Robin Li and Baidu: A biography of one of China's greatest entrepreneurs

By Guo Hongwen

China's economic rise and influence has been one of the most significant developments in the global economy of recent times. A driving force behind this expansion has been the private entrepreneurs and companies of China, some of which have literally redefined the economic and business landscape, both inside and outside of China.

In 2000, Robin (Yanhong) Li founded Baidu and turned the company into the largest Chinese search engine (with over 80% market share by search query) and the world's second largest search engine. In 2005, Baidu completed its IPO on NASDAQ, and in 2007 became the first Chinese company to be included in the NASDAQ-100 Index. This book is the story of the rise of Robin Li and Baidu, which is integral to the story of China's vast internet economy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LID Publishing
• Release date: May 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9781911671756

Book preview

PRELUDE

At the grand gala celebrating the 40th anniversary of China’s reform at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, on 18 December 2018, Robin Li, the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Baidu, Inc., was awarded the title of ‘Reform Pioneer.’ Li was given the Reform Pioneer medal for being the outstanding entrepreneurial representative of overseas returnees in pushing forward technological innovation along with 99 other outstanding individuals who greatly contributed to the country’s 40 years of reform and opening up. Moreover, Li was also among the list of 100 outstanding private entrepreneurs on the 40th anniversary of the country’s reform and opening up, unveiled by the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce on 24 October 2018.

On 23 September 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping attended a US–China entrepreneurs’ symposium that gathered together 15 business bigwigs each from the two countries, including Robin Li, during a state visit to the United States. At the symposium, special media attention was given to Robin Li, Jack Ma and Pony Ma, the heads of China’s three tech titans, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, respectively.

Li obtained his bachelor’s degree in information management from Peking University in 1991 and a master’s degree in computer science from the University at Buffalo (part of the State University of New York) in 1994. He subsequently worked as a senior consultant at a subsidiary of Dow Jones & Company and designed a real-time financial information system for the online edition of The Wall Street Journal. He later joined Infoseek, one of the early search engines, as a senior engineer. In the meantime, he received a US patent for a system relating to hyperlink analysis, a milestone invention that began the development trend of today’s search engine.

In January 2000, Li returned to China to start his own venture and co-founded Baidu with the original mission of providing the best and most equitable way for people to find what they’re looking for. Nowadays, Baidu’s mission is to make a complex world simpler through technology. At the time when Li started Baidu, Google and Yahoo already dominated China’s search engine market. Faced with these two international industry giants, Baidu was, at first, living in their shadow. However, the ambitious Li managed to overcome various difficulties and led Baidu into the light with technology and service edges, fi-nally gaining 70% of China’s search engine market share.

On 5 August 2005, Baidu was officially listed on the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ) in the United States with an offer price of USD 27, an opening price of USD 66 and a closing price of USD 122.54 per share, respectively, becoming the first Chinese company to enter the NASDAQ constituent stocks. On the same day, Baidu saw an astonishing increase of 353.85% in its share price, building a stock market myth on the NASDAQ.

At the sight of the NASDAQ trading floor, Li said, We did it. We made our motherland proud! These simple words expressed his deep love for the Chinese nation. They were a reward for the assiduous work of Li and all Baidu employees. After almost two decades of development, Baidu, under the leadership of Li, has become the world’s second largest independent search engine and the largest Chinese search engine. With Baidu’s success, China stands proudly with the United States, Russia and South Korea as one of the four countries in the world to possess its own core search engine technology. Moreover, Baidu has become one of the most valuable brands in China’s internet industry.

In July 2014, Li, as the Chinese entrepreneur representative, paid a visit to South Korea and Brazil with President Xi. From then on, Li became a recognized name, attending many state occasions and gradually improving Baidu’s reputation around the world.

On 3 July 2014, Li, the only Chinese internet entrepreneur on President Xi’s state visit to South Korea, delivered a speech titled Technological Innovation Creates ‘a New Era in Asia’ at the China-Korea Economic Cooperation Forum. Why could Li make that speech on behalf of all Chinese entrepreneurs? It was because Baidu, China’s leading tech company, was run strictly in line with the efficiency principle in the new internet economy and fully reflected the business conditions of China’s internet industry. Meanwhile, Baidu, with technological innovation as the main driving force, was definitely a high-tech enterprise in China’s internet industry.

