Li Yanhong, founder, chairman and CEO of Baidu, is fully responsible for Baidu's strategic planning and operation management. Before the establishment of Baidu, Li Yanhong was one of the top search engine engineers in the world, and his patent of hyperlink analysis technology was one of the basic inventions that laid the development trend and direction of modern search engines. Baidu led by Li Yanhong is the largest Chinese search engine in the world. Baidu's success has also made China one of only four countries in the world with the core technology of search engines, which is comparable to the United States, Russia and South Korea. Li Yanhong has won the honors of "CCTV China Economic Person of the Year" and "Thirty People in 30 Years of Reform and Opening-up", and has been rated as "the most influential business leader in China" and "the most influential person in the world" by Business Week and Fortune magazine for many times.
Chinese Name: Nationality: China Nationality: Birthplace of Han nationality: Yangquan City, Shanxi Province Date of birth:1968165438+10/7 Occupation: Chairman and CEO of Baidu Company. Graduate school: Peking University, State University of New York at Buffalo.
Main achievements: Invented the super-chain analysis technology and obtained the US patent. In 2006, CCTV2005, China Economic Person of the Year Business Weekly, the world's best business leader, the torchbearer of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, and 30 people in China in the 30 years of reform and opening up in 2008.
Assets: about 61700 million RMB.
1968, from Yangquan City, Shanxi Province.
Li yanhong
199 1 graduated from Peking University majoring in information management, and then went to new york state university in Buffalo to complete the master's degree in computer science. In the early days of search engine development, as one of the earliest researchers in the world, Li Yanhong first created ESP technology and successfully applied it to the search engine of Infoseek/Go.com Let's go. COM's image search engine is another technological innovation with great application value.
1At the end of 999, with the dream of "technology changes people's lives", Li Yanhong returned to China and founded Baidu. After years of efforts, Baidu has become the most frequently used Chinese website in China, the largest Chinese search engine in the world and the largest Chinese website in the world. In August 2005, Baidu successfully listed on Nasdaq, becoming one of the most concerned listed companies in the global capital market.
Under the leadership of Robin Li, Baidu has not only the best search engine technical team in the world, but also the best management team, product design, development and maintenance team in China. It is also groundbreaking in business model, which has played a positive role in promoting enterprises in China to share Internet achievements. At present, Baidu is also the China company that global multinational companies seek cooperation most. With the establishment of Baidu Japan, Baidu has accelerated the pace of internationalization.
In 1996, he first solved the problem of how to perfectly combine the ranking based on web page quality with the ranking based on relevance, and thus obtained an American patent;
From 65438 to 0998, based on the experience of working and living in Silicon Valley, the book Commercial Wars in Silicon Valley was published in Chinese mainland.
At the end of 1999, he returned to China with venture capital and co-founded Baidu with his friend Mr. Xu Yong;
In 200 1 year, it was selected as "Top Ten Pioneers in China";
In 2002 and 2003, he won the title of "Top Ten IT Man of the Year" in the first and second sessions respectively.
In April 2004, he was elected as the second "Top Ten Outstanding Youth of China Software";
On August 23rd, 2005, he won the12nd ASEAN Youth Award.
On February 28th, 2005, 65438+ was awarded "China Economic Person of the Year in CCTV2005";
On June 5438+February 10, 2006, he was selected as the "best business leader" in the world in 2006 by American Business Weekly.
On February 8, 2009, 65438 won the 2009 China Economic Leader Award;
20 10 was awarded "100 World Influential Person, ranking 24th in the Leaders List" on April 30th;
20 10 won the "Outstanding Talents Award of the Capital" on July 29th.
In 20 10 and 1 1, he was awarded "Forbes 20 10 the most influential person in the world". [4]
20101018, Li Yanhong, CEO of Fortune Baidu, was on the list [5].
On March 8, 20 12, he ranked 86th on Forbes' list of global billionaires. [6]
life experience
Taking pictures in front of the Summer Palace in Beijing [7]
/kloc-at the age of 0/9, he left Yangquan, Shanxi Province, and went to study in his dream Peking University. At the age of 23, he traveled across the ocean to study computer at new york State University in Buffalo, USA. At the age of 3 1, he founded Baidu network technology co., ltd, the largest search engine company in China. Knowledge has changed fate! Li Yanhong, founder and CEO of Baidu, sat in the conference room of Haitai Building in Zhongguancun, Beijing, looking at the bustling area of Beijing's Fourth Ring Road, thinking about the hard work over the years and sighed. Maybe he read too many books when he was growing up, but now he seldom reads. "I think it's better to surf the Internet. The knowledge in books is out of date. You can browse anything online. "
However, it was Peking University's information management major that made him understand the meaning of search, it was studying computers in the United States that made him master computer tools, and it was the Internet that made Li Yanhong excited about new things. It turns out that there is a beautiful world.
