 So this morning we have a program that's going to take a few twists and turns and I think the place where it starts is one that has been on my mind for a few years in the ways that so many people in this industry are really amazingly focused on the well-being of others. They often sacrifice the well-being of themselves and so while there is a lot of conversation about consciousness I think sometimes the work the inner work doesn't get done when so much energy and effort and scrambling especially from our amazing social entrepreneurs that are here is spent externally making the world a better place. So I was really pleased when a member of the SoCAP community introduced me to Bo Xiao earlier this year. Bo is a very successful entrepreneur and venture capitalist but as you all know sometimes monetary success does not equate with happiness or fulfillment or an overall sense of accomplishment and well-being. So I was really I felt really privileged to hear about Bo's journey and I invited him to tell that story on this stage. It's worth noting also that in the theme of social capital markets and impact investing in October of 2017 Bo created a fund and committed a hundred million of his own family's capital to that fund to invest in a venture capital style but really specifically focused on investing in companies that are dedicated to reducing suffering in the world and they're using technology to further develop humanity's consciousness. So I think this is a really unusual piece of the social capital markets that you're going to be excited to hear directly from Bo. Please welcome Bo Xiao. I wish I could walk around a little bit but looks like I'm stuck on the podium. Actually I could walk around. Well thank you for coming bright and early to this to my talk. I enjoyed the opportunity to tell my story to you. I sold my company when I was 29 years old my first company and I retired and I was expecting all sorts of good things happening because I sold my company for a couple hundred million and I had everything that a normal person would want in terms of money, freedom, fame, time but it turned out that I wasn't particularly happy. The fireworks lasted for two weeks maybe not even that and what I discovered was that I actually become less happy than before. I had thought that I would actually before I sold my company I didn't worry about money and but however after I got rich I became worried about money. I worried about losing it and because before I know whatever I had if I lose it all I could make it all back in a couple years. I know I could get a job and do whatever and make it back but I knew that if I lost the money I had then after I sold my company I would never make it back without a lot of luck. Let's face it any kind of that kind of success requires luck and I wasn't sure I could make it back and the problem is I was perceived at this person in this position in society and life of this place now and then suddenly if I have to if I lose it all that's going back to the normal life that's very very scary. Another thing is I thought I would enjoy my time with my kids. I had a lot of time in my life I could travel I could spend time at home but turns out that actually I wasn't very relaxed around my kids even while we're at the beach I'll be checking email for no reason and I actually did not know how to spend time with them that I didn't enjoy spending time with them I'll be trying to teach them this scold them for that but I didn't enjoy a connection I didn't really have a connection so I discovered over time that pretty quickly actually that what I thought will bring me happiness and fulfillment doesn't that no amount of external achievement could bring a inner well-being or satisfaction or fulfillment or freedom that I thought and I think almost everybody thinks that they will get. In some ways financial freedom does not buy freedom financial freedom is not freedom unless one is truly free and and for me the past of freedom and I'm on that path and not like I have complete freedom is through working on ourselves the inner journey because what I found is that and not just me but my own personal experience has been that I grew up in our lives my in my life you know feeling inadequate in different ways and I wonder whether you do too as well that deep down inside me and inside a lot of people I know that we have harsh criticisms of ourselves and and we feel I feel I felt this kind of a lacking in some way and I think different people's lacking is different I feel a particular lacking so for example if I walk into a room I feel very nervous if I the room of cocktail party people I feel really nervous like I felt like nobody will want to talk to me or connect with me only when I feel like I'm superior to people in the room like I'm somehow I know something they don't I'm richer or more powerful more famous whatever it is or they need something from me then I feel secure but I get into a room where I have nothing to share I'm just a person I felt incredible amount of tightness and and nervousness and fear around being not connected with and I know I realized really quickly that no amount of fame or wealth or money will buy me the kind of freedom I need it would not it would not solve this problem and I suspect that I'm not the only one that in fact I know a lot of super wealthy people super successful people who are worth billions of tens of billions who really do not like themselves very much and but the problem is that we all seek to find this kind of fulfillment through the outside we try to fill that hole like imagine there's a hole in our body there hole in our soul that we try to fill that soul with these external achievements or money or fame or number of friends or even doing good it's a nice way to fill that up but it actually doesn't so when I realized that I decided that I didn't want to do traditional business anymore so because in the meantime I saw my company 16 years ago and then 10 years ago started venture capital fund in China that today manage about three billion dollars and in the past 10 years we invested about 30 plus unicorns companies worth more than a billion usually early stage when only a few people and and now very large ones so we have a very enviable record as an investor and we made a lot of money for ourselves and for our investors but as I look at those companies very few of them really matter in my newfound realization yeah I will get somebody faster by five minutes we invest in over China okay we get there somewhere faster great or or we might invest in a social network that enable people to waste their time chatting with each other was of some kind of a superficial connection and I found that to be increasingly meaningless so fairly recently I decided to leave the fund I co-founded and and set up a fund with our own capital my family my own capital about a hundred million to start with to invest companies that bring inner well-being to people and when I look at the world what I find is the world's problems today stem largely from the lack of inner well-being that we try to just like I said before try to find fulfillment trying to find