Robin Li’s speech at the 2008 Peking University undergraduate graduation ceremony.
Today, I want to share with you some of my experiences and insights about life.
First, it is a story about choice.
Before entering Peking University, I liked computers very much. I believe that computers will definitely be widely used in the future, and simply learning computers may not be as promising as combining computers with certain applications, so I chose The Department of Information Management at Peking University, not the Department of Computer Science.
I have a sister who was admitted to Peking University five years before me. She told me that it is easy for Peking University students to go abroad. She told me that the outside world is very exciting. After attending Peking University, I found that it was not easy for my information science major to go abroad, and the most advanced computer technology was in the United States at that time. I was forced to start thinking about my next step and enrich my horizons by constantly participating in various activities. I took a lot of courses in the computer science department. I read a lot of American papers on information science, hoping to find my own opportunities in international academic journals. As the only science student at that time, I participated in the school’s May 4th Debate Competition. , I listened to various lectures: qigong, philosophy, movies, I joined the choir, and went to Tiananmen Square to dance in a group during the National Day. I fully enjoyed the various opportunities that Peking University gave me. I have come into contact with all kinds of people, everyone has their own ideas, everyone is different, and everyone is wonderful. This allowed me to gradually form a way of thinking that is not gullible and does not follow the trend. Regarding the choice of my future life path, my four years at Peking University have given me the ability to think independently.
When I was studying computer science in the United States, I was originally studying for a Ph.D., but later I chose to give up. The reason is that I find that I prefer that what I make can be used by many, many people, rather than studying a proposition that others have studied for 10 years.
In 1997, I left Wall Street, where I had struggled for more than three years, and went to Infoseek, a search engine company that was very famous in Silicon Valley at the time. In Silicon Valley, I witnessed how the most successful search technology company at the time was making waves in the stock market, and how large-scale industrial information systems that supported tens of millions of traffic every day worked. I also witnessed the subsequent deterioration and dismal operation of Infoseek. . But most importantly, at Infoseek, I found my lifelong interest - Internet search engines. At that time, it was the information retrieval theory I learned at Peking University that enabled me to understand better than any engineer with a computer science background how ordinary users are accustomed to obtaining information. I realized that search can bring everyone just one click away from the information they need. This feeling is so wonderful. Since then, I have never left the search engine for more than 24 hours, not because I am a workaholic, but because I like it.
My biggest lesson is to choose to do what you like to do. We need to make choices from our true hearts. It’s not that you think society expects you to do this, or your parents expect you to do this, my friend. You are expected to do so. Only in this way will you be happier the more you work, and when you encounter difficulties and setbacks, you will not be defeated by frustration, but can enjoy the whole process wholeheartedly.
The second is the understanding of concentration.
The two greatest blessings in my life are to find my wife and to engage in a job that I love. But the only difference between a wife and a job is that there is only one wife, and work is full of temptations every moment. Many people will focus on one wife, but many people will enjoy multiple different jobs.
Before Baidu went public, Baidu only did one thing: Chinese search. In the early days of entrepreneurship, search was not a hot concept in Silicon Valley in the United States. What was more popular at that time were portals, e-commerce, and later wireless, online games, etc. that became popular in China. When Baidu was recruiting its first batch of employees, I met one person whom I really hoped to join. He was very skilled. Unfortunately, he told me that if we didn't do e-Commerce, he wouldn't come.
In 2001, a Baidu engineer came to me and said seriously that he wanted to do online shopping. I rejected him, and he left Baidu for this reason. After Baidu went public, some old colleagues who had worked for many years left Baidu to try more businesses.
Many times, I feel that Baidu can continue to do search because I have a religious belief in concentration. Ordinary people can hardly imagine how many temptations a company with 200 million users faces every day. Baidu can do a hundred things, but in the end we only chose one, and we have been doing it for so many years, and we will continue to do it.
There is a limit to what a person can accomplish in his life. Only by focusing can he become good enough. Therefore, it is said: "Only when you do nothing can you do something."
Third, it is about the perception of vision.
Looking back at the road I have traveled, I will find that the vastness of this world is difficult to imagine. Many difficulties that seemed very big at the time now seem to be just trivial matters; many things that seemed very difficult at the time are now just topics discussed after dinner.
When Baidu was established in 2000, we did not directly provide search services for Internet users. We only exported search engine technology to portal websites. At that time, only portals needed search services. In the summer of 2001, I made the decision to transform from a technical service provider hiding behind a portal to an independent search engine with its own brand. This was the only transformation in Baidu's development history, which would offend almost all customers, so it was opposed by many investors at the time. But when I set my sights a few years into the future, I had to stick to my point of view. As you all know, I later convinced investors, and that’s why we have the Baidu you see today.
Baidu has moved from the backend to the frontend. With our focus and efforts, today it operates the largest website in the Eastern Hemisphere.
In fact, from the first day I founded Baidu, my ideal has been to "let people obtain information most conveniently." This ideal is not limited to Chinese or the Internet. As a student in the Information Management Department of Peking University, I was lucky enough to understand the relationship and importance of information and human beings in college in the pre-Internet era. Therefore, Baidu has had lofty ideals from the first day: We hope to seek the shortest distance between people and information, and seek the mutual love between people and information for all Chinese, even Asia, and all humans around the world.
So it is said: How far the horizon is, how big the world is.