本身，实际上它已经成为一个平台。如果你把《Free Fire》看作你手机上的一个应用程序，它是一款手机游戏，也是一个巨大的流量聚合器。我们看到，当你拥有了这些流量，无论出现什么新的游戏内容、新的玩法，你都可以不断地添加到这个平台中，融入到这款游戏中。所以游戏真的不仅仅是一个产品、一个成品，它变成了一种服务，变成了一个常青的平台。我认为这非常非常强大。现在我们甚至可以在游戏中识别出很多社会趋势。人们真的会讨论他们社区、他们社会中的热门话题。实际上去年，有一只非常著名的河马在泰国变得非常非常有名，并突然成为一种全球现象。每个人都说：“哦，这只小河马太可爱了，太招人喜欢了。”两周之内，我们把这只河马做进了游戏。它成了一个游戏角色，游戏中还有很多与这只河马相关的定制宠物。它真的非常非常受玩家喜爱。泰国的玩家非常自豪地说：“哦，这是一个本土游戏，非常本土化，他们关心我们这里关心的事情。”全球所有人都说：“哦，这只河马太可爱了，想去泰国看看它。”所以它超越了游戏本身，我们看到很多关于这些河马游戏角色的社交媒体帖子也让《Free Fire》在玩家受众之外变得更加出名。我认为这是我们一直在观察的一些新趋势。我坚信，游戏正日益成为年轻一代主要的娱乐和社交工具。

AI在游戏开发与体验中的作用

Nicolai Tangen: What are some of the other developments that you think we could be seeing here going forward?

Nicolai Tangen: 您认为未来我们还会看到哪些其他发展？

Forrest Li: Well, again, so I have to mention AI again. This is the thing that will be the game changer. We have already seen that, and it's very obvious on the production side. For any game, you know, you need to generate a lot of new content, generate a lot of code, and generate a lot of arts. Previously, a lot of things, for the very, very basic ones, we had to outsource to third-party studios. I'm talking about the arts. They came up, we give them the concept, they came up some very basic drawings, and then our in-house senior designer just look at one by one and pick the good ones and give the final touch before go to production. Now the entire this process is very much done by AI. Our designer just tell the AI tools, "Okay, generate things for me. I want this and imagine this word, imagine this character." Suddenly a lot of it could be generated. I mean there are, they're not that consistent yet the quality, and there could be errors here and there, but it's a good starting point. Again, our in-house senior designer will just pick the ones that are really good and just do the final touch and supervise the entire process. That saves a lot of time. I think that will largely increase the productivity on the creativity side. But actually more important and more exciting part is on the gaming experience part. I think it's still at a very, very early stage. But I can see the result. I can give you an example of certain things we're trying. For example, Free Fire is really a team game. The biggest fun is coming from you go together play the game with other people, you form a team and together come out with a different strategy, different gameplay, and people play different roles, try to win as a team together. But we have a lot of very shy gamers, they just don't want to reach out to other gamers. They log into the game, they just play solo and they always play solo. I think it's great to play solo, it has a great experience, but we feel something is missing, it's a waste, because actually it would be much, much more enjoyable if you play as a team game. So what we're doing now is like before we try to match them up with some bots, but the bots were very, very predictable, very, very stupid in a way. After a while you know this is a bot, it's not fun to really play together. But because of the new technology, the AI, actually the bots become much, much smarter, and they can not only play the game with you, give you the guidance what you do in the game, they also can chat with you, can make a joke with you. It's really kind of become a very similar human experience. It's so real that for a lot of the cases you cannot really hard to tell the difference.

Forrest Li: 嗯，我又要提到人工智能了。这将是改变游戏规则的事物。我们已经看到了这一点，在制作方面非常明显。你知道，任何游戏都需要生成大量新内容、大量代码和大量美术作品。以前，很多非常基础的工作，我们不得不外包给第三方工作室。我说的是美术方面。我们提供概念，他们画出一些非常基础的草图，然后我们的内部高级设计师会逐一查看，挑选出好的，并在投入生产前进行最后的润色。现在，整个过程很大程度上由AI完成。我们的设计师只需告诉AI工具：“好的，为我生成这些东西。我想要这个，想象这个词，想象这个角色。”突然间，就能生成很多内容。我的意思是，它们的质量还没有那么一致，可能会有一些错误，但这是一个很好的起点。同样，我们的内部高级设计师会挑选出真正好的，进行最后的润色，并监督整个过程。这节省了大量时间。我认为这将大大提高创意方面的生产力。但实际上更重要、更令人兴奋的部分是游戏体验方面。我认为它仍处于非常非常早期的阶段。但我已经看到了成果。我可以给你举一个我们正在尝试的例子。例如，《Free Fire》是一款真正的团队游戏。最大的乐趣来自于你和他人一起玩游戏，你们组成一个团队，共同制定不同的策略，不同的玩法，人们扮演不同的角色，努力作为一个团队一起获胜。但我们有很多非常害羞的玩家，他们就是不想接触其他玩家。他们登录游戏，只是单人玩，而且总是单人玩。我认为单人玩也很棒，体验很好，但我们觉得少了点什么，有点浪费，因为如果你玩团队游戏，实际上会更有趣得多。所以我们现在做的是，以前我们尝试让他们与一些机器人组队，但机器人非常可预测，在某种程度上非常愚蠢。过了一段时间你就知道这是机器人，一起玩就不好玩了。但由于新技术，也就是AI，机器人变得聪明得多，它们不仅可以和你一起玩游戏，给你游戏中的指导，它们还可以和你聊天，和你开玩笑。它真的变得非常类似于人类的体验。它如此真实，以至于在很多情况下你很难分辨出区别。

Nicolai Tangen: How many people do you have in game development?

Nicolai Tangen: 你们有多少人从事游戏开发？

Forrest Li: We have about 2,000 people developing games.

