互联网上有很多关于价格和价值关系的讨论，我自己喜欢的一个视角是把价格看作外部反馈把价值看作内在的能力。这样既可以观察一个公司或组织，也可以审视个人尤其是自己。
人生无外乎三种境遇：取得的成就超出自己的能力，成就匹配自己的能力，卧薪尝胆的低谷期。这里的成就指的是外部反馈，对个人来讲可能是世俗意义的成功，比如考高分、高薪等等，对公司来讲可能是股价。这个反馈是否“正确”不在本文讨论范畴，重要的是这样的反馈标准相对稳定，所以人生和公司最后在这个相对稳定的基础上也会起起伏伏，所谓的“价格围绕价值波动”。
为什么会波动原因也很简单，反者道之动。举自己的例子。我在相当长的时间内一直用模式识别的方式学习，做题熟悉pattern，类似o1之前的模型没有推理能力。这样的方式上限应该很低，可能是靠着一点小聪明中考我考得不错，给了我一个极强但错误的正反馈，让我延续这样的错误学习方式很久，直到很多年之后遇到大量的负面信号我才反应过来自己一直以来的学习方式有问题。
所以当取得了远超自己能力的正反馈的时候，很容易被激励继续做错误的事，这件事情持续积累，总会有一天会发现自己已经跌到谷底，而跌倒谷底后的反思又是一段上升期的蓄力阶段。
世界的复杂性远超我们的认知，而且我们对公司价值和自身能力的判断有非常大的主观局限性，所以价格和价值之间的delta，个人成就和能力之间的delta，就是我所说的运气，可以为正可以为负，衡量的是客观事实和你能力认知的gap，翻译成人话就是“运气好坏”。
“当时运气比较好”现在更像是一种反思，对于自己曾经取得的成就远超自己能力和认知以及导致一系列后续的感慨。巧合的是作为一句客气话，当时的我被夸也会回答：“运气比较好”。
这段经历给我的一个教训是当自己取得成就的时候，可以100%确定这个成就是大于自己的能力和认知的，所以在总结成功经验的同时，更重要的是去审视自己遗漏超出自己能力范畴的成功原因。如果依赖运气或者没有意识到自己的成就超过了能力，就像那句老话：超过自己认知范围赚到的钱迟早会亏掉。
对抗运气周期性的方法是接纳运气并把运气转变为成长，包括霉运更包括好运。
There is plenty of discussion online about the relationship between price and value. One perspective I like is to see price as external feedback and value as intrinsic ability. This lens works for looking at a company or an organization, and for examining individuals—especially myself.
Life comes down to three kinds of circumstances: achieving more than your ability would warrant, achieving in line with your ability, and enduring a low point while patiently preparing for the future. By achievement, I mean external feedback. For an individual, that might be conventional success, such as high exam scores or a high salary; for a company, it might be its share price. Whether this feedback is “correct” is outside the scope of this piece. What matters is that the standards behind it are relatively stable. Against that relatively stable baseline, people’s lives and companies still rise and fall: “price fluctuates around value.”
The reason for these fluctuations is simple, too: “Reversal is the movement of the Dao.” Take my own experience. For a long time, I learned through pattern recognition: I solved problems to familiarize myself with their patterns, rather like the models before o1 that lacked reasoning ability. The ceiling of this approach must be quite low. Perhaps thanks to a little quick-wittedness, I did well in my high school entrance exam. That gave me an extremely strong but misguided positive signal, encouraging me to stick with this flawed way of learning for a long time. Only after encountering a great deal of negative feedback, many years later, did I realize there was a problem with how I had been learning all along.
So when we receive positive feedback far beyond our actual ability, it is easy to feel encouraged to keep doing the wrong things. As this accumulates, we will eventually find that we have hit rock bottom. The reflection that follows is then a period of gathering strength for the next ascent.
The world is far more complex than our understanding of it, and our judgments of a company’s value or our own abilities are subject to enormous subjective limitations. The delta between price and value, or between personal achievement and ability, is what I call luck. It can be positive or negative. It measures the gap between objective reality and your understanding of your own ability—or, in plain language, “good luck or bad luck.”
These days, “I was lucky back then” feels more like a reflection: a mix of thoughts and feelings about how my past achievements far exceeded my ability and understanding, and about everything that followed. Coincidentally, when people praised me back then, I would also say, as a polite response, “I was lucky.”
One lesson this experience taught me is that when I achieve something, I can be 100% certain that the achievement exceeds my ability and understanding. So while it is useful to look back on what made a success possible, it is more important to examine the causes I have overlooked, beyond the scope of my own ability. If I rely on luck, or fail to realize that my achievements exceed my capabilities, it is like the old saying: any money you make beyond the limits of your understanding will, sooner or later, be lost.
The way to counter the cycles of luck is to accept luck and turn it into growth. That includes bad luck, and even more so, good luck.