Why is Dr. Wang Jian from Alibaba Cloud a doctor of psychology, but he can be the CTO of Ali?

Why is Dr. Wang Jian a doctor of psychology, but he can be the president of Alibaba Cloud and the CTO of Alibaba?

Before answering this question, I want to tell you a truth: there is a kind of person called "prophet", who can see the future in five years, ten years or even longer, and doctors are such people.

Many students will say that Dr. Wang Jian and his party have never written the production code. How can a person who hasn't written code be the CTO of Alibaba and the president of Alibaba Cloud?

However, under everyone's doubts and doubts, the doctor started Alibaba Cloud. Moreover, Alibaba Cloud didn't take the safe road of open source scheme, but chose to develop its own operating system in Alibaba Cloud, Tian Fei, so as to maximize the realization of "independent and controllable Tian Fei Cloud".

30-year-old professor, 3 1 year-old doctoral supervisor, 32-year-old dean.

Perhaps most students will ask whether you get "special care" for such a rocket-like promotion speed in the system, even if you drop talents in an unconventional way. Special care is true, but doctors conquer academia and industry by strength.

Dr was a world-class expert in the field of man-machine interface, mainly to improve machine intelligence and efficiency, which included the most core computer cutting-edge technology and was responsible for the national 863 project. When I was a graduate student at Hangzhou University, I often took courses in the Computer Department of Zhejiang University.

For large companies, CTO may need to write code in the early stage, but when the enterprise reaches a certain scale, CTO does not need to write code directly.

There are software engineers who write code, architects who do architecture, and algorithm engineer who optimizes algorithms. The duty of CTO is to draw a "cake" for everyone. As for how to make such a cake and what materials are needed, just give it to the person who implements it.

People who often listen to the doctor's lectures know that what he says is "incomprehensible", not because people's thinking is chaotic, but because what he says is probably the future.

Take Alibaba Cloud as an example. Ten years ago, the doctor told a group of people about cloud computing and smart cities. Who can understand?

Teacher Ma bluntly said: It feels like separation, and I don't understand it, but it feels like the future. But in the most difficult time in Alibaba Cloud, when Alibaba Cloud and the doctor personally questioned the outside world, Teacher Ma resolutely stood up to support the doctor and publicly expressed his attitude on the intranet:

At the early stage of Alibaba Cloud's development, Mr. Ma gave the best resources and engineers, otherwise Alibaba Cloud would not be where it is today.

The road to development in Alibaba Cloud is too hard. This doctor, who has long been famous all over the world, put down his posture and started to be a Alibaba Cloud from scratch, which was questioned by everyone, even countless people in Alibaba Cloud. Many people can't go on because of persistence. 20 12 at the annual meeting in Alibaba Cloud, the doctor hid his face and wept. Only those who really do technology know how difficult it is.

Many things have their own destiny. Strictly speaking, neither Wang Jian nor Ma Yun was born in a computer science class. Wang Jian is engaged in psychology, and Ma Yun is engaged in English. But it was Ma Yun, an English teacher who didn't know computer technology, who used computer technology to create Alibaba Group, and it was Wang Jian, a doctoral tutor in psychology, who pushed Ali to create the world's top three cloud computing services-Alibaba Cloud.

Ma Yun once said: "It is precisely because he doesn't understand computer technology that Ali is in awe of technology, so Ali can become the strongest computer network company in the world, and it is no exaggeration to say that it is also one of them." This is Ma Yun's logic. Perhaps he thinks that Ali's technological change can be dominated by a big man who knows computers outside the computer field. This person is Wang Jian. Then, why did Jian Hui win Ma Yun's favor to hold such an important position? Of course, this is inseparable from Wang Jian's personal ability. Let's take a look together.

Wang Jian 1962 was born in Hangzhou, and Ma Yun is a fellow villager. Although they are fellow villagers, the fates of Ma Yun and Wang Jian are quite different. Judging from Wang Jian's personal resume, it is not too much to describe his life with smooth sailing.