Forrest Li: 我们大约有2000人从事游戏开发。

Nicolai Tangen: Wow. What is a good game?

Nicolai Tangen: 哇。什么是好游戏？

好游戏的定义

Forrest Li: What is a good game? Well, it's a fun game to play. It's fun to play within the first hour, and it's still fun to play after 100 hours. It's easy to start. We want to build up the game that is accessible to everyone. We want everybody to become a gamer and enjoying the gameplay. But you need practice, and you need a lot of effort to become an expert. So I think that is the key element in my view of a good game.

Forrest Li: 什么是好游戏？嗯，它是一款好玩的游戏。在第一个小时内玩得开心，玩了100个小时后仍然觉得有趣。它很容易上手。我们想开发一款人人都能玩的游戏。我们希望每个人都能成为玩家，享受游戏乐趣。但你需要练习，你需要付出很多努力才能成为专家。所以，我认为这是我眼中好游戏的关键要素。

金融科技业务：解决支付痛点与消费信贷

Nicolai Tangen: Now the last, the third area you have is fintech. Tell us what are you doing there?

Nicolai Tangen: 现在，你们的第三个领域是金融科技。能告诉我们你们在那里做什么吗？

Forrest Li: This is amazing, and this is a very, very exciting business. We think we have full potential there. We started these businesses actually by resolving a lot of issues, the challenges we have for our video game business and for our e-commerce businesses. In the early days, even we publish the games, and we have the best games from all over the world, but because people had no credit card, for the gamers they had no way to pay us. We have to build up a cash card, a gift card network ourselves as a game company. It's a payment network. I remember the days I drive my car with all the bags of credit card to go around 7-Eleven to distribute and to count how many cards I have in the stock and how much money I receive. Later on, for e-commerce, online transaction became a big challenge as well. There are so many transactions, and how you want to make sure the transaction is all smooth in such a large scale and in a very, very safe way. So that's all the challenge we started with. Thus we build up a lot of solutions, the product under the SeaMoney or fintech business umbrella to solve these issues. But actually we see an increasingly very, very big opportunity because of our e-commerce businesses. We realize when people want to buy things, they really don't have much access to the consumption credit. Such an issue has been largely resolved in most of the Western market by credit card, but as you know the credit card penetration is relatively low in most of the market we operated in. So people just do not have access to credit. That's why we introduced, through our Shopee purchase, this credit line for them. They can just buy things now, but pay it later. In some other Western market this is just a supplementary to the credit card, but here because it's become a major main solution. Even within a very short period of time, SeaMoney is already the largest digital lender for the consumer consumption in Southeast Asia. We already have over $7 billion loan book, and it's growing very, very rapidly.

Forrest Li: 这非常令人惊叹，也是一项非常非常令人兴奋的业务。我们认为它具有充分的潜力。我们开展这些业务，实际上是为了解决我们在视频游戏业务和电子商务业务中遇到的许多问题和挑战。早期，即使我们发行了来自世界各地的最优秀的游戏，但由于人们没有信用卡，玩家们无法向我们付款。我们作为一家游戏公司，不得不自己建立一个现金卡、礼品卡网络。这是一个支付网络。我记得那些日子，我开车带着一袋袋的信用卡，挨家挨户去7-Eleven分发，清点库存里有多少卡，收到了多少钱。后来，对于电子商务来说，在线交易也成为了一个巨大的挑战。有如此多的交易，如何确保如此大规模的交易都能顺利且非常安全地进行。这些都是我们最初面临的挑战。因此，我们在SeaMoney或金融科技业务旗下开发了许多解决方案和产品来解决这些问题。但实际上，我们看到了一个越来越大的机会，这得益于我们的电子商务业务。我们意识到，当人们想要购物时，他们很难获得消费信贷。在大多数西方市场，这个问题已经通过信用卡得到了很大程度的解决，但正如您所知，在我们运营的大多数市场中，信用卡的普及率相对较低。所以人们根本无法获得信贷。这就是为什么我们通过Shopee购物引入了这种信用额度，他们现在可以购物，但稍后付款。在其他一些西方市场，这只是信用卡的补充，但在这里，它已经成为一个主要的解决方案。即使在非常短的时间内，SeaMoney已经成为东南亚最大的消费者数字信贷提供商。我们已经拥有超过70亿美元的贷款账簿，并且正在非常非常迅速地增长。

Nicolai Tangen: So in a way, these businesses fit together and there is a logical connection between them.

Nicolai Tangen: 所以从某种意义上说，这些业务是相互契合的，它们之间存在着逻辑上的联系。

Forrest Li: Yeah.

Forrest Li: 是的。

业务协同与未来扩展：AI驱动新机遇

Nicolai Tangen: What would be the next logical extension of your business mix?

Nicolai Tangen: 那么，你们业务组合的下一个逻辑扩展会是什么？

Forrest Li: Well, there's a lot of things we can think about. At this moment, we haven't really, we don't rush into say, "Okay, this will be a new business we're going to enter into." I think there's still so much we can do in the three verticals we have. These are indeed three very, very big verticals and three very, very big applications at the moment.

Forrest Li: 嗯，有很多事情我们可以考虑。目前，我们还没有真正急于说“好的，这将是我们即将进入的新业务。”我认为在我们现有的三个垂直领域中，我们仍有许多工作可做。目前，这确实是三个非常非常大的垂直领域和三个非常非常大的应用。

Nicolai Tangen: You mentioned AI several times. Could we see you going into a more pure play AI?

