What's wrong with me being a rich man?

Chapter 457 Cold Water
In the last week of April, Yu Kai returned to Beijing to handle the final matters of his departure, thus ending his career at Baidu.

He didn't see Li Yanhong, nor did he intend to, but he chatted enthusiastically with his old friend Wu Enda for a long time.

Andrew Ng had great doubts about Yu Kai's sudden burst of enthusiasm.

Baidu is good, silicon carbon is also an option, I can understand starting a business...

What's with this push for an independent deep learning research institution?

After much deliberation, Andrew Ng finally asked the question he had been pondering: "You went to Lingang, gave up your job, and abandoned your friends. What's so magical about that place? I think Mr. Li was quite decisive."

He recently returned to China and joined Baidu, and I have been observing him carefully during our recent interactions.

“There is money here, but it’s just sitting there.” Yu Kai shook his head, then smiled and said, “As for Lingang, President Yu is quite charismatic. I’ve been having a great time in Lingang lately. Whether it’s discussing my own ‘Horizon’ project or ‘Morning Enlightenment’ in deep learning, I’ve gained a lot.”

Andrew Ng chuckled and said, "Your names don't sound like those of people who study deep learning."

“Yes, the official name is still the ‘Deep Learning Foundation.’ According to Mr. Yu, the foundation’s mission is to be a non-profit organization focused on promoting machine learning, deep learning, and artificial intelligence. The name ‘Morning Enlightenment’ is used for the internal committee.” Yu Kai said seriously, “He believes this will help with fundraising.”

Andrew Ng asked, "How do non-profit organizations raise funds?"

“Then set up for-profit commercial entities under the non-profit organization, that is, set up companies under the foundation, and then see if there are any suitable results to be transformed,” Yu Kai said sincerely. “I think his consideration is quite comprehensive.”

Andrew Ng fell silent.

After a moment, he shook his head and said, "He is well-versed in business operations, but this is a difficult task. His company is not that wealthy. If he were the boss of BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent), I think he could give it a try."

Regarding machine learning and artificial intelligence, Andrew Ng believes that overseas, companies like Microsoft and Google have the resources to invest in these areas, which inspires confidence. In China, it would have to be companies like BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent).

I don't know much about car manufacturing from Silicon Carbon Group, and although I've heard that Silicon Carbon Data Company has good prospects, it's still not big enough.

“That’s the current situation. Mr. Yu invited Ma Chuan from Alibaba to Lingang, but Ma Chuan is not optimistic about it at all and is unwilling to invest. Mr. Yu then tried to get Alibaba to invest with its cloud computing resources, but that was also rejected.” Yu Kai frowned. “It’s still the same old story. BAT may have money, but what’s the use if they don’t invest? Besides, there are other companies that are doing well.”

He continued, "I recently heard something. The anonymous company that secretly bid for Jeffrey's work was DeepMind. It had only been established for a little over a year and was already competing with Google, Microsoft, and Baidu. I think independent institutions may not necessarily be without a future."

Andrew Ng chuckled and said, "Brother Yu, the problem is that DeepMind has now been acquired by Google."

DeepMind was founded by Demis Hassabis and was recently acquired by Google for $6.5 million.

He was naturally aware of this development. The circle itself wasn't large, and the top players were even more familiar with it. It was said that Demis was currently researching an artificial intelligence program that could defeat top human Go players.

“I know, so if we can get started and do it seriously, even if we fail, it might not be all for nothing,” Yu Kai said with a smile. “Let’s do it, try it, explore it. I’m still contacting people.”

He said earnestly, "Old Wu, I'm serious, and Lingang is serious too. We're going to make this a great event together."

Andrew Ng pondered for a moment, then said, "Alright, I wish you success."

Yu Kai stubbed out his cigarette: "It's a wish for our success. Even an advisor who doesn't take money is still an advisor."

Andrew Ng did not refute this. Although he felt that the chances of it being successful in China were slim, he would be happy if new forces could emerge in his field of research. He had a similar idea in mind when he returned this time.

But is Baidu really that bad?

Andrew Ng had his doubts.

This question certainly couldn't be verified in a short time. However, just the next day, he angrily called Yu Kai again, who was still in Beijing.

Andrew Ng expressed strong doubt: "No, how did you poach Fei-Fei Li?!"

Fei-Fei Li is a professor at Stanford University and an authority in the field of computer vision.

After Andrew Ng decided to join Baidu, he contacted several industry experts, including this one. However, when I called him last night, he said that a non-profit organization sounded more interesting than Baidu and had changed his mind.

Most importantly, he drank with Yu Kai yesterday, but Yu Kai didn't mention it at all!
"She thinks your Deep Academy is inferior to mine," Yu Kai laughed. "We didn't sign a contract with you, so whoever hires them is responsible for their income."

Andrew Ng let out a sigh, suppressing his anger, and said with dissatisfaction, "Yu Kai, you can't just think of yourself! You tricked me into coming to Baidu and then abandoned me, that's bad enough, but now you're poaching my helper! What am I supposed to do at Baidu?"

