"An artificial intelligence company, assuming 100-150 people, labor costs a year is 5,000,600,000 yuan. If you can do 10,220 million yuan of revenue, one year is to consume 40 million yuan. That is not 500,600 Well million dollars, if a $ 20 million into the melt, you can not engage in 3,4 years? Dead. " In other words, it is hard to die to go out and ask questions. However, it is obviously not a gesture that Li Zhifei wants to live on, or he will not bring an "AI company" to the "watch factory". one Before returning home to start a business, Li Zhifei only worked for some time as a scientist at Google, where he studied natural language processing (NLP) and artificial intelligence and developed Joshua, a machine translation open source software. To some extent, this experience serves as a stepping stone to Li Zhifei's return to business. "In October 2012, I was the first to return to China from the United States Google headquarters Engineer Research Scientist. The timing was also good, Apple introduced Siri in April 2012, Li Zhifei in July and Sequoia, really negotiate the financing matters. At that time, several voice assistants similar to Siri had emerged in the country, all of whom claimed to have tens of millions of users. However, in the eyes of Li Zhiffei, "They all just use the SDI to take a ride." He dismissed him. However, if the contrast with their own time, Li Zhifei seems to have only background, "nothing DD (background investigation) can do, the team did not, there is no product, there is nothing, I am a person." So "a DEMO get Xu Xiaoping And Sequoia "is the real thing, go out to ask the first financing is also finalized quickly. Two years ago Lei Feng asked Lee why he did not stay in Silicon Valley, he said: "If in Silicon Valley, we may be slower." At the same time, relative to the technological breakthrough itself, he is more interested in the application of technology. So you can see, get out of the investment after asking, took less than 8 months on the line WeChat public number, and then non-stop doing App and Google Glass APP. Go very fast, public opinion is good, but in the end Li Zhi Fei found that this is not what he wants. Before the interview, Li Zhifei updated the circle of friends: "The company bought this (Hololens) for a few months, everyone will try to send a circle of friends, but basically no one wants to play every day, with the year's Google Glass seems ah! " Not surprisingly, "current year" refers to the most confused time after Li Zhifei entrepreneurship. "Do virtual things, touch, invisible, less sense of accomplishment; WeChat (public number) also has 400000 users, but the viscosity is poor." Or more realistic statement, "in 2014, at Before we decided to do the hardware, the company was 40,50 people, revenue is 0, not a penny. " two Li Zhifei often stay up all night in the company, the most special day is July 26 this year. That night, Ticwatch 2 went to Kickstarter and 40,50 employees watched the amount of the crowdfunding page change with Lee Chi-fei in front of the company's television sets. "Putting a TV on the wall and looking at the numbers kept refreshing, and for five minutes, it took $ 100,000 for a snap. It was really, really exciting." According to the present employee, that Moment, someone opened the champagne. In China, the consumer crowdfunding site is already a by-product of e-commerce, and as Kickstarter has insisted on its purity, basically made itself a public service platform, so the data here is not any moisture. Eventually, Ticwatch 2's crowdfunding was set at $ 2.08 million, breaking the crowdfunding record maintained by Chinese companies on Kickstarter. From a global perspective, "In the past 12 months, it was very easy to go out and ask for revenue of about 150 million yuan and possibly make a Rmb3,400 million in the next 12 months." Li Zhifei is very concerned about the company's survival Gesture, "If this company is only half alive and has a yearly income of 20 to 20 million, what does it mean?" Financing is never a problem. "After starting to do the hardware, we did not get a penny from the VC, so I do not have to tell the story with the capital, we take the strategic investment, are with us after the cooperation that we must vote." The pace of negotiations is still very "Because they do not do a background check, they know the company's team and technology very well and we do not have much financial data to look at." three However, some hardware pit can not escape, how to make production and sales better integration? This is Li Zhifei recently thinking of a problem. "As the lead time needs to be sold two to three months ahead of the forecast, but the sales are generally not given accurate forecast, a lot of marketing is very temporary, the user needs fluctuations, hope production can be freely placed. The result is a huge inventory, Will be out of stock. If conditions permit, perhaps Li Zhi-fei will use quantitative modeling approach to solve these problems, but the subjective