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Robin Li Yanhong
CEO
The story of Robin Li Yanhong, the co-founder and CEO of Baidu, a Chinese multinational technology company, is one of China's most exciting entrepreneur anecdotes. He is a billionaire internet entrepreneur and a software engineer. Forbes estimated his net worth at $8.6 billion as of June 2023. Robin created and leads China's top search engine and one of the world's most visited websites. Baidu used to be part of the BAT group -- the three biggest companies in China, along with Alibaba and Tencent.
Robin kickstarted his career by working at IDD Information Services, a division of Dow Jones and Company in New Jersey, in May 1994 (to June 1997). There, he developed a software program for the online version of The Wall Street Journal. He also improved the algorithms for search engines during his time at IDD Information Services. RankDex, a creation of Robin in 1996, was his first step into the world of search engines. He invented the Rankdex algorithm for ranking web pages in search engines when he was working at IDD in 1996. Two years later, Google applied for a patent for a similar search algorithm. PageRank, the name of Google's algorithm, was co-created by Larry Page, one of Google's founders. Robin later used his Rankdex technology to power the Baidu search engine.
We faced many difficulties in 2022, but we used this time to strengthen our company for the upcoming opportunities. We are confident that we can boost our revenue growth in 2023, as we have a clear strategy and a strong position to take advantage of China's economic recovery
Robin studied computer science at the University of Buffalo and information management at Peking University. He teamed up with Eric Xu to start Baidu in 2000. Li has been the CEO of Baidu since January 2004 and led the company to go public on NASDAQ on August 5, 2005. As a member of the 12th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Li has a role in the country's political affairs as well.
Commenting on his 2023 plans, Robin recently said, “We faced many difficulties in 2022, but we used this time to strengthen our company for the upcoming opportunities. We are confident that we can boost our revenue growth in 2023, as we have a clear strategy and a strong position to take advantage of China's economic recovery.” Ernie is a chatbot Baidu is launching in 2023 to compete with ChatGPT.
Robin Li Yanhong, CEO, Baidu
Robin kickstarted his career by working at IDD Information Services, a division of Dow Jones and Company in New Jersey, in May 1994 (to June 1997). Robin created and leads China's top search engine and one of the world's most visited websites. Baidu used to be part of the BAT group -- the three biggest companies in China, along with Alibaba and Tencent.