March 2002, Beijing. This is a cold spring. Just after the Spring Festival, the company is filled with the aftermath of the New Year-
"Bi Sheng, did you go back to Tangshan for the Spring Festival this year?" "Robin? What is Li Yanhong's English name? Is the Spring Festival in Silicon Valley lively? "
Li Yanhong spent his New Year in America. Looking after his wife and children, he hurried back to China in less than 10 days. The American "Christmas" holiday has long passed, and Google is stepping up its market expansion in China. He remembered that he had returned to China at Christmas on 1999, and made up his mind to fight "God" at home. For more than two years, Baidu's ability to compete with Google in China is still insufficient. After Google launched its Chinese version in September 2000, at least 5 million netizens in China began to use Google.
Baidu suddenly became nervous in the New Year. According to Li Yanhong's opinion, the members of "Lightning Project" headed by Lei Ming must "let Baidu engine compete with Google in technology, and some indicators should be ahead of Google ..."
Lei Ming is a graduate of Peking University Computer Department in 2000, and he is very famous in the school. According to Li Yanhong, Lei Ming is indeed a genius in search engines.
Lei Ming's "lightning team" quickly took action. Li Yanhong also gave them specific indicators, demanding that after the "Lightning Project" is completed, Baidu's daily visits and views will be 10 times more than the original, and the daily downloading of database content will be 30% more than that of Google, and the page response speed will be as fast as that of Google, and the content update frequency will be more than that of Google.
That summer, the weather was unusually hot.
The members of "Lightning Team" not only have great innovations in technology, but also have new inventions. They bought a remote-controlled toy car, put the disks and documents that need to be exchanged on the toy car, and whoever needs anything will be transported by the car, saving a lot of effort. Others bought a scooter and stood on it to report to the finance office. The "Lightning Team" is very busy, and it is the Heat.
In August, 2002, Li Yanhong was still dissatisfied with the progress of "Lightning Project" and decided to be the team leader himself to lead the team members in research and development. Because of his deep technical accumulation in search engine and deep understanding of the world's cutting-edge technology at that time, his participation really improved the progress of Lightning Project. By the end of June 5438+February 2002, the last leaf of the old pagoda tree in the old building had fallen, and the lightning project in the new building was finally completed, and the dust settled, ushered in a busy and hard time.
Robin Li's "lightning plan" involves 15 people, and some people jokingly call it "platoon". At first, some team members were worried that Google was an intensive camp with 800 people. "Can we beat it?" In April, Li Yanhong was hospitalized in Guang 'anmen Hospital. He cheered everyone up and said, "We are fighting in our own country. Isn't every one of you unconvinced by Google? This time it's the real knife and the real gun at work. Who is afraid of who? "
"Lightning Project" achieved brilliant results. In Baidu, someone quietly deleted Google's link and confidently used their own Baidu. Bi Sheng led the Baidu marketing team to meet customers during the day and the media at night, and launched the "Lightning Plan" to promote it. They want every netizen in China to know that China people's own search engine is not worse than Google.
After the victory of "Lightning Project", the company did not hold a "celebration banquet". Li Yanhong took everyone to the suburbs to play twice, which was a reward for everyone.
Baidu still has a long way to go. Compared with his peers in Silicon Valley, Li Yanhong is only more familiar with the road of China.
Please watch the third episode of Baidu Legend-Rhapsody in Silicon Valley.
In the history of world IT, Silicon Valley is a magical place.
In fact, Silicon Valley is not a valley. Geographically, Silicon Valley is located in California. It is a 30-mile-long and 10-mile-wide strip between San Francisco and San Jose. This place is backed by the Pacific coast mountains, facing an ocean in San Francisco Bay and surrounded by mountains and seas. It is not a real valley, but an imaginary "valley", which is a high-tech valley.
1In the summer of 997, Li Yanhong left the financial information company where he worked for three and a half years and set foot on the road of starting a second business in Silicon Valley from New Jersey.
Rhapsody in Silicon Valley
Our reporters Li Hesheng and Andy report from Beijing.