Two weeks later, Li visited Brazil with President Xi. On 17 July, President Xi and his Brazilian counterpart, Dilma Rousseff, jointly pressed a button on a computer keyboard to officially launch the Portuguese-language version of Baidu’s search engine in Brazil and roll out its browsing service. This was a vital marker that China and Brazil had strengthened their cooperation in technological innovation.

Li announced in his speech that in the following three years Baidu would endeavour to build a world-class R&D centre in Brazil, dedicated to the research, development and innovation of Brazilian internet technology and services. He noted that Baidu aimed to facilitate the process of innovation, entrepreneurship and professionalism in the internet market, train scientific and technological talent, and support entrepreneurial teams for the Brazilian internet industry so as to help it create a sustained online ecosystem. This further deepened the exchange of technology and talent in the industrial fields of both countries and enhanced the international competitiveness of the Brazilian internet industry.

From the series of official receptions he was given in Brazil, we can see that Li is regarded more as a national ambassador representing China’s technological innovation than just an excellent entrepreneur. In addition, Li is a great social activist. He is currently a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee (CPPCC), vice chairman of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, vice director of the Internet Society of China, vice president of the Beijing Association for Science and Technology, visiting professor at Wuhan University and the University of Science and Technology of China, part-time professor at Nankai University, global member of UNAIDS, board member of Aiyou Huaxia Charity Foundation and honorary UN Messenger for World Environment Day. In each of these positions, he plays a very prominent role.

In his entrepreneurial process, Li uses a ‘magic’ seven-principle ‘weapon’ and achieves great success:

1. Look at new changes every two years

2. Do more than you promise

3. Borrow money before you really need it

4. Diversify your customer base

5. Do not chase profits too early

6. Focus on your own field

7. Always work with passion

These seven principles are not only Li’s philosophy of life but also the enterprising spirit of Baidu. It is these ‘magic’ seven principles that have helped Li to establish Baidu, a leading search engine in China that all Chinese people are proud of.

Over the past two decades since its establishment, Baidu has thrived, growing from nothing to become a world-renowned national backbone enterprise, accelerating the process of China’s national rejuvenation. In one speech he delivered to Baidu employees, Li put it this way: In the near future, we will continue to move forward with our mission and responsibility; and at the same time, we will harvest more and more touching and happy moments while making more progress! For Li and all Baidu employees, their efforts and growth will go hand in hand.

ENROLLING AT PEKING UNIVERSITY AS A TOP-SCORING STUDENT FROM YANGQUAN

Robin Li was born as the fourth child into a working family on Sunday 17 November 1968 in Yangquan city, Shanxi Province. His older sisters were all very helpful, not only playing games with him but also singing songs to him and telling him stories.

In 1976, at the age of eight, Li attended a school for workers’ children at Jinzhong Chemical Plant. Gifted and smart, Li was often praised by teachers and admired by his classmates. After school, his father would often take him to see traditional Chinese operas and films at the clubs in the chemical plant, as a reward for his good schoolwork. Li, born with a good voice, gradually became interested in Chinese operas.

In 1977, when the Yangquan Shanxi Jin Opera Troupe Theatre began to recruit students, nine-yearold Li happily signed up for the audition. The theatre’s teacher in charge of admission realized, after hearing his voice, that Li was a promising young folk singer and immediately decided to accept him. However, the theatre’s offer was rejected by Li’s father, who expected Li to continue his studies and then find a good job in the future.

In the same year, Li’s oldest sister, Li Xiuhua, was admitted to Jinzhong Teachers College after the national college entrance examination system was restored. This brought great joy to the family and thoroughly pushed aside Li’s theatrical learning. While Li was a promising young talent in Chinese folk arts, his failure to progress in the theatre turned out to be a blessing in disguise for the IT industry in the future.

When he was still a primary school student, Li used to pester his older sisters to tell him about senior or junior high schools. He was always keen on reading his sisters’ textbooks and admired them a lot for their increasing knowledge.

