What's wrong with me being a rich man?

Chapter 675 Hooking Up (4k)

The Eastern short seller, the evil short seller, I never expected him to be a technology short seller as well.

Yu Xing has not made any official appearances recently, but when he visited Hong Kong at the beginning of the year, he talked about his analysis of the fundamentals, as well as his on-site investigations, in order to uncover those suspicious targets. At that time, he even gave an impromptu analysis of Steinhoff.

The industry is skeptical, or rather, most certainly don't believe it. The US and Europe are investigating insider trading, and Japanese media have even reported that Yamazaki colluded with local criminal gangs to force people to commit seppuku. Amid such turbulent voices, how can anyone believe the seemingly straightforward methodology of the big short sellers?

Now that BaFin has received help from Guoshanfeng, the doubts seem to have been resolved.

It's technology, the big short has taken over technology!

This matter involves the well-known JPMorgan Chase, and the "King of Short Sellers" is now quite famous in the United States. Therefore, Wall Street has invited experts in related fields to respond to public interest and find out whether the cross-disciplinary innovation, supposedly from a Chinese deep learning organization, can effectively identify anomalies in the silver market.

Professor Deprado from Cornell University praised the detection model developed by the big short sellers.

"Unexpectedly, I think the technology and innovation demonstrated by the model provided by DLF this time is close to perfect. In fact, the CFTC also invited me to develop a processing model for the massive amount of data in the silver market, but now it seems that they don't need me at all."

DePrado specializes in studying the microstructure of the futures market, high-frequency trading, and its integration with machine learning. His interview was authorized by the CFTC, aiming to further pressure JPMorgan Chase through public opinion.

Unlike the image presented by Yu Xing, this short seller is someone who specializes in this field and is also in charge of asset management and quantitative work. He has indeed witnessed the actual handling capabilities of the "short selling model," so his statement this time does not have to go against his conscience.

Another comment from Duke University, Rudin, was more humorous: "Over Peak is indeed a very powerful short-selling institution. The model it developed perfectly meets the actual needs of financial regulation. Mr. Yu must have a very good understanding of what financial institutions want to do."

"This is actually the most valuable innovation of this model. It's not about using complex deep learning algorithms, but about breaking the prejudice that deep learning is a black box, so that technological innovation can serve the needs."

"It can detect and identify data simply by using publicly available data. This may indeed be a technological weapon to break the monopoly of investment banks on high-frequency trading data. The most ingenious thing is that the creator of this weapon is the king of short sellers. Haha, that's really interesting."

Rudin's views also stem from her own perspective; she studies "explainable machine learning," opposes black-box technology, and is also promoting the application of machine learning in the field of financial regulation.

Putting aside the potential harm that the "short-selling model" might cause to investment banks, they all felt that this cross-disciplinary technological innovation was refreshing.

The discussion in the international machine learning field has sparked a debate, and Andrew Ng, who is now in charge of the DLF Foundation, took the opportunity to be interviewed by Wall Street and also connected with his former Google colleagues to talk about the application and thinking of the technology he is developing.

The discussions were lively both domestically and internationally. Andrew Ng then capitalized on this interest by inviting overseas experts to Hong Kong for talks, which eventually made the conference quite a large-scale event.

Mainstream media interest in machine learning quickly faded, but those who follow this field naturally kept up with the latest developments. Andrew Ng did not hide anything; on the contrary, he deliberately highlighted DLF's research in this area, which in turn attracted a group of technical backbones from Baidu.

In just one week, two groups of people left Baidu Research Institute. Adding to this the talents who left immediately when the public opinion storm broke out, this situation is really making the head of the institute, Li Yanhong, a little unbearable.

Okay, Yu Kai said he wanted to leave and start his own business, so let him go. As a result, he became very close with Yu Xing from Lingang.

Okay, at least Yu Kai founded Horizon Robotics, but Andrew Ng went straight to the DLF Foundation and took a group of people with him.

Now, they're not satisfied with their previous scale; they're even trying to poach people...

Li Yanhong felt that this was undoubtedly a targeted attack.

Lin Yuanqing, who took over as the head of Baidu Research Institute, approached the head of the institute and mentioned the situation: "President Li, there is a lot of resistance to the non-compete agreement that needs to be signed."

