Top of the big era

Research and development are indispensable in the technology industry. If you want to do research and development, you often cannot do it without universities.

Because the university has a strong R\u0026D team.

Another more important reason is that cooperation with universities in research and development can save money.

A professor only costs a few dollars, and the cheap salary of a college student only costs a few dollars. This is far more economical than technology companies conducting scientific research in their own laboratories.

When doing scientific research projects, the largest investment expenditure is the investment in failure.

For example, the total investment in developing a drug is US$5 billion.

In fact, in the research and development process behind this, the US$5 billion was invested in about 50 small projects divided into categories, with each project worth US$100 million.

Because this type of development is too difficult.

No one knows what the right direction should be.

In order to succeed, you can only use the stupidest method, which is to walk every road!

A total of 50 feasible directions have been chosen?

Then do all the research and development in these 50 directions!

In the end, 49 projects failed, and 1 finally won.

In fact, the research and development funding for this topic is only US$100 million, but when calculating the total investment, all failed project funding needs to be listed under the name of this successful project.

Therefore, the research and development funding for this new drug has reached 5 billion US dollars.

Mainly paying for failure.

The more cutting-edge and cutting-edge scientific research is, the more it will experience a large number of failures. Success is piled up from countless failure cases.

In other words, if you want to reduce the scientific research investment for a successful project, you don’t need to do anything else. You just need to find ways to reduce the investment scale for failed cases.

Cooperation with universities can solve this problem.

This is also one of the topics recently discussed in the market for IBM’s “Watson” artificial intelligence product, namely AI pharmaceuticals.

Traditional medical research, in order to ensure success, must use the stupidest method and do all the topics under the selected route, which will inevitably cause huge R\u0026D losses.

With the help of artificial intelligence, maybe we can change the strategy of this stupid pharmaceutical industry!

It is not necessary to do all the courses.

Let artificial intelligence first conduct a wave of analysis to eliminate all unreasonable directions that are destined to fail! This greatly reduces investment losses in failed projects, thereby reducing the total investment in a new drug.

AI pharmaceuticals is a technology direction full of beautiful illusions. Currently, all AI manufacturers are in the hype stage. It is a beautiful pie that AI has drawn for all mankind.

If we want to take one step at a time, the most critical thing for Ziweixing right now is to develop Rokid-go. It’s not enough to just rely on hype and pie-in-the-sky, you also need to produce some real results!

The higher the risk of R\u0026D work, the more technology companies need to cooperate with universities.

For example, Ziweixing's artificial intelligence development has cooperated with more than 10 universities around the world, including domestic Tsinghua University, Peking University, Beijing University of Science and Technology, Fudan Nankai University, Hong Kong University of Hong Kong, and so on.

Foreign universities are mainly located in Europe, South Korea and Japan. Among them, the universities that invest the most in scientific research every year are Cambridge and Oxford universities in the UK.

Ziweixing’s total investment in scientific research in the field of artificial intelligence with universities every year exceeds US$85 million, and it has launched more than 30 related scientific research projects.

In fact, the same goes for Changyou.

Now Zhou Buqi has not officially taken over Changyou and has not gone through the procedures.

However, he has already taken action on some tasks.

It has cooperated with the game centers of seven American universities, including the University of Southern California, Harvard, MIT, and Pennsylvania. It is expected to invest US$15 million to US$2,500 every year to fund game development for the teams of these game centers.

The technical difficulty of making games is actually not too great.

What is difficult is mainly market judgment. What is difficult is getting players to recognize the game product they have developed. The main thing that exists is the risk of market selection.

The risks of developing games are no less risky than developing artificial intelligence products.

It is necessary to cooperate with universities.

At the same time, we can also go deep into the front line to build a good relationship with college students and gain priority for future talents in choosing careers.

In the cooperation of these projects, the copyright of the products developed is basically a unified model, divided in a ratio of 4:3:3. The investors account for 40%, the school accounts for 30%, and the scientific research team accounts for 30%, and the employer has the right of first refusal to purchase the complete copyright.

For example, a game team at the USC Game Center applied for a development fund provided by Changyou, and after receiving the money, they really developed an excellent game.

So the copyright of this game is 40% owned by Changyou, 30% owned by the University of Southern California, and 30% owned by the game team. The interests of all parties are taken care of, and it is mutually beneficial and win-win.

