Recently, the “prehistory” of a co-founder from a domestic GPU company was completely dug up—it’s said that in his early years, this person ran a crypto token project with an extremely vulgar name. How ironic is this? The entrepreneur on stage talking about “hard tech breakthroughs” may have gotten his initial funds from the wildest operations out there.

Here's an inappropriate but vivid analogy: it’s like discovering that some entrepreneur who’s always talking about “serving the nation through industry” actually made his first pot of gold from a gray market business. Whether it’s about technological ideals or patriotic passion, at the core, it’s still business logic driving everything.

Let’s calmly analyze a few groups’ reactions:

**Memory filter of old players:** Those who got burned by that project back in the day are now posting “classic memories” and “ancient legends.” This mindset is quite subtle—obviously it was a losing experience, but with time, some strange emotional attachment forms. Aside from the outrageous name and final collapse, what is really worth reminiscing about from that project? Are they nostalgic about their own misjudgment at the time?

**Misplaced admiration from newcomers:** Some people see this and think, “Even the big shots issued meme coins early on, so I still have a chance.” Wake up, friend. Their path was: launch a project and cash out → successfully exit → use the funds to pivot into real industry → rebrand as a tech innovation story → gain a higher valuation and social reputation. The average person’s path is usually: launch a project → get questioned → project dies or runs into trouble. The starting point looks similar, but the ending is worlds apart.

**Selective blindness from investors and media:** Those reports that once hyped “tech genius” and “breaking monopolies”—which one dares to include this “glorious history” in their investment logic analysis? What everyone is praising is essentially a carefully filtered and beautified persona.

What is the industry’s most critical capability? It’s not technology; it’s the **ability to reconstruct narratives**. Turning a controversial past into a legendary “keenly seizing the opportunity of the era” story using the passage of time and success-story packaging. What you idolize may just be a redefined image.

So here’s my advice: don’t blindly believe any entrepreneurial story that seems too perfect. If you’re mixing in this circle, you’d better assume most of these people have an “early exploration phase” they’d rather not make public. That’s the real survival rule.

(Leaving a question for everyone: do you think this kind of path transformation counts as a “successful whitewashing” or “normal business evolution”? Rational discussion welcome.)