Chapter three hundred and fortieth self-recommendation
Zhang Yida did not directly answer Lu Qi's question. Instead, he asked Lu Qi: "I heard that Microsoft Xiaoice has already made efforts in the financial field. Can the new generation product capture all announcements issued by listed companies and automatically generate summaries?"
Lu Qi thought about it for a moment before replying: "This version has not been officially released yet, how did you know about it?"
Zhang Yida smiled and said, "Microsoft is the industry leader, so we naturally pay more attention to it. Microsoft executives mentioned a few words at some meetings, and we summarized it and came to some conclusions."
"Yes, the new generation version does have this feature, and senior executives from Microsoft have also mentioned it once or twice in some public meetings."
Lu Qi felt that it would not be a big problem to talk about the information that Microsoft had already disclosed.
As a former Microsoft executive, he has signed a confidentiality agreement with Microsoft and cannot disclose Microsoft's business secrets in public or private, otherwise he will be held legally responsible.
But Zhang Yida's problems are obviously not among them. They are all semi-public and cannot be considered confidential.
“Reading announcements and summarizing them, humans can actually do this work.
The advantage of Microsoft Xiaoice is that I heard it can complete this work in 20 seconds?"
Seeing that Lu Qi didn't answer, Zhang Yida knew that he had scruples, so he continued: "For financial practitioners who race against time, being able to obtain refined first-hand information in 20 seconds is a huge advantage.
While opponents are still manually browsing the announcements, users of Microsoft Xiaoice can perform related financial operations.
If it were me, I would definitely use XiaoIce’s services.”
"Mr. Zhang, do you expect Ruixiang's artificial intelligence application to reach this level?" Lu Qi asked.
Zhang Yida shook his head, "This is just the most basic text recognition. Like our current AI anti-fraud applications, they are both "dead things".
DouYi’s AI review system can automatically identify illegal and prohibited pictures and videos.
In Microsoft's three-stage standard division of artificial intelligence, these all belong to the first stage: basic artificial intelligence interaction, that is, having one or more interaction methods.
What we want to do is a "living creature", adding senses to artificial intelligence, so that "she" can hear, see, speak, think and learn.
This requires certain research results in speech recognition, visual recognition, dialogue engines, natural language processing, machine deep learning and other fields, and "integrating" these functions.
Otherwise, the artificial intelligence created will be a disabled, mute, blind, deaf, mentally retarded child..."
Lu Qi smiled and said, "Your metaphor is very appropriate, but what you are talking about is already the third stage of artificial intelligence classified by Microsoft, which has "advanced senses."
To achieve this step, in addition to the support of massive data, it also requires the joining of professionals from almost all natural sciences and social sciences, including computer science, psychology, philosophy, and linguistics.
Microsoft's AI R&D team currently has 5,000 people, and this number will expand to 8,000 next year."
How terrifying!
The average monthly salary in the domestic artificial intelligence subdivision field is 20,000 plus. A team of 5,000 people will receive more than 100 million in salary a month, which is more than one billion a year.
This is just the salary, not counting the investment in laboratory equipment, which is even more terrifying if it is included.
Moreover, this thing cannot produce results in a short period of time, and if it produces results, it may not necessarily make money immediately.
A company without any strength cannot be promoted at all.
However, Zhang Yida then thought about it and Zhuzhubao had to pay 1 billion yuan in salary every month.
One hundred million doesn’t seem like a lot! In addition to Microsoft Research Asia, Microsoft also has many jobs in the United States.
Those who get the money are the real big guys, with an annual salary of millions, and the money is still money.
However, if Zhang Yida wants to recruit these people to come to China, he may not only have to pay them the same salary as Microsoft, but even better.
If you don’t have money, you can only cheat people with options.
"Mr. Zhang, how are you? Are you feeling stressed?"
Lu Qi saw that Zhang Yida had not spoken for a long time and had been thinking silently. He thought he was shrinking, so he joked.
"Fortunately, it's not too stressful!"
Zhang Yida acted very calmly, "Among my current companies, Ruixiang has an artificial intelligence team, and DouShi also has one, but... other companies are not involved in this business for the time being, so they have not recruited talents in related fields.
If the two companies come together, it should be possible to create a team of 500 people.
In addition, I have invested in a large number of image recognition companies such as Shangchao Technology and Megvii Technology in China. As for speech recognition, iFlytek is currently doing well in China, and we can also develop some cooperation with them.
We just need to focus on several areas such as dialogue engines, natural language processing, and deep learning."
After Lu Qi said "Okay", he continued: "In addition to talents and funds, there is another important thing, and that is data.
Data requires artificial intelligence, and artificial intelligence also requires data.
After entering the "Data 3.0" era, the data assets of enterprises have increased dramatically, often exceeding the inherent business boundaries and including all kinds of junk data.
This results in an increasing amount of data, uneven data quality, and difficult data output results to be accurate.
Deep learning algorithms require massive amounts of data for "training". The larger the amount of data, the more accurate the better.
In machine learning or deep learning models, if you use the wrong data or a data queue that is not large enough to train and run these models, it is very likely that the artificial intelligence you create will be a "deformed" child!
Google's data is based on its strong search business, while Apple's data is based on its large number of mobile phone terminal devices.
For Microsoft, it comes from office software, operating systems, and search business.
Mr. Zhang, if you want to make a great artificial intelligence product, data is essential.
But as far as I know, most of the data on Chinese Internet users is in the hands of BAT.