In the history of world IT, Silicon Valley is a magical place.
In fact, Silicon Valley is not a valley. Geographically, Silicon Valley is located in California. It is a 30-mile-long and 10-mile-wide strip between San Francisco and San Jose. This place is backed by the Pacific coast mountains, facing an ocean in San Francisco Bay and surrounded by mountains and seas. It is not a real valley, but an imaginary "valley", which is a high-tech valley.
1In the summer of 997, Li Yanhong left the financial information company where he worked for three and a half years and set foot on the road of starting a second business in Silicon Valley from New Jersey.
Silicon Valley is Li Yanhong's dream. Where are HP, SUN, Netscape and Yahoo? Oracle Bone Inscriptions, where are the Internet and VC? Investors include Stanford University and Berkeley, California. Every inch of land and sunshine there is so yearning for him.
William Zhang stood in front of Infoseek building to meet him. The CTO of Infoseek is from Taiwan Province Province, and he has a doctorate from Harvard University. From engineers to CTO, it can also be regarded as a "Jianghu expert" who has fought many battles. At an academic conference, he met Li Yanhong and talked about science and technology, Chinese mainland, Taiwan Province Province, China culture, Internet and search engines ... Everyone knows his friends. Zhang Li advised to go to Silicon Valley for development.
The financial information company that Li Yanhong once worked for is actually a professional consulting company specializing in analyzing financial data under Dow Jones. Li Yanhong's title is "Senior Consultant", and what he contacts most on weekdays is financial news. The Wall Street Journal is a compulsory course almost every day. Yahoo? Yang Zhiyuan and Anderson of Netscape, two mythical heroes sought after by the Internet, occupy the front page of The Wall Street Journal almost every day, and Li Yanhong has an impulse in his heart to go to Silicon Valley.
Li Yanhong has always wanted to "do what everyone needs", and he was excited to join Infoseek. Seeing that millions of people are using their own designs every day, he has unspeakable satisfaction in his heart.
Li Yanhong's residence is close to Netscape. Netscape was the "red man" of Wall Street at that time, and developed a browser software called "Navigator". Even Microsoft is afraid of three points, being chased by investors and praised by the media. That's what everyone thinks of as a "rich man crash machine."
After dinner, Li Yanhong often went for a walk near Netscape Company, and watched office buildings rise. The dusty construction site became a beautiful Netscape Industrial Park a few months later, which made him sigh the magic of the new economy again and again. There are many China engineers in Silicon Valley. Li Yanhong often attends everyone's party, and everyone gets together. Which company went public, the stock price rose sharply. So-and-so made money through options, and the villa was bought in the mountains.
Every conversation is an excitement.
Li Yanhong likes Infoseek's development environment very much. Everyone respects each other and the atmosphere is relaxed. Few people doubt the technical ability of this engineer from China. Some people commented on his contribution to Infoseek-William Zhang created the first generation of Infoseek, and Li Yanhong created the second generation of Infoseek.
When Li Yanhong joined Infoseek, the company was both brilliant and painful. Like most internet companies, the outside looks like a fire, a god, and the people inside think it is a piece of ice and a pit. The pressure exerted by investors on each company-large market share, healthy cash flow and strong profitability-really answers the old saying that "two horses must run, and the horse will not eat grass". Infoseek and excite play the fiercest. Johnson, the former president of Infoseek, tried to drag down his opponent by tightening spending. As a result, excite was not dragged down, but was "dragged down". Johnson was replaced by Harry Ma Chao, 36.
Ma Chao lived up to his mission. By the end of 1997, Infoseek's revenue in the fourth quarter reached12.5 million USD, up by 105% year-on-year, with a loss of 0. 15 USD per share, which was 0.05 USD less than expected by Wall Street. This is the most beautiful quarter since Infoseek went public.
In April, 1998, and Zhang attended the world internet conference in Brisbane. At this meeting, he met two young founders of Google. In Li Yanhong's impression, these two guys are both in their twenties and look fearless.
