📈Bai Gui
Original nameBai Gui
Great merchant of the Warring States, "forefather of commercial theory"
Those Who Made Wealth Flow · Trade Routes, Money & Banking
Warring StatesThe Way of CommerceStockpilingCommercial Theory
Who they are
A great merchant of the Warring States period, honored by the Records of the Grand Historian as the founding master of getting rich by trade. He put forward a systematic philosophy of business: "when others discard, I take; when others take, I give" — buy when others sell off, sell when others rush to buy, operate against the crowd, buy low and sell high. He held that trade is like war, requiring four qualities — wisdom, courage, benevolence, and strength — and the ability to endure hardship and decide. He raised commerce from mere buying and selling into a discipline of timing, psychology, and strategy, called China’s "forefather of commercial theory," two thousand years before systematic Western commercial thought.
Primary sourcesRecords of the Grand Historian, "Biographies of the Money-Makers"
Key stories
"When Others Discard, I Take"
Bai Gui’s secret of trade sounds simple yet is very hard to do: "when others discard, I take; when others take, I give" — buy decisively when others panic-sell and grain is cheap, sell decisively when others buy in a frenzy and prices soar. This "against human nature" contrarian operation was repeated almost word for word two thousand years later by Buffett’s "be fearful when others are greedy, greedy when others are fearful" — the commercial wisdom of East and West meets here astonishingly.
Echoes today
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.
The contrarian wisdom of "when others discard, I take"Bai Gui’s way of commerce, "when others discard, I take; when others take, I give," is astonishingly close to Buffett’s "be fearful when others are greedy" two thousand years later, regarded as China’s earliest systematic commercial theory, still cited by the business world.