Many classic games were actually developed by university teams, such as the card game "Three Kingdoms", which Zhou Buqi transferred to Changyou. This game was developed by a university team.

Later, I spent a lot of money to buy the copyright.

This time, IBM is coming in force.

However, IBM's technology is not very impressive. It is highly hyped and its hard-core technology is not up to standard. In the future, Google will continue this route and become famous with its "Alpha Dog", becoming a veritable new overlord in the industry.

This time, don’t bother Google.

Zhou Buqi has to make a time difference!

IBM has taken action, but Google has not yet taken action! During this period of time, Ziweixing must take action in advance and take the lead in taking up the banner of the AI ​​field!

Fortunately, there is never a shortage of smart people in this world.

Zhou Buqi is not God either.

There are two similar AI projects under Shun Xiangyang, both of which are in cooperation with universities. One is an AI project with the School of Computing at the University of Oxford, and the other is an AI project with the School of Computing at the University of Hong Kong.

They are all committed to using the latest deep learning models to develop AI Go products!

These two teams are purely scientific research, and their ideas are of course different from Boss Zhou.

They made Go AI to further promote the improvement of deep learning models through this product, which is a technical pursuit.

Zhou Buqi is different. What he is mainly looking for is an opportunity in the market!

The two sides have different concepts, but there is consistency in the process.

Shen Xiangyang immediately made arrangements and started taking action.

In order to show that he attached great importance to this project, Zhou Buqi followed him to the UK and first negotiated with the team from Oxford University.

The university's scientific research team is strong and the cost is quite low.

But in terms of hard core strength, the team of full-time AI scientists hired by Shen Xiangyang with high salaries is definitely more powerful, and they can be more focused and cohesive.

Ziweixing is very anxious to launch the AI ​​Go project "Rokid-go" and cannot delay it.

Shen Xiangyang knows this truth well.

So, don’t start from scratch at this time.

Just take over the half-finished project directly.

First investigate the Oxford team's project, then go to the University of Hong Kong to study their project progress and technical achievements, and then... Ziweixing will provide a sum of money to buy out the project directly!

After buying out the project, the university team will change from the main force to the auxiliary force. The AI ​​team under Shen Xiangyang will take over the project and focus on efforts and key breakthroughs!

Complete the tasks assigned by Boss Zhou at all costs!

Zhou Buqi spent three days flying from London to Hong Kong Island with Shen Xiangyang and his three assistant scientists, and met with two university teams respectively.

Then it was settled.

Ziweixing will invest US$1.7 million to buy both semi-finished projects. At the same time, Shen Xiangyang will personally lead the team to establish a new research group called "Rokid-go" to implement this project with the momentum of the core task!

Next, Zhou Buqi will return to the capital, and Shen Xiangyang will rush to Silicon Valley to resolve the matter.

Before leaving, Shen Xiangyang still hesitated, "The name of the project is really Rokid-go?"

"Ah?" Zhou Buqi was a little funny, "Do you have any other good ideas?"

Shen Xiangyang said: "It feels a bit nondescript."

Zhou Buqi doesn’t think so, “Rokid is now installed in Aster4 and has already gained a certain public reputation. It is a well-known AI product.”

"I mean...is it necessary to call Rokid-weiqi?"

"It's not necessary. This is a world-class product. When doing marketing, it is very important to have a basic public understanding of the product and choose to cater to rather than challenge. 'weiqi' is not a popular name."

Zhou Buqi wants to develop AI Go products to develop the global market, not the domestic market.

There are several ways to say Go in English, one of which is "weiqi", but this is not commonly used. It is a word created in China for cultural export; the most commonly used word by Westerners is "go".

Go was invented in China and later spread to Korea and Japan.

Japan respects Go as a god, and various schools of belief have emerged, using an ancient and elegant Chinese character "碁" to refer to Go. "碁" means go in Chinese, and is pronounced the same as "chess"; in Japanese, it also means go, and is pronounced the same as "高".

Later, it was Japan that promoted Go to the Western world.

Their cultural output ability is stronger than that of China, and their influence is greater. Over time, except for several early countries such as China, Japan and South Korea, which had their own names, the name for Go all over the world became "Gao", which became English, which is "Go". go".

When doing product marketing, the biggest taboo is to challenge public perception.

The facts are contrary to public perception, what should we do?

Change the facts to suit the public.

Because in this world, 10% of the elites lead 90% of the mob, and these 90% of the mob are the main group that makes money.

