Shekou Yucai Middle School has an exchange program with an American middle school, that is, some students from American middle schools go to Shenzhen for a period of time, and Shekou Yucai Middle School also sends some students to the United States for a period of time. Zou Shenglong wants to be an exchange student, so he tries his best to learn foreign languages. He was one of the best foreign language students in Yucai Middle School in Shekou at that time.
1June, 992, Zou Shenglong went to the Guangzhou Consulate with nearly 600 TOEFL scores. Zou Shenglong, who was full of confidence, didn't expect that his poor spoken English would make him refuse the visa. The visa officer refused because Zou Shenglong's oral English didn't match his written test scores.
Zou Shenglong is depressed. He thinks visa officers are unreasonable. He realized that his previous efforts would probably be rejected. At this time, he felt the helplessness of life for the first time. The father who accompanied him to the visa enlightened him. His father analyzed with him that the visa was refused because his spoken English needed to be improved, but at the same time, he was not fully prepared at that time. There are many environmental factors: for example, when students and business visas were together, it was inevitable that there was some confusion and noise. Therefore, there is no need to be depressed, make full preparations and sign next time.
Zou Shenglong listened to his father's words, cheered up and reapplied for a visa. Sure enough, his second visa passed smoothly. His father took him to a hotel near White Swan for dinner. At first Zou Shenglong thought it was a white swan, but it wasn't. A few years later, Zou Shenglong, who founded Thunder, went to White Swan for n meals, but he couldn't find the excitement and longing at that time, and he felt a little uneasy. That feeling is the feeling of every China teenager before going abroad.
Zou Shenglong's father, Zou Dejun, is a famous inventor in Shenzhen and even the whole country, and has won many international awards. With many inventions, Zou Dejun went from an ordinary worker to a space station research in China University of Science and Technology, and then founded his own company in Shenzhen Science and Technology Park, which is a legend in itself.
Father and son are representatives of two generations of entrepreneurs in Shenzhen Nanshan Science and Technology Park, and they have also become a much-told story.
Zou Shenglong went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to study economics. He didn't have any scholarships at that time (there were few scholarships for undergraduates at that time and now), so his family collected 15000 dollars for his tuition and living expenses, which is 1992, or about15 million RMB. The money can be bought in Shenzhen at that time.
Zou Shenglong studied economics at first, and then switched to computers. He likes computers in his bones. He didn't discuss with his family about changing his major in advance, but announced it afterwards. All kinds of small inventions made by his father at home made Zou like to ponder and study since he was a child, and he was also very opinionated, including later job transfer, job hopping and entrepreneurship.
1In July, 1996, Zou Shenglong obtained a bachelor's degree in computer science from the State University of Wisconsin-Madison, and 1997 obtained a master's degree in computer science from Duke University, which took one and a half years. At Duke University, Zou met a technical genius who was three years younger than him and was born in 1975, and the co-founder of Thunder.
Zou got a master's degree in computer science and soon found a job as a software engineer in North Carolina. He began to apply for a green card, began to plan a mortgage to buy a house, and began to think about changing a good car. He is gradually integrating into American life, but his trip to Silicon Valley in the summer of 1998 changed his life track.
Zou Shenglong once thought that being an excellent engineer with peace of mind was the whole of life, but his friends came back to China one after another. Their great success in China was undoubtedly a vivid stimulus to Zou Shenglong, which had no ambition at that time. So at the beginning of 2003, Zou Shenglong and Hao Cheng decided to return to China and each invested 50,000 yuan to set up their own company in Shenzhen.
Internet is mainly used in four fields: search, portal, IM (instant messaging) and downloading software. There are no killer operators in the download software field, but there are "overlords" in the other three fields, such as Google and Baidu in the search field, Sina and Sohu in the portal field, QQ and MSN in the IM field.
So Zou Shenglong locked the download into something to do. In August 2003, the first download software developed by Zou Shenglong was born, but it felt too bad to be popularized. June 5438+October 2004 10, Thunder 2 was born, with less than 400 new users installed every day. Zou Shenglong thought there was basically no hope, but after three or four months of promotion, the users of Thunder began to soar, increasing by thousands of users every day. 1In the summer of 1999, Zou Shenglong, who had been in the United States for six years, visited Silicon Valley at the invitation of his classmates. The summer climate in Silicon Valley is still pleasant. Zou Shenglong remembered that the temperature in North Carolina was 100 degrees Fahrenheit, while the temperature in Silicon Valley was just over 70 degrees Fahrenheit, which was very comfortable. The sunshine in California, like satin, makes Zou Shenglong feel that Silicon Valley is a good place. Zou Shenglong suddenly fell in love with Silicon Valley.