As a junior student, Li studied at Yangquan Arsenal of Shanxi Province, a relatively ordinary school for workers’ children with poor educational resources. Most of the students there would choose technical schools instead of key senior high schools after graduation, and then follow the careers of their parents. This prospect made Li’s father worry about him a lot.

Li turned into a playful child but was influenced by his classmates. In his teachers’ eyes, Li was talented and promising enough to enter key senior schools. However, if he continued to be so playful, it would be impossible for him to be admitted to any school. Therefore, the teachers became increasingly strict with him.

In the end, Li’s father completely lost patience with him. One day, in the second semester of the eighth grade, the playful Li was given two slaps to the face by his father. This was the first and only time that Li’s father hit him. Li’s father said earnestly and sincerely, You are starting your ninth grade soon. If you still do not work hard at school and aim for senior high school or university, you will end up having to follow my path as a boilerman – a lifetime labourer.

Li’s father’s uncommonly fierce anger stung deeply. Li knew his father cared and wanted Li to live up to his expectations. From then on, Li totally changed and became hard-working at school. Looking back, Li recalled that his father’s two slaps were well timed.

In that year’s high school entrance examination, Li ranked second in his school and was admitted to Yangquan No. 1 Senior High School, a prestigious key school in Shanxi Province with a yearly university enrolment rate of 80%. The students admitted to the school had great potential to attend key universities.

With the good habits he developed in the ninth grade, Li started his senior schoolwork well. Shortly after entering senior high school, Li visited the campus of Peking University under the guidance of his oldest sister, who was a student there. The visit greatly inspired and motivated him. He secretly vowed to attend Peking University like his sister so as not to let down his parents and himself.

Li was strong in all school subjects, so he was indecisive about whether to choose science or humanities in the second year at high school. At that time, Li’s father firmly advised him to learn science, saying, You can always make a living wherever you go if you know mathematics and science well. Li followed his father’s suggestion and became a science student. His father’s advice once again set the stage for Li’s later legendary status in business in China.

At that time, Yangquan No. 1 Senior High School was equipped with the first computer classroom in Yangquan city. With a great passion for computers, Li signed up for an interest-oriented class. In order to study in the computer classroom as much as possible, Li often beseeched the teacher to allow him to stay for a little longer. Thanks to his positive learning attitude, Li excelled in his computer abilities.

In the third year of senior high school, Li spent almost every night learning and approached every simulation test seriously. His hard work finally paid off. He was admitted to Peking University as the top scorer in Shanxi Province in that year’s national college entrance examination. From then on, 19-year-old Robin Li embarked on a brand new life journey.

STUDYING ABROAD AT THE UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO

In September 1987, Li began his college life at Peking University with high expectations about his future. At the beginning of his freshman year, Li was curious about everything on campus. He participated in various club activities with great passion, learned dances, gave speeches and participated in debate competitions. All of these activities allowed the exuberant Li to develop and show his unique and wide-ranging qualities.

However, the initial excitement was soon replaced by a loss of interest in studying library and information science. At first, Li had had high expectations of this major. Yet, he gradually realized that it actually belonged to the liberal arts and had little to do with his favoured major – computer science.

Soon his sister began a new course of study (a master’s degree at Peking University) with the aim of studying for a doctorate in the United States, and Li was inspired to study in the United States as well. In his junior year, Li started revising crazily for the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) assessment and graduate entrance examination, leading a busy life from classroom to library and then to dormitory. His only goal was to go to the United States to study his beloved major – computer science.

In order to master more computer knowledge, Li took almost all the computer science courses at Peking University. He made up his mind that he would learn whatever students of the computer science major learned, and he should be as competent or even better than them. Although studying computer science was very hard, Li did not give up working in his own major – library and information science. Therefore, he worked hard at the TOEFL, computer science, and library and information science all at the same time. Back then, Li bore three times as much pressure as undergraduates generally did, but he overcame all difficulties with his strong will.

Later, Li applied to more than ten prestigious universities in the United States. Finally, success came to this indefatigable student. In 1991, when he turned 23, Li received an offer of a computer science major from the University at Buffalo (part of the State University of New York), whose computer