Nicolai Tangen: 您多次提到人工智能。我们是否会看到你们进入更纯粹的人工智能领域？

Forrest Li: It could be. It could be. As I mentioned, we have put a lot of effort on each business lines for the specific applications. But on the company level, we have a lot of new initiative as well. We look at the entire organization how the organization is structured, is organized. Is it a very much an AI-centric organization? I think that will be the future. Also we encourage a lot of bottom-up initiatives. Back 10 years ago when we just get into the mobile internet revolution, I remember we in-house developed a lot of pilot and all the different types of apps. They called all the different names and try to become a big business. Eventually Shopee actually, one of the project number six, became a very, very big mobile e-commerce businesses. Today again, we have several agent platforms, and we provide the tools in house. We allow, we encourage everybody in the company with or without coding experience to build up the agent for their specific need. So I do believe whatever the new business opportunity we may capture, you have to start with solve a very, very specific problem. Now we provide the tools, and we start with some in-house problems. Hopefully if something really become valuable and can be applied not only in-house but for the more broader customer base, we should launch it as a standalone business. That will be the new business enabled by AI.

Forrest Li: 有可能。很有可能。正如我所提到的，我们已经为每个业务线上的特定应用投入了大量精力。但在公司层面，我们也有很多新的举措。我们审视整个组织的结构和组织方式。它是否是一个以AI为中心的组织？我认为那将是未来。我们还鼓励许多自下而上的创新。回溯到10年前，当我们刚刚进入移动互联网革命时，我记得我们内部开发了许多试点项目和各种不同类型的应用程序。它们都有不同的名称，并试图发展成为大业务。最终，Shopee实际上是第六个项目之一，成为了一个非常非常大的移动电子商务业务。今天，我们再次拥有多个代理平台，并在内部提供工具。我们允许并鼓励公司中的每个人，无论是否有编码经验，都能根据自己的特定需求构建代理。所以我确实相信，无论我们可能抓住什么新的商业机会，都必须从解决一个非常具体的问题开始。现在我们提供工具，并从一些内部问题开始。希望如果有些东西真正变得有价值，并且不仅可以在内部应用，还可以应用于更广泛的客户群，我们应该将其作为一个独立的业务推出。那将是AI赋能的新业务。

学习榜样：亚马逊的启示

Nicolai Tangen: Which companies in the world do you admire the most?

Nicolai Tangen: 您最欣赏世界上哪些公司？

Forrest Li: Well, there's a lot of great companies, and I think it's hard for me to pick any specific one. But there's so many great things we can learn. I do admire in our industry, so Amazon. I think they are the pioneer, not only the pioneer of the e-commerce, and also they're doing great in a lot of things. We have to learn from them: very, very obsession with the customers, always focus on lower price for the customers, deliver the value to the customers. Then really, really focus on logistics network, which we also believe that is a key part of the e-commerce businesses. What we want to learn from them and also follow their path is like they incubate their cloud business and some additionally a lot of new businesses through their original e-commerce businesses. Hope we can follow that path as well to continually grow.

Forrest Li: 嗯，有很多伟大的公司，我认为很难选出任何一个特定的。但有很多我们可以学习的伟大之处。在我们这个行业中，我确实很欣赏亚马逊。我认为他们是先驱，不仅是电子商务的先驱，而且在很多方面都做得非常出色。我们必须向他们学习：对客户的极度痴迷，始终关注为客户提供更低的价格，为客户提供价值。然后真正专注于物流网络，我们也相信这是电子商务业务的关键部分。我们希望向他们学习并追随他们的道路，就像他们通过最初的电子商务业务孵化了他们的云业务以及许多其他新业务一样。希望我们也能循着这条道路继续成长。

迈向万亿市值：AI的驱动力

Nicolai Tangen: What would it take for you to be a trillion dollar company?

Nicolai Tangen: 你们要成为一家万亿美元市值的公司，需要具备什么？

Forrest Li: Well, I think it will be AI. Mobile internet, we rode the wave of the mobile internet revolution and made us a hundred billion dollar company. It's hard for us to imagine without the mobile internet revolution if we are just a PC game distributor. I think doesn't matter how good we are, there will be no way for us to be where we are today. And I think a trillion dollar business is always an aspiration, but increasingly I see the path there. I think the answer will be AI. AI just will be a lot of value creation and make people's, the technology will make people's life very, very different today and in a very, very better ways. I think this will bring a lot of convenience and joy to the customers, and large, large value will be created. A big pie will be created, and hope we just do our best to capture part of it, and a trillion dollar is very achievable.

Forrest Li: 嗯，我认为会是人工智能。移动互联网，我们乘着移动互联网革命的浪潮，使我们成为一家千亿美元市值的公司。我们很难想象，如果没有移动互联网革命，如果我们只是一家PC游戏分销商，无论我们做得多好，都无法达到今天的成就。我认为万亿美元的业务一直是一个愿景，但我越来越看到实现它的路径。我认为答案将是人工智能。人工智能将创造巨大的价值，并使人们的生活在今天变得非常非常不同，而且会以一种非常非常好的方式。我认为这将为客户带来很多便利和乐趣，巨大的价值将被创造出来。一块巨大的蛋糕将被创造出来，希望我们尽最大努力抓住其中一部分，万亿美元是非常可以实现的。

股价波动与不变的信念

Nicolai Tangen: Given the markets you're in, the share price can be very volatile. The share price was up five times and it's down 70%, and now it's back up sharply. Does that impact the way you think?

Nicolai Tangen: 考虑到你们所处的市场，股价可能会非常波动。股价曾上涨五倍，然后下跌70%，现在又大幅上涨。这会影响您的思考方式吗？

Forrest Li: Well, I think it's a good journey for us. I mean, I appreciate we have gone through that, and we are really proud that we have survived all those ups and downs. I would say there's not much impact. A lot of time the share price just reflect the external perception of the market, of the business, of the company. But I think as we stay true with our belief, which we believe in technology, I think technology will keep advancing, and technology across the entire history in the past and also probably in the future just continually getting better and change people's life in a better way, create a lot of value. That is a very, very convincing, and we deeply believe in that. On top of that, I think there is a huge market. Today, there's a lot of still, there's a lot of part of the world people not really fully enjoy the benefit a technology can bring to them. It's because of probably the infrastructure, because there's not very much local solution for them, and there's no right application. I think that is a part probably we can continually play a bigger role. We start that role from Southeast Asian market, our home market, and then in the past five years we also kind of bring our best practice to Brazil. Brazil become a very, very sizable market for us, and there's a lot of other places for us to continue to do that.

