The chat with Baidu Shanghai branch gave Meng Fanqi a lot of inspiration, at least allowing him to establish the strategy of application before technology. I just need to deal with the Google advertising algorithm first before starting my business.
Advertising algorithms are currently the fastest-returning and most profitable thing, and they must rely on large platforms. It is difficult to obtain the same scale of income by starting your own business.
The initial plan for starting a business is to first lower the threshold for applying technology and have enough mass base to make the facial modification algorithm deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. This will be more conducive to the development of the company and the launch of its own facial recognition algorithm with discriminative capabilities.
"I have to study management knowledge carefully, and I need to hire a professional manager as soon as possible in the next two days."
If he really wants to start a business, Meng Fanqi still doesn't dare to rely on others. In terms of technology, he can be the chief technology officer without any problem. In terms of overall management, there is no need to embarrass him.
It's just that when you become a boss, whether it's company space, equipment, or hiring personnel, it's all a big expense.
Although I had some money on hand, because I had just invested a large amount of money in Mi Huhuou, I had to transfer a special amount of money back from my overseas account.
China has relatively strict control over the transfer of large amounts of overseas funds.
The normal amount of wire transfer is only 50,000 U.S. dollars, but the value of Meng Fanqi's first advance payment has reached about 4 million U.S. dollars after the shares were sold.
After searching for a long time, a series of legal and compliance operations are either very cumbersome or extremely time-consuming to operate by yourself.
Since he was embarrassed to go to Baidu to transfer the money back after a long time of effort, Meng Fanqi asked Google for help this time.
Strictly speaking, Meng Fanqi and Google currently have a one-year contract, and the first performance time is March 1, 2014.
But at the venue, Meng Fanqi had already handed over many scientific research results with little monetization value to Hinton, which was equivalent to handing over to the Google Brain team.
These include optimizers, optimization strategies, and data enhancement methods. They are all valuable work for the entire AI subject field, and they have been open sourced and announced at the Xiny venue.
Google, especially Jeff and Hinton, did not treat Meng Fanqi exactly as an employee.
The most obvious one is Hinton, who gets along with Meng Fanqi more in the way a mentor treats a talented junior in a university.
The internal account of the Google Brain team was given in advance to facilitate his choice of research direction. This money is assisted to be transferred into the country, which is not a troublesome matter.
In 2012, Google’s Shanghai branch moved into the World Financial Center.
The office floors rented by Google are often more than 60 stories high, which is astonishing.
The land in this area is precious, and there are many high-rise buildings nearby. The World Financial Center is 60 stories high, and you can have a panoramic view of the iconic Pearl Tower. However, in fact, public transportation is not very convenient. Fortunately, there is no clocking in and out, so employees can adjust their own time and travel during off-peak hours.
Meng Fanqi walked into the building and found people coming and going, most of whom were in suits and leather shoes. Men and women were all dressed in professional attire, which made Meng Fanqi, who was dressed plainly, feel strange.
The sixtieth floor is Guguo Information Technology Co., Ltd., and the sixty-first floor is Google Advertising Co., Ltd.
“This is the first time I’ve seen the peculiar Chinese homophony of Google called Gu Guo.” Meng Fanqi had heard about Google for a long time, but had never had the opportunity to visit.
I thought that Google had already withdrawn from the Chinese market, but I never thought that it would still occupy such a luxurious office building in Shanghai.
Inside, the canteen, medical room, gym, lunch room and other facilities are all available. Maybe there are too many miscellaneous things, which makes the workstations look a little crowded.
There are large Chinese characters on many walls, such as "Qin". At first glance, it seems that the gringos are deliberately designing to be close to Chinese culture.
The word "diligence" is not enough to give that feeling. Meng Fanqi laughed inwardly and said, if it were Hua Zi, he would definitely write a big letter with the word "wolf".
In 2010, Google withdrew from China with great momentum, but it seems that it still left a lot of business behind.
Google Shanghai is mainly doing things to help Chinese companies go overseas.
"After all, search is only a small part. Relying only on search bidding will not be able to succeed after all. Switching to selling advertising is really a wise decision." Facing Xi Xiaohu who came to greet him, Meng Fanqi couldn't help but sigh.
To be honest, Meng Fanqi never expected that the first person he met when he came to Google Advertising would be the big shot Xi Xiaohu.
Xi Xiaohu was born in Princeton and joined Google during the entrepreneurial stage. He is also a core developer of Google's advertising business. He has twice won Google's highest award for his outstanding contributions to the advertising system.
In recent years, when I came to the Google China branch, due to the internal positioning of Google Yanjing as search and Google Shanghai as advertising, Xi Xiaohu settled in Shanghai to take over the advertising business.
"Logically speaking, there is no need for me to come to see you." Xi Xiaohu could see that Meng Fanqi recognized him at a glance, so he explained with a smile, "Firstly, I came to see you because Jeff admires you so much. Secondly, I came to see you." It was because I heard that you wanted to improve our group’s advertising system that I decided to come and meet you.”
Although Xi Xiaohu smiled brightly, Meng Fanqi could tell that he was somewhat critical of his choice of advertising algorithm for his first task after joining Google Brain.
This is understandable. Xi Xiaohu has full confidence in the advertising system that he has been responsible for for many years, and he is not the kind of person who will make some clever changes to the system and platform for short-term profits.
Meng Fanqi thought to himself that he probably thought he was going to use some small means to gain profits from the advertising algorithm.
To be honest, if Meng Fanqi's papers had not been widely praised in recent months, and Jeff's high praise, Xi Xiaohu would not have given him a good look.
I chose the recommended advertising algorithm as soon as I came in. Isn’t this the same as saying, “I can see there’s something wrong with you at a glance”?
Meng Fanqi noticed his thoughts and didn't care. He responded humbly: "I don't dare to say it's an improvement. I'm just curious. Come and learn."
Xi Xiaohu's hostility was insignificant in Meng Fanqi's opinion. Regardless of whether it was a normal reaction or not, everything would be resolved after the experimental results came out.
Speaking of which, he is familiar with Xi Xiaohu not because Xi Xiaohu is the core developer of Google's advertising system AdWords, nor because he has served as the chief technology officer of Didi, Xiaohongshu and other star companies.
It was because at the beginning of 23, Xi Xiaohu was accused of bigamy, and the case was tried in Shanghai.
Rumors about this matter are flying everywhere, and no information about Xi Xiaohu's original wife can be found.
According to Meng Fanqi's combing of information from all parties, a vague timeline can be drawn. It seems that Xi Xiaohu was originally married in the United States.
During his tenure as the chief technology officer of Xiaohongshu in 2015, sparks sparked again with his senior colleague Wan Yanjing. Later, for some reason, they did not divorce and then get married.
A few years later, the incident occurred and Xi Xiaohu, the vice president of the Penguin Department, could no longer work and resigned in a hurry.
The specific reason is unclear, and I don’t know if it is because of this case.
Looking at his fair face, I really can't imagine a person with such a story.