During his eight years in the United States, western civilization changed Li Yanhong's outlook on life. Li Yanhong personally experienced the rise of Silicon Valley: he served as a senior consultant of Dow Jones Company, a designer of the online real-time financial information system of The Wall Street Journal and a senior engineer of Infoseek, an internationally renowned Internet company. The real-time financial system he designed for Dow Jones is still widely used by the websites of major Wall Street companies. He first created ESP technology and successfully applied it to the search engine of Infoseek/.
Silicon Valley culture deeply influenced him. The "all-in-one model" and the style of starting from scratch are all for the listing of stocks, and failure is allowed ... Times have changed, and it is still exciting to read the book "Commercial Wars in Silicon Valley" written by Li Yanhong in 1999. At that time, he was in Silicon Valley, USA, and saw numerous business wars every day. Li Yanhong asked himself: Is it too late to join this commercial war? But according to the current development speed of information economy, who can afford not to participate in the war?
Attend the American Sun Valley Summit.
He's going to war! A number of search engine companies have sprung up in the United States, and he chose to return to China to start a business. When he recalled this life choice, he said: "When I was a child, I had a strong and unyielding mentality. The less people like things, the more I want to make them. " 1At the end of 1999, Li Yanhong returned to China with a venture capital of120,000 US dollars, and co-founded Baidu Network Technology Co., Ltd. with his friend Mr. Xu Yong, and completed the development of the largest and best Chinese search engine in China in just six months. "When I was looking for him in the crowd, I suddenly turned around, but the man was in the dim light." After going through Yangquan-Beijing-Silicon Valley-Beijing, he found that the information management major he studied in Peking University at the age of 19 doomed him to pursue "search" all his life.
Matthew, a senior analyst at Jupiter Research, said that search is the biggest opportunity to understand and influence user behavior. Li Yanhong's slogan is: "Live search changes life".
"Search is the whole secret of Baidu's success," said Li Yanhong. "This is one of the most commonly used services for Internet users and is increasingly affecting the Internet industry. Baidu is a proof. "
In the days of Silicon Valley, what impressed Li Yanhong most was the atmosphere of commercial war. He often reads the works of the Wall Street Journal: how Microsoft stood up and openly rebelled against IBM, and how it competed with SUN and Netscape as the godfather of software ... One vivid business war story made Li Yanhong deeply feel: "It turns out that technology itself is not the only decisive factor, but business war strategy is the real decisive factor."
When his partners talked about their greatest impression of Li Yanhong, they all said the word "wisdom" in unison. In more than three years of cooperation, to the surprise of partner Xu Yong, Li not only has a technical background, but also has keen intuition and excellent judgment on business wars. Zhu Hongbo, who served as vice president from UFIDA to Baidu in May 2002, also commented on Li Yanhong: "Although he used to work in technology, his business thinking and market vision were very unique. He grasped the direction of the search industry and knew the laws and rules of business competition very well." Perhaps this has something to do with Li Yanhong's experience in Silicon Valley, or maybe it has something to do with his trying a bull market in the American stock market and paying attention to the relationship between stock market ups and downs and company strategy. When Li traded stocks, in the pure American stock market environment, he analyzed the performance and decisions of many companies and the relationship between stock ups and downs, from which he obtained the key to business success or failure.
Li yanhong
No company will be smooth sailing when starting a business or going on business. In the early days of Baidu's establishment, a reporter wrote an article "Eight Questions about Baidu", many of which were aimed at its customer resources and profit growth points. Now it seems that some of the original worries are not superfluous. Baidu swept the domestic portals within half a year after its establishment, occupying 80% of the domestic search engine market. However, some customers later turned to Google, and some customers started their own search, so the market competition was very cruel. Li Yanhong concluded that Baidu faced two major challenges in the four-year ups and downs: first, at the beginning of its business, it needed $654.38+$200,000 to set up a company, and the company planned to spend all its funds in six months, so it insisted on waiting until the second financing in September. There is no Baidu today if you burn money. The second time, when all the search engine companies using the popular quality law in the world were acquired or delayed to go public, Baidu launched the bidding ranking according to the third search engine law summarized by Li Yanhong. The law points out that the relevance of search results can be sorted by bidding auction. Whoever has confidence in his website and pays for this ranking will rank first. This has created a charging model that truly belongs to the Internet, enabling Baidu's target group to target hundreds of thousands of SME websites.
