好汉不吃亏

俗话说，好汉不吃眼前亏。我一直不太明白这句话的意思。不过，我看到的文化现象是大家都不愿意吃亏。我不知道需要合作的时候，如果大家都不吃亏的话会是什么结局。事实上我们中国人在生意上合作成功的机会好像确实比较小一些。很久很久以前，我们公司开始提倡“不赚人便宜”的文化。

Source: http://nteswjq.blog.163.com/blog/static/126998120102125236909/

A real man doesn't take a loss

> By Duan Yongping · his NetEase blog (nteswjq.blog.163.com, now closed; read from web archives) · 2010-03-12 · [Original link](http://nteswjq.blog.163.com/blog/static/126998120102125236909/) ([archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20100403071759/http://nteswjq.blog.163.com:80/blog/static/126998120102125236909/))

As the saying goes, a real man doesn't take a loss that's right in front of him. I've never quite understood what this saying means.

But the cultural phenomenon I see is that nobody is willing to take a loss.

I don't know what the outcome would be when cooperation is needed, if nobody is willing to take a loss.

In fact, the chance of us Chinese cooperating successfully in business does seem to be somewhat smaller.

A long, long time ago, our company began promoting a culture of "not taking advantage of others".

I don't know in what proportion we've actually managed it, but our cooperation with others does seem to succeed at a somewhat higher rate than average.

Maybe the reason our company has survived to this day, and is doing pretty well, has something to do with this?

Heh, when I buy stocks it's basically the same.

For stocks I want to buy I always put the price at the ask, and when I sell I always put it at the bid, as long as the price is acceptable to me.

It looks as if I might lose a little on every order, but the overall outcome has always been pretty good.