He joined Baidu, naturally hoping to achieve something.

Yu Kai suggested, "If my foundation is established, why don't you come from Beijing too? That way, you can resolve this dilemma yourselves."

Andrew Ng ended the call; they couldn't talk anymore.

But he suddenly felt a strong curiosity about Yu Xing in Lingang. How did he manage to make Yu Kai so confused?
On the last day of April, Yu Kai arrived in Lingang for the third time.

Compared to the previous two times, he is now free of burdens and only wants to do two major things in the next few years: chip solutions and deep learning research. The progress of the latter may also benefit his entrepreneurial venture in the future.

Yu Kai needs to think more about starting his own business, but the Deep Learning Foundation can continue its work.

He waited in Lingang for two days before finally seeing Mr. Yu return from Ningde.

Yu Kai noticed that President Yu seemed to be in a good mood, so he made small talk and asked about his project: "President Yu, your car is getting closer and closer to the market, right? I see that you are making more and more prototypes."

"We've finalized the overall details of our three main components. The rest will involve testing and adjustments, including configuration considerations," Yu Xing said with a smile. "Everyone is in a hurry. The district has also talked to me several times. Our initial plan is to hold a product launch event after the Spring Festival next year to officially test the market."

As he said this, he couldn't help but talk about the follow-up work: "We're going to be very busy from now on. It's difficult to manufacture cars, and it's difficult to sell them. We need to work on the sales channel system properly."

Yu Kai blinked, extracting only the key information, and quickly said, "President Yu, how is the financing for the DL Foundation arranged? I've made most of the preparations. You just need to schedule a time with the venture capitalists, and I'll try my best to call them over."

"It's easy to arrange a meeting with them," Yu Xing asked. "You can do it anytime. The main thing is, have you thought about how to discuss it?"

Yu Kai nodded seriously: "I've thought it through. We'll talk about how Baidu values ​​it, how Google invests in it, and how Stanford promotes it, as if this technology will be available and launched to the market next year."

Yu Xing was taken aback for a moment, then laughed and said, "Dr. Yu, no wonder you want to start your own business."

Yu Kai humbly replied, "I have indeed benefited greatly from my time in Lingang."

“Don’t drag me into this hype. Carbon Silicon Data is just one of the investors, and I’m just facilitating things,” Yu Xing pondered. “Let’s talk about it in three days. Let’s invite five companies to see what everyone’s interest is like. Actually, it would be best to get some resources from BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) so we can make some promises.”

Hearing the agreed-upon time, Yu Kai's heart tightened, and he suddenly felt uneasy. He wondered if he could say yes...

Yu Xing wasn't worried about meeting with investors; if one didn't work out, he'd try another. This time, he was just casting a wide net. However, before meeting them, he called Xiao Ying to inquire about Red Falcon Capital's intentions and explained the whole situation and his considerations.

Liu Wanying is currently abroad, managing Renault's financial operations.

She listened to the matter as casual conversation, only asking at the very end, "Are you really asking for my opinion? What if my opinion differs from yours?"

"So what if they're different?" Yu Xing laughed.

“The kestrels aren’t willing to invest in this area,” Liu Wanying said. “This isn’t just a one-time investment; there will be additional investments later, and there’s no end in sight.”

Upon hearing the opposing opinions, Yu Xingzhen fell silent.

“However, if things go smoothly this year…” Liu Wanying changed the subject, “this foundation is raising $1 million, right? Since carbon silicon data can squeeze out $1000 million, if in the end it really is just a $1000 million short, you can use overseas money anyway.”

She meant that the kestrels could eventually round up to an integer.

Yu Xing was barely satisfied: "Xiao Ying is still giving me face, huh?"

“This money can be used to make even more money.” Liu Wanying unsurprisingly also mentioned the idea of ​​money making money, which was especially evident on the mountain peak.

Yu Xing knew that if this topic continued, it would lead to disagreements about how to use money. Making money from money is easy and endless, and he still preferred to put his funds to practical use. It's just that the use of money this time didn't seem so "practical".

He stopped talking about that and started talking about Renault and Volkswagen instead.

The strategy is to first attack Renault, then Volkswagen, with the process expected to begin this month. However, considering the chain reaction of Volkswagen's emissions scandal following Renault's collapse, the funds will need to be allocated between the two sides.

Meanwhile, Liu Wanying plans to continue her experience from the previous short-selling of Vania and hopes to use a US law firm to launch a class-action lawsuit against consumers, thereby expanding the regulatory clashes between different markets and maximizing the impact of the issue.

She didn't go into too much detail over the phone, mostly using euphemisms, saying that they would have a more detailed face-to-face meeting after she returned to China in the middle of the month.

Yu Xing got a general idea of ​​the situation and believed that a major upheaval in the automotive industry was unavoidable.

That evening, Yu Xing, who was considering his work in Q3 and Q4, received a call from Yu Kai at home.

Yu Kai excitedly sent a message: "President Yu, President Yu, DMLC heard that China is preparing to establish a deep learning foundation and is willing to join in. I have already invited them back to China."