Forrest Li: 嗯，我认为这对我们来说是一段很好的旅程。我的意思是，我很感谢我们经历了这些，我们非常自豪我们挺过了所有的起起伏伏。我想说，影响不大。很多时候，股价只是反映了市场、业务、公司外部的看法。但我认为，只要我们坚守我们的信念，也就是我们对技术的信念，技术就会不断进步，技术在过去整个历史中，以及未来可能都会不断变得更好，以更好的方式改变人们的生活，创造巨大的价值。这是非常有说服力的，我们对此深信不疑。除此之外，我认为市场巨大。今天，世界上仍有许多地方的人们未能充分享受到技术能带给他们的好处。这可能是因为基础设施，也可能是因为他们缺乏非常本地化的解决方案，没有合适的应用。我认为这可能是我们可以继续扮演更大角色的一个部分。我们从东南亚市场，我们的本土市场开始扮演这个角色，然后在过去的五年里，我们也把我们的最佳实践带到了巴西。巴西成为了我们一个非常非常大的市场，还有很多其他地方我们可以继续这样做。

Sea的企业文化：五大核心价值观

Nicolai Tangen: Moving on to corporate culture. How would you define the corporate culture in Sea?

Nicolai Tangen: 接下来谈谈企业文化。您会如何定义Sea的企业文化？

Forrest Li: We have five core values. When you walk into the office, you may see the value wall. We have that wall in every single office. We want to make sure it's very, very visible. It's a reminder to all the employees on a daily basis. The five things is: we serve. We always want to make sure customer come first. Whatever we do, we need, we have the customer service mentality. We run. We highly value execution speed matters. If we get things done today, we're not going to wait till tomorrow. If we can run, we will not walk. So we adapt. We know we are in a very, very dynamic environment, and it's highly competitive, and the technology changes so fast. As you just mentioned, the share price can go five times and can go down 70, 80, 90%. So it's a very, very changing environment. So we need to make sure we can always adapt. We commit. Whatever you want to achieve, it doesn't matter it's a hundred billion dollar market cap or trillion billion dollar, whatever things you do, you want to be committed. That is the only way you can achieve excellence. Actually, the last one is we stay humble. I believe this is the foundation of our core values, the culture. If you have to pick one word to describe our corporate culture, that will be humility. I think it guides us in the good time.

Forrest Li: 我们有五个核心价值观。当你走进办公室时，你可能会看到我们的价值观墙。每个办公室都有这样的墙。我们希望它非常醒目。它每天提醒着所有的员工。这五点是：我们服务（serve）。我们始终确保客户至上。无论我们做什么，我们都需要、我们拥有客户服务的心态。我们奔跑（run）。我们高度重视执行速度。如果今天能完成，我们不会等到明天。如果能跑，我们就不会走。我们适应（adapt）。我们知道我们身处一个非常动态的环境，竞争激烈，技术变化如此之快。正如您刚才提到的，股价可以上涨五倍，也可以下跌70%、80%、90%。所以这是一个非常多变的环境。因此，我们需要确保我们能够始终适应。我们承诺（commit）。无论你想要实现什么，无论是千亿美元市值还是万亿美元市值，无论你做什么，你都必须投入。这是你取得卓越成就的唯一途径。实际上，最后一点是我们保持谦逊（stay humble）。我相信这是我们核心价值观和文化的基础。如果非要用一个词来形容我们的企业文化，那就是谦逊。我认为它在顺境中指引着我们。

谦逊的重要性与个人榜样

Nicolai Tangen: Why is it important to be humble?

Nicolai Tangen: 为什么保持谦逊很重要？

Forrest Li: Well, I think it's interesting, and that is even before I started the company. I was a Stanford student, and I was fortunate enough to sit in the audience when Steve Jobs gave this very famous commencement speech, "Stay foolish, stay hungry." He shared three amazing personal stories. But my takeaway from that speech actually is an advice to the young, fresh graduate, and it's a calling for humility. Because you have to be humble and to stay humble to stay foolish. You have to acknowledge, "Okay, you are probably not the smartest ones, and there are a lot of things can be done better, you should keep learning." And you have to be humble to stay hungry, to try to achieve more. It's not enough, and there's more things we can do. That's a very, very good reminder to me as a person, and also how I want to run my company. So this is very, very important, I think, to keep driving the company, keep moving forward. It's also so important in the difficult time. As you mentioned, our share price hit historical high a few years ago in 2021 in the mid of the COVID. The success comes so fast and so sudden. Suddenly the whole organization feels so good. Everybody feels, "Oh, we are amazing company, we are the best, we are the superman. See our share price, see our market cap." I have a very, very unsettled feeling. I feel really, really worried at that time. I wrote a company-wide note to everybody. I say, "It's very important to remind ourselves, we need to stay humble. Whatever we achieved or whatever how market see us, we are still young, we're still very, very small compared to our ambition, and we shouldn't feel too good, too proud of ourselves."

