Li Yanhong: We have no ambition to replace anyone.

Baidu will upgrade its "bidding ranking" based on the new business model. In 2009, it is optimistic about the Internet rural market.

"We never thought about becoming a leader in all other fields, and there was no ambition to replace any diversified attempt.

Powerful enough search engines are capable of scoring and reporting people's habits, qualifications, hobbies, and other related factors. This is what I understand as a search engine.

As a media platform, we are increasingly aware of the importance of corporate social responsibility.

If there is a suitable person, I can immediately give way to the CEO, so that I may have more time to do what I like to do ."

In the Forbes Global Fortune list published in March 12, Li Yanhong was "pushed out" by the financial storm. He admitted that his financial management result was "a lot of compensation ". In an interview with our reporter, Li Yanhong was very light on his personal wealth issue and said that he was more concerned with searching and business.

"There are still a lot of things that should be done but haven't been done in the search. If I spend too much energy on searching, it is very inefficient ."

[About diversification]

"We have no ambition to replace"

Starting from 2006, Baidu began to deploy in E-Commerce, Community, IM, media, and even online game businesses. Every time Baidu enters a new field, its peers in the industry will be highly vigilant.

The reason is that Baidu and Tencent share the largest Internet user group in China. This inherent advantage is often a "chilling" feeling.

"In fact, diversity is just a kind of Baidu's attempt. What we want to do is not just come up in the office, but based on the needs of the market and users ." Li Yanhong said, "over the years, Baidu has invested 70% of its resources into its core search business. Baidu is still a search engine. We have never thought about becoming a leader in all other fields, and there is no ambition to replace any diversified attempt ."

Perhaps Ma Huateng, Tencent's boss, is the one who best proves Li Yanhong's idea. After the company grows up, the most common thing that people in their positions do is "Kill ideas (rejecting creativity )". According to Li Yanhong, the subordinates submitted 10 ideas, and 9 of them all said no. In more cases, these rejected ideas do not have much problems, but there is an error in their relevance with the company's core business.

[About core business]

The search engine will be used for dating in the future

In the opinion of outsiders, a search engine similar to "Directory Index" does not have much technical content. Since its establishment, Baidu and Google have hardly made any changes to their home pages.

"On the surface, there is almost no difference between the search engine a decade ago and today's ." Li Yanhong said, "the technology hidden behind the search box is evolving almost every day ."

For example, Li Yanhong said that most of today's search modes are typing keywords in the search box, and then waiting for the search engine to tell itself what results are related to this keyword. But in the future he expected, users can even enter the question "Who is better for my girlfriend?" in the search box.

"Because you and the objects you search for will leave your footprints and materials on the Internet ." Li Yanhong explained, "by analyzing and comparing your upstream behaviors on the Internet, powerful enough search engines are capable of scoring and reporting the habits, qualifications, hobbies, and other factors of the three of you, and then providing complete suggestions. This is what I understand as a search engine ."

However, Li Yanhong admitted that it would take a long time to invest in technology to achieve this goal ". Throughout 2008, Baidu spent as much as 1 billion RMB in search technology R & D, accounting for 1/3 of Baidu's revenue. In the internal business plan for 2009, R & D investment growth will exceed the increase in revenue.

[About successors]

Waiting for nine years

When Li Yanhong signed the "Baidu Yiyi", which was presented to reporters, it seems that the sun is still healthy, and there was almost no change 10 years ago.

If you have to say that you are not satisfied with your life, you may have to spend too little time. He began skiing in 1993 and loves this sport, but now "he can only go luxury once a year ".

"If there is a suitable person, I can immediately give way to the CEO, so that I may have more time to do what I like to do. For example, focus on products, such as playing and skiing. I spend about 1/3 of my time on products, 1/3 of my time on enterprise management, and 1/3 of my time on social networking ." Li Yanhong said, "Unfortunately, I have been talking about this sentence for nine years. I have been waiting for nine years for this suitable person. I'm afraid I have to wait ."

