Financial freedom starts with smiling at life

This isn't the first time Silicon Valley has poached AI engineers from China with exorbitant salaries; Meta previously spent $3 million to poach seven students from Tsinghua and Peking Universities.

Looking at the global AI industry, 47% of the world's top AI talents come from China.

It's not an exaggeration to say that one in every two AI engineers in the world is trained in China.

In recent years, China has invested a lot of human, material and financial resources in basic science. The country's ability to cultivate talents is now quite good. The most obvious example is that Tsinghua and Peking Universities can now be ranked among the top ten in the world.

The only challenge is retaining top talent.

Of course, besides the allure of high salaries in the United States, there are also some issues related to individual ideology.

In Silicon Valley, any senior AI engineer at a tech company can earn over a million dollars a year. At Meta, senior engineers at the P10 level also receive stock awards.

The majority of AI talent is from China, and people at this level are unlikely to return to China.

However, a small number of top talents are willing to return to China to develop their careers, partly due to personal sentiments, and partly because of the huge potential of the domestic market, their confidence in themselves, and their desire to try and achieve great things.

Pang Ming, one of the top AI talents that Jiangbei City has been tracking with DeepVision Technology, is one of them.

During his multiple conversations with the headhunter, he repeatedly expressed his feelings for China.

This gave Jiang Beicheng a glimmer of hope that he could snatch this genius from the tech giants of Silicon Valley.

I'm already mentally prepared to spend a lot of money.

Judging from the current state of the high-end talent market in China, the salary and benefits Pang Ming can get upon returning to China will definitely be much lower than in the United States.

Lei Jun's offer of a 1200 million RMB annual salary to poach a genius AI girl caused a huge sensation in the domestic talent market.

But this treatment is only so-so in the US.

Especially when he encountered a gambler-like capitalist like Zuckerberg, he reaped huge profits in the AI ​​field.

Before the "Metaverse" financial fraud was exposed, Zuckerberg's personal assets amounted to more than $1400 billion.

However, after the "metaverse" bubble burst, his assets shrank to $500 billion. Facebook was the tech company that hyped the "metaverse" concept most in the world at the time.

This bet also severely shrank Facebook's market value, and Zuckerberg's personal assets were cut in half.

However, he reacted quickly, and when he saw the global AI craze sparked by OpenAI, he invested heavily in suppressing AI.

Thanks to the commercial effects of the Llama mega-model, Zuckerberg's assets surged to $1800 billion, ranking fourth globally.

Llama, a large AI model developed by Meta, is the only open-source large AI model among the world's top-ranked AI models.

Patented technologies are shared globally.

This has accelerated Llama's growth, bringing it close to Chat-gpt.

The path of open source requires the participation of more technology companies and more top talents.

Zuckerberg is willing to spend money on recruiting talent, especially attracting Chinese AI talent.

Jiang Beicheng anticipated that Pang Ming would be snapped up by Silicon Valley tech giants with huge sums of money, but he didn't expect Meta to offer him an annual salary of 200 million US dollars.

This left Apple CEO Tim Cook, Pang Ming's former employer, completely dumbfounded, as his annual income at Apple was only $200 million.

Zuckerberg's words were clearly somewhat insulting.

But Cook didn't dare to say anything; he, as a professional manager, was very different from Zuckerberg, a capital player.

However, Apple has no intention of giving up on Pang Ming and is still in private contact with him, trying to retain this rare AI genius.

Originally, it was a battle between two tech giants, with Google occasionally stirring things up. Now, a Chinese tech startup has joined the talent war.

The situation has completely changed.

Zuckerberg and Cook were completely unaware of the actions taken in Jiangbei City.

While arranging things domestically, Jiang Beicheng sent his father-in-law, Hailin, to negotiate the acquisition with the founding team of DeepVision Technology.

If the founding team is unwilling to give up the project, Lian Capital will force them to release more equity, diluting the founders' equity while gradually making them give up their voting rights.

Jiang Beicheng wants to take control of this startup; at the current pace, with round after round of financing, development is too slow.

He has money but can't spend it.

Once he gains control, he's willing to pay anything, not just $200 million, but even higher prices. If DeepVision's founding team still refuses to cooperate, Lian Capital will have no choice but to join forces with other investors to launch a hostile takeover.

Civil matters come first, then military matters.

Let the founding team have a little more dignity.

On the other hand, Jiang Beicheng is preparing to meet with Pang Ming in person.

……

True Search is a headhunting firm that has experienced rapid growth in the past two years.

It is also a startup company.

However, this startup is based in Silicon Valley and mainly engages in headhunting for tech talent, and is now one of the most sought-after headhunters in Silicon Valley.

It was also through this company's arrangement that Jiang Beicheng met Pang Ming in San Francisco.

Silicon Valley is part of the San Francisco Bay Area, and Jiangbei City owns real estate in San Francisco.

To be precise, it was the property in Haitangxi owned by the first wife. The first wife returned to China to start a business and needed money, so she sold this house to him.

He certainly didn't want the house, but he did pay enough money.

This ocean-view penthouse can now be considered the couple's sweet little nest in San Francisco.

Pang Ming arrived at his residence in Jiangbei City on time.

It didn't surprise him at all that President Jiang owned property in San Francisco, given the large Chinese population there, and the fact that President Jiang was a wealthy entrepreneur who valued the development of the technology industry.

Buying property in San Francisco is a very common thing.

“Mr. Jiang, hello, I am your headhunting consultant James. I have been in contact with Mr. Shen from DeepVision Technology and your secretary.”

The headhunter from True Search introduced himself, addressing Jiang Beicheng respectfully, and then introduced Pang Ming to him.

Typically, headhunters charge based on the candidate's annual salary, usually 20% to 30% in the US.

This means that if Pang Ming's deal goes through, James' headhunting firm will be able to get tens of millions of US dollars in service fees from Jiangbei City.

Zuckerberg offered a record-breaking $2 million contract, so Jiang Beicheng can't possibly offer too little if they want to snatch him away from him.

Even if Pang Ming has a desire to return to his homeland and has met a like-minded investor who is willing to lower his price, it is impossible for him to reduce it to the tens of millions level.

Therefore, James demonstrated his best professionalism in serving Jiangbei City, his major benefactor.

"Hello, Mr. Jiang," Pang Ming greeted him politely.

Engineering students have this kind of personality.

Most of the time, I focused on technical issues.

As for social skills, knowing a little bit is enough to avoid stage fright.

Despite not being intimidated, Pang Ming was still somewhat nervous when facing Jiang Beicheng.

The legendary achievements of this young domestic entrepreneur are unmatched by his peers.

They are the figures that their peers look up to.

Pang Ming was even more aware of Jiangbei City's wealth and power, having watched Hurun's interview with him.

This also meant he wasn't worried about his material life after returning to China.

As long as the two of them have a good talk, President Jiang will definitely not let him suffer a loss.

Given Zuckerberg's high-profile poaching tactics, the fact that Jiang dared to step forward is enough to demonstrate his confidence in his own wealth.

If President Jiang is willing to invest even more money, those friends from Tsinghua and Peking Universities who came with him can also return to China together.

They have completed their studies and transformation in the United States and made significant contributions to the development of the US AI industry. Now they have the ambition to return to China and make a difference.

It all depends on whether President Jiang is willing to provide them with a comfortable research environment. (End of Chapter)