Keep a curiosity in change, keep a cool attitude in the noisy

Li's character is The remains curious in the change, maintains a calm attitude in the noisy, the belief technology, the logic-oriented, is also constitutes the Baidu attitude and the method gene.

　A senior Baidu employee said, working with Baidu chairman and CEO Robin Li, pressure May very large.

　　He's almost always online. "," early in the morning is always He, a line to see him online; In the evening I slept, he was not offline; Saturday is not a working day, everyone generally 9 o'clock in the morning more on-line, he also online, and sometimes will see the message to me asking questions. The

This online, refers to Baidu's own instant messaging tool "Baidu hi". Internal communication, there is no need to have a membership hierarchy, Robin Li is not likely to hang a 24-hour machine.

For the people around Robin Li, his diligence is not to be forgotten. Of course, "diligence" in the Internet practitioners is only a comparative basis of quality, interestingly for him, "hard" driving force.

Mundane definitions of those successes need not be talked about, but the pressure is of course there, as Li himself said, "the past 2012 on Baidu may be the most difficult and the least easy year in recent years, outside of our development has questioned whether Baidu missed the layout of the future opportunities?" can only lie on the leading edge laurels? Lack of motivation and ability to innovate?

At Baidu's annual meeting on January 19, 2013, he gave answers to these questions, and the people who understood it naturally dispelled their doubts. Crisis, "danger" is not so big, "machine" has not become smaller.

Obviously, the so-called pressure is not the whole reason for Li's diligence.

Change and curiosity

After 15 years in China's Internet, the world began to change rapidly.

Technology is changing. Over the past few years, basic technologies such as voice, image and machine intelligence have developed rapidly in the process of the advent and computation of the internet and mobile Internet's vast information. As Robin Li said, "Speech recognition is best achieved by 92% accuracy, the speed of ascension than the sum of the past 15 years, and as long as the 98%, and the normal and human communication and recognition of the same." When quantitative changes lead to qualitative change, the essential evolution of technology will be reflected in a variety of people-related products, and ultimately changing the way society works.

User behavior is changing. China's internet users reach 500 million, smartphone shipments over billion a year, real-time online, fragmentation of information acquisition and creation, end user age threshold is getting lower, all of this is constantly reducing the past Internet product space, and quickly broaden the growth of new products space.

The entire Chinese Internet ecological environment is also changing. Under the force of innovation and encouragement, more battlefield smoke, more products sneak and eruption, like the movement of the Earth's crust, the internet from the savage birth of the "oligarchy system" and mature rules have not yet formed, has been facing division and reconstruction.

In such a change, Baidu as the mountains across there, Li hand holding the past development of a deck of cards, what is the feeling?

"I feel excited and excited. "Li did not hesitate to say at the 2013 Geek Park Innovation Conference," Why? Because it seems like a lot of things have to start over again, the PC Internet ' wow ' to overthrow, and a lot of new things out. ”

The changes in the past have allowed Baidu and the search engine market to go this far, and new changes in a better world have made everything more interesting. Technology can transform the world to the present appearance, which itself has been amazing, and as an individual can be deeply involved in it, no matter who, will be "diligent" sufficient motivation and encouragement.

There is no doubt that Robin Li is a man who has always been curious about the world, and he has some questions and conclusions to be surprised. When he first got his cell phone, a friend asked him, "What kind of innovation do you think your phone has, and how do you make it more powerful like a PC?" At that time he felt that there should be a virtual keyboard, with such a thing, the phone is the same as the PC.

The same problem, after a few years, Li's answer becomes: let keyboard and virtual keyboard disappear. "Mobile phone if there is a keyboard with the same as the PC, but why do you need a keyboard?" The keyboard is a gradual elimination of things, Finger touch, voice, photography, a variety of new input methods will give users a lot of new experience, and because of these experiences, not only will change the consumer use of the product habits, It will also change the position of a type of product throughout the biosphere. "he said.

