After finding a place in Huishan Ancient Town where visitors could write to their future selves, George begins an annual ritual: a letter to be opened one year later. Writing to August 14, 2027, he asks what became of Rocket Capital and Trading Note, how his investing evolved, whether the AI bubble ever broke, and whether his tic disorder improved. He wonders about the end of KCL, where he lives, Cassidy, his parents and grandmother, old friends, new relationships, travel, and the unexpected turns that no plan can capture. His wish is deliberately modest: better health, the important people still close, work that remains interesting, a larger account, and a few unrealised ambitions that still make the future exciting.
Today, while Cassidy and I were wandering around Huishan Ancient Town, we came across a place where you could write a letter to your future self.
I thought it was a pretty interesting idea.
At first I picked up a postcard. Then I realised I had far too much to say, and there was no chance it would all fit on one little card. So I decided I might as well write it on the blog.
In a sense, this blog has always been something I leave behind for my future self. Many essays feel like arguments when I write them. A few years later, rereading them is probably less about revisiting those arguments than revisiting the person I was at the time.
So, starting this year, I want to write a letter each year to the version of me one year in the future.
I hope the me of August 14, 2027 really does find his way back here. And I hope you will be willing to write another letter to the you of 2028.
George, August 14, 2027:
I have no idea where you are right now.
It is a surprisingly interesting question to think about.
Maybe you are in Shanghai. Maybe Los Angeles. Maybe you have just returned from somewhere and are already getting ready for the next city. Or perhaps things happened this year that I cannot begin to imagine, and all the cities, corporate structures, and ways of living I am so carefully planning now look rather ridiculous from where you stand.
If that is what happened, it does not sound so bad.
Right now, it is the summer of 2026.
KCL is not completely over yet; there are still exams, credits, and all those irritating loose ends. Rocket Capital is already operating with my own capital; it is the fund structure and external fundraising that are still being prepared. Trading Note already does a great many things, but it is clearly still a long way from the system I truly want it to become.
New ideas still appear in my head every day.
Today I am convinced that one particular feature has to be built. Tomorrow I decide the entire direction should change. I see a new market opportunity and become excited, then two days later disappear into research on a completely different industry.
I wonder how much of any of this survived the year.
Has Rocket Capital actually begun raising outside capital?
When you wake up each morning now, are you running the business you genuinely wanted to build? Or did reality turn out to be nothing like the picture you had in mind?
Has anyone actually trusted you with their money?
What did it feel like the first time an LP wired money to you?
Perhaps it was less exciting than you imagined, and all you felt was: “Finally, it has started.”
And what about Trading Note?
My greatest hope for it is no longer simply to keep adding more and more features.
What I really want to know is whether, on some ordinary day a year from now, you opened it in the middle of a trade, naturally checked the risk, positions, research notes, and information from the AI, and then suddenly realised:
This thing that once existed only in your head has become a tool you genuinely use every day.
If that moment happened, I imagine it made you pretty happy.
Of course, I am also very curious about how your investing went this year.
Did you make a lot of money?
Did you make another trade that looks spectacularly stupid in hindsight?
Was there a moment when you were absolutely certain you were right, only for the market to slap you hard across the face?
Or was there a trade you thought was merely “not bad” at the time that somehow became the year’s biggest winner?
I increasingly think this is the most interesting thing about investing: we never know, until we look back a year later, how many of today’s confident declarations were actually right.
Right now, for example, I am still spending every day trying to work out when the AI bubble will burst.
I have no idea what the world looks like as you read this.
If it really did burst, you may allow yourself five minutes of smugness.
If it did not—or if the whole story unfolded in a way completely different from what I expect now—that would be even more interesting.
I only hope you did not twist every new fact into proof that an old opinion was right merely to defend the 2026 version of yourself.
There is something else I care about a great deal right now.
How is your body?
The tics have genuinely been difficult lately.
They became noticeably worse a few days ago when I was jet-lagged, underslept, and stressed. On the flight, I even felt an intense kind of helplessness—my mind was perfectly clear, but my body simply refused to take instructions.
I rarely thought seriously about this before.
I always assumed that as long as the business went well and the investments made money, everything else could be dealt with gradually.
Only recently have I truly understood that some things do not work that way.
So I very much hope that when you reach this passage a year from now, you can say lightly:
“It is much better now.”
It does not have to have disappeared completely.
If you have found something that genuinely works—something that lets you live, travel, and work normally—I will consider the year well spent.
By the way, are you still staying up late?
If the answer is “of course,” then I suspect the year did not teach you very much.
KCL should be over by now.
To be honest, I have already begun to look forward to graduation day.
Not because I am especially fond of graduation ceremonies, nor because I will finally receive some immensely important certificate, but because it marks the end of a clearly defined stage of life.
From Changchun to London, and then to wherever comes next.
A great deal seems to have happened during these university years.