Forrest Li: 嗯，我认为这很有趣，甚至在我创办公司之前就是如此。我曾是斯坦福大学的学生，我有幸在史蒂夫·乔布斯发表那场非常著名的毕业典礼演讲“求知若饥，虚心若愚”时坐在听众席上。他分享了三个令人惊叹的个人故事。但我从那次演讲中得到的收获，实际上是对年轻毕业生的忠告，也是对谦逊的呼唤。因为你必须谦逊，保持谦逊才能保持虚心若愚。你必须承认，“好吧，你可能不是最聪明的人，还有很多事情可以做得更好，你应该不断学习。”而且你必须谦逊才能保持求知若饥，去努力实现更多。这还不够，我们还有更多可以做的事情。这对我个人来说是一个非常非常好的提醒，也是我希望如何经营我的公司的方式。所以，我认为这对于推动公司不断前进非常非常重要。在困难时期，它也同样重要。正如您所提到的，几年前，在2021年疫情中期，我们的股价达到了历史新高。成功来得如此之快、如此突然。突然间，整个组织都感觉非常好。每个人都觉得：“哦，我们是一家了不起的公司，我们是最棒的，我们是超人。看看我们的股价，看看我们的市值。”我有一种非常非常不安的感觉。那时我真的非常非常担心。我给所有员工写了一封全公司范围的信。我说：“提醒我们自己，保持谦逊非常重要。无论我们取得了什么成就，无论市场如何看待我们，与我们的抱负相比，我们仍然年轻，仍然非常非常小，我们不应该感觉太好，不应该过于自豪。”

Nicolai Tangen: But where does your personal humbleness come from?

Nicolai Tangen: 但您个人的谦逊来自哪里呢？

Forrest Li: I don't know. I think that's just me. I always see the greatness of other people. I always see people, I enjoy working with people who have a higher ambition and are smarter than me, could be more capable than me. To me, I always feel, "Okay, there's a lot of things I can do better." I think it comes from self-drive.

Forrest Li: 我不知道。我想那只是我。我总是看到别人的伟大之处。我总是看到那些比我更有抱负、更聪明、能力更强的人，我喜欢和他们一起工作。对我来说，我总是觉得：“好吧，我还有很多事情可以做得更好。”我认为这来自于自我驱动。

Nicolai Tangen: And where does that come from?

Nicolai Tangen: 那又来自哪里呢？

Forrest Li: Actually, I think it reminds me of a great movie called Forrest Gump. I picked the name Forrest because of that movie. I just love that character in the movie.

Forrest Li: 实际上，我想这让我想起一部很棒的电影，叫《阿甘正传》。我选择Forrest这个名字就是因为那部电影。我只是喜欢电影里的那个角色。

Nicolai Tangen: What is it? What is it? I love Forrest Gump, too, but what is it with Forrest that you like?

Nicolai Tangen: 是什么？是什么？我也喜欢《阿甘正传》，但是您喜欢阿甘的什么呢？

Forrest Li: Well, he's clearly not the smartest person in any room, in the classroom, and he's not the most savvy. I feel related to that. Along the journey, I always see there's a lot of people smarter than me and more capable, more savvy than me. I think it's maybe naturally for me to identify the strengths of other people and find a way to admire them and to work with. But look at what Forrest Gump does. He has a very kind heart in a very, very authentic way. He just keep trying to be helping and try to be loyal to the friends, to the community, and try to help others, even just a little small things. It doesn't matter his family, his friends, his co-workers, his wartime colleagues. He's trying to help other people do good things in a very, very authentic way.

Forrest Li: 嗯，他显然不是任何场合、任何教室里最聪明的人，也不是最精明的人。我对此感同身受。在旅途中，我总是看到很多人比我更聪明、更有能力、更精明。我想对我来说，识别他人的优点并找到欣赏他们、与他们合作的方式也许是很自然的。但是看看阿甘做了什么。他以一种非常非常真诚的方式拥有一颗善良的心。他只是不断地努力去帮助别人，努力忠于朋友、忠于社区，努力帮助他人，即使只是很小的事情。无论是他的家人、朋友、同事，还是战友。他总是以一种非常非常真诚的方式努力帮助他人做好事。

Nicolai Tangen: How many times have you seen the movie?

Nicolai Tangen: 您看过这部电影多少次？

Forrest Li: Probably at least 10 times over the years.

Forrest Li: 这么多年来，大概至少有10次。

Nicolai Tangen: Do you think life is a box of chocolate?

Nicolai Tangen: 您觉得生活是一盒巧克力吗？

Forrest Li: Yeah, it is a box of chocolate. It's full of surprise, and it's full of flavors. I mean, the aspiration I draw is not only because of Forrest Gump what he has done. In a way, he made such a big impact to the community, even in the movies, he changed the course of the American history. But he also lead a very, very rich life and very, very successful life both financially and socially. He's very, very successful. I think in a way probably I see him as my role model, and he's a very humble person to start with. That's maybe where I draw the aspiration from.

Forrest Li: 是的，它就是一盒巧克力。充满惊喜，充满风味。我的意思是，我从中汲取的灵感，不仅仅是因为阿甘所做的事情。在某种程度上，他对社会产生了如此大的影响，甚至在电影中，他改变了美国历史的进程。但他同时也过着非常非常丰富且非常非常成功的生活，无论是经济上还是社会上，他都非常成功。我想在某种程度上，我可能把他视为我的榜样，他首先是一个非常谦逊的人。这也许就是我汲取灵感的地方。

Nicolai Tangen: Well, he bought some shares in the fruit company for instance.

Nicolai Tangen: 嗯，比如说，他买了一些水果公司的股票。

Forrest Li: Yes. Yeah.

Forrest Li: 是的。是的。

Nicolai Tangen: I love this. This is fantastic. But how do you balance humility with confidence and ambition?

Nicolai Tangen: 我喜欢这个。这太棒了。但是您如何平衡谦逊与自信和抱负呢？

谦逊与自信、抱负的平衡

Forrest Li: Humility, I think it's I don't see it as the opposite to confidence. I feel I'm a very humble person, and Sea is a very, very humble organization. But at the same time, we are also very, very confident. We know what we're doing, and there's always things we can do better. But we also feel very proud for the things we are doing now and how good we can be and how much we have achieved. In a way, I think humility works perfectly with ambition. Because you can say, "It's a big achievement to be the largest, most valuable company in Southeast Asia. It's a hundred billion dollar, that is a big achievement." But if I go to Silicon Valley, there's many trillion dollar companies. If your ambition is one of these days to become one of them and to be in their league, today we are still very, very early, and that is a way to keep us feel very, very humble. We are still very early and we are still very small.

