CCTV Interview with Kai-Fu Lee: What qualities do successful entrepreneurs need?

CCTV Interview with Kai-Fu Li: What qualities do successful entrepreneurs need?

Introduction: Dr. Kai-Fu Li from Innovation Works mentioned in the CCTV interview: What qualities a successful entrepreneur should possess? The quality should be to have strong leadership ability.

Has China already won the Internet competition between China and the United States?

How to view the fluctuations in the valuation of technology companies?

Success What qualities do entrepreneurs need?

Why is Sinovation Ventures only willing to be a small shareholder?

What are the main risks brought by artificial intelligence?

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Recently, around these topics, Dr. Kaifu Li of Sinovation Ventures was interviewed by CCTV News. Since your English may not be that good, we spent some time translating the main content of the interview.

Opening remarks

Welcome to New Money. Every week we invite Chinese entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs to talk about their stories. I am Guan Xin, in today’s special edition. We invited Dr. Kaifu Li, one of China's most influential entrepreneurs. Dr. Kai-Fu Lee founded Sinovation Ventures 7 years ago and is now one of the iconic figures of the new economy.

As one of the most influential people in the technology world, Kai-fu Lee is both an entrepreneur and a well-known computer scientist. In 1998, Kai-fu Lee led the creation of Microsoft Research Asia in Beijing. In July 2005, he left Microsoft to join Google, where he was responsible for the operation of its China R&D center and served as president of Google Greater China.

Q: We are honored to invite Dr. Kai-Fu Lee in today’s program. Thank you for joining our program.

L: I’m honored too.

Q: Some people say that China has narrowed the gap with developed countries in terms of innovation, and is even leading in some fields. What do you think?

L: I think this sentence is correct from the perspective of development in the past 7 years. Starting from 7 years ago, China mainly benefited from it having a large market, because in the Internet era, the bigger your market, the bigger your market. The more opportunities there are, (when the market is large) you can raise more funds and get more users, and then these users can help you better raise funds, which indeed helps China to a large extent. There has been a huge development from 2000 to 2 or 3 years ago. Based on this, I think no one will question the opportunities that a large market can bring.

But now is the time to apply science and technology to these users and try to make some changes. I think it is very important to have advanced and distinctive science and technology, because there are successful products in the market. Thousands of people may have the same or even better ideas (to compete with you), so unless you can stand out through talent or technology, it will be difficult for you to compete in this market.

Q: That’s right. Many people are trying to start a business and nearly 4.4 million companies were registered in China last year alone. Do you think these large numbers of innovations and entrepreneurs can match the traditional slow development process? Does the economy compete? Because like many traditional economies such as manufacturing and real estate, their markets are much larger.

L: I think this is a very challenging thing. If you look at it from the perspective of development in the next 10 years, there is no doubt that the evolving science and technology are constantly creating value, making China and even The lives of people in other countries around the world have become better, but in the short term, the proportion of high technology and the new economy is still very small, so there are still some challenges here.

But eventually we will create more value through technology so that we can do what we really love, and this will happen.

However, we still cannot expect a small number of technology companies to make up for some of the losses caused by the slowdown in the traditional economy.

Q: So there are still some challenges in the short term. The government has allocated 1.2 trillion yuan and introduced relevant policies to support entrepreneurship. The entire Chinese market is showing a state of top-down reform. Do you think this policy will have any impact?

L: I don’t think other countries have tried this before, and no one knows exactly what will happen, but I think it’s more accurate to say that whether this funding comes from the government or private companies, this small amount of funding can ultimately bring A lot of success and profits: Because not everyone can do entrepreneurship and high-tech investment or achieve the same success, those who can be unique in experience, technology, team quality or science and technology people will have an advantage over others.

For example, in terms of venture capital returns in Silicon Valley, the top 10 people will make more money than the remaining 90 people combined. This is also true in China; on the other hand , although (entrepreneurial capital) has 1.2 trillion US dollars, I think not everyone is suitable to enter the high-tech field, because this field requires specialization, and those who do not have experience, technology and products, I recommend not to enter. This field is better. I think such people can enter other fields, such as opening their own Taobao store, service industry, or architects and designers. These industries can also raise funds.

Q: That’s right. Some people are now worried about a bubble in China’s entrepreneurial market. Some people think that the valuation of Chinese companies is too high, so it is difficult to match its actual book value and some People even have to sell the company at a low price in the later stage. What do you think of this phenomenon?

L: First of all, I think the valuation of these technology companies continues to change over time. For fluctuations, we can look at 2000 and 2008 or the second half of 2009 (all like this). Now the fluctuations have become relatively gentle. What we need to pay attention to is the overall valuation of technology in the next 5 to 10 years. Therefore, I am not very worried about this issue. I think the value of industries such as the Internet, biotechnology, new materials and new medical care have not yet been fully realized, so we should look at the development in the next 5 to 10 years. In the short term there will be some fluctuations, but we should pay more attention to how our lives will change. I think there will be big changes in the next five years, so these short-term high or low Valuation is actually a normal fluctuation in the market.

Q: So where are we now?

