In the US, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 has pushed most public companies to defer performance bonuses for senior executives by about a year, slightly helping reduce "short-termism".

But the next high-speed train was sold out, and so was the next one 10 minutes after that.

Thornton has been President and Co-COO of Goldman Sachs for years before he joined Tsinghua in 2003, offering EMBA students the Global Leadership course with a symbolic annual pay of $1.