From 65438 to 0984, Wang Jian received a bachelor's degree in psychology from Hangzhou University. Although it is psychology, its main research direction is digital human-computer interaction, which can be simply understood as a branch of computer psychology, laying a solid foundation for Wang Jian to enter the computer field later. Six years later, 1990, Wang Jian has obtained a doctorate in psychology from Hangzhou University. Judging from this point in time, he can complete his master's and doctoral studies within six years, which is enough to prove that Wang Jian is not in the pool. 1992, Wang Jian was promoted to professor and became a doctoral supervisor one year later. 1998, Wang Jian was appointed as the head of the psychology department of Hangzhou University, and was selected into the "15 1" talent project in the same year. Even now, many people who are committed to the academic path have regarded this experience as a genius level.

Although Wang Jian has been groping in the field of psychology, he prefers to show his talents in the field of computer, but he has no chance. 1999, Wang Jian finally got this opportunity. He was invited by Microsoft to join Microsoft Research Asia as vice president, and became colleagues with Kai-fu Lee and Lin Bin, who is now the co-founder of Xiaomi Company. In the same year, Ma Yun led his 18 teachers and students to set up Alibaba Group in Hangzhou.

Wang Jian is in charge of user interface, machine learning, large-scale data processing and other research in Microsoft and adCenter Lab in Beijing. From this time on, Wang Jian's talent really matched his ambition, and he was finally able to completely immerse himself in the super-large-scale data ocean in Microsoft, a technology giant. It is worth mentioning that Wang Jian's research achievements in Microsoft SQM big data technology have successfully helped the development of Office 2007 and dozens of Microsoft products; Moreover, the ink technology invented by Wang Jian has been applied in many products, such as Able PC, OneNote 2003, Windows XP Tablet PC edition 2005, Windows Vista and so on.

So Wang Jian's ability has been fully proved by Microsoft, and he doesn't need to prove himself to anyone.

In 2008, just as Wang Jian was doing well in Microsoft, Liu Zhen, Wang Jian's friend and then technical director of Alibaba, found Wang Jian because of technical problems. This is the first time that Wang Jian and Ma Yun met. As soon as Wang Jian saw the situation of Ali at that time, he immediately knew the changes he might bring to Ali. Coincidentally, Ma Yun recognized Wang Jian at a glance.

A month later, Wang Jian joined Ali Group as the chief technical architect. Wang Jian's strength is big data processing. The problem Ali faced at that time was that he didn't know how to deal with such a large amount of data. Even in terms of job matching, Wang Jian is Ali's best candidate in China.

When Wang Jian saw such large-scale data, he discussed with Ma Yun that Ali wanted to build his own cloud computing platform. This is the first time that Wang Jian put forward the concept of "Alibaba Cloud" in Ali. Ma Yun was quite supportive after learning about it, and promised to invest 654.38 billion yuan a year in Wang Jian's Alibaba Cloud project, even if it was ten years, he would complete the "Alibaba Cloud Calculation" project; Building a cloud computing platform is not easy. In this process, Wang Jian was considered a "liar", but he didn't give up. Finally, with the acquisition of Wang Wan in China by 20 13 Ali, Wang Jian successfully built a complete cloud computing platform-Alibaba Cloud for Ali with the help of the technology platform of Wang Wan in China.

Since then, Alibaba Cloud has made great strides and started to provide its own cloud services to the whole country and the world. Large state-owned enterprises, large and small government units and private enterprises including 12306 have become customers of Alibaba Cloud, and Alibaba Cloud has become the top three cloud computing platforms in the world.

Let's not take it for granted. Wang Jian is a technical background, not a liberal arts student as you think.

He is one of the best experts in the field of ergonomics, which is an interdisciplinary subject between psychology and computer. When Kai-Fu Lee set up the Beijing office of Microsoft Research Institute (later became the Whampoa Military Academy of China ai and CTO), he asked domestic authorities in this field, and Wang Jian was the first one recommended by others. Moreover, his performance in Microsoft Research Institute is very outstanding, and he is unique in the choice of research direction and achievements, which makes many other scientists engaged in more difficult directions have to admire.

In my opinion, Wang Jian may be the most successful CTO in China in recent ten years. Just look at how much Alibaba Cloud's valuation accounts for in Ali's current market value of hundreds of billions of dollars. Alibaba Cloud was supposed to be one of the largest technology companies in China when he split up. It is extremely rare for CTO to do this by spending money to support the business in the company, but to make the technology itself a business and earn such great value for the company.