Another big event happened this month: Disney announced the purchase of 40% shares in InfoSeek. The joining of Disney excited Wall Street, but for Infoseek technicians, it was a long way from heaven to hell. Disney's style is typical of "sitting in a row", and the promotion of employees mainly depends on their qualifications. For young people who are used to the free wind in Silicon Valley, it is like closing a window facing the sea or grassland. Li Yanhong felt that his good days in Infoseek were coming to an end, even though he already owned more than 500,000 US dollars of Infoseek shares.
199 10 in China, the government invited a group of overseas students to return to China to attend the National Day Ceremony, and Li Yanhong was fortunate to be one of the invited students. This trip to China fundamentally strengthened his determination to return to China to start a business. 198 In the summer, Li Yanhong gave a technical lecture in Tsinghua at the invitation of Tsinghua University, and a group of Sohu employees also attended his lecture. After class, these Sohu employees encouraged him: "You have such good skills, why don't you go back to China and start your own business?" We Sohu buy your technology! " .
Li Yanhong, who returned to the United States from the "National Day Ceremony", has no intention of continuing to work at Infoseek. He thought of his good friend Xu Yong. Xu Yong met Li Yanhong when he just wandered from the East to Silicon Valley. At that time, Xu Yong worked as a salesman in a pharmaceutical company. Later, Xu Yong and a group of China people in Silicon Valley saved the documentary "Into Silicon Valley", which was also broadcast on Beijing TV and other mainland TV stations. One day in June, 1 1, Xu Yong invited Li Yanhong to Stanford University to attend the premiere of Walking into Silicon Valley. Li Yanhong and Xu Yong made an appointment to talk about the great event of returning to China to start a business together the next day.
Legend of Baidu (IV)-Gold Rush Day in America
Our reporters Li Hesheng and Andy report from Beijing.
In the afternoon after the premiere of "Into Silicon Valley", Xu Yong came to Li Yanhong's house to talk about "big things". Li Yanhong came up with a "confidentiality agreement". Xu Yong was a little surprised, but immediately recovered his composure-after staying in Silicon Valley for two and a half years, Li Yanhong was used to the American way of talking.
Xu Yong signed a confidentiality agreement. Li Yanhong said: "Let's go back to China to be an Internet company."
finance
Xu Yong is also the high flyers of Peking University. Of course, at this time, he was a postdoctoral student in biology in the United States.
At dinner, the two discussed their respective share ratios, division of responsibilities, development plans and so on in the future company. For these two "dreamers" in Silicon Valley, the agitation of starting a business and yearning for the future are like a volcano that suddenly erupts, which excites them for a while.
165438+ In the morning of October in Silicon Valley, the autumn sun is like spring. After a night of conversation, their wonderful new company plan has "everything is ready, only the investment is needed".
Their financing target is100000 USD. There are many investors in Silicon Valley. It is said that when a leaf falls, it always hits three VCS. However, the wind has changed this time. The taste of venture capital is no longer a portal, but e-commerce, in which B2B is the most popular business model.
Unexpectedly, in this case, three VCS are willing to invest in their technology companies. These companies value three concepts of their new company: China, technology and team. Xu Yong found a reason to reject a VC that he didn't like very much. In his words, the other two were "too enthusiastic to refuse". Of course, these venture capitalists don't spend much money. Before signing the contract that day, a VC secretly called William Zhang of Infoseek outside the room and asked, "Is this Robin Li Zhen very good?" . Robin is the English name of Li Yanhong. William Zhang told him, "As far as engine technology is concerned, Robin can rank among the top three in the world." Two venture capitalists are more at ease, and some even want to vote alone. Xu Yong and Li Yanhong think it is best to invest together, with a family of $600,000.
After signing the investment agreement, Eng Hian returned to China, and Li Yanhong stayed in Silicon Valley for some time, visiting old friends and spending time with his wife Ma Dongmin. Without the help of his wife, his book Commercial Wars in Silicon Valley, published by Tsinghua University Publishing House, could not have been completed, and he would not have returned to China to start a business today.