He then explained DMLC, a distributed open-source machine learning community led by Chinese scholars, whose goal is to develop efficient and scalable machine learning frameworks through collaboration.

This framework was initiated by Chen Tianqi this year. He, Li Mu, Zhang Zheng, and others exchanged ideas at the North American Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems and found that the deep learning frameworks they developed independently had a lot of repetitive work in underlying technologies such as distributed training and memory optimization. So they decided to integrate resources and jointly develop a unified framework.

The machine learning community is small, and Chinese experts within it often share information. Yu Kai had been contacting people in China last month to help establish a foundation, and the news naturally reached everyone's ears.

After discussing with the co-founders, Chen Tianqi, representing DMLC, called to express his willingness to join the Deep Learning Foundation.

“That’s interesting. I’ve been through this before,” Yu Xing laughed. “Once the signboard is up, those who want to join will come. That sounds like a good thing. You can talk to Matrix Partners about this good news tomorrow.”

Yu Kai was quite excited, feeling that the venture capitalists tomorrow would definitely be moved by this news.

Without even asking, people are willing to join in. Isn't this a perfect example of the Duke of Zhou feeding his guests and winning the hearts of the people?

however……

In the conference room the following day, Yu Kai clearly noticed that the five venture capitalists present were much more enthusiastic towards President Yu. It seemed that they were not there to attend the "Deep Learning Foundation" presentation and fundraising, but rather to participate in a carbon silicon conference.

Although it's a conference room belonging to Silicon Carbon, although it's the CEO of Silicon Carbon, and although it's Silicon Carbon that invested in this company, it's definitely not Silicon Carbon...

Yu Xing had actually anticipated this situation. He was meeting Zhang Ying, the CEO of Matrix Partners China, for the first time. However, Zhang Ying had previously argued with short sellers in Liu Chiping's WeChat Moments, and Liu Wanying had mentioned his interest in Silicon Carbon Group at that time.

“I know everyone is here for the Lingang project.” Yu Xing listened for a while, then, not wanting to waste any more time, he made it clear, “However, Dr. Yu’s deep learning, as he just said, is highly valued by Google, Baidu, and Microsoft. Many of the world’s top scientists are also willing to work on it together, so this is a rare opportunity.”

Zhang Ying, speaking on behalf of everyone, said with a smile, "President Yu, whether it's Carbon Silicon Group or Carbon Silicon Data Company, if they want to raise funds today, we won't say a word. But as for this 'deep learning,' if you really want me to say it, I'd rather wait until Series B or Series C to come in, just in case all the money we've already invested goes down the drain."

Yu Xing said with a hint of helplessness, "Don't you often waste your money? Mining the value of internet data isn't something you can only do when things come to a head."

Zhang Ying shook her head, unwilling to easily try her hand at deep learning, but still expressed her enthusiasm for President Yu's project.

Yu Xing exchanged brief pleasantries, avoiding the topic of his own financing, and left the conversation to Yu Kai.

Yu Kai's hopes were dashed, and he realized that the reality was more cruel than he had imagined, which inevitably made him feel disappointed.

“Mr. Ma isn’t investing, and Matrix Partners is also being cautious. This matter… this matter…” Yu Xing spoke with Yu Kai before dinner, “This matter is more difficult than we anticipated.”

Yu Kai nodded silently and accepted the cigarette that President Yu offered him.

Yu Xing took a drag of his cigarette, considering the situation before him. The top experts in this field were very enthusiastic, and there were even cases like DMLC bringing their entire families to invest, but the investors were lukewarm.

After pondering for a while, he suddenly asked, "Dr. Yu, I feel that we may also need to rely on ourselves for some things. Do you trade cryptocurrencies or stocks? Alibaba is about to go public, and I think it's a good opportunity for value appreciation."

Yu Kai was stunned: "President Yu, is this... insider information? Is it guaranteed to make money?"

Yu Xing shook his head: "It's not guaranteed to make money, but it means you can fight for your dreams. Jack Ma doesn't support you, but Alibaba stock can."

Yu Kai sorted out the situation and said, "So, you mean, I've gathered a group of scientists to do research, and you want to lead everyone to speculate in stocks first?"

"I'm not saying 'lead,' I'm giving pointers. I don't know much about other things, but I'm quite confident about Alibaba's IPO." Yu Xing said seriously, "It will definitely see a big surge after it goes public."

Yu Kai thought for a moment and asked, "I need money to start my business. Can I buy Alibaba stock and try my luck? Can I use leverage? Can you lend me some money?"

Yu Xing looked at Dr. Yu: "...I've noticed that you have a bit of a gambling addiction."

"I'm already in Lingang," Yu Kai said with a sigh. "Life offers few opportunities to gamble! At worst, I'll turn my motorcycle into a bicycle, sort my belongings in Lingang, and sell myself back to Baidu! Mr. Yu, are you even good at stock trading!?"

Yu Xing is good at short selling, but when it comes to stock trading...

He nodded: "It should work."

(End of this chapter)