It's not that important for CTO to write his own code. The key is to be able to look far in the technical strategy, find the right direction, think clearly, and form an understanding with the CEO of the company, get support, and really implement it in this general direction. At this point, Wang Jian is very successful.

Thank you for your question. Wang Jian, a doctor of psychology, is indeed the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) of Alibaba, which shows that there must be talents outside Bole.

Wang Jian, Chairman of Alibaba Technical Committee, was a doctoral supervisor and head of the Department of Psychology of Hangzhou University and Zhejiang University. In 2008, he chose to join Ali from Microsoft Research Asia as the chief architect. Alibaba Cloud was founded in 2009 as the first president. In the case of starting from scratch, he "arrogantly" gave up the relatively safe open source route and insisted on making a large-scale distributed computing system-"Tian Fei".

Wang Jian's view of technology has nothing to do with psychology. Professor Wang is a professor of psychology at Zhejiang University and director of the National Laboratory of Industrial Psychology at Zhejiang University. Wang Jian served as Executive Vice President of Microsoft Research Asia from 65438 to 0999. Therefore, Wang Jian has an industrial Internet background, not pure psychology. Just like our view today, many years ago, many people questioned that Wang Jian was a psychologist. Is it a big deal to go to Ali for scientific research? In fact, before entering Alibaba, Wang Jian was an engineer at Microsoft Research Institute. At this time, you can refer to Bill Gates' mantra "Don't ask me, go to Wang Jian", which shows that Wang Jian's technical expertise is also obvious.

Why did Dr. Wang Jian from Alibaba Cloud get his doctorate? Psychologically, can he become the chief technology officer of Ali?

Wang Jian is a difficult talent. Ma Yun gave Alibaba Cloud to Wang Jian. However, both Wang Jian and Alibaba Cloud were regarded as jokes at that time. This technology is difficult to realize and its prospect is uncertain. In particular, Hema also publicly stated that they are not familiar with cloud technology. Wang Jian suffers in Ali and has a job in his heart. There were many accidents in the early development of Alibaba Cloud, and engineers couldn't sleep. At the most difficult time, 80% of the engineers left Alibaba Cloud. Wang Jian said that Alibaba Cloud was filled in by an engineer. This is indeed a big fact. For many years, Alibaba Cloud has been the world's leading cloud computing technology, with a valuation of nearly $70 billion. It is expected to become another unicorn company under Alibaba, with a value of 654.38 billion US dollars. Wang Jian's persistence finally paid off.

1, Wang Jian studied at Hangzhou University in his early years. Hangzhou University has long been merged by Zhejiang University. Most people don't understand. In fact, this university should be better than Xiamen University now. Its graduates are academicians of the two academies, rich people, senior political officials and well-known overseas professors. At present, it is at least better than more than half of 985 universities. Among them, Wang Jian's Industrial Psychology ranked first in China at that time, and its founder was Professor Chen Li, the founder of industrial psychology in China. In this industry psychology major ranked first in the country, Wang Jian was a professor at the age of 30, a doctoral supervisor at the age of 365,438+0, and a department head at the age of 32, which was excellent in itself. In addition, industrial psychology is an interdisciplinary subject. In addition to the research contents of management psychology, labor psychology, engineering psychology, personnel psychology and consumer psychology, the interaction between man and machine and the relationship between man and environment are also one of the research focuses. Dr. Wang Jian realized the importance of computers in industrial psychology when computers were still in the primary stage in China, so he often went to Zhejiang University to take computer classes. With Dr. Wang Jian's learning ability, it is credible that computer learning reached the top level at that time. This laid a solid foundation for his rich cross knowledge. After arriving at Microsoft, Wang Jian mainly engaged in user interface, machine learning, large-scale data processing and other research, which is in the same strain as his previous industrial psychology. It can be said that Wang Jian is a pioneer in the fields of big data, machine learning and human-computer interaction in China, which laid an important foundation for his work in Ali.

