How did three anime and gaming nerds turn a cash-strapped dorm hobby into a multi-billion-dollar global empire? This episode explores the fascinating history of miHoYo, the powerhouse studio behind Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and Honkai Impact 3rd. Driven by their iconic philosophy, "Tech Otakus Save the World," founders CAI Haoyu, LIU Wei, and LUO Yuhao navigated a relentless journey. Long before capturing astronomical revenues and establishing themselves as China's third-largest gaming giant behind Tencent and NetEase, these Shanghai Jiao Tong University engineering students bonded over their love or Neon Genesis Evangelion, survived on mere thousands of downloads and faced harsh interrogation from a skeptical investment community.

This episode traces how the studio survived critical, high-stakes milestones. From winning initial funding through entrepreneurship competitions to securing their one and only angel investor, they repeatedly went "all-in," reinvesting every cent of the company's income into their next game in development. Bypassing standard mobile gaming strategies, they leveraged a crucial partnership with Bilibili during China’s 2013 smartphone explosion and splurged on premium Japanese voice actors to completely capture the core otaku demographic.

We also examine miHoYo's hyper-productive live-service culture, flat organizational structure, and the dramatic split that saw CAI Haoyu step down to pursue a 2030 vision of a virtual reality world powered by emotional AI large performance models.

modern mobile game development and live-service success.

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📖 Episode Chapters

00:03:12 Introduction & Gathering of the Three (but Actually Four) Otakus

00:16:00 The Spirit of miHoYo: Cai's Manifesto & the Debut Project: The Legend of Saha

00:23:10 FlyMe2TheMoon: Another Tribute to Neon Genesis Evangelion

00:40:57 Houkai Gakuen 1 (Zombiegal Kawaii) & 2 (Guns Girl Z): How Gacha Made a Real Difference

00:53:49 Honkai Impact 3: The 3D Bet That Paid Off

01:03:19 Genshin Impact: Zelda Crisis and Liyue Triumph

01:22:18 Never Underestimate Fans: Genshin 1st Anniversary Review-Bombing 01:26:42 Genshin Impact Economics Explained: Gacha

01:30:22 Investment Bucket I: Expanding The Game Portfolio, Pipelines & Failure Graveyards

01:37:55 Investment Bucket II: Philosophically Interesting Technology Bets

01:45:05 Splitting Paths: Gaming Development vs. Frontier Cutting-Edge AI Research

01:55:26 Company Culture and Our Final Thoughts on the Future of miHoYo

🚩 Correction

1:28:48 50/50 mechanism halves the chance of a time-limited 5 star character is drawn, not double

How did a kid from a small mountain village in Fujian end up building the company that powers one in every three electric vehicles on the planet? This episode explores the rise of CATL (aka the “TSMC of batteries”) and its founder, Robin Zeng.

It begins with CATL’s predecessor, ATL, and a risky $1 million bet on a flawed battery patent that nearly destroyed the company — until it unexpectedly led to a breakthrough deal supplying Apple iPods.

CATL was later spun out amid government policy shifts and EV subsidies, and scaled into the world’s largest battery maker in just six years. Its first major test came with BMW, where passing an 800-page technical audit proved it could meet strict automotive standards—unlocking global partnerships.

Today, CATL continues to push its limits, expanding into grid-scale energy storage, aviation batteries, and next-generation technologies like sodium-ion and solid-state systems to stay ahead in the global energy race.

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📖 Episode Chapters

00:00:00 The Battery Giant You’ve Never Heard Of

00:02:30 Robin Zeng’s Origins and Early Career at TDK

00:06:26 Robin’s Mentorship Trio and the Birth of ATL

00:18:27 The $1 Million Gamble: Surviving the Bell Labs Patent Crisis

00:25:09 Path Back to the Old Employer TDK

00:35:18 Early Signs of EV’s Rise and the Scientist Who Saw the Future

00:42:42 Birth of CATL: A Spin-off Out of Necessity

00:54:57 The BMW Trial: Decoding the 800-Page German Blueprint

01:00:20 China’s Underdog Strategy: Start With Buses and LFP

01:07:11 CATL’s Breakout Era: Higher Standards, Industry Consolidation and Tesla Deal

01:22:22 The Battery King: Market Dominance and Leverage Over Automakers

01:35:27 Europe’s Failed Attempt at Creating Its Own CATL: Northvolt

01:41:50 Final Thoughts: Why We Think CATL Ascended

Imagine you're a French missionary in the 1800s, trekking through the mountains of southwest China. You plant some coffee seeds — partly out of habit, partly out of hope.

You probably never imagined those seeds would one day supply Nestlé, attract Starbucks, and help birth a domestic coffee brand that would open more stores than McDonald's has in the entire United States. Yes — that's Luckin Coffee. And that's China.

In this episode of ASCENT, we trace 150 years of coffee history in a nation that was never supposed to drink it. From Cold War export deals to Nestlé's quiet supply chain takeover. From Starbucks introducing the latte to a tea-drinking public, to a ferocious retail war that's reshaping the entire global industry.

And underneath all of it: the mountains of Yunnan — one province that grows over 98% of China's coffee, and is now pushing the boundaries of specialty fermentation in ways that have the world's top roasters paying attention.

China's coffee story isn't just about scale. It's about a country figuring out, on the fly, how to be both the factory and the tastemaker. That tension — between industrial muscle and boutique ambition — is what this episode is really about.

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📖 Episode Chapters

00:02:12 Coffee as a House Plant: French Missionary Sows the First Seed in the 19th Century

00:06:15 1950s: Coffee as an Export for the Soviet Bloc

00:21:05 1980s: The Nestlé Revolution - Building the Supply Chain

00:46:26 Creating a Coffee Kingdom: Nestlé’s Quality Standards and the 4C Certification

00:51:01 1990s-2000s: Starbucks and the Initiation of Chinese Coffee Culture

01:05:57 The Shift to Specialty Coffee (& Coffee Economics 101)

01:20:11 The Midas Touch: Yunnan’s Experimental Fermentation

01:29:10 2010s-2020s: The Great Retail Coffee War in China

01:34:47 Luckin vs. Starbucks

01:46:28 Final Thoughts: The Future of Chinese Coffee Industry

🚩 Correction

00:21:10 Nescafe came to China in 1988, Nestle started its business in China in the 1870s

01:03:24 Price in 2011 not in 2021

01:29:40 30k Luckin stores in 2025, 13k was 2023 number