What will change bring? Driven by curiosity, excitement and diligence, Li was trying to lead Baidu to give his answer.

Noisy and calm

One of the side effects of change is noise, and the intense information on the internet actually increases the noise and cuts down the energy that everyone really produces. In such a large environment, "curtilage" may become an advantage of Internet practitioners, whether in the home or office.

In some ways, Robin Li is a natural otaku. He does not like to run out every day to deal with people, do not want his name by all people remember, do not want to walk in the street everyone knows him. "If the crowd is not the same as me, I'd rather spend my time on products and technology, in front of the computer," he said. I'm glad that even though I am such a person, Baidu can still become a household name brand. "Although not to the" social phobia "stage, but in the Chinese Internet most important people, this is a special nature.

A cool personality makes people more patient, attentive, and more aware of the points that others don't notice. Because of the importance of mobility, Li has a weekly meeting with the mobile department, in Thursday or Friday, with a time of one or two hours, but he is often a listener, occasionally asking questions that are just some of the core issues or areas that everyone ignores. "He is very patient, even if the early discovery of the problem, will not be able to put forward when they can not help." "One of the participants in a mobile meeting was impressed," for example, last year, when a comparison was made between the mobile Internet app and the native app, which was applauded when the presenter finished, but he said, ' no conclusion '. What he talks about requires you to have a conclusion, not just a process. ”

Another example is about numbers. At one meeting, a product manager reported the same data in two different places, one at a time when it was accurate to the decimal point, and another without a decimal point. When it came to the second time, Robin Li immediately asked: Why is there no decimal point for the second time? The final product manager admitted that the data was his estimate.

An employee who has opened a product meeting with Robin Li also told the example: when a user searches for an answer to a question, the results are clicked and the result is known, the results are then opened, the answer is described, and if the answer is not good enough, the search continues. The top of the page is the search box, but the user needs to manually enter the keyword, the entire behavior to repeat. Li asked, can you bring the user's key words directly to reduce the cost of continuing to search for repetitive keywords? It really shook me, first of all, it was a very small point, but he was right about it; second, it is possible to discover this problem only if it is really used and the user experience is constantly considered. The product manager said.

Baidu has been focused on search for more than 10 years, not only in strategic layout from the "Big search" on the departure, but also constantly in various details to optimize. Even in the most successful, the most cash, Baidu is still cautious when pioneering new business, need to understand a few core, the most fundamental issues.

This has always been the temperament, and Li's character has a direct relationship.

Constants and Love

Since 2012, Baidu's new strategy is becoming clearer, trying to help more and more developers deliver products and services to users at lower cost through low-level technology, and to build a mobile internet ecosystem as the soil that spawned the product.

No matter in any change, there will be some constant constants, for Li and Baidu, in the new strategic layout, the core is still inseparable from the emphasis on technology and logic of the deduction. One is the foundation and the other is the methodology.

Li does not deny that he is a geek, in his view, the Geek is a group of "technology obsession, rely on technology to make changes in the world's products." Mapped to Baidu, he believes that over the years the company insists on building a solid technical system, whether it is voice, image processing or internet knowledge structure, are increasingly showing strength. "Some people think that the most important thing in the future is the channel, but we firmly believe that technological innovation is always to meet the needs of users the most fundamental power, but also a long-term insurance company evergreen." ”

In the past, Baidu had a committee to collect the various ideas of employees, but slowly no one mentioned. Li later thought that this was not because Baidu did not have the ability to innovate, but because it was not enough to rely on ideas, and if the person who made the proposal could make it happen, it would be a big step. "In fact, my expectations of this matter is not high, just listen to the idea is not, but also to make it more difficult to achieve, but in fact, because your idea has become not only put forward, but also to do it, in the technical to think of many things ahead." The results are now several, one higher quality than the other, and are very typical combination of technology and products ideas. "said Li. The game, called the programming marathon, began in the late Friday and has become a routine project for Baidu.