2. Wang Jian is a CTO rather than a code farmer. The important role of CTO is technology strategy and technology management. Wang Jian was already a big data expert when he was at Microsoft. After seeing Amazon Cloud, Wang Jian is naturally Alibaba Cloud. Although the resistance is great, Wang Jian has "seen the world" and he believes that clouds and data represent the future. In fact, some of Ali's forward-looking products and plans in recent years are more or less related to Wang Jian: online and offline new retail, leading car operating system AliOS and subsequent Internet of Things operating system AliOS Things, leading office social products nail, Dharma Institute, China Taiwan Province and so on. Under the leadership of Wang Jian, Ali's R&D expenses keep rising and his technical level keeps improving. Wang Jian is very capable as a technical supervisor.

4. I have to say that Ma Yun is really strong in employing people, such as Wang Jian, a master of technical strategy and management, Zhang Yong, Ceng Ming and so on. Fan Jiang in Taobao in 1985 and Ali's talent echelon should be the best among Internet companies.

Many people think that psychology is a liberal art, but it is actually a science.

Wang Jian is a doctor of psychology at Hangzhou University and a former head of the psychology department. Before 1998, Beijing Normal University, Peking University, East China Normal University and Hangzhou University were called the four major psychology departments in China, and the industrial psychology of Hangzhou University was 1 in China.

From 65438 to 0998, Hangzhou University was merged by Zhejiang University. Zhejiang University also attaches great importance to the Department of Psychology, which has been expanded into the School of Psychology. Unfortunately, the Department of Psychology of Zhejiang University lags behind in many disciplines.

Why do I know this? Because I graduated from the psychology department of East China Normal University.

This topic is very big. Why do you define that only people who can use computers can be CTO? Many innovative ideas are obliterated because of the solidification of human thinking. Now the domestic Internet industry has really made some technical products, and Alibaba Cloud is definitely an excellent one. If someone who knows computers does it, it may not work, because studying in the computer field for too long is easy to form a solid thinking, and there may not be too many ideas coming out of generate. In fact, looking back at Wang Jian's professional experience,

An out-and-out doctor of psychology is still top in China. Because I am the dean of the department at school and can't play interpersonal relationships, I resigned and went to Microsoft's Asia Research Institute, making a name for myself. Because of a coincidence, he met Ma Yun and told him some ideas. As a result, Ma Yun was deeply moved. As a result, he spends 10 billion on cloud computing every year. As a result, Wang Jian was under great pressure and was trapped in Ali's internal and external diplomacy. The other is to firmly support Wang Jian to stick to it. Among them, Ma Yun is the most determined. In fact, Ma Yun's pattern is bigger and should be regarded as a strategic investment. Without huge investment, there will be no huge gains. Conversely, what do you think psychology is?

Wang Jian studied industrial psychology, in which many logic and thinking modes are basically close to computers. Although he majored in psychology, Wang Jian learned a lot about computing in a short time by studying computers in class. I have to admit that Wang Jian himself is talented in some aspects. Even if some people do one thing wholeheartedly, it will become very difficult. Wang Jian has not only made great achievements in the field of psychology, but also played well in the field of computer through his own efforts.

Now when people talk about psychology, they may think of how to guide people's thoughts and so on. The scope of psychology is very extensive, and many logics in industrial psychology are designed to be close to computer thinking. The rise of Wang Jian's work in Microsoft is definitely not a hollow reputation. The birth of any new technology is bound to be painful. The obvious performance in Alibaba is mainly because the domestic Internet access is in full swing. Spending 65438+ 1000 billion a year to do anything will have a very high rate of return, so everyone expressed serious doubts after seeing that several years of investment had no results, so that some technicians in Alibaba's forum put forward the objection that Wang Jian could write code, which shows how much pressure Wang Jian had at that time.

In the actual development process of Alibaba Cloud, engineers have been updated for several generations. Let alone the hard work inside. The main external pressure is too great. Many people can't stand the two-way pressure and choose to leave. On the most critical technical link, Wang Jian didn't flinch at all, so technicians were afraid to report to Wang Jian, because as long as they touched the edge, they could put forward various standards and requirements, and their pursuit of goals was almost harsh, that is to say, they didn't lower the requirements for project development because of external pressure. At that time, there were some rumors that the doctor didn't know what magic he used and gathered a group of technical backbones to work with him. Now Alibaba Cloud technology has not only solved the original high concurrency problem, but also the cloud computing technology has ranked third in the world, only next to Amazon and Microsoft, which has played a very important role in solving the concurrency problem of 12306. Now Alibaba Cloud has become a symbol of domestic independent research and development, and it has become a much-told story.