Forrest Li: 谦逊，我认为它与自信并非对立面。我觉得我是一个非常谦逊的人，Sea也是一个非常非常谦逊的组织。但同时，我们也充满自信。我们知道自己在做什么，并且总有可以做得更好的地方。但我们也为我们现在所做的事情、我们能达到的高度以及我们所取得的成就感到非常自豪。从某种意义上说，我认为谦逊与抱负完美结合。因为你可以说：“成为东南亚最大、最有价值的公司是一项巨大的成就。千亿美元市值，这是一项巨大的成就。”但如果我去硅谷，那里有很多万亿美元市值的公司。如果你的抱负是有朝一日成为其中之一，与他们并驾齐驱，那么今天我们仍然非常非常早期，这是一种让我们保持非常非常谦逊的方式。我们仍然很早期，仍然很渺小。

领导力哲学：成就他人、直面困难、建立信任

Nicolai Tangen: What is your leadership philosophy? How do you lead the company?

Nicolai Tangen: 您的领导力哲学是什么？您如何领导公司？

Forrest Li: I would say three things I really value, it doesn't matter when we were just a 10 people startup or today we have 50,000 employees, a very large organizations. First is I do feel leadership should be all about not about yourself. It's about as a leader, how do you light up others? How to make other people being successful? I think that is very, very important. This is start when we're a 10 people company. I keep thinking even as a leader, how I make sure these 10 people will be successful together with me? Because a lot of them take the risk, they quit their job, they can have a very, very good paid job, they have a bright future, but they decide to give up all other things and jump into this startup with me together. How to make sure they can realize their full potential, they can live their full life by working together with me? Today, that is what really I push myself every day: how to make sure all the 50,000 employees in the company, they can realize their full potential. They are doing what they really enjoying doing, and they can fully realize their strengths. I deeply believe if every single of them being successful, find their success in the company, this will be a very, very successful company. So every time I talk to my employees, it's always the first question in my mind is, "How can I make you better? And how can I support you as your CEO?" So this is the first thing. The second thing is I believe leader should show up in the difficult time and should always pick the most difficult decisions to make and take the most difficult actions. We all know sometimes an easy decision, an easy action doesn't mean it's the right one. Actually a lot of time it's the other way. As a leader, you need to take that ultimate responsibility and accountability. You cannot always just try to do the good things, the pleasant things, and the popular things. You should delegate that to your other team members. Let them do the pleasant things, let them do the popular things. You should count yourself to do the difficult things. During the COVID time, as you mentioned, our share price dropped a lot, and it's a very, very difficult time. We have to quickly change the course of our direction. We have to operate company with the from the capital abundance mentality to the capital scarcity kind of a situation. We have to achieve self-sufficient much, much quicker. So we have to make tough decisions. We have to exit market, we have to close down some new businesses, and we have to let go great people. Even for the people stay with us, I remember there's one year, a year end, we decide to freeze the salary, we decide to not giving out bonus, and we cut a lot of benefit. I voluntarily to stand up and to sign the company-wide note to inform everybody this decisions. I want them to hear from me, and I explain to them why this is my decision. It's not a HR decision, not anybody else in the organization's decisions, my decisions, and why I have to make these decisions. I also show I understand this means a lot of difficulty for our employees, but we need to gone through this together, and I seek for their understanding and support. Things like the difficult time the leader should stand up. The third thing is about trust. I think among all the leadership qualities, build up the trust is very, very important. People choose to follow you not because of how smart you are or how great idea you have. It's simply because people trust you. A lot of time this trust need to be mutual and need to be earned. I'm the person really enjoying personal relationships. I enjoyed time where much smaller companies, I feel very proud I know everybody's name, I know their birthday, I know how many kids they have.

Forrest Li: 我想说我真正看重的有三点，无论我们是只有10人的初创公司，还是今天拥有5万名员工的庞大组织。首先，我确实认为领导力不应只关乎自己。作为一名领导者，关键在于如何启发他人？如何让其他人取得成功？我认为这非常非常重要。这从我们只有10人的公司时就开始了。我一直在思考，即使作为领导者，我如何确保这10个人能和我一起取得成功？因为他们中的很多人冒着风险，辞掉了工作，他们本可以有非常好的高薪工作，拥有光明的前途，但他们决定放弃所有其他事情，和我一起投身这个初创公司。如何确保他们能够充分发挥潜力，通过与我一起工作，过上充实的生活？今天，这就是我每天真正鞭策自己的地方：如何确保公司所有5万名员工都能充分发挥他们的潜力。他们正在做自己真正喜欢做的事情，并且能够充分发挥自己的优势。我深信，如果他们每个人都能成功，在公司找到自己的成功，那么这将是一家非常非常成功的公司。所以每次我与员工交流时，我脑海中的第一个问题总是：“我如何能让你变得更好？作为你的首席执行官，我如何能支持你？”这是第一点。第二点是，我认为领导者应该在困难时期挺身而出，并且应该始终选择最艰难的决定，采取最艰难的行动。我们都知道，有时一个简单的决定、一个简单的行动并不意味着它是正确的。事实上，很多时候恰恰相反。作为领导者，你需要承担最终的责任和问责。你不能总是只做好的、令人愉快的事情，以及受欢迎的事情。你应该把这些事情委托给你的其他团队成员。让他们去做令人愉快的事情，让他们去做受欢迎的事情。你应该把自己定位为去做困难的事情。在疫情期间，正如您所提到的，我们的股价大幅下跌，那是一个非常非常困难的时期。我们必须迅速改变我们的方向。我们必须从资本充裕的心态转变为资本稀缺的局面来运营公司。我们必须更快地实现自给自足。所以我们必须做出艰难的决定。我们不得不退出市场，不得不关闭一些新业务，我们不得不裁掉优秀的人。即使对于留下来的员工，我记得有一年年底，我们决定冻结工资，决定不发放奖金，并且削减了许多福利。我自愿站出来，签署了全公司范围的通知，告知所有人这些决定。我希望他们从我这里听到，我向他们解释了为什么这是我的决定。这不是人力资源部门的决定，也不是组织中任何其他人的决定，是我的决定，以及我为什么必须做出这些决定。我还表明我理解这对我们的员工意味着许多困难，但我们需要共同度过难关，我寻求他们的理解和支持。在困难时期，领导者就应该挺身而出。第三点是关于信任。我认为在所有领导品质中，建立信任非常非常重要。人们选择追随你，不是因为你有多聪明，或者你有多么伟大的想法。仅仅是因为人们信任你。很多时候，这种信任需要是相互的，并且需要通过努力赢得。我是一个非常享受人际关系的人。我很享受在公司规模小得多的时候，我为认识每个人的名字、知道他们的生日、知道他们有多少孩子而感到非常自豪。