L: I think if I were to make a prediction for the next 2 to 3 years, I would be wrong. It's hard to judge from a year-to-year basis. For early-stage technology startups, if you invest in the right company, it can even increase its value by 2, 3, 4 or 5 times in a year, so although a company may be overvalued, But if you invest in the right company, sooner or later the company will reach its true value.

Q: That’s right. Dr. Li is at the forefront of innovation in China and is committed to promoting the development of the new economy. Let’s take a short break now. In the following program we will explore China’s innovation in the past 7 years. Sinovation Ventures’ investment projects and strategies will be discussed later.

Trivia

Dash and Dot are robots that teach children computer programming, launched by Wonder Workshop, a Silicon Valley startup in which China Innovation Works recently invested .

Zhihu is an early investment project of China Innovation Works and one of the most popular question and answer platforms in China. In the latest round of financing at the end of last year, this knowledge sharing website was valued at more than 300 million US dollars. .

Last year’s data showed that China Innovation Works supported nearly 200 startups, more than 20 of which currently have a market valuation of more than US$100 million.

Q: Dr. Li, China Sinovation Ventures has invested in more than 200 companies, only a few of which failed, and the rest began to make profits in 2015. This is a very impressive data. May I ask this? What is the story behind it?

L: I think the advantage of our company is that we understand technology, so we will invest our capital in rapidly growing projects based on trends rather than investing in fixed projects. Companies with a larger market share are even companies with a weakening market share, but to be more precise, a larger market share is more beneficial to our transactions. For example, in 2009, we did on the mobile Internet We made a big investment, which put us ahead of other investors and paid off; going back to 2012 and 2013, we made a lot of investments in Internet media and entertainment, and we can see that now it is a huge market, but now we spend more time on artificial intelligence and robotics because we predict that this will be the next trend, so a very important thing is to be able to predict the big trends and invest in them before everyone realizes it.

Q: Is it like chasing a big trend?

L: Yes, in fact we are predicting the trend in advance.

Q: Many talented young Chinese want to be your attention, and you have tens of millions of fans on Weibo, so can you tell them what qualities are among young entrepreneurs? What are you more concerned about?

L: We believe that a great entrepreneur must have the following skills: Not only must they have a strong sense of teamwork and powerful products and technologies, but we also believe that Concentration and the ability to work with a team to solve problems are also very important. In addition, it is also very important to have a strong learning ability, because technology changes quickly.

It is important to have strong leadership, because in a competitive market, the company's situation may go up and down, so if you are a strong leader, you will be able to help the company when it encounters difficulties. Able to lead a team, make the team feel your confidence, and gain the trust of team members. These are the qualities I believe a successful entrepreneur should possess.

Q: I have talked with some start-ups that you have invested in. They said that China Innovation Works has provided them with a lot of additional services and resources, but what is interesting is that you only want to be a small shareholder. Why?

L: Because in most cases we are the first investors in these startups, and these companies may go through 4, 5 or even 6 rounds of additional financing, and in each round of financing Chinese investors will allocate some shares from the founders, so if we hold a large stake at the beginning, the founders will lose control of the company in the second and third rounds of financing. We think The founder should be the one who controls the destiny of the company and creates its future. It is important that they have control of the company, otherwise some investors may make unreasonable demands that prevent them from doing what they want to do, so We hope that the company will only sell a small amount of shares during the rapid appreciation of the company, and even retain control during the IPO stage. In order for this to happen, we cannot be too greedy at the beginning and take away too much of the company. Many shares.

Q: I have to say that this is really thoughtful. You know that a large number of foreign venture capital and startup companies have poured into the Chinese market and want to take advantage of this opportunity to accumulate capital. However, compared with the US market, the Chinese market seems There are big differences. You know Silicon Valley very well, so what do you think is the main difference between the Chinese market and the American market?

L: Some American venture capital companies entered very early The Chinese market has become localized and successful. Sequoia is a good example. You may be talking about venture capital companies that have not yet entered the Chinese market. I would rather recommend that they cooperate with local Chinese companies to enable them to Localizing ideas and introducing some science and technology can even bring in Silicon Valley operations. At the same time, local companies can enable these venture capital companies to better understand the local market.

To give you an example, a big difference between Chinese and American entrepreneurs is that American entrepreneurs pay more attention to teamwork. Their companies are usually composed of 3 or 4 founders from different cultural backgrounds. People are composed of people with similar proportions of company control. When they encounter big problems, they will work together to solve them. However, although the American way of solving problems through teamwork brings different ideas, the decision-making process will be very slow. However, China's market environment is very competitive, so it will be more effective to have a strong person lead and others follow. At the same time, it will simplify the work of venture capital investors, because we only need to rely on this person and not be afraid of him running away. Although it’s not good for others to leave midway, we can find other people to replace them. Even if you make a wrong decision, it is better than over-analyzing the problem and missing the market opportunity. Therefore, the Chinese market is very different and has different characteristics. Mode of operation.

Q: This is very interesting. We are now taking another break. Next, we will discuss artificial intelligence and the development prospects of technology. Is artificial intelligence good or bad? So stay tuned.

