Xu Yong

Xu Yong

Xu Yong, born in Henan Province, graduated from the Department of biology of Peking University. He won a doctoral scholarship from Rockefeller Foundation and went to the United States to study. He completed his doctoral degree at Texas A & M University. He later served as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley and was one of the founders of Baidu. In December 2004, Xu Yong officially left Baidu.

In 2006, Dr. Xu Yong donated money to establish Zhenyu Education Fund in Beijing Normal University.

On February 26, 2020, with a wealth of 7.5 billion yuan, it ranked No. 2476 in "2020 Shimao Shenzhen Hong Kong International Center · Hurun global rich list".

Character experience

He studied in Biology Department of Peking University in 1982. After completing his master's degree in biology in 1989, he won a doctoral scholarship from Rockefeller Foundation and went to study in the United States. He completed his doctoral degree at Texas A & M University and later served as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. During his 10 years in the United States, Xu Yong worked as senior sales manager of two famous multinational high-tech companies (Qiagen Inc. and stratagene), and won the outstanding sales award. In 1998, Xu Yong, as one of the producers, made a large-scale documentary "into Silicon Valley", which objectively and comprehensively reflected the development process of Silicon Valley and deeply explored the various factors behind the success of Silicon Valley. At Silicon Valley, he was invited to introduce the Silicon Valley's venture capital mechanism and entrepreneurial culture to the senior officials from Chinese mainland. In 1999, Xu Yong co founded cybercalling com, an online e-commerce company, which was profitable within six months. He keeps close contact with many business groups in Silicon Valley and provides business consultation for many emerging high-tech enterprises. At the end of 1999, Xu Yong and his friend Robin Li returned to China to establish Baidu Network Technology Co., Ltd. Xu Yong is modest, dressed in black Chinese style, and has a scholarly demeanor. Talking about the entrepreneurial experience, it's almost like it happened yesterday. Xu Yong's eyes are full of excitement: "at the end of 1999, the whole country of the United States was enveloped in the upsurge of the Internet, and everyone was talking about the" Internet ". We had a premonition that China's Internet would have a very good development in the future. The impulse of entrepreneurship prompted Robin Li to write a business plan. We have lived together in the United States for nearly 10 years. We have a deep understanding of the investment mechanism of the United States and the values of Westerners. When we got the first capital of 1.2 million US dollars, we went back to ZhongGuanCun from the Silicon Valley of the United States and founded Baidu network technology company. " "The company's office was initially located in the resource hotel of Peking University. The first one is an associate professor of Computer Department of Peking University. He is the vice president of technology of the company. At that time, it took courage to join two people's small companies. In the United States, more than 95% of small companies will automatically disappear within three years. Then we recruited other students, all of whom were masters of Peking University, Tsinghua University, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Jiaotong University. Made a product plan, do Chinese search engine. At that time, Robin Li and Liu Jianguo rented a hotel room, the resource hotel of Peking University. We began to engage in the overall design of the software system, the division of labor to write programs, and all the people we recruited were masters of writing programs. " In August 2004, Xu Yong resigned from Baidu's board of directors. On December 16, 2004, Xu Yong officially left Baidu office in ideal international building. In an interview with the reporter of China first financial daily, Xu Yong said sadly that it would be his greatest regret that he could not personally experience Baidu's IPO. In August 5th 2005, Xu Yong was invited by Robin Li to go to NASDAQ to witness the history of Baidu's listing. After Baidu's IPO, Xu Yong owns 7% of Baidu's shares. Baidu's extraordinary performance makes Xu Yong a billionaire overnight. Later, Xu Yong announced that he would report to Stanford University in August for a one-year MBA program. He would temporarily return from an entrepreneurial entrepreneur to a full-time student to accumulate energy for his future comeback. Dr. Xu Yong initiated the establishment of Zhenyu Education Fund and donated 2.5 million yuan in the first batch. The fund mainly includes three awards: Zhenyu grants, Zhenyu work scholarship and Henan top ten primary school teachers award. xufamilycharitablefoundation was established in Hong Kong in 2012.