Nicolai Tangen: Not anymore.

Nicolai Tangen: 现在不是了。

Forrest Li: Not anymore. Yeah, not anymore. That's why I think that has to change how I built up the trust. Now I have to change in a much larger scale way. So I do rely on the company-wide note, and I take every opportunity to send company-wide email.

Forrest Li: 现在不是了。是的，现在不是了。这就是为什么我认为我必须改变我建立信任的方式。现在我必须以更大规模的方式进行改变。所以我确实依赖全公司范围的通知，我抓住每一个机会发送全公司范围的电子邮件。

Nicolai Tangen: How often do you do that?

Nicolai Tangen: 您多久做一次？

Forrest Li: Well, very, very regularly. I do our company birthday. I do our IPO anniversary. I do the year end Christmas holiday. Every quarter we will do earnings, and I want to make sure our guys, everybody in the company, hear about company result and performance first from me instead of from media, like from anybody else. Occasionally, when there's specific things I want to talk about, I also do that. When I travel, I want to make sure I regularly, I have a roster, I want to make sure I cover all our local offices, and I travel to meet them. When I'm in the local office, usually I do the town hall probably with hundreds of employees, and they can ask whatever the questions they ask, and they can ask real time live. No forbidden questions, and they can ask anything. In front of them, I will see the questions, and I will answer them one by one. I'm not going to skip any questions. I think that is a way to build up the trust.

Forrest Li: 嗯，非常非常频繁。我会发布公司生日的通知。我会发布IPO周年纪念的通知。我会发布年终圣诞节假期的通知。每个季度我们都会公布财报，我希望确保我们公司的每个人都首先从我这里听到公司的业绩和表现，而不是从媒体或其他任何人那里。偶尔，当有我想谈论的特定事情时，我也会这样做。当我出差时，我想确保我定期地，我有一个名单，我想确保我覆盖我们所有的当地办公室，并且我会出差去见他们。当我在当地办公室时，我通常会与数百名员工举行全体会议，他们可以问任何问题，他们可以实时提问。没有禁止提问，他们可以问任何事情。在他们面前，我会看到问题，我会一一回答。我不会跳过任何问题。我认为这是建立信任的一种方式。

团队建设与人才培养

Nicolai Tangen: Now you also are well known for building great teams, and you hire people sometimes straight from university and they stay with you, right? What do you think is the key to achieving that?

Nicolai Tangen: 您也以组建优秀团队而闻名，有时您会直接从大学招聘人才，他们也会一直留下来，对吗？您认为实现这一点的关键是什么？

Forrest Li: We have a very, very early days and we have this in-house management associate program. We brought in the young talents, and we grew them with them, give them the opportunity, and we develop them. A lot of graduates from this program today already after 10 years already play a very, very critical role in the company. We benefit a lot from such things. That's why we keep this best of practice. We keep these traditions every year. The leadership team, not only myself, the entire leadership team, we spend a lot of time for this campus recruiting. We want to make sure we bring in the very bright young talent, and we rotate them, and we put them on two-year training program, and we spend a lot of time mentoring them and coaching them. Hopefully they will find what they really enjoy and what they really love in the company, and they can stay long with the company and eventually become a very, very key contributor to our future growth. We do believe in the young people. I think it's starting with our early days when we started the video game e-commerce business here. The industry didn't really exist. There's no talent pool for us to directly hire with experience. So we kind of have to build up everything from the ground zero. The only things we can do just bring in the very capable, fast learning young people and just train them and grow them and grow them together, grow with them together and develop them. So the internal, the in-house talent development and build up internal talent pipeline is very, very important to us and become our key capability.

Forrest Li: 我们在公司早期就设立了内部管理培训生项目。我们引进年轻人才，与他们共同成长，给予他们机会，并培养他们。如今，许多从这个项目毕业的人，在10年后已在公司中扮演着非常关键的角色。我们从这些事情中受益匪浅。这就是为什么我们保留了这种最佳实践。我们每年都保持着这些传统。领导团队，不仅仅是我个人，是整个领导团队，我们都会投入大量时间进行校园招聘。我们希望确保能引进非常优秀的年轻人才，我们让他们轮岗，将他们安排到为期两年的培训项目中，我们花费大量时间指导和辅导他们。希望他们能在公司中找到自己真正喜欢和热爱的事物，并能长期留在公司，最终成为我们未来增长的关键贡献者。我们确实相信年轻人。我认为这始于我们早期在这里开展视频游戏和电子商务业务的时候。当时这个行业并不真正存在。没有现成的人才库供我们直接招聘有经验的人。所以我们不得不从零开始建立一切。我们唯一能做的就是引进那些非常有能力、学习速度快的年轻人，然后培训他们，让他们成长，与他们一起成长，并培养他们。因此，内部人才培养和建立内部人才储备对我们来说非常非常重要，并成为我们的核心能力。

工作与生活：家庭与财富观

Nicolai Tangen: How much do you work?