Highlights

In March of this year, Alpha Go, the artificial intelligence robot developed by Google, defeated the world Go champion Lee Sedol. This victory triggered people's thinking about the development of artificial intelligence. And China is a strong competitor in this field.

Fourth Paradigm is a startup company in Beijing, based on artificial intelligence research and development and big data systems. It has recently established an open platform called profit for companies without basic knowledge background to apply. AI.

Machines have replaced people. It has helped people save a lot of mental work, so people can do more creative work, which can greatly improve overall creativity. This is also the fourth time Core Values ??of the Industrial Revolution.

Horizon Robotics is another high-tech company invested by China Innovation Works. This company believes that artificial intelligence will be everywhere in the future.

However, with the development of artificial intelligence, many people are worried about the power of science and technology, and many people are thinking about whether this is an advantage or a disadvantage.

Q: Dr. Li, you invented the world’s first independent continuous speech recognition system. At that time, many people were skeptical about artificial intelligence, but now many people’s attitudes have changed and some even If you are excited about the development of artificial intelligence, you must be excited too.

L: I was very excited, but when I was studying for my PhD, I also felt very bad because a lot of technology and equipment were not in place. Looking back now, I realize that the development of artificial intelligence requires not only a lot of data and a lot of calculations, but also excellent talents who understand AI. But at the time, we didn't have much data. Today, AI researchers with applications and large amounts of data must either join a large company or start a new venture of their own. Compared with the past, machines can make better predictions and create greater economic benefits.

Q: Yes, this can also explain why the field of artificial intelligence is so valued.

In the past period of time, China has been catching up with other countries in some scientific and technological fields. Some people say that artificial intelligence research provides China with an opportunity to compete on the same starting line as other countries. Do you think China will produce world-leading artificial intelligence companies in the future?

L: I think Yes, but it takes time. Because the development of artificial intelligence in the United States has been relatively clear, and American researchers have been conducting research in this area for a long time, many American companies, including banks and insurance companies, have also adopted artificial intelligence technology. They are relatively leading in the application of artificial intelligence technology, which is one of their advantages. But China also has some different advantages.

Q: For example, data?

L: Yes, the market is bigger, there are more people, and there is more data. And I think a lot of people are not that sensitive about privacy, so they're more willing to provide data than to refuse to provide it. Secondly, China has very good engineering education. Perhaps China’s education system is not doing well enough in other fields, but engineering education is indeed excellent, so top universities have been exporting talents for artificial intelligence research and engineering. Thirdly, some traditional enterprises in China, such as banks and insurance companies, are indeed lagging behind in the use of artificial intelligence, but this also means that if you start to use these technologies, artificial intelligence technology will quickly prove its value, even Faster than the United States. Taking the credit card fraud rate as an example, we can make an analogy. Suppose the fraud rate in the United States has been reduced to 0.1, while in China it is 1. So if you are an artificial intelligence researcher, it will be much easier to reduce the fraud rate in China to 1 than to reduce the fraud rate in the United States to 0.1.

Q: One question I am more concerned about is that in the past period, many scientific and technological achievements came from state-owned enterprises, such as high-speed rail, Beidou GPS system and Tianhe supercomputer. What do you think about the future of private startups? Will it play an important role in the field of artificial intelligence?

L: I think both government finance and private enterprises will play a crucial role. For example, the field of national security will be an area where the government invests heavily, and this will also promote the development of artificial intelligence technology in anti-terrorism, airport security, etc., and then expand to the development of security work in areas such as offices and homes. Government support will promote safety work in these public areas. In many fields such as the financial sector, banking, securities trading, and insurance, the interests of private companies are equally important. There is already a large amount of data in these fields, and artificial intelligence technology will also create economic benefits, so (the government and private companies) will play an important role.

Q: But some people still have some concerns about artificial intelligence technology. For example, the development of artificial intelligence will lead to unemployment. I certainly believe that in the long run it would be beneficial to have robots do some of the work instead of humans, so that humans can do some more creative work. But do you think this will be a problem in the short term?

L: I think AI technology will cause some people to lose their jobs, and the job losses will be shorter than other technologies in history. It will happen within a certain period of time and the scale will be larger. But the good news is that it will also create economic value, and governments can also use artificial intelligence technology to ensure social security. Several Scandinavian countries already provide each citizen with an annual minimum subsistence allowance, and this may become a trend. But I'm also concerned that people will become unhappy because that doesn't contribute to the vitality of society. So I think we can focus on providing better education or re-education for these people who may be unemployed, and find new areas where they can feel happy and create value.

Q: Find a new way of survival for them.

L: Yes, maybe some jobs related to art, design, creation, and entertainment, rather than repetitive jobs in factories that may be replaced by robots.

Q: Another issue that has attracted attention is, when artificial intelligence technology develops into super intelligence, will it eventually lead to the extinction of human beings? Is this issue too serious?

L: About There is a lot of controversy about this, but I don’t think we have any evidence to prove this possibility at the moment. The only thing that's certain is that this won't happen anytime soon. So I think we should still focus on creating value and raising public awareness to make them more socially responsible. ;