Create Baidu

In 1998, Xu Yong, one of Robin Li's partners, was a sales representative of the US Biotech Corp. He decided to make a documentary about the history of technological invention in the United States. With the support of Yang Ziye, a famous Chinese documentary director, Xu Yong got the opportunity to interview with British and American venture capitalists Michael Moritz and John Hennessy, the future president of Stanford University. When Xu Yong met with Jerry, founder of Taiwan born YAHOO, he brought two friends to record: a sales representative named Ma Dongmin and her husband. Xu Yong took an interview. Ma Dong min and Robin Li listened quietly. "I got some inspiration." ten years later, Xu Yong recalled, "I am sure Robin Li got inspiration from it and shocked a Chinese company to create such a great company." In 1999, the documentary was shown for the first time at Stanford University. Xu Yong believes that Ma Dongmin pushed him away from the screen. Ma Dongmin also believes that her husband will become the founder of an international company. Robin Li is a true believer in the field of search. In 1996, he won what he called a patent for hyperchain analysis, a way to rank websites based on the number of links to them. Stanford PhD students Larry Page and Sergey Brin have come up with similar algorithms. With the inspiration of Yang Zhiyuan and Ma Dongmin, Xu Yong and Robin Li decided to build a search engine for China's Internet market in the obscurant state by using Li's research. in order to find the initial capital, they took the business plan to find Bob king, a strong man in Silicon Valley investment industry. He once invested in Oracle and Intel, and also appeared in Xu Yong's documentary. Greg Pena, Bob's partner, recalls that Robin Li is trying to build a media company, which is what he has been thinking. We don't believe that this direction will come true. We feel that if we finally become a media company, it will be a mockery. " Bob, Peng Na, and Vlcek, who had received the initial funds of 1 million 200 thousand dollars, left Robin Li and Xu Yong away from their wives in the United States and moved to a single hotel near Peking University. They stayed there for more than a year and worked 15 hours a day. The next year they got from IDG and Devon global venture capital fund. Got an extra $10 million. In the early days, Baidu did not have its own distinctive features as Google did. Robin Li and Xu Yong were more interested in becoming a company like Inktomi. The US company acquired revenue through providing search engines for other portals, and later was bought by YAHOO for $235 million in 2002. Baidu did not set up an independent website, but authorized its search technology to Sina and Sohu. Later, it covered major portal websites, and Baidu would charge for every user's search. Is busy copying the Yahoo model of the portal, did not realize the search market potential. Zhang Chaoyang, executive chairman of Sohu, said frankly: "Baidu has seized the opportunity we ignored.". such a cooperative relationship has gradually split. On the one hand is the growth of the number of search, on the other hand is more and more arrears of Baidu fees. When Baidu asked Sina to pay for the delay, Sina asked to renegotiate the search agreement. Baidu's decisive interruption of sina's service angered the portal. the rupture of the cooperative relationship endangers Baidu's success, and Baidu began to establish and develop its own independent website. Chen Jincheng, a global venture capital fund of Dfj, said he contacted Yang Zhiyuan out of concern about Baidu's prospects and proposed to sell Baidu to Yahoo for $40 million. We are not sure whether Yang Zhiyuan remembered the Robin Li who made the documentary, Yang Zhiyuan gave the deal to colleagues for discussion, but did not get a response. (Yang Zhiyuan declined to confirm this.). Baidu has no choice but to devote all its energy to its website. "We can only be Baidu because it's all forced out," Chen said. In 2004, baidu allowed advertisers to appear in search results through payment. This model was created by Pasadena (California) company. Baidu began to make a profit, and its traffic soared with the increase of the number of Internet users. In that year, baidu made a third round of financing of $15 million, of which Google invested $5 million. The move is aimed at building a relationship with the Chinese market. Although Google has been providing search services for China through overseas servers since 2000. According to MI Qun, a former Google executive, investing in Baidu means laying the foundation for the acquisition, while also blocking competitors' acquisition. from the beginning, Baidu and Google didn't trust each other. At the end of 2004, brin and page visited Baidu during their visit to China. Xu Yong recalled that Baidu's team had a holiday during this period, so the office was empty and Google's management didn't see Baidu's engineers. Brin and page refused to eat Baidu's sandwich lunch (MI Qun explained that it was because the founder of Google had eaten undercooked food in India)

Chinese PinYin : Xu Yong