1999 On Christmas Day, Li Yanhong boarded a plane to fly to the motherland. This is another important choice in his life.
On this day eight years ago, he left Peking University and his hometown of Yangquan to go to the United States for "gilding".
study abroad
Li Yanhong majored in library and information science in Peking University (No.1 in Information Management Department of Peking University), but he likes computers. Like many international students from Peking University, he applied to more than ten universities in the United States and was finally admitted to the University of Buffalo in new york.
Buffalo has beautiful scenery. When Li Yanhong first set foot on this land, it was covered with ice and snow. The computer department of this university ranks in the top 20 in the United States. Originally, Li Yanhong went to Stanford and Berkeley, California, but in those years, IT in the United States was too hot. Computer education in China was basically a "baby" in the eyes of these schools, and Chinese mainland students were not recruited at all. Buffalo does not intend to recruit mainland students, just because the school has hired two professors from Chinese mainland. At the request of professors, the school made an exception and recruited several students from Chinese mainland.
Influenced by Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, the University of Buffalo near Niagara Falls snows for six months in a year. When he first came, Li Yanhong attended classes during the day, tutored English and wrote programs at night, and was often busy at school until two in the morning. Li Yanhong's diligence is actually a true portrayal of many China students who have just arrived in the United States-cramming, attending classes and working.
Li Yanhong couldn't stand the freezing cold in Bufano at night, so he took out $ 1 000 from his study abroad expenses and bought a second-hand Toyota car. The campus parking lot will be emptied at 2 am at the earliest, which is the latest time for Li Yanhong to stay at school. The snow is deep and the ice is thick. Every time you start a car, you can't start it without 10 minutes of preheating and cleaning time.
Li Yanhong moved three times while studying in Buffalo. He shared a room with a couple for the first time in China. They don't get along well because the couple often lie about their monthly telephone bill. For example, there is no monthly fee for local calls. The couple thought he didn't know, so they had to let him share the monthly fee. The second time, the environment was good, but the landlord's cat made him allergic. The third time, I shared a room with an international student from Hong Kong. The two sides hit it off and were close to the school. I am very satisfied. During this period, his oral English and professional English have made great progress, unlike at the beginning, many professional courses were difficult to understand. He spent the most difficult time studying in the United States-the "running-in period" that international students often say.
International students who have passed the "running-in period" will always be a little fidgety. For example, taking a part-time job outside the school, participating in the organization of alumni associations and hometown associations, in short, "not idle."
1April 1993, Li Yanhong had the idea of "going out to have a rest". May-August is the summer vacation of school, so there is no point in staying at school. He decided to "work".
Li Yanhong read many job advertisements on the Internet, and if he thought it was appropriate, he submitted a resume. Once again, he was pleasantly surprised that a company called Panasonic was willing to accept his internship.
change
The internship at Panasonic Company changed Li Yanhong's life.
The news that Li Yanhong will go to a company for internship soon spread among international students in China-the company offered Li Yanhong an internship fee of $25 per hour. Under the same conditions, this company offers a high salary, which is almost unheard of among international students. Interestingly, when his roommate in Hong Kong asked him, "Which company did you go to?" At that time, he replied shyly, "A small company called Panasonic has a strange name." The roommate was shocked after hearing this. "This is still a small company, a famous Panasonic in Japan." . It turns out that Panasonic is a literal translation of Japanese Panasonic. No wonder it's so embarrassing. 1May, 993, Li Yanhong officially worked as an intern in Panasonic Institute of Information Technology. This is the first time in his life that he has taken up his post and earned money to eat by himself. Princeton is a quiet and beautiful town. The famous Princeton University once trained Einstein and other great scientists. At the same time, it is also the research base of industry, especially IT.
Panasonic's working environment is very comfortable, and you can see the indoor garden in the hall as soon as you enter the door. After work, Li Yanhong often sits in the garden and reads newspapers. The Wall Street Journal is his favorite newspaper.