Li Yanhong found a way out for search engines. In the face of changes in the market, Li Yanhong, who has experienced numerous commercial wars in Silicon Valley, is also seeking development through changes. At present, Baidu takes search websites and bidding rankings as its main business growth points, and a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises in China as its main customers. This is related to him and Xu Yong.
Getting the first pot of gold and submitting a business plan to investors is very different from doing portal business.
"The manager's decision is to listen to the opinions of a large number of people, discuss with a few people, and then make his own decision. Li Yanhong did it. "
Zhu Hongbo commented like this.
After launching the bidding ranking and implementing the "Lightning Plan" to upgrade Baidu's technology for the second time, the financial statements in mid-2003 showed that Li Yanhong's bet was correct: according to alexa's statistics, Baidu is now the second largest independent search engine in the world.
Photographs taken by the famous Japanese financial magazine Diamond (4 photos)
Chinese search engines are far ahead, ranking first, and the recent upward trend is very obvious. With more than 2,000 alliance partners, when 68 million China netizens search for various information through search engines, more than 80% of users will see the results provided by Baidu. "Baidu's revenue this year will be four to five times that of last year." In July, in an interview with Forbes, Li Yanhong, who has always been cautious, happily revealed to the outside world.
Some people say that Baidu's success lies in clear goals and accurate market positioning. And cool-headed, don't follow the trend, don't grab the tide. It is also very appropriate to describe Li Yanhong's personality with this sentence: he knows what he wants, and he has always believed that the ASP business model will succeed. He knows what he focuses on, and what others can't do to the same extent is in the search field; When the internet is at its peak, he can predict that foreign investors will suffer losses due to the burning of money by domestic companies. When the internet is at its lowest ebb, he can encourage employees not to see immediate interests, but to take a long-term view. ...
After experiencing the bad storm, Li Yanhong suffered the pressure from all sides, let enough people know about the storm, and took charge of Baidu all the way.
Someone once said: Most excellent programmers in the world are born paranoid and always think that what they do is the most perfect. Li yanhong has not programmed for many years, and this personality characteristic was not reflected when he served as the top management of the company. He said he still had many shortcomings. He knows that he is not an ordinary professional manager. He still wants to learn a lot. He can listen to other people's ideas and advocate free communication at internal meetings of the company, and even discuss "you can lose my face."
The entrepreneurial factor of this company has a strong Silicon Valley culture, which has been passed down and carried forward in China. There is no strict hierarchy, so you can speak freely. With the expansion of the company, this culture can continue. But once the discussion becomes a decision, it must be carried out to the letter.
Li Yanhong's steady style is not available to his peers. So Baidu inherited this style. In the past four years, it has gradually developed from 8 people to 150 people. From DFJ's first financing to now, there are rumors that Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse First Boston and other companies are actively seeking cooperation in Baidu's overseas listing; From the first customer, Silicon Valley Power, to the current 20,000 customers.
Returning from overseas is also adapting to the environment in China. June 2000 65438+1 October1
Li yanhong
Li Yanhong announced two company policies to five employees: no smoking and no pets in the company. Common overseas background Facing the same local environment, Li Yanhong and his partner Xu Yong are responsible for technology and sales respectively. In the past four years, they have maintained close cooperation and complementary relations. Although there were differences and quarrels, when they met with difficulties, everyone worked together with Qi Xin to tide them over.
In the impetuous Internet industry, Li Yanhong has an alternative peace of mind, not eager for quick success, not following the trend, and focusing on his own "one acre and three points" in the search field.
All Wall Street investors of Baidu are very satisfied with Baidu's operation, and their dedicated technology development and frugal expenditure have still made achievements in improving the overall value of the company.
Li Yanhong's handsome appearance and elegant and modest personality can easily give people a sense of closeness. However, introverted, he is not good at interacting with people, but more like an observer of society. Whether in the public social circle or in the usual sports, he spends more time in silence, observing the society and these people and things.
His life is simple. He spends the most time surfing the Internet every day. When he was studying in America, he drove a second-hand Honda. Now he still drives a Honda after returning to China to start a business. Because his family is in Silicon Valley, he goes to America every three months to spend two weeks with his family.