inner health and wholeness through external achievements and that kind of a drive not only not fulfill the inner lack but actually is the root of lot the world problems so if you even take an example of say environmentally you know issues yes there are global warming you can look at you know all these technical causes of global warming and we find solutions through carbon rationing when not to solve it but I don't think it can be solved because we have a fundamental issue where we want to grow our economy a 5% a year and our resources simply cannot grow a 5% a year and no matter even yet we can increase our efficiency here and there and but fundamentally our we are we need for more and more things is insatiable because we have this inner being and we find that we have more and more things actually didn't fulfill the whole therefore we want more things we want to keep growing so that we have more things and if that's not stated then growth has to continue to occur I'll take the example poverty right about 30 billion dollars is needed to feel to feed all of the world's hungry people about 30 billion billion people they're living with was not enough to eat 30 billion is a big number but it's not very large right just even just think about in the US alone we spend about on diet products and programs annual spending the US about 60 billion dollars right it's a pretty starling statistic right it's like not only the having too much is not only did not bring well-being but actually it's hurting us so we have to spend more money so that we avoid the harm of having too much or eating too much and so I think what happened is we we have been the problem had been made worse because we have you know the increasing focus on materialism that we receive these marketing messages every day in our TV advertisements and other media programs about you know wealth and fame and consumption be important right every as you see on TV not every most of the ads is around you have to look better or you won't have more things right or the increasing attention economy attention economy Facebook and others that try to grab our attention but they have an engine to grab our attention regardless of what costs us right so if I'm a perspective these companies more attention to these apps and to these devices makes it more valuable for those companies well-being is not on the car in the cards and therefore but if you think of a company what's the best way to get attention is through addiction addiction is a very kind to hit our animal brains of dopamine hits and all that so that we feel inadequate without getting a like on Facebook and then somehow we think if we're getting more likes and getting other four words and whatnot these somehow will make us feel better that's a almost an accelerated version of what I was talking about of finding sources of it sources of freedom and sources of fulfillment and healing from the outside and the system today is working against us in some ways the system is is accelerating through advertising materialism attention economy to lock us further and further into this seeking satisfaction from the outside and and unless we do something about it I think our inner well-being will be continue not get better but actually but get worse so that's why I don't if you know one out of six Americans are on adults are on anti-depressants one out of six and if you think about from a company perspective companies is no more than an organization of people company any company today is a group of people organized for a common purpose that's really no more you mean all these fancy terms of fiduciary duty limited liability whatever it is but I really look at the core of it any single company is a group of people organized in a particular way for a common purpose and different organizational structures and motivations all about just how do we get people work together toward a common goal but unfortunately today we have a mantra of companies purposes to make money it's success value is primarily in the most cases only event measured by how money how much what's a long-term DCF this kind of cash flow of a company in a cash flow stream that's how we value a company that's like a mantra today but if we in some ways it reflects our inner journey in some or the lack thereof right when we believe that a person's journey is about maximizing consumption and maximizing our outer well-being things coming from the outside then it's not too far a stretch to believe that companies purpose is the same thing that it's since a group of people then the group of people need to maximize the external accolades and and value rather than doing what it's really the people need what the what the society really needs which is not the same thing as what maximize a particular company's profit and the worst thing is this is the vicious cycle because when company wants to maximize the external and value and profit it sends the messages out to all of us to consume more to seek value from the outside and locks individuals further in this in the buddhist internal because and Sarah or some kind of illusion of well-being or seeking well-being and of course when we feel inadequate we want our companies are investments to do better to make more money so then we push our companies to do you know not push implicitly we will vote without the dollars right we invest in companies that that maximize their profit and and the whole the cycle goes so I know I know people here do not need convincing that a company needs to have multiple bottom lines but what I'd like to point out is that the problem of what we see on the outside of company seeking profit and all that stuff ultimately comes from ourselves comes from our inner journey so that's why the fund that we're we have started is to focus on inner well-being and also we very explicitly say that our fund is not to maximize profit the profit is secondary to doing good and in some ways I hope that 50 years from now we will look back you know and our grand our kids or grandkids will look back on on this era and say why did we actually go through this phase where people a group of people would what they will spend their lives trying to make more money and maximize profit of a company when we know max in a process marketing profit it doesn't do society so much good shouldn't be we organize every shouldn't every single company organization have a primary goal of increasing human wellness in whatever way defined but hopefully is as much wisdom as possible and profit being secondary that of course being sustainable how I think being competitive to be able to serve your customers better is always good and I'm not advocating losing that but shouldn't the primary purpose of any group of people working together including the limited library companies public or private be focused on social well well-being of mankind or society and I hope that's will be the case and and to do that I think the things we need to do first is to start with our individual selves to be on a journey of self-discovery and healing to find our vulnerabilities our fullness and our wounds and our infinite possibilities thank you