Li Yanhong is engaged in the research of optical character recognition. During his internship, he put forward an algorithm to improve the recognition efficiency, which was highly valued by Panasonic, so that when he had to return to school after his summer internship, Panasonic broke the routine and continued to hire him to work part-time at school, and encouraged him to write and publish this research result. When Li Yanhong later read this research achievement at an international academic conference, he was praised by a "Taishan Beidou" in the international OCR academic community. Under his recommendation, this achievement was successfully published in the international authoritative academic journal Pattern Recognition and Machine Intelligence.
It is only a matter of time before the tutor decides that he has a doctorate. Moreover, if there are no special accidents, Panasonic will definitely hire him with a high salary after his doctoral graduation. Li yanhong's road to the United States seems to be smooth sailing.
Baidu Legend (5) Yangquan Kid
1994 before the summer vacation, Li yanhong suddenly received a letter of appointment from a small company on wall street, inviting him to be a "senior consultant" with the nature of "engineer". Li Yanhong hesitated. He has made a "good start" in the academic field. The next logical step is the golden road of "doctor-professor-authority", and this road of life is his ideal when he left his hometown of Yangquan.
Being an engineer or a scientist, Li Yanhong once again faces an important choice in life.
Yangquan xiaozi
Our reporters Li Hesheng and Andy report from Beijing.
1994 before the summer vacation, Li yanhong suddenly received a letter of appointment from a small company on wall street, inviting him to be a "senior consultant" with the nature of "engineer". Li Yanhong hesitated. He made a "good start" in the academic field, and then it will naturally be the golden road of "doctor-professor-authority", and this ideal is exactly what he held when he came out of his hometown of Yangquan.
Being an engineer or a scientist, Li Yanhong once again faces the choice of life.
select
When Li Yanhong was studying in the United States, it was the time when Clinton and Gore advocated the information superhighway. With Internet technology as the forerunner, the American economy is bullish in the world, a large number of companies go public to make money, and the flow of talents in each company is extremely active.
At this time, there is a general trend among students studying in the United States. As long as there is a job, most students who are studying for a doctorate will leave with a master's degree. Li yanhong really wants to get a doctorate before going to work, but the people in the company are very enthusiastic about him and the boss appreciates his research. And their academic talk is very speculative, which makes them feel that they have known each other for a long time.
Li Yanhong finally decided to give up his doctoral studies and become a "senior consultant" of this company.
Li Yanhong's dream of becoming a scientist was shattered.
There are many important choices in life, and every choice is a turning point in life. I want to think about it carefully every time, and I can't control myself every time.
From Yangquan to Peking University, from Peking University to Bufano University in new york, from Wall Street to Silicon Valley, every step of Li Yanhong seems so natural and difficult.
childhood
Like their generation, Li Yanhong did not go to kindergarten, and the enlightenment education was basically taught by his two sisters. Li Yanhong has five sisters, three sisters and one sister. There is a small yard and a small blackboard in front of Li Yanhong's house, which is where his third sister often gives them lessons. At that time, Li Yanhong's favorite subject was mathematics.
When Li Yanhong was 8 years old, he was sent to Yangquan No.1 Primary School. Two months later, Li Yanhong moved to the children's school of Jin Dong Chemical Plant with his family. There, the teachers thought this was a child of a key primary school, and soon they became the vice monitor. At that time, Li Yanhong's attitude towards the teacher was: whoever praised him, he would listen to him; If someone criticizes him a few words, Li Yanhong will be naughty in class.
Most primary school teachers think that Li Yanhong is not a learning material, and Li Yanhong does not think that he is a special material. In the fifth grade of primary school, Li Yanhong handed a note to a female classmate in the class to express "love" and was sued by the girl to the class teacher. The head teacher informed Li Yanhong's parents that both teachers and parents came to hold a "criticism meeting", which made him lose face and was also considered as a "peach storm".
Li Yanhong first knew what stress was when he was in the third grade of junior high school. Because Li Yanhong wants to go to college, he wants to go to Yangquan No.1 Middle School to attend high school. 80% of high school students in that middle school can go to college, which is a famous "big college entrance examination" in Shanxi.