Ruixiang has some financial data on users, but very little other data.”
“Yes, we are still lagging behind BAT in terms of big data storage.
But the gap is not as big as you think. DouShi short video has hundreds of millions of users, Huimin Travel also has hundreds of millions of users, and the number of Pinduoduo e-commerce users is about to exceed 100 million.
The total number of users of these four companies is 700 million, covering four fields including finance, short video, travel, and e-commerce. After deducting the overlap, they cover approximately 300 million to 350 million Internet users in China.
According to statistics from the report, the number of mobile Internet users in China last year was 690 million, and this year it is about 730 million.
We cover almost half of the Internet users in China. Although the usage time is not as long as Penguin, it is definitely not much worse than Ali and Qiandu."
"Really?"
After Lu Qi heard this, he became very excited. He looked at Zhang Yida with burning eyes and asked again.
"It's absolutely true! I can even adjust the backstage to show it to you now."
"That's not necessary. I believe Mr. Zhang would not make such a joke."
Lu Qi is still very measured. It would be extremely stupid to let Zhang Yida change the background.
As a programmer, he can still verify what Zhang Yida said through some online means.
"There are 700 million users? Mr. Zhang, these 4 softwares of yours are all hits! They are all national-level applications, so Ahri, Penguin and others will be greedy to death."
Yuan Zheng also chimed in.
"Haha, that's not true. The number one APP in China is QQ, but it is estimated that it will be surpassed by WeChat in the fourth quarter.
Then the third and fourth places are Taobao and Alipay, and the fifth place is our Tou Rong Hui.
Then there are QQ Browser, UC Browser, Qiandu Map, Amap, iQiyi, Penguin Video, Youku Video, QQ Music, Kugou Music, 360 Mobile Guard, Sina Weibo...
My other three apps are ranked outside the top 20."
"These 700 million users don't include overseas users, right?" Lu Qi suddenly asked.
"Yes, including Ruixiang Holdings, several joint venture mobile payment companies, as well as Musical.ly and Green, the number of users will be nearly 200 million."
"This adds up to almost 1 billion users. Mr. Zhang, have you ever considered merging the four companies?"
Lu Qi looked at Zhang Yida with great interest and added: "You have to clench your fingers into a fist to be powerful when punched. Now you split the company into component parts based on industry segmentation, which is not a particularly good management method.
I guess you must have concerns, maybe you feel that after merging together, the business will be too bloated?"
Zhang Yida pondered for a moment and replied: "Ruixiang must be separated separately. The financial business is not very suitable to be merged together.
I have considered merging before, but I have never found a suitable person to help me sort out my business lines and clarify my strategic plan."
"If Mr. Zhang likes me, I will recommend myself to be the business organizer."
After speaking, Lu Qi turned his attention to Zhang Yida, waiting for his answer.
Zhang Yida didn't expect Lu Qi to be so unexpected. He volunteered before he even opened his mouth.
There are many benefits for Lu Qi to join the company. First of all, he has served as vice president of Yahoo, vice president of Microsoft and other positions, and has a good international perspective.
This is crucial for companies aiming to expand overseas.
Secondly, although Lu Qi comes from a technical background, his management skills are quite good.
He once led Bing Search, which almost started from scratch, to grab more than 20% of the market share from under the nose of the powerful Google.
In addition, Office has become Microsoft's most profitable department under his leadership.
In his previous life, Qiandu hired Lu Qi as COO. Under his drastic reforms, Qiandu abolished medical bidding rankings and established an "all in AI" strategy.
In one year, Qiandu’s net profit increased by 57%, and its market value increased by 65%. The market value also reached a new high, reaching a maximum of 99 billion US dollars, infinitely close to the 100 billion mark.
Then, because the reforms were too strong and internal struggles arose, Lu Qi resigned after working for more than a year.
On the day Lu Qi announced his resignation, Qiandu's stock price fell by 9.54%, and its market value evaporated by US$9.4 billion.
It can be seen that Lu Qi is still very talented. In particular, his three views are relatively positive and he has abolished Qiandu Medical Bidding Ranking.
Of course, after he left his post, medical PPC revived...
"I'm actually here to invite you, Dr. Lu, to join our company." Zhang Yida said with a smile, "You can join any of my companies, and I will give you maximum support and management authority."
"I want to join a new group composed of Pinduoduo, Huimin Bicycle, Dousu, Bilibili and other companies."
Lu Qi hesitated for a moment and then said: "In addition... I also recommend putting the AI project into this new group."
Zhang Yida saw that he was very obsessed with AI. As long as this requirement was met, it didn't matter to Zhang Yida if he let Ruixiang or the New Group go. Anyway, the meat would rot in the pot.
"Okay, that's no problem. If you become the CEO of this group, I will give you the greatest trust."
Lu Qi was also a little surprised, thinking that he might only serve as COO or CTO at most, but he didn't expect that Zhang Yida trusted him so much that he appointed him as CEO.
"Thank you Mr. Zhang for your trust, I will not let you down!"
Zhang Yida nodded with satisfaction, and it was a worthwhile trip to recruit Lu Qi.
Yuan Zheng is also happy that his friend Lu Qi has found a good platform and a good boss.
In terms of salary and benefits, Lu Qi didn't ask, and Zhang Yida didn't say anything.
They are all smart people. Zhang Yida is not even willing to be appointed CEO, so will he be stingy with salary and options?