(Yicai Global) July 8 -- Qutoutiao co-founder Eric Tan is a pure entrepreneur.

This purity inheres in taking starting businesses as a pursuit and a hobby. As we were talking, Tan was tacit on topics other than entrepreneurship. Only that, technology, business models, competition and challenges figure prominently in his world. Speaking of these topics, his eyes lit up, and his body leaned forward a little in excitement. I even felt as if he could not speak fast enough to keep up with his brain, with what he said being merely the tip of the iceberg of his thoughts.

Growing a business from scratch is arduous indeed, Tan said, but compared with the exciting feeling of turning your ideas into reality and winning a ‘zero-to-one’ breakthrough, any hardships and difficulties along the way pale into insignificance.

Going public on the Nasdaq market in September 2018 only two years and three months after its inception, Shanghai-based content aggregator Qutoutiao smashed the record for the fastest US listing of a Chinese internet company up to then. Competition in the internet arena is brutal and only a player that quickly grasps opportunities can survive.

I wonder if a person's life should be more colorful and whether the lives of people like Tan who only care about their careers are really monotonous and boring. I couldn't find a single item of artistic decor in his office. According to Tan's colleagues, he has no pastimes other than hard work. At the end of our interview, Tan shook hands with me and moved on to his next meeting.

May his passion for entrepreneurship burn bright and never extinguish.

This story was reproduced from the Moduxiaoshaobing WeChat account with permission.

Editors: Chen Juan, Ben Armour