Senior Vice President and GM of IDG, Baidu
Baidu's Li Says China Welcomes All Types of Talent
Mar.09 -- Robin Li, co-founder, chairman and chief executive officer at Baidu, discusses the proposals he's put forward to ease visa restrictions in China, what he's doing to attract top talent and his concerns over rising trade tensions between China and the U.S. He speaks to Bloomberg's Tom Mackenzie on "Bloomberg Markets."
About Zhenyu Li
In a March 2017 interview, Baidu CEO Robin Li discussed China's openness to global talent, contrasting it with what he described as the perception that the Trump administration is "anti-immigrant." He stated that China, following President Xi Jinping's speech, is "more open than ever" and welcomes talent from all nationalities and cultures. Li noted that Baidu already has a research center in Silicon Valley with over a hundred scientists and engineers, and more than 10,000 engineers in China. Li also outlined proposals to adopt artificial intelligence more widely, including using AI to adjust traffic lights to improve waiting times and using face recognition to help find missing children, citing successful experiments around Baidu's campus. He said the company spends roughly 15% of its total revenue on R&D, mostly on AI, and that "the era of mobile internet has ended and the era of artificial intelligence has arrived." Regarding driverless cars, Li stated that mass production powered by Baidu systems could be realistic around 2020–2021, and that Baidu is focusing on making the technology work while likely partnering with automakers. On trade tensions, he commented that "the trade war is bad for everyone" and that Baidu would not be the most affected as it has limited revenue in the US.
Transcript (19 segments)
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Interviewer0:11
The crackdown on immigration provides something of an opportunity to tech companies like yours here in China. How do you plan to take advantage of what you see as an opportunity?
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Zhenyu Li0:21
Yeah, I think right now, at least there's the perception that the Trump administration is kind of anti-immigrant, whereas for China, if you listen to President Xi Jinping's Davos speech, you get a clearer sense that China is more open than ever, especially for global talent. China is willing to take on the responsibility as a large and fast-growing economy. In fact, I think a high growth rate will automatically generate a lot of opportunities. But in the past, China was not a country known for embracing immigrants and global talents. There are lots of policies we need to improve, and we need to make it more clear and let more people know that China welcomes all kinds of talents from all nationalities and all kinds of different cultures.
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Interviewer1:36
What steps will you be taking as the head of Baidu to attract that talent? Because it is a fierce battle, isn't it, in the US and globally for that tech talent? I looked on your website, you had at least a dozen posts available trying to recruit engineers in the US. How, what steps will you take?
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Zhenyu Li1:53
Well, we already have a research center in the US, and we already have a very good talent pool. That's one thing. The other thing is that China is a large market, right? In the age of AI, I think size matters. When you have such a large size, you can try a lot of things. You encounter new problems before anyone else, then you try to solve them. You have lots of data. Smart people always have ideas, and we have an environment, a platform that they can try them on. I generally say, if you have an idea, let's take 1% of our traffic and try it. What does 1% mean? It means hundreds of millions of people.
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Interviewer3:10
Broadly, how concerned are you about the potential for rising trade tensions between the US and China and implications for companies like yours that operate in both countries?
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Zhenyu Li3:18
Yeah, I think Twitter wars are bad for everyone. It's so clear. I think people or politicians are just using that as a bargaining chip to try to get more. They all understand it's going to hurt everybody. I don't like that. But speaking of Baidu, we have research facilities in the US, we hire people, we create jobs, and we pay taxes, but we actually don't have a lot of revenues there. So if something bad happens, the impact is kind of low. It's just each side trying to find the right balance, and it's a give-and-take, it's deal-making to me.
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Interviewer4:21
I know that this week you put forward proposals to legislators here in Beijing about adopting artificial intelligence more widely, for example to help control the traffic problems that we have here in Beijing. How were those proposals received?
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Zhenyu Li4:36
Well, it was received very well. I think people, especially during the two sessions, they care a lot about all general people's lives, and the proposals I took are all related to people's daily lives. For the traffic light, using AI, the problem will be eased significantly, more than 10% at least. Another proposal is about using AI, using face recognition, to help find missing children. Let's say if a child is missing at three years old, even after five years, when he or she goes to school, take a picture, we are able to find the right match very accurately. So this kind of thing can benefit ordinary people on a daily basis, and this is just two of the examples. I can think of thousands of such examples.
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Interviewer5:49
AI is an expensive venture. How much are you spending on R&D?
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Zhenyu Li5:59
We spent about 15 billion yuan on R&D, and most of it went into artificial intelligence related. I think the era of mobile internet has ended and that the era of artificial intelligence has arrived. It's just that most people haven't really realized that. We realized that and we are going to aggressively invest in AI, and I think it's going to benefit a lot of people and it's going to transform industry after industry.
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Interviewer6:41
What are you learning from your R&D centers in terms of applications that can be commercialized in the next, say, 12 to 24 months?
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Zhenyu Li6:51
Right, there are a lot of applications. For example, you can take a picture of a plant and know what plant it is. Is that right? You couldn't do that five years ago. That's because of AI. You use voice recognition, you use computer vision to find out what the user wants. And this can be extended to many other areas. For example, if you go to the Baidu campus, you go through the security gate, Baidu employees do not need to use their badge. They can just walk through, and our camera will automatically recognize their face. Think about that. It can be applied to many other scenarios. For example, when you go to the airport, you go through security check, you have to hand in your ID. There are lots of hassles. With AI, it's going to be very natural for people.
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Interviewer8:18
You've invested in AI and VR companies recently. Are you planning any more bolt-on acquisitions this year?
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Zhenyu Li8:27
I think our pace of acquisition will be roughly the same. I think there are always opportunities. There are always entrepreneurs who do great innovations. If we find a match, if we find the synergy between Baidu and other companies is strong enough, we'll make an acquisition. But I don't have a concrete goal or target of where to go.
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Interviewer8:52
Let's talk about driverless cars. There have been reports that Baidu is focusing on making the driverless car technology work and will worry about business models later. But I think more than likely, you will be partnered with a lot of auto makers. They have their strengths, we have our strengths. The goal is to really make it happen, make it into reality, that people enjoy the benefit of driverless cars. We will do whatever it takes to achieve that goal. I think revenue and profit come next. We would not really go after profit for this kind of venture.
There have been reports that you would be investing a hundred million dollars in NextEV, an electric vehicle maker here in China. Even to have it on the shelf to spin off the auto unit at some point, would that ever be a potential possibility?
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Zhenyu Li10:19
That is certainly a possibility. I think at one point, when we think the venture is promising enough and it has reached a stage that running independently or introducing more strategic investors would make sense, we'll do that. But right now, as I said, it's kind of early because we are still focusing on making the technology, especially the software part, work, and we will do that first.
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Interviewer10:48
Do you have any more details on the timeframe? I know we've heard about potentially having driverless cars in production by 2020.
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Zhenyu Li11:11
Well, welcome to reality. I think we are still on track. Again, there are a lot of technologies, problems we need to work out, but we are quite confident that they will be out as planned.