Few people think that Li Yanhong from his junior high school can be admitted to Yangquan No.1 Middle School, and his two sisters are more worried about him. Li Yanhong doesn't think so. He once recalled his first choice in life and said, "When I was a child, I had a strong indomitable attitude. The more things I don't like, the more I want to do it. " Maybe that's the mentality. After two months of cramming, Li Yanhong was admitted to Yangquan No.1 Middle School with high scores, which surprised many teachers and students in his own school.
Li Yanhong, who was admitted to Yangquan No.1 Middle School, became "honest" and was bent on studying hard and being admitted to a famous university. When he was divided into liberal arts subjects in high school, Li Yanhong chose science without hesitation. Learn mathematics and physics well, and you are not afraid to travel all over the world. In fact, in high school, Li Yanhong's personal interest is not in science. He is more interested in history and geography. His composition is also very famous in the class, and almost every time he writes a composition, it will be displayed in the class as a model essay.
Yangquan No.1 Middle School is the focus of Shanxi Province, which is equipped with the "Apple Second Generation Computer Room". As a student of computer interest class, Li Yanhong came into contact with computers earlier than his peers.
Li Yanhong once participated in the Shaanxi Computer Application Competition on behalf of Yangquan City, but did not win the ranking. Almost all the top students in the competition were taken away by students from schools in Taiyuan, the provincial capital. At that time, it was impossible for children in Yangquan to have more access to computers than children in Taiyuan, and there were few books on computer popularization in bookstores in Yangquan.
Peking University
Near the college entrance examination, many students and parents are worried about volunteering to fill in the report-students have good grades, want to report their cards, and are afraid of not performing well on the spot. Li Yanhong is not worried. When he does well in the exam, he can be the first in the grade, and when he doesn't do well, he can also be in the front 10. According to the performance of the college entrance examination in Yangquan No.1 Middle School over the years, Li Yanhong felt that Peking University had a chance. He wants to go to the same school as his third sister. His third sister was admitted to the Chemistry Department of Peking University with the first place in Yangquan, and gained a "reputation" in Yangquan. Li Yanhong refused to admit defeat and decided to take the Peking University exam.
From 65438 to 0987, Li Yanhong was admitted to the Department of Library and Information Science of Peking University with excellent results.
There is a famous Niangziguan near Yangquan. According to legend, Princess Pingyang, the third daughter of Li Yuan in the early Tang Dynasty, was stationed with troops. During the period of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, the17th Division of the 38th Army of the Kuomintang Army fought bloody battles with Kawasaki Bunsaburo, the 20th Division of the Japanese Army. 17 division fought bravely and suffered heavy casualties. The division has 13000 people. There were only 3,000 people left in the battle of Niangziguan.
Li Yanhong graduated from Yangquan No.1 Middle School and went directly to Peking University, the highest institution in China. This Yangquan boy is proud of the spring breeze for the first time in his life.
After living a new life in Peking University for two or three months, Li Yanhong's mood changed from novelty and excitement to depression. This major in library and information science is far from his ideal. What he touches all day is literature and catalogues, which is boring. In the eyes of ordinary people, the belonging of a library student may be to be a librarian in the library, but Li Yanhong's ambition is obviously not here. Of course, it was this discipline that Li Yanhong didn't love that provided professional knowledge support for his later establishment of Baidu, and thus achieved great success. This is another story.
Life faces many opportunities, some of which are delivered by yourself, depending on whether you can grasp them, but more opportunities are created by yourself.
Li Yanhong tried to change the fate of choosing the wrong major unintentionally.
He set himself a way to study abroad, bought a lot of TOEFL books and wolfed them down. One day, "3.1"-dormitory-classroom-library. Originally, he got a position of deputy director of the organization department in the student union, but after a while, he felt that he was not cut out for the road of "becoming popular" and gradually faded out. Peking University advocates students to take courses in other departments. Li Yanhong likes computers and thinks this major has a good prospect. So he often goes to the computer department to take some professional courses.