This is a typical technology-driven management case. In the introduction of the competition mechanism, the effect is slowly fermenting, imperceptible to spread the technology gene to more internal employees in the spirit of the inner core.

The belief in technology is important and can be turned into an executable program, a functioning product, which is inseparable from the logical foundation.

Robin Li is a man who attaches great importance to logic. People familiar with him said, "he attaches great importance to the analysis of ideas, will ask us to do this important part of the relationship between each other, is not necessarily coupled together, mutually conditions." And Robin Li admits, "I care about the clarity of my answers after I ask questions." Some people will jump, originally 5 steps, A, B, C are very good, suddenly to E, the middle of the D no, but no d actually do not go on. Strict thinking is important.

In the past more than 10 years, the analysis and summary of Baidu has a lot of text, but back to Robin Li, will always ask what is the most important. In the change to keep the curiosity, in the noisy calm attitude, faith technology, focus on logic, these are Li's 3 sides, but also constitute the attitude and methods of Baidu gene.

Maybe it can answer two questions: What did Baidu do right in the past? What will Baidu do in the future? It's too early to talk about future success, but they can be a dimension of what people think of Baidu.

When asked what Robin Li liked, his answer was, "I love surfing the Internet." This is not funny, you can see from his face serious. "This is my lucky place, my work and my life can hardly be separated." "said Li.

Robin Li: Technology is still the most important

"It is Baidu used technology to make search engines, changed a lot of people's lives, and today a series of new technology, but also to the mobile internet to a new climax." ”

Baidu is one of the most famous brands in China's Internet, but behind it, Baidu chairman and CEO Robin Li has always made people feel some mystery. January 12, 2013, he came to the third "Geek Park innovation Conference" scene, in the presence of more than thousands of product managers and Internet practitioners, described his views on technology, products and the industry as a whole.

Q the past 10 years a lot of people's lives because of Baidu and changed, Baidu also gained value, now gradually into a new era, mobile internet and smart devices are being popularized, how do you think about this? How can Baidu create value and gain value in the new era?

A Baidu in addition to search engines, but also created a lot of new industries, to bring some new understanding. After moving the internet up, it seems like a lot of things to start again, there are a lot of new things out, exciting and exciting.

The mobile department is my direct management, a regular meeting every week, each time we have a product of the realization of a step, and even a change. This situation is only more than 10 years ago when the PC Internet early feel, on the one hand déjà vu, on the other hand feel so many possibilities. More than 10 years ago, we thought we could do it, and now I think we can do it with a mobile phone and a mobile internet.

What is the most critical application, in fact, now we are not conclusive. At first, we had a small company with 35 of us, but now we have to do what the company should and probably do. We want to build the mobile Internet ecosystem more healthy, hope to make a good platform, let more and more product dream, technology dream people can make some changes in the world's products. For example, we do cloud storage, a variety of new applications can no longer rent servers, I provide a variety of environments for developers to develop what they want to do.

In this ecosystem, if we can find some good applications we will be very happy, if the witness some applications, but also to get some inspiration, and even get some revenue, I think Baidu has played a role.

Q use the platform to drive this with other entrepreneurs, and then you're looking for an ecosystem of operational models, and what about the portal? is Baidu still the most important thing?

A Portal also needs, the human needs of information has not changed, the change is the form of demand. PC Internet everyone is accustomed to using the keyboard, in the search box input keywords, can be on the phone input form has changed, may be voice, image or gesture. But people's demand for information, or we use information, with new applications to meet user needs, is still very fundamental.

They are very high in technology, speech recognition, image recognition, computer recognition, have been studied for at least forty or fifty years, but in the past these studies have not really been able to push the practical stage, academic research and the actual product has been separated.

Technology is not yet complete, but it is much better than it was 1 years ago. These technologies have developed very quickly over the past 1 years, and speech recognition rates have increased more accurately than in the last 15 years. After the outbreak of mobile internet, the demand is much stronger, and the technology has undergone a very essential change.