[About fair search]

Use technology to "solve" the issue of justice

At the end of 2008, Baidu's "bidding ranking" business was once questioned. In this context, the "nationalization of search engines" sound.

"Someone once mentioned that the search engine should be made national, because it is indeed a public platform for everyone to search for and use information." Li Yanhong believes that the search Enterprise's values are very important. "It is public, however, the dependence on technology is very high, and business companies are more convenient to operate. However, this puts forward higher requirements on enterprises' responsibilities ".

One side is to ensure the fairness of the search information, and the other side is to make profits through the Enterprise's "paid search", the search engine must always balance between the two, inside Baidu, sales staff and product managers often have disputes over this and even need Li Yanhong to make a decision. "Of course, there are more product managers who represent users to win."

However, Li Yanhong believes that such contradictions can be solved through technology.

In terms of "technical solutions", Baidu proposed two unfamiliar concepts: Fengchao and Aladdin.

At the end of 2008, Li Yinan, the new Baidu CTO, said, "how to effectively retrieve the answers you need from massive data is the biggest difficulty, because more than 80% of data cannot be effectively crawled and organized by search engines." Aladdin's plan is mainly to solve the problem, that is, to effectively include the 80% of the data that is not yet searchable in the search engine's capture scope.

[Profit model]

New business model uses Fengchao"

For this "China's most successful returnee", the Internet technology itself is pure and trustworthy, and the cause of the problem is that people. Therefore, what he cannot accept is that "the technology itself has the original sin ".

"Fengchao will prove this ." Li Yanhong said, "Baidu is still a company controlled by its founder. We cannot sacrifice long-term benefits for short-term benefits ."

In 2009, Li Yanhong disclosed to the media for the first time that Baidu is developing a new commercial promotion system, Pheonix Nest ). "Fengchao is a great change for Baidu to reach a high agreement between customer experience and user experience ." Li Yanhong said, "as a media platform, we are increasingly aware of the importance of corporate social responsibility. Therefore, we are also improving ourselves ." According to Li Yanhong, the business model of search engines is one of the most cutting-edge research topics, and the industry is very enthusiastic about this research. Foreign economists even won the Nobel Prize are participating in the research.

What they want to achieve is actually very simple, that is, developing a sufficiently transparent and reasonably priced monetization system for search engines, find the most equitable and reasonable balance between the enterprise's interests and users' information retrieval.

For external analysis, "Fengchao" provides multiple functions, including region time period setting, keyword recommendation tool, budget setting, minimum price display, and creative rotation display (advertising rotation). In addition, the data types provided by the report will also increase. At present, "Fengchao" is being tested by some Baidu customers and may be officially launched to the outside world in the second quarter of this year.

[About development]

Agriculture will become a new growth point

Two weeks after NetEase boss Ding Lei was treated as an investment in raising pigs, Li Yanhong used "agriculture will give birth to a huge market opportunity for the Chinese Internet, to boost the Internet economy.

What Li Yanhong is trying to do is to use search engines to address the business information needs of 0.9 billion of Chinese farmers.

"For example, the database of the National Bureau of Statistics stores the GDP data of a city in Shanxi in July 2003 ." Li Yanhong explained the "Aladdin plan" launched by Baidu at the end of 2008, saying, "through multi-layer links, you can find this data in the database of the National Bureau of Statistics, however, search engines cannot directly capture data. Aladdin planned to solve this problem ."

By the end of 2008, 97% of villages and towns in China had access to the Internet, and 88% of administrative villages had access to the Internet.

The key issue is how to effectively promote agriculture, animal husbandry, and fishery products. The advantages of the Internet, especially the promotion platform of search engines, are shown.

In the first quarter of this year, Baidu's Ele. Me fruit farmers who worried about the sale of navel oranges through related public welfare activities had a good harvest of more than 30% higher than sales in previous years.