From a market perspective, there is no need to challenge the inherent cognition of these 90% of people in order to deliver correct facts, resulting in insufficient earning power.

This is just like making Hollywood commercial movies or writing online novels. Anyone who wants to make a lot of money cannot bear moral responsibility with a sense of justice, but must disregard reality and create an illusory cognitive illusion to continuously please consumers. For example, justice will eventually defeat evil, and good people will always be rewarded.

Even if some things are superficial and wrong, let them make more mistakes.

The more mistakes they make, the more solidified their thinking will be, the more convinced they will be, and the easier it will be for them to harvest in the future, and the easier it will be to achieve results.

"Go" is just a mispronunciation of the Japanese pronunciation of Go in the process of cultural dissemination and became "gao". The correct pronunciation should be "chess", and the English pinyin should be "weiqi".

But there is no way, public perception has been formed.

If Zhou Buqi wants to make Rokid-go a market product with public effects and cause a phenomenal sensation, he must not challenge the public's perception.

For the 90% of people, it is better to let them make more mistakes than to find ways to wake them up. For the 10% of people, there is actually no choice between right and wrong. People's hearts are divided into good and evil. Some people are mainly based on their beliefs, and some people are based on their buttocks.

"Isn't Rokid-go's name nice? 'Rokid-go', 'Rokid-go', or even... 'Weak chicken dog', they will also be very cute and interesting in the Chinese context."

"Um."

Shen Xiangyang nodded.

…

Zhou Buqi returned to China temporarily this time, which only lasted a few days.

The main thing is to meet Lei Jun.

His entrepreneurial project is about to bear fruit. In the middle of this month, Xiaomi will hold a press conference to officially announce the launch of Xiaomi Mi 1.

For Lei Jun, there are two main difficulties in starting a business and running Xiaomi.

First, supplier difficulties.

Without accessories provided by suppliers, a mobile phone cannot be made.

Second, there is a lack of connections among channel dealers.

Without connections in the sales field, even if the mobile phone is made, there will be no agents to help sell it.

Lei Jun made great efforts.

In order to gain support from Japanese suppliers, he even went to Fukushima in two months. Don’t forget, just in March this year, a nuclear leak occurred in Fukushima.

In order to sell mobile phones, Xiaomi launched an e-commerce platform of its own, euphemistically called "focusing on online sales."

In fact, this is also a last resort.

He has no traditional channels at all.

Xiaomi's press conference is about to begin. There are still many unresolved problems on Xiaomi's side. It has accumulated a lot of rice fans, but the mobile phone cannot be made at scale and everything is lacking.

When Zhou Buqi first started his business, he started cooperation with Jinshan. He also established a good relationship with Lei Jun. He is not the kind of character who suppresses his opponents in all aspects without any bottom line for the sake of business competition.

Lei Jun is a busy man. After inviting Boss Zhou, he went straight to the point, "I need more supplies!"

In later generations, Xiaomi's "hunger marketing" spread to everyone in the streets.

In fact, Xiaomi’s hunger marketing has never been an active choice.

I really have no choice, I really don’t have the goods.

When an enterprise operates in the market, it must turn from passivity into initiative, and must do everything possible to turn its scandals, shortcomings, and sufferings into a healthy, energetic, and positive one.

It was clear that there was no other choice but to run out of goods, so he deliberately said it was a very proactive "hunger marketing". This shocked people and felt that this kind of routine was very powerful.

So many people mistakenly believe that "hunger marketing" is the best marketing method. Many people open a milk tea shop or a hot pot restaurant. Obviously, there are many customers in the early stage, which can quickly expand the market and form a reputation. But they insisted on following Xiaomi’s hunger marketing routine, knowing it was happening but not knowing why. They mistakenly regarded the marketing context as fact, which led to a mess of operations and many bankruptcies.

If there is something in stock, who wouldn’t sell it?

Electronic products are not liquor that becomes more expensive the more you hoard them. If mobile phones are left unsold, they will depreciate and continue to depreciate. If you have goods, you must sell them. There is no possibility of hoarding goods.

It just so happens that MSI has been laying out the domestic smartphone industry chain in the past few years. Especially this year, it has reached cooperation with Apple, Google, Sony, and Hyundai, and they want to work together to promote the improvement and upgrading of the domestic smartphone industry chain.

In other words, Xiaomi can solve the supply chain problem to a large extent by solving Boss Zhou.