is obviously not covered in the formula, "is that the drawings are written clearly in all aspects, but the supplier is to do for you Thick 0.01 mm. Every day is such a thing. "This time let Li Zhi Fei, a computer doctor collapsed. However, it is reassuring to note that in a sense, things can be developed to this step which in turn proves the feasibility of using hardware as a layman. Once, Li Zhifei to see a supplier in Hangzhou, the other side is: "Lei Jun 4 years ago to see me and I ignored him, I had to go to another place today, but did not get on the plane to wait for you So, Li Zhifei is very grateful to Lei Jun, "because the supplier is very realistic, cash advances, cash out, so simple, do not give me any feelings. Lei Jun really educated a bit, sometimes still have a little bit Idealistic. " In order to encourage workers, Li Zhifei team will run factories, the next production line, and the workers photo, send the company's cultural shirt and gifts. This kind of thing to Li Zhi Fei, in the past is unimaginable, "The reality is that yield is very important, every day to produce 100 units, we can be less than 100 people scolded." "China's users are really hard to get started." In August last year, Ticwatch foundries in Shandong made a flood of water and blocked the logistics. "At that time, 500,600 users started scolding one day and scolded us as a liar and scolded us for stocking , All kinds of remarks have. "In order to appease the user's emotions, Li Zhifei simply internal transparency of all operating systems," is where we now do, how much our factory today, where the logistics and so on. " Every time the risk clearance, Li Zhifei are lingering fear, "basically have a solution, although every time the teeth and never say quit." four Now about 300 people go out to ask, most of them come in after making smart watches. People come and go, Li Zhifei can not call everyone's name, in order to improve communication efficiency, he will Google's TGIF brought to the company: every Friday afternoon, employees can ask him any questions, real name or anonymous. Li Zhifei do not want the event flow in the form, but want everyone to be like him when he was in Google, "in the CEO's mind to do things in that." From the company logo to the office environment, can see the former owners left in the traces of Li Zhifei, he did not hide his esteem for Google, a word is summarized, "can bring in the world's most intelligent people, Let them not just quarrel every day, but really do something. "This is his biggest curiosity about Google that year, but also why he had long decided to start a business, but still enter the Google cause. "There are people who can not work, I am the kind of person.For example, I am sure I can not climb a ladder in a big company and deal with the relationship particularly well, which I think very clearly when Google. So while he was still at Google, the big boss said indifferently when he said "Useless." He did not bother to explain after starting a business that they were "working in bad faith." "In fact, there is such a voice inside the company, saying that we are not an AI company, a wearable manufacturer or a hardware company, but if it is really for doing the thing itself or not trying to deceive yourself, I think it does not matter." At the beginning of last year, at a conference on the theme of "singularity," Li Zhifei said in a word to the audience: "I personally strongly oppose the notion of singularities because this is an unrealizable Things. "This attitude makes many colleagues sideways, as vested interests in one of the members of the concept of deviation is often difficult to offended popular suspicion. Can Li Zhi Fei still say: "can not lie to oneself, have no meaning." "You said we do not value AI, our company has more than 60 people specifically AI, China has a few such start-up companies? You can not because I go one step forward, I do not say AI with you every day. I think you do not have any hope of this way, so I will ponder every day in the end to use AI which products to go. "And so far, Li Zhi Fei can give the best answer is Ticwatch. "Believe it or not, current smart wearable products represent the highest level of artificial intelligence (applications)." Li Zhifei said a few months ago, but by November 22nd he would give another answer - - Smart car rear-view mirror. postscript Li Zhi-fei's station in the company's southeast corner, both sides of the window, just to the entire Zhongguancun eyes. Going out to ask, like many startups, starts and grows here. Before the interview ended, Li Zhifei was not without emotion: "I think we are proud to say today that we are indeed making progress. The same company we had two years ago did not make any difference from what he did two years ago. If you look at it, is not it important if you are an AI company? It does not matter. " This article is reprinted from Lei Feng network, if you have any questions, please send an email to wbsj@wbiao.cn to contact us.