Visiting Baidu’s AI Lab today

With my DFJ colleagues Mo & Maryanna & Mythic. Not surprisingly, this research group develops applications for deep learning throughout the company.

I opened with our 20-year connection to the company. From p.10. of Silicon Dragon (where they interviewed the Baidu founders about the early days):

“The Baidu saga began in Silicon Valley in 1997, when Baidu co-founder Eric Xu and Li were introduced by Li’s wife, Melissa… Not only was Xu entrepreneurial, he was well connected to key investors in the valley. Xu made those connections in 1998 and 1999 while filming a documentary called “A Journey to Silicon Valley,” which later aired on the Chinese national television network CCTV. In some 120 hours of taping, Xu interviewed Valley legends such as Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers, Albert Yu of Intel, and venture capitalists Steve Jurvetson of Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Bob King of Peninsula Capital. After watching Xu’s documentary at Stanford, Li was energized. He asked Xu to lunch the next day to discuss his brainstorm. At a Chinese restaurant in Sunnyvale, California, Li pitched Xu to become his partner.”

“Just a few weeks after returning to their homeland, the cofounders opened their shop doors on January 18, 2000 in Beijing.”

“The serious-minded cofounders named their young firm Baidu, which translates as ‘seek for truth’ from an ancient Song Dynasty poem.”

“Xu relates how engineers were hired straight out of China’s top universities. The new recruits were cheered on with examples from the Valley to persuade them to work hard, grow the company, and get rich. ‘We share the overall vision with them. We brainwash them about why Silicon Valley has become so famous,’ says Xu. ‘We took the secrets of the Silicon Valley culture: tolerance of failure and tolerance of differences and free flow of information with no barriers. We tell them we have a democratic environment and that they, as bright engineers, can turn their ideas into products. These are the fundamentals of creating innovative products,’ Xu tells me. ‘It was a tremendous startup experiment. We were not sure we were going to make it.’

Indeed, they almost didn’t. Xu relates how Baidu failed with three near clones of successful U.S. Internet businesses (Inktomi, Akamai, Verity) before finally turning a profit with a fourth plan: a Google-like search engine designed for consumers.”

We were investors during that exploration period, becoming the largest shareholder in Baidu, back then and through the IPO. Our initial $8M investment is worth 25% of Baidu today (as if held).