Managing and Investing with China's Ancient I-Ching | Tech in Asia

Trigrams from the I-Ching

Have you ever thought that an ancient Chinese text would be the key to investment success, or the tool that could help save your next startup? No? Well, I?d say you?re probably right, but Julio Urvina wouldn?t agree. Mr. Urvina is the author of The Tao for CEOs and Investors, a self-published e-book with a concept so strange that I just had to look into it further. Urvina holds that China?s ancient I-Ching is an oracle that can help investors divine the future. That?s not a metaphor; Urvina means it literally: this book will help you see the future.

Although traditionally dismissed by Chinese intelligentsia, who considered it more of a guide to the universe, there is a long history of the use of the I-Ching in China and elsewhere in Asia as a divination tool among the underclasses. It contains 64 hexagrams, each accompanied by several lines of interpretation. Traditionally, divination was practiced by casting yaro stalks while meditating on a question; the stalks suggest a hexagram which then provides the answer. (It?s actually a bit more complicated than that, but that?s the basic idea). These days, it?s more common just to flip a series of coins to determine the hexagram.

Anyway, having spent an almost absurd amount of time studying ancient Chinese philosophical traditions in college ? I have actually practiced I-Ching divination in the traditional manner with one of the US?s most eminent China scholars ? I really couldn?t resist digging into the copy of the book Urvina sent us. I don?t believe in divination (my practice of it in college was academic, not spiritual), but Urvina really does. In fact, he says of the I-Ching: ?In my 45 years of consulting it, it has never, and I mean never been wrong.?

Urvina?s book ? full disclosure: I only skimmed it ? argues that the I-Ching is a useful tool for businesses and investors, including startups. He places particular emphasis on the capacity of ?the Oracle? (his words, and capitalization) to predict whether or not a CEO has ?the mandate of heaven? ? essentially, whether they are fated to succeed or fail. Urvina covers every hexagram in the I-Ching, providing examples of CEOs who have embodied the various hexagrams at companies of all kinds, including more than a few tech companies. In an email, Urvina explained further:

As investors we want those CEOs who have the Mandate of Heaven. For instance, take the year 2002 and the case of Palmisano (IBM) and Ballmer (Microsoft). If you look at the Hexagrams of each of these CEOs and you would have chosen the one with a clear positive Hexagram you would have had a yearly double digit return for a decade with Palmisano and a lost decade with Ballmer. It is easy. This is the same case with Meg Whitman (HP) and Virginia Rometty (IBM) for 2012. By the way, the Forbes articles that just came out about the 5 CEOs who should quit are the same CEOs who should never have been chosen ? read each of the 5 Hexagrams. Why invest in a CEO who is going to take his corporation into the wrong Time-Space?

I followed up with some more questions, like: why would an Oracle care about helping to make people rich? Urvina said that he?s helped people answer all kinds of questions, but he also said:

The I Ching likes wealth. But it also likes balance. The perfect picture is that of the lake on the mountain. When the lake is full of water it generously gives it to the mountain down below so that everything and everyone will prosper. The water from the lake makes everything green and the greenness brings the moisture and the clouds and the rain which in turn brings back the water to the lake in a never ending cycle. The Japanese would rather save than spend and continued to accumulate much as the Chinese, the result is deflation. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are like the lakes on the mountain. Charity is good, but forced charity is bad.

On how this whole thing works, Urvina told me:

Energy and Matter are the same (E=MC2). The same energy or force or Chi or Qi that moves everything in the Universe is the same energy that moves the hands that move the coins that makes the coins fall under the proper synchronicity that tells you about the future Time Space created when the BOD chooses a CEO.

Remember ? nothing happens on Earth if it is not first ordained in Heaven. My work is to find out what does Heaven ordains with the help of the I Ching. I leave it up to others to define how it is going to happen.

In seriousness, I think this is a bunch of superstitious nonsense. But to be fair, I?ve never tried it. And if you?re the sort of person who believes an ancient Chinese book could be the oracle that will help you choose the perfect CEO for your startup, perhaps it?s worth giving it a try. After all, the business world has already co-opted one ancient Chinese classic; perhaps the I-Ching, too, is poised for a revival. Heck, it couldn?t possibly be less reliable than the jackasses on Wall Street, right?

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About C. Custer

C. Custer is the founder and editor of ChinaGeeks.org. He also is a documentary filmmaker, and a freelance writer, reporter, translator, and video producer on all things China. You can follow him on Twitter as @ChinaGeeks

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