Looking back on the history of an entrepreneur is always one way to discover the elements of success and make oneself stronger. This article focuses on analyzing how @VitalikButerin can drive Ethereum's success by understanding and guiding human weaknesses (such as greed, lack of trust, power lust, short-term thinking) and provide actionable insights for entrepreneurs. The focus is on exploiting human weaknesses, so each section will highlight how Vitalik has turned human tendencies into a driving force for Ethereum's growth Vision-driven: Inspire humanity to pursue grand narratives Humans crave meaning and belonging, and are easily attracted to grand visions, but they can also be diverted by short-term interests. White papers and open communication can guide communities to focus on long-term goals and curb short-term speculative tendencies. In 2013, Vitalik wrote the Ethereum whitepaper, proposing the concept of a world computer that goes beyond the payment function of Bitcoin, attracting Gavin Wood @gavofyork Joseph Lubin @joseph_lubin and others to join. The white paper is not only a technical blueprint, but also a narrative tool that inspires the community to yearn for a decentralized future.The crowdfunding of $18 million in Bitcoin in 2014 reflects the willingness of investors to take risks driven by their vision. In the 2017 ICO boom, when speculators were chasing huge profits, Vitalik reflected on the ICO chaos through his blog, advocated high-quality experiments, and guided the community from short-term profits to long-term value revelation Build resonant visions that satisfy teams and users' thirst for meaning, like Vitalik's World Computer. Strengthen long-term goals through regular communication and suppress the interference of short-term interests. The white paper is a combination of technology and storytelling, and entrepreneurs can bring their vision to life with a minimum viable product. Error Correction System: Satisfying the human needs for safety and fairness Human fear of uncertainty and injustice, loss aversion makes it resistant to change, but it also pursues safety and fairness, exploits human desire for safety and fairness, rebuilds trust in crises, and alleviates resistance to change through transparent decision-making. Kahneman and Tversky's prospect theory states that humans are more sensitive to losses than to gains. Vitalik alleviates users' fear of loss through error correction mechanisms, satisfies fairness needs through community voting, and transforms crises into opportunities for trust rebuilding. In 2016, a DAO hack stolen $60 million in ETH, exposing greed and a crisis of trust. Vitalik promotes hard fork recovery funding, implemented in partnership with Peter Szilagyi @peterszilagyi Hudson Jameson @hudsonjameson, and 85% of the community supports it through CarbonVote, meeting human expectations for fairness. Despite the opposition of the Code-as-Law faction, which led to the Ethereum Classic fork, Vitalik embraced the split, prioritizing system resilience. Vitalik publicly explains the reasons for the fork through blogs and forums to alleviate users' aversion to change and increase trust. revelation Design error correction mechanisms, such as return policies or feedback systems, to alleviate users' concerns about uncertainty. Transparent communication reduces resistance to change, and public explanations can inspire entrepreneurs to resolve disputes through announcements or Q&A sessions. Use the psychology of fairness to enhance user participation and loyalty through democratic decision-making. Decentralization and Commons Influence: Balancing human desire for power and recognition Human beings are prone to centralized dependence or internal strife in their pursuit of power and recognition, but they also crave participation and respect. Asch's herd experiments show that humans tend to follow authority while craving their own influence. Vitalik satisfies the needs of participation through decentralization, and becomes a trusted guide through public domain output, achieving a balance between influence and decentralization. In 2014, the early Ethereum team debated commercialization, Charles Hoskinson advocated a joint-stock company, and Vitalik chose to establish a non-profit foundation @ethereum to dissuade Hoskinson, which was supported by Gavin Wood and Joseph Lubin. This decision gives developers a sense of engagement and attracts a wide range of contributors. Vitalik shares the philosophy of technology through blogs, X and Devcon presentations to meet the community's need for trusted leaders. For example, his reflections on DAO events and merges lead to community consensus. Core developers such as Tim Beiko @timbeiko Danny Ryan @dannyryan coordinated the upgrade via the All Core Devs call, with Vitalik acting only as a facilitator to satisfy the developer's desire for recognition. revelation Meet the recognition needs of the team and motivate participation through open contributions. Share insights regularly to build thought leadership and guide rather than force. Design a transparent governance mechanism to balance the desire for power and reduce internal conflicts. Supporting public goods: Channeling the dual motives of greed and altruism Human beings are both greedy (pursuing individual interests) and altruistic (pursuing collective welfare), and are prone to oscillating between short-term gains and long-term values. Vitalik channels greed to the collective good through public goods funding and reflection on speculation, uses altruism to incentivize contributions, and satisfies the need for trust and fairness through donations and governance mechanisms. The 2017 ICO and the 2020 DeFi wave exposed greed, speculative projects using Ethereum for profit. Vitalik blogs about the misuse of financial instruments, proposes high-quality experiments, and guides developers from profiteering to long-term value. He supports Gitcoin @Gitcoin's quadratic funding mechanism, using greed (donors gain influence) and altruism (funding open source projects) to fund more than $50 million in public goods in 2021. In 2021, he donated $1 billion in ETH to support India's COVID-19 relief, meet the community's expectations for altruism, and enhance social trust in Ethereum.In 2022, The Merge shifted to PoS proof-of-stake, where nodes make profits through staking (greed) and maintain network security (altruism), implemented by Danny Ryan and Tim Beiko. Vitalik's success is inseparable from the engine of turning human weaknesses into Ethereum: igniting the pursuit of meaning with vision, repairing the rift of trust with error correction, stimulating community momentum with decentralization, and balancing greed and altruism with public goods. In 2025, he still pushes a grand vision, emphasizing privacy decentralization to promote single-slot finality and EVM migration. However, the ten-year routine has gradually shown fatigue, and the rise of new chains such as high gas, Layer 2 fragmentation, and Solana has eaten away at the share, and most of the early followers have left the market. Grand narratives are repeated for too long, unfulfilled expectations shake trust, and humanity's desire for immediate rewards overshadows the vision of the future. Ethereum is made of human nature and tested by human nature. Weaknesses drive the world and subvert dreams.