It is precisely because of making innovations in this special identity that if a computer doctor really can't jump out of the so-called thinking consciousness circle, from this perspective, Ma Yun's awareness of the overall strategic situation is still very strong. Seeing people is not just the future, but the key is to do something. Wang Jian is destined to leave a deep impression in the history of Ali science and technology, hoping to help you.

Because, awesome people, as long as they get serious, nothing is bad.

Cattle people like reading. He can be admitted to Tsinghua Peking University. Niuren likes to be an academic, and can be a professor or even a scientist. Cattle people like to engage in technology, technology can be top-notch.

Don't say that anyone who hasn't read a book is earning a lot. That's because people are awesome and just don't like reading.

And this phenomenon has gradually become history. Now many awesome people will be proud of their academic achievements to prove themselves.

Isn't there a joke that singers who can't cook are not good drivers? Although it seems like a joke, it just shows that some people are born with cross-disciplinary ability. They are foreign monks who can read different scriptures! Wang Jian, a doctor of psychology, is a foreign monk in Alibaba Cloud. He became a phenomenon in Alibaba, so that he was repeatedly questioned in the process of leading Alibaba Cloud's team. In the case of unanimous disapproval, he successfully counterattacked and surprised the world!

But there is always a reason for success. Not everyone who crosses the border can succeed in Rainbow Sword, so Wang Jian's success is unique.

Before Wang Jian joined Ali, he served as executive vice president of Microsoft Research Asia, which is enough to explain why Ma Yun included a Ph.D. in psychology! In fact, Wang Jian has been engaged in machine learning and big data processing at Microsoft. The developed large-scale data processing platform is widely used in Microsoft's advertising system, and supports the research and development of Microsoft's iconic product Office and many products. In 2008, he was awarded the Outstanding Contribution Award by China Computer Federation, and 1998 was selected as the "15 1" talent project in Zhejiang Province, so Wang Jian is an old bird in the IT field!

There are many professionals in biology, physics and chemistry in the computer industry. They have strong logical analysis ability. With serious research spirit, they have also done a good job in entering the computer field, even better than most professionals, especially in the underlying algorithms and data structures. This is because computer is actually a tool discipline, and it is more about solving practical business problems. So as long as you are willing to think and study, you can enter this field.

In addition, computers need good creativity and imagination, while Wang Jian studied psychology, and he combined many theories of psychology into computers well, thus giving full play to his creativity.

It's easy to be a general, but it's not that simple to be a commander in chief. And Wang Jian has this quality:

1, the ultimate pursuit of goals

2. Strong execution

3, the spirit of death to the end

I remember that Dr. Wang Jian cried at the celebration in Alibaba Cloud. He described the hardships along the way. Alibaba Cloud's team changed people after people. Although questioned by the whole group, Dr. Wang Jian persisted. Without a firm belief in Alibaba Cloud, it is impossible to stick to it.

Ma Yun is a wizard, and his success is inseparable from his strong understanding ability. He has seen through many people and things and the logic behind many businesses. Along the way, he was surrounded by many elite soldiers. Every time Ali changes, someone always stands out and retreats behind the scenes at an appropriate time, from1/lohan to Cai Chongxin, from Sun Tongyu to Lu Zhaoxi, from Peng Lei to Zhang Yong, from Wang Jian to Hu Xiaoming ... Ma Yun knows that people are good at their duties, but people don't doubt them. It is Ma Yun's firm support behind Alibaba Cloud that leads to the touching story of Dr. Wang Jian, so we should thank Ma Yun, that's right.

Everything makes sense. Psychology seems to have nothing to do with IT CTO, but there is no demarcation between academic disciplines. Now it is an integrated society, and integration will generate new forces and create new elements. Dr. Wang Jian will not become a CTO, but there will be more cross-border people and more successful people in the future!