Nicolai Tangen: 您工作多长时间？

Forrest Li: Every day, all the time. Wherever I'm awake, I'm working.

Forrest Li: 每天，所有时间。只要我醒着，我都在工作。

Nicolai Tangen: When do you wake up?

Nicolai Tangen: 您什么时候起床？

Forrest Li: 6:00 or 7.

Forrest Li: 早上6点或7点。

Nicolai Tangen: And then you go to bed?

Nicolai Tangen: 然后您什么时候睡觉？

Forrest Li: 11, 12. I try to sleep 7, 8 hours a day.

Forrest Li: 晚上11点、12点。我尽量每天睡7到8个小时。

Nicolai Tangen: How do you relax?

Nicolai Tangen: 您如何放松？

Forrest Li: Spend a lot of time with my kids. They're still young. I get a lot of advice from my friends, "When they were young, try to spend as much as them you can. You will miss that time when they grow up and when they leave the family." So I cherish every moment I spend the time with them at home or travel together with them. Sometimes I learn a lot from them. I think it's probably because they are the younger generation customers, and I get a lot of insight from them as well for games, for e-commerce.

Forrest Li: 花很多时间陪伴我的孩子。他们还小。我从朋友那里得到了很多建议：“当他们还小的时候，尽量多花时间陪他们。当他们长大离家后，你会想念那段时光。”所以我珍惜在家或和他们一起旅行时度过的每一个时刻。有时我从他们身上学到很多。我想这可能是因为他们是年轻一代的消费者，我也从他们那里获得了许多关于游戏和电子商务的见解。

Nicolai Tangen: You become immensely wealthy. What do you enjoy doing with your money?

Nicolai Tangen: 您变得非常富有。您喜欢用您的钱做什么？

Forrest Li: Not much. I think for me, there's not much change actually. I eat less compared to 10 years ago, and I eat much simpler. I didn't change much in terms of what I dress. I enjoy dress the shirts, the pants with the company logo. Most of the time they're free. I haven't really thought about. I think it's probably it's not really about how to spend money. It's what is the really luxury I have with that money. I can have the freedom to really focus on what I enjoy doing. I probably don't need to just do the work, do anything just for make a living, for meet the ends at the end of the months. I think that is probably the biggest luxury I have with all this money. I can really focus on my passion and my ambitions. To me at this moment is very, very clear. I want to continually build Sea to a greater company.

Forrest Li: 不多。我觉得对我来说，其实没什么大的改变。和10年前相比，我吃得更少，也吃得更简单了。我的穿着也没怎么变。我喜欢穿印有公司标志的衬衫和裤子。大部分时候它们是免费的。我还没真正考虑过。我想这可能不是关于如何花钱。而是我拥有这些钱所带来的真正奢侈是什么。我可以拥有自由，真正专注于我喜欢做的事情。我可能不需要仅仅为了谋生、为了月底能收支平衡而工作，做任何事情。我想这可能是我拥有所有这些钱所带来的最大奢侈。我可以真正专注于我的热情和抱负。对我来说，此刻非常非常清楚。我希望继续将Sea打造成一家更伟大的公司。

给年轻人的建议：阿甘精神与涟漪效应

Nicolai Tangen: Finally, what is your advice to young people?

Nicolai Tangen: 最后，您对年轻人有什么建议？

Forrest Li: Actually, we talk about a little bit about that. Again, so I want to mention it's a movie, it's Forrest Gump. It indeed, I think, that's probably I watched the movie when I was young, I was in college, and it's such a lasting impact on me. We are all ordinary people. It's hard for us to identify ourselves being the smartest and the most savvy people in the room. We always ask ourselves, "Then does my really matters? And what can I do to make the, can I really make the impact?" I think what I learned from that movie is by just, it doesn't matter who you are, what you do, where you are, just by giving a little bit effort, doing the good things to people around you, could be your family, could be your community, could be your friends. You can live a very, very successful life. Sometimes you never know what's coming out of from this ripple effect. Sometimes it can end up in a big, big impact to the society. I think we all have a very short period of time, we only have this one life. I just encourage all the young people to rather than only just put a lot of time to think about yourself, and also think about people around you, and think simply think about how to, what you can do to make their life a little bit better. And I feel you could be, by doing that, you could be the biggest beneficiary, benefit most from it.

Forrest Li: 实际上，我们已经谈到了一点。再次，我想提一下那部电影，就是《阿甘正传》。确实，我想我年轻时，还在上大学的时候就看了这部电影，它对我产生了如此深远的影响。我们都是普通人。我们很难认为自己是房间里最聪明、最精明的人。我们总是问自己：“那我真的重要吗？我能做些什么来产生影响，我真的能产生影响吗？”我认为我从那部电影中学到的是，无论你是谁，你做什么，身处何地，只要付出一点点努力，对你身边的人做好事，无论是你的家人、社区还是朋友。你就能过上非常非常成功的生活。有时你永远不知道这种涟漪效应会带来什么。有时它最终会对社会产生巨大的影响。我认为我们所有人的时间都非常有限，我们只有这一生。我只是鼓励所有年轻人，与其只花大量时间考虑自己，不如也多想想你身边的人，简单地思考你能做些什么来让他们的生活变得更好一点。我觉得通过这样做，你最终可能会成为最大的受益者，从中受益最多。

Nicolai Tangen: Well, it's a beautiful place to end. Big thank you, incredibly impressive, and wow, what an interview. Big thank you.

Nicolai Tangen: 嗯，这是一个完美的结束。非常感谢，令人印象深刻，哇，多么精彩的采访。非常感谢。

Forrest Li: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me.

Forrest Li: 谢谢。非常感谢。谢谢您的邀请。