Li Yanhong remained gentle and polite: "What kind of resistance? Our company has always been very lenient in this regard. Look at other companies in the industry, their requirements have always been very strict. Just because we have changed from lenient to normal doesn't mean we can't implement it. That would be bullying the company."

Lin Yuanqing said, "Some people believe that the DLF Foundation, as a non-profit organization, should not be regarded as a competitor."

Li Yanhong gave a slight sneer: "It says it's non-profit, but can it really be non-profit and not pursue profit? It's located in Lingang, and behind the scenes it can only be manipulated by carbon silicon. It's not an independent development by a third party at all."

Lin Yuanqing wanted to say something but didn't, but he heard that Mr. Yu from the carbon silicon company was also quite good at stock trading, and that part of the funds for the DLF Foundation came from that.

He simply relayed the opinions of his colleagues in the institute to them. As for how the head of the institute viewed and handled it, that was another matter.

Li Yanhong said a few words of her opinion, indicating that the communication was over, but she was a little surprised to see that Lin Yuanqing had not left.

“President Li, I also have some personal matters to discuss with you,” Lin Yuanqing said. “I feel that I am not suitable for a position at the research institute. I would rather go out and do something that interests me.”

He wants to resign and start his own business.

Li Yanhong fell silent.

He stared at Lin Yuanqing for a minute before asking, "Is the thing you're interested in also part of the DLF Foundation? Is it also in Lingang?"

Lin Yuanqing said in surprise, "No, I'm not going to DLF, I really want to start my own business."

"Do you really want to start a business? Does it have to be now?" Li Yanhong didn't believe this argument at all. "The company is now investing heavily in research institutes, autonomous driving, and deep learning. Baidu is already the best platform in China, so why leave?"

Lin Yuanqing also returned from the United States and mainly studies machine learning and computer vision.

However, he was originally invited by Andrew Ng, as the two were colleagues at NEC Research Institute.

Li Yanhong has reason to believe that Andrew Ng is now trying to poach Lin Yuanqing again.

Yu Kai invited Andrew Ng, Andrew Ng invited Lin Yuanqing, Yu Kai seduced Andrew Ng, and Andrew Ng seduced Lin Yuanqing—that's definitely how it happened!
"Baidu is indeed the best deep learning platform in China..." Lin Yuanqing, with his rigorous thinking, suddenly thought of DLF and added, "One of the best."

He continued, "However, I just want to do my own thing. Mr. Li, you know that being a senior executive in a company and starting your own company are different. I believe that the wave of deep learning has indeed arrived, and Baidu's bet on this direction can definitely make a difference."

Li Yanhong still didn't believe it. After another moment of silence, she asked, "You said you want to start a business, what direction are you going to take? You can't just leave Baidu first and then think about it later, can you?" "Ms. Li, who wouldn't want to combine their skills with reality?" Lin Yuanqing said earnestly. "If I had to say, it does have something to do with DLF. They recently submitted a testing model to foreign financial regulatory agencies, and almost everyone in the industry thinks that kind of innovation is effective. It's a very... very special innovative application."

Li Yanhong retorted, "Don't we have any innovative applications? Aren't our innovations in autonomous driving and voice recognition good enough? Where are we inferior to DLF?"

Lin Yuanqing didn't know how to describe his feelings, so he could only say, "You can't compare them like that, DLF... it's different."

He shook his head: "Mr. Li, I want to combine machine learning with real-world needs to do some B2B business and see if we can provide more intelligent solutions for industries such as retail and real estate. Computer vision should be able to achieve intelligent operation solutions that improve efficiency in scenarios such as airports and office buildings. I think this is an opportunity to bring machine learning to fruition at this stage."

Lin Yuanqing is particularly skilled in computer vision and has long been considering its practical applications. Although Baidu's current research on autonomous driving can utilize it, it seems far from being truly implemented, and he doesn't want to continue wasting his talent in this area.

Furthermore, when it comes to autonomous or intelligent driving, he actually favors Silicon Carbon Group more. Baidu neither enters the car manufacturing industry nor has the foreseeable ambition to invest in technology, so it is hard to feel at ease with them.

Li Yanhong was surprised that Lin Yuanqing could still talk so fluently about the direction of entrepreneurship. Thinking about the loss of one top talent after another, he couldn't help but feel anxious.