When Li Yanhong was in college, his classmates fell in love, and the school was in a hurry. A "notice" was widely posted in the canteen-boys and girls were not allowed to feed each other. It was a wonderful conversation.
The Sixth Legend of Baidu —— Our reporters Li Hesheng and Andy report in Beijing.
199 1 On Christmas Day, Li Yanhong boarded a plane from Beijing to Los Angeles. He decided to study for a doctorate in computer science at Bufano University in new york.
His third sister studied in America a few years ago and met him at Los Angeles airport. In June+February, 5438, the weather in Los Angeles was refreshing, with a typical maritime climate. My sister took him to Hollywood, Long Beach, Disney and China City. I can't wait for him to see America in three days. At this time, Li Yanhong is like a migratory bird who just flew from the north to the south for the winter. Everything in sight is so fresh, so deja vu.
After spending a week in Los Angeles, Li Yanhong bid farewell to the west coast and flew to new york. ...
From Yangquan to Beijing, Li Yanhong "walked" 18 years; From Beijing to the United States, Li Yanhong "walked" for four years; It took Li Yanhong eight years to "walk" back to Beijing from America. Every step of Li Yanhong is a leap in life pursuit and dream.
It has been almost four years since Li Yanhong returned to China. Baidu has developed from a startup to a professional search portal with the most visits in China and the second place in the world. From 8 people to 200 people, from obscurity to the same name as Google, Baidu turned into steel.
4 years of chasing dreams, dreams ahead; The four-year company is still young, but Li Yanhong will eventually grow old. When a person starts a business, the greatest happiness is to turn one person's business into an enterprise for everyone, and turn a young enterprise into an enterprise of 100, 1000.
Li Yanhong can't stop.
After the "Lightning Plan", Li Yanhong described a new goal for the company: listing. "Listing" was once the dream of every internet company, and countless internet companies were exhausted in the journey of chasing their dreams.
Li Yanhong did not give the heroes of "Lightning Project" a holiday or celebration. Although Baidu has always been ahead of Google in terms of access rate, access speed, article library and other search engine standards, many small search engines and portals have also targeted Baidu's "back garden".
In March 2002, Baidu decided to stop Sina's search service because Sina had been in arrears with its service fee and was hyped as a "downtime incident" by the media. Sina believes that it has provided Baidu with access and traffic, but it still has to pay Baidu, which feels "unfair". Baidu believes that it is natural for it to provide technical services for Sina and collect money. Although the dispute between Sina and Baidu has passed, Li Yanhong learned a truth from it. Baidu must go from a company that provides technical services to others to the front desk and become an independent and public-oriented content service company.
The "downtime" contradiction between Sina and Baidu is, in the final analysis, a factor of money. Baidu has opened up the bidding ranking market, and Sina has also taken a fancy to the huge business opportunities in the bidding ranking market.
No company is immune from the influence of competitive industries.
In March 2003, the search engine market in China rose again. At first, 372 1, which has been unwilling to be lonely, claimed to be building a "secret weapon" and will raid the search engine market in China in the near future. In April, China Search Alliance, which has government background, announced the official launch of search ranking service, and publicly played a banner against Google. Sina also announced a strategic alliance with China Search Alliance on April 15.
The domestic search engine war has been fully launched.
In the north of Beijing's North Fourth Ring Road, there is a building called Haitai Building, and Li Yanhong directs the search war on the 9th floor. For more than a decade, Li Yanhong has never left the field of search technology. Search has become a part of Li Yanhong's life. Li Yanhong always said to his subordinates: "Don't worry about some immediate interests, don't rush to make money with newly developed products, the important thing is that netizens like to use them. As long as everyone recognizes Baidu, Baidu will definitely make money. "
On March 28th, 2003, Baidu held the "Baidu Search Carnival Night" at the Century Theatre. Li Yanhong told the media: "Baidu is coming to power!" Baidu should change from a simple technical service provider to a "search portal", "so that netizens and end users can directly experience the quality of Baidu products from www.baidu.com". Baidu Marketing Department also invented a moving slogan-live search changes life.