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[jeffi_wu]

[Logistics System] 1997: Reconciling 10,000+ Records in 5 Seconds

In 1997, I returned to China in search of potential investment opportunities and visited a friend who ran a logistics company. While discussing their operations, he suddenly started complaining about their accounting process: every month, just reconciling 8,000 bank transactions with internal records took three full weeks. Two accountants worked overtime constantly, yet mistakes were common — and every mistake meant starting over.

I asked, “How are you doing the reconciliation?”

He pointed to a stack of thick ledgers on the desk and two Excel sheets open on the screen.
“One is the bank statement, the other is the company’s ledger — we match them manually, line by line.”

I glanced at the data and said with a smile, “If it’s just matching this kind of data, five seconds is enough.”

He froze.
“Come on, don’t joke — we’re already using Excel, and we still have to check everything manually.”

I didn’t argue.
I simply asked them to open the files, sat down, and in about fifteen minutes, I wrote a simple reconciliation program.

Then I hit Enter.
In around five seconds, the computer produced a clean list of all unmatched records.
Clear, complete, and accurate.

The accounting staff was stunned.
“That’s it? It’s done?”

“We always thought this kind of task had to be done by hand... but you solved it in five seconds?”

My friend slapped his thigh in excitement.
“Mr. Wu, why don’t we start a company and promote this system!”

I smiled and said,
“It’s just a small program — not worth founding a company over.”

To me, it was just a minor problem I solved casually.

But deep down, I knew this “small program” reflected two completely different modes of thinking:
They were used to filling gaps with manpower.
I was used to solving problems at the structural level with logic.

In my eyes, their three weeks of overtime wasn’t a sign of diligence —
It was a symptom of systemic backwardness.

They relied on human labor.
I relied on structural logic.
They used Excel to calculate.
I used code to match.
They were stuck in habit.
I spent fifteen minutes and changed their entire reconciliation process.

I remember telling this story to others — many simply laughed it off.
Investors weren’t interested either.
They thought it was just a “small tool,” not something that could become big business.

But what they didn’t see was this:
That very ability was the embryonic form of future intelligent systems.

Today, many people can reconcile accounts using Excel — even with AI assistance.
But back in 1997, those five seconds were nothing short of a disruptive demonstration.