Introverted personality makes people feel that he can't show off. However, the appearance of "Baidu Passion Night" at the end of 2002 made people feel like Zhang Chaoyang: another CEO who put on a show. Bi Sheng, Baidu's marketing director, commented: "Robin (Li Yanhong's English name) shines wherever he is."
Li Yanhong has a wide range of hobbies, such as playing golf, skiing and swimming. Most of his playmates are engineers and friends he met in Silicon Valley, as well as company colleagues, partners and college students.
Like the ideals of many Silicon Valley technicians, Li Yanhong's ideal is to change the world with technology. "I hope that what I do can change the lifestyle of most people and benefit enough people. This is my ideal and goal in life. Whether I am working in Infoseek or Baidu now, I see that tens of millions of people are using their own technology every day, and everyone benefits from it. I am very happy and feel that I have made contributions to society. And now this society is becoming more and more reasonable. If you contribute to society, society will give you the same return. "
Li Yanhong at Baidu World Congress
For many entrepreneurs, if entrepreneurs want to make money and get rich, this mentality usually makes their ability to resist risks very low. And if entrepreneurs have the original intention of doing something, once it is done, society will give you the same return and wealth will follow.
After managing the company for four years, Li Yanhong often feels that he still has a lot to improve. "After all, I am not a professional manager with formal training. Now I have to do what professional managers do. Sometimes, when you meet something you have never seen before, you have to rely on learning and even feeling to do things. " He hopes to find a suitable CEO one day and make himself more relaxed. He even thought about retiring. "Traveling around the world after retirement is my ideal life." In fact, in high school, Li Yanhong's personal interest was not in science. He is more interested in history and geography.
"With a certain economic foundation, I always want to look around and plant some vegetables and fruits in my garden." Li yanhong's eyes passed through the reporter and looked into the distance, and his eyes were full of yearning.
He said: "At that time, Baidu's technical strength was not enough. It may take two dollars to achieve the effect of one dollar. Now that the technology is mature and recognized, when a dollar in the market reaches the effect of two dollars, we will make a lot of investment. " [8-9]
Summary of opinions 2010101October 25th
Li Yanhong is giving a speech.
Li Yanhong, Chairman and CEO of Baidu Company, delivered a speech at China University of Science and Technology, expounding the entrepreneurial experience and the development prospect of wireless Internet.
When talking about how to avoid detours in starting a business, Li Yanhong pointed out that concentration and professionalism are the best ways to ensure that he does not deviate from the established track.
Li Yanhong said that there are many things in life that will make people compromise, distract or even give in. You should learn to give up unnecessary detours and escape, follow your deepest wishes, and do your best for this. Li Yanhong said that only by fighting for what you like best and are good at, the road to entrepreneurship will not be boring and life will be successful.
The following is an excerpt from Li Yanhong's views.
Li yanhong:
Now many people ask me, Baidu is running so well, should I enjoy it? In fact, I enjoy it every day, because I have been wandering about what I like to do.
When I was a child, I dreamed of becoming a scientist, but when I studied abroad, I realized what I really like-I like practical things. My ideal is to make something that can be used by hundreds of millions of people, and then I am satisfied.
My good luck is that what I do has now become a huge industry, but I know that even if it is not a huge industry now, I will be very happy, and every day's work is a process of enjoyment.
Baidu's LOGO is panda claw, which is unique to us. Although I only own 20% of Baidu, I can tell you for sure that Baidu is under the control of the people of China.
The future development of wireless Internet will be no less than wired Internet. Baidu has realized that the demand in this field is still great. I don't agree with the statement that once the wireless Internet is up, it will subvert many products of the existing wired Internet of Things.
Now, the development of wireless Internet
Life can go on forever.
There are still many obstacles to the exhibition. First of all, the tariffs of operators are still very high. Secondly, surfing the Internet by mobile phone is still relatively slow. These factors still restrict the development of wireless Internet. People need information all the time. I believe that as long as we do our job well, the opportunity of wireless Internet still belongs to Baidu.
Our goal in the next decade is to quadruple our revenue, make Baidu a household name in more than half of the global market and make Baidu the largest media platform in the world.
During the days when I graduated from college and prepared to go abroad, I also had the experience of working in a small advertising effect survey company. Who can say that a few months of boring research work is not an effective accumulation for me to become a big shot in the search engine industry after more than ten years?
Therefore, life can go in a straight line, and this "straight line" is in your heart. But our compromise, distraction and submission often make us deviate from the original track and waste a lot of time. Faith is powerful. You must do what you like and are good at, don't follow the trend. This is my advice to you. [ 10- 1 1]
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