#184 My Trip to Shanghai (with video) and My Biggest Gain in the Last Six Months (14/12/2025)

A few days ago, I went to Shanghai with some friends and visited several factories. One of them was the Giga Pres factory of a Hong Kong company called "L.K.". You may not have heard of it, but in fact, without this company, there would be no Tesla today. The reason is that more than ten years ago, when Elon Musk wanted to make the first Tesla Model S, he wanted to use a "one-piece die casting" technology to make the chassis, which was made from a single piece of metal, instead of the then mainstream small parts assembled together. But at the time, everyone thought Elon Musk was a fool, that this "one-piece die casting" chassis was impossible to make. Only Mr. Lau, the boss of the Hong Kong company "L.K.", helped him make it. And of course, it was made in the end. Tesla changed the entire automotive industry, and this technology gradually became popular.

My friend Jason quickly edited the video, including some impressions of the visit at the end. You can check it out if you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK8A7YlcB4Q

Many senior colleagues have told me that you can't just bury yourself in your work all the time; you need to go out and explore. This can give you new insights. There might be problems you keep thinking about and trying to solve, but that won't solve them because the solution might be that "the problem doesn't need to be solved at all." Speaking of Elon Musk, he often says things like "the best part is no part" and "most smart engineers spend time optimizing a part that shouldn't exist." That's the idea. Sometimes, the direction you're taking is wrong, which leads to many problems and headaches. If you go in the right direction, these problems might not exist. Over the past six months, as you may have seen in my weekly journals, I've also been struggling with some "operational" issues. Of course, these problems all require learning and solutions, but perhaps the focus and attention shouldn't be on them. After doing other more important things, the problems might resolve themselves automatically. This is what I've gained this week, and also my biggest gain in the past six months.