1999 Summer, Silicon Valley is the source and absolute center of global high technology. The success of Netscape and Yahoo has filled Silicon Valley with the atmosphere that maybe the next miracle will come to me. Zou Shenglong was deeply moved by this atmosphere and decided to stay and look for a job.
The dune road in Monroe Park is actually not too wide. There are many trees along the road, so it's cool to walk in. Most of the buildings along the road are houses in the 1930s, with simple colors, mostly two or three floors. Zou Shenglong came here with a piece of paper to find relevant company information suitable for his post, and found that the two companies were actually together. He went in and walked around. The one on the right occupied two floors, and the one on the left was just an underground garage. So he chose the company on the right and submitted his resume. Zou didn't vote for the left one. He knew that with his education and work experience, and the world of Silicon Valley at that time, anyone who voted could be hired, so he only voted for one.
Zou Shenglong soon received an offer from the company on the right. However, he soon found that the company opposite was actually very good. Unlike his own company, people in and out of the opposite company are all dressed in strange clothes and mumbling, giving people a very creative impression. The funniest thing is that the company put a huge projector from the second floor and put the keywords they recently promoted on the road, which attracted others to stop. This interesting company is Google.
Silicon Valley is a paradise for entrepreneurship. Zou Shenglong has set up two or three small companies and a small team in Silicon Valley. One of Zou's team members asked Zou Shenglong one day about finding someone to buy a used car. Zou Shenglong listened to, immediately to react. He also knew Xu Yong, who sold cars and later became the co-founder of Baidu.
Xu Yong was a man of the hour among China students studying in Silicon Valley at that time. Xu Yong, 1982, graduated from biology department of Peking University, a senior student, and was one of the first batch of students studying in Silicon Valley in China. After finishing his postdoctoral studies, Xu Yong switched to sales. Xu Yong is outgoing, enthusiastic and loves to make friends. Therefore, he is one of the central figures of overseas students from China in Silicon Valley.
During his stay in Silicon Valley, Zou Shenglong also had contact with Li Yanhong. Hao Cheng, who founded Thunder with Zou Shenglong, first returned to China to go to Baidu, which was recommended by Zou Shenglong to Li Yanhong. Two long talks with Li Yanhong left a deep impression on Zou Shenglong. On one occasion, Li Yanhong returned to Silicon Valley and asked Zou Shenglong whether it was feasible for Baidu to bypass the portal and provide services directly to netizens. If so, what kind of business model should be formed? Zou Shenglong remembers that he was still actively giving advice to Li Yanhong. On the eve of Zou Shenglong's return to China, Mr. and Mrs. Zou Shenglong invited Mr. and Mrs. Li Yanhong and Mr. Ma Dongmin to have dinner at Yuanbao Chinese Restaurant near Silicon Valley. This is a family gathering, and there are not many topics to talk about, mainly to understand the domestic situation. Therefore, after dinner, I don't talk much, but Li's wife is very talkative.
Yang Ning is another Silicon Valley student who shocked Zou Shenglong. 1999 Yang Ning, who graduated from Stanford, later founded chinaren. In the air, the former was sold and the latter went public. In Zou Shenglong's view, Yang Ning is also a very successful person. He founded two companies, and every time he came back, he had something new, with an obvious and quite complete growth track.
During his stay in Silicon Valley, Zou Shenglong often participated in the activities of two organizations, one was the China Engineers Association of Silicon Valley, and the other was the Huayuan Science and Technology Association founded by Chen Hong (Chen Hong later voted for Thunder). These two organizations often invite some successful people and investors to give lectures. It was in the lectures organized by these associations that Zou Shenglong got to know Feng Bo (an investor who invested in Sina and AsiaInfo, and later invested in Thunder, and now he is also a director of Thunder).
Zou Shenglong also likes to get together with like-minded friends. His three favorite gathering occasions are: when the sun is shining, choose the super-large and comfortable front door garden in front of Stanford school gate; In the evening, he usually goes to Starbucks in Silicon Valley. On weekends, he usually pulls a few people out for camping and tells the stars about their entrepreneurial dreams.
20 15 12 16, attended the opening ceremony of the second world internet conference as a guest.