Change is just beginning, and in two or three years these technologies will become very practical, and then make many products that were unimaginable before. We want to push the evolution of technology a lot, and innovation companies can think of what they can do with it.

Q What do you think of "technology"? Now some people feel that the Internet technology is the case, the possibility of channel or something more important, you feel that technology is still the most critical factor?

A when Baidu, we see the surface is a search box, in fact, the technology behind the need is very complex, we have so many years, the most important technology are invested in this respect. Then Baidu has cloud computing, there are new opportunities, are the original solution to the search technology and the birth. With these technologies we can change many people's lives and make good search engines, and today, by cloud technology, image recognition, video technology, natural language understanding, these will bring the mobile internet to a new climax.

The belief in technology, the pursuit of technology, this is the most fundamental. Technology innovation is always to meet the needs of users the most fundamental power, the company's long-term protection of evergreen.

Q from the technology we talk about another topic, Geek Park we have had some discussions about product managers to understand technology. What do you think about that?

A I think the product manager can understand the technology, but also can not understand the technology, but be sensitive to technology. Whether you understand technology or not, product managers should have a belief: technology is never a problem, technical problems can be solved.

We see two types of product managers, a class of computer before, and then do not program to do product manager; another kind of computer, the other is not Greek to the user has a very strong feeling, and even some of the former bar liquor, and some are doing sales, but they can from the general user perspective.

Early Baidu PM is not a computer background, then brought them out, I found that this is a defect without a computer background, even if you always think technology is not a problem, but because the technology is not so clear, often by the technical staff scare back. Some pm to mention the idea, the technical staff said not to achieve or high cost, do it will be slow, may not do.

In recent years the company has encouraged more computer-learning people to turn to PM. Some people are sensitive to end users, some people are sensitive to technology, everyone together to do excellent products.

Q over the past few years, whether Tencent or Alibaba are doing the restructuring of the company, Baidu in this regard how to think?

A we all face the same problem, on the one hand, the internet market is very big, we are very large, on the other hand this market is developing rapidly, the original structure may not adapt to the new market. Although my style is not brewing for a long time, come out a "surprise", but essentially the same, you have to constantly adjust the organizational structure, adapt to the new market.

Big companies in every field face the challenge of having large platforms and doing a lot of things that can lead to inefficiencies. How do we make it better? With the advantages of a large platform, people have increased the cost of communication, we will have a feeling of discomfort, I think in the opportunity to ensure that everyone is very passionate, very willing to do things, so that people in a large system was found, recognized, promoted.

We have many of these mechanisms, some of which are discovering talent shows, doing things that don't necessarily have much impact in the future, but from these things I can see where your potential is, to give you a better place to play.

Q the internet has such a saying, said that Chinese entrepreneurship is very difficult, there are three mountains (BAT, Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent), products may be imitated after the product, how do you think of this kind of thing? Is it possible that the future will allow innovators to reflect their values in a more rational way, not just in the strong?

A I think it might be different from a lot of people. The so-called three mountains, if you want to do what they have been very good at doing and achieve great success, this is unreasonable. The United States, too, the reason why Facebook got up, not because Google did not imitate, but because Google does not see Facebook, there is no technical content, that is, college students in order to find a girlfriend to do, but also in school to do. So Facebook got up.

I believe that the Chinese Internet is the same, you do things must be the big enterprises do not see, the so-called innovation, you think is right, promising, but most people do not think there is a chance. If everyone feels good about doing something, it doesn't make any sense, you've been doing it for years and he doesn't feel good, that's the real innovation.

And now technology is changing not just in software and the Web, but in the most basic chips, all kinds of hardware, and everything up to the top. Any area in which computers are likely to be learned in college is now a variety of innovations that are rapidly changing, and seizing some of these things can be done well. For example, some hardware, wrist watch can measure blood sugar, I just talked about the voice technology and so on, will bring many opportunities.