He advised, "Have you considered the long-term competition in the direction you want to pursue? If Baidu does the same thing, will you still have market space? Even if there aren't enough machine learning companies in China right now, they will definitely emerge rapidly in the future. What unique advantages will you have then? But staying at Baidu is different. You've never started a business before, so you absolutely can't just do it on a whim. That would be a waste of your time and talent."

Hearing these words, Lin Yuanqing really hesitated.

He had never started a business before and was hesitant about unfamiliar territory. He only made up his mind after seeing Yu Kai's entrepreneurship and DLF's innovative applications. However, after being persuaded by a boss like President Li, who had an excellent business track record, he had doubts again.

Perhaps we should indeed be more cautious.

Lin Yuanqing did not resign on the spot, but promised Li Yanhong that he would consider it again.

However, when he got home from get off work that evening and saw his foreign colleagues discussing the "short-selling model," he became restless again. After much consideration, he called his friend Andrew Ng.

Upon hearing the question, Andrew Ng was overjoyed: "Yuanqing, why start a business? Just come to DLF! Let's open a new chapter in deep learning in China together. This is an epoch-making thing!"

Lin Yuanqing refused repeatedly: "No, I won't go. I want to do something practical right now."

Andrew Ng tried to persuade him to no avail, and said dejectedly, "I just felt it was wrong to poach you from Baidu, that's why I haven't let you come over. Sigh, what a pity. Think about it again. DLF is quite bold. If they run out of money, there are still big short sellers to support us."

Lin Yuanqing was amused and brought the topic back to the present, wanting to ask his friend for his opinion on the direction of his business venture.

“I don’t know anything about this,” Andrew Ng said honestly. “Asking me is like guessing the answer.”

Lin Yuanqing immediately realized that he had been grasping at straws in his desperation.

“Wait, let me ask Mr. Yu for you.” Andrew Ng had an idea. “I don’t know anything about this, but Mr. Yu definitely knows about entrepreneurship. He’s started more businesses than us, and more than Robin.”

He knew that President Yu had taken advantage of opportunities to start businesses over the years to get to where he is today, while Li Yanhong had directly done search engine optimization.

Lin Yuanqing hesitated and asked, "Is this a good idea?"

Andrew Ng laughed and said, "What's wrong with that? How about this, I'll hold an online meeting, and you download the Silicon Carbide CC software."

Lin Yuanqing agreed, but felt inexplicably excited.

Half an hour later, Lin Yuanqing met Yu Xing, the head of the silicon carbon company, in CC's online conference room.

After a brief exchange of pleasantries, Yu Xing got straight to the point, asking Lin Yuanqing to describe his thoughts.

Lin Yuanqing didn't embellish the story much; he spoke directly and clearly, quickly explaining his entrepreneurial ideas.

Yu Xing pondered for a moment: "Hmm..."

Lin Yuanqing was full of anticipation.

"It's hard to say," Yu Xing replied. "I don't know how far you can go in computer vision, or how far you can solve practical needs. I can't say for sure."

Lin Yuanqing was somewhat disappointed that he didn't hear the insightful opinions he had expected, but then a thought popped into his head: President Yu is indeed honest.

Indeed, Mr. Yu doesn't seem to be known for his technical skills. Even if he is good at business operations, he can't make an accurate judgment without a thorough understanding of the company's technology.

Yu Xing didn't finish his sentence: "I heard from Dr. Wu that he invited you to DLF, but you didn't want to. I won't say more about that. However, if you insist on starting your own business, remember to seek angel investment from Red Falcon. I can't say for sure, but you can give it a try."

Lin Yuanqing was stunned. Uh, Mr. Yu is honest and wealthy!

“You don’t need to feel guilty. Angel investment isn’t much money to begin with. As for whether it will work or not, deep learning is a new thing. No matter what I say, or no matter what Li Yanhong says, you can give it a try.” Yu Xing said, “Even if it fails, I think the experience of failure may be beneficial in the wave of deep learning development.”

Lin Yuanqing suddenly had a feeling that "no wonder DLF was able to scale up so quickly".

On the other hand...

Yu Xing concluded with a smile, "Of course, I'm happy that you're starting your own business and leaving Baidu. Baidu is losing a key member, and I'm even more willing to invest. You shouldn't feel guilty. By the way, if Baidu has any similar needs, you can let me know."

Lin Yuanqing pursed his lips. President Yu was truly honest, wealthy, and... a bit ruthless.

Yes, it's normal for mountain peaks to be poisonous.

(End of this chapter)