I met many people and travelled to many places. Investing brought plenty of rises and falls. I began seriously building things of my own, and slowly discovered what kind of life I actually wanted.
So I wonder whether, once you truly left the identity of a student behind, you suddenly felt a little empty.
No matter what else I was doing before, I at least had one very clear identity: student.
Perhaps there is no equivalent after that.
When people now ask, “What do you do?”, how do you answer?
Fund manager?
Investor?
Founder?
Or do you simply use the description I have always rather liked:
Independent investor.
I wonder how Cassidy is now.
As I write this letter, we have just finished walking around Huishan Ancient Town together.
What will it feel like to read this passage a year later?
Perhaps you are still together and have travelled to many more places. Perhaps life has become much more settled. Or perhaps changes occurred this year that neither of you could possibly imagine today.
A year is a long time when you are in your twenties.
A person’s city, work, relationships, and ideas can all change enormously within a year.
So I do not want to assign the future a plot from here.
I only hope that, whatever shape your lives have taken, you can still look back on the summer of 2026 and think it was a good one.
And our friends?
When we were in Moganshan a while ago, everyone sat around in the evening drinking sweet wine and talking, and I suddenly had a rather strange feeling.
Right now, we can still leave on a whim.
One person writes a single message in the group chat, and the rest of us might genuinely set off the next day.
I do not know how many more years that can last.
People will take jobs, start companies, marry, and build families. We will live in entirely different cities, perhaps even different countries.
Maybe nothing has changed at all a year from now.
That would be best.
If things have begun to change, I hope you have not allowed every relationship to dissolve into “let’s meet when things are less busy.”
How are Mum and Dad?
Is Grandma healthy?
How many times did you go home this year?
These questions look very ordinary written down now. Yet I suspect that, when you look back from the future, they may turn out to be the most important ones here.
And where do you live now?
I am genuinely curious about this one.
The 2026 version of me spends his days researching what he calls a “multi-base life,” rearranging Shanghai, Los Angeles, Copenhagen, Changchun, London, and Dubai over and over again.
I wonder whether, once life actually began, you discovered there was never any need to make it so complicated.
Maybe you ended up perfectly happy in Shanghai and could not be bothered to move at all.
Or perhaps two months in one place really does suit you, and whenever you grow bored, you pack your things and leave.
You might even have fallen in love with a city that does not appear anywhere in the plan today.
The last possibility would probably make me happiest.
At least it would mean the year contained a little surprise.
I increasingly do not want the future to unfold exactly according to plan.
If your life a year from now looks identical to today’s Excel spreadsheet, that would almost be a little dull.
I also want to know whether you still write this blog.
I hope you do.
Not every essay has to be profound, and you do not always need to force your way towards a conclusion.
Sometimes it is enough simply to record what happened at the time.
Like today.
August 14, 2026.
Cassidy and I were in Huishan Ancient Town when we saw a place for writing letters to the future.
So I came back in the evening, sat down, and wrote this.
Nothing earth-shattering happened today.
But if you open this again in a year, I suspect it will feel completely different.
That is probably why I suddenly think there is something meaningful about writing one of these letters every year.
We tend to assume that we remember the past.
In truth, we remember almost none of it.
We retain a handful of stories that have already changed through repeated retelling, while easily forgetting what, on one particular day in one particular year, made us anxious—and what we were secretly hoping for.
So I want to leave a few questions with this day.
A year from now, I hope you will come back and answer them.
What happened this year that surprised you most?
Is the thing you care about most now the same thing I care about most today?
How far has Rocket Capital come?
Did Trading Note truly become what you wanted it to be?
Have you become a better investor?
Are the tics any better?
Did KCL end smoothly in the end?
Where do you live now?
Is Cassidy well?
Are Mum and Dad well?
Do your friends still arrange trips out of nowhere and simply go?
Did you meet a new friend who became especially important to you?
Did you go somewhere you cannot imagine going today?
Did you accomplish something that feels very difficult now?
And did you lose anything you currently believe you could never lose?
There is one last question.
I think it is one we can ask every year:
Does your life now look the way you imagined it one year ago?
If it does, I hope reality did not disappoint you.
If it looks nothing like that, I hope the surprise turned out well.
I do not have any particularly grand wishes for the future right now.
Making a lot of money would, of course, be wonderful.
Building Rocket Capital would be wonderful.
Turning Trading Note into a system that is truly your own would be wonderful too.
But if I had to make one wish for the person you will be a year from now, I think I would ask only this:
That your body feels a little better. That the important people are still around. That the things you do remain interesting to you. That the number in your account is a little larger than it is this year. And that you still have a few unrealised ambitions that excite you whenever you think about them.
Do not wake up a year from now wanting nothing at all.
That would be rather frightening.
See you on August 14, 2027.
Remember to come back and answer me.
Then write another letter to the you of 2028.
George, August 14, 2026
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