Kai-Fu Lee’s first letter to Chinese college students, November 8, 2004
It doesn’t matter how many times you read it, or how much you remember, I think the more important thing is, Did you do what he did?
In the past two years that I have been in China, my greatest enjoyment at work has been going to domestic universities to communicate with students. These visits and exchanges gave me the opportunity to communicate face-to-face with thousands of young students about their careers, futures and other issues they care about. I was very impressed by the intelligence, studiousness and motivation of Chinese students.
In the process of communicating with these young students, I found that there are some issues that everyone is very concerned about. Most of those students who have received scholarships from foreign universities want me to talk about how they should spend their study life in the United States; those students who have decided to stay in China are very concerned about how to determine the right direction and move as quickly as possible. Those who have achieved success in scientific research and academic studies; as well as those students who have just entered university, they hope that I can give them some experience in learning and life. Recently, some students are more concerned about the development of the network information industry and want to know how American college students start businesses and become rich. Seeing so many pairs of eyes hungry for knowledge and full of hope, I suddenly had an impulse to write a letter to Chinese students, sharing some of the ideas that I had during the exchange with my classmates and what I wanted to say about them. Some advice from Chinese students is written to help them have a more perfect personality, a smoother life, and a more successful career in the process of studying abroad, working or starting a business in the future.
Adhere to the principles of honesty and integrity
When I was working at Apple, there was a manager who was just promoted by me. Because he was criticized by his subordinates, he was very frustrated and asked me to find another manager. Someone comes to replace him. I asked him: "What do you think your strengths are?" He said: "I am confident that I am a very upright person." I told him: "I promoted you to be a manager because you are a fair and selfless person. . Management experience and communication skills can be learned in future work, but an honest heart is priceless. "I support him to continue and give him a lot of guidance and help in management and communication skills." In the end, he lived up to expectations and became an outstanding management talent.
In contrast, I once interviewed a job candidate. He is very good in technology and management. However, apart from the conversation, he said that if I admitted him, he could bring over an invention he made while working in his original company. Then he seemed to realize that something was wrong, and made a special statement: He did those jobs after get off work, and his boss did not know. After this conversation, for me, regardless of his ability and work level, I will definitely not hire him. The reason is that he lacks the most basic principles of life and the most basic professional ethics: "honesty" and "honesty." If such a person is hired, who can guarantee that after working here for a period of time, he will not treat the results here as so-called "amateur work" and turn them into "tributes" to other companies? This shows that a person with imperfect character cannot become a person who truly makes a difference.
In the United States, Chinese students are famous for their diligence and excellence. It was once the most popular group of international students in prestigious universities in the United States, but recently, there have been some changes. The reason is simple. Some Chinese students come to the United States with scholarships to study for Ph.D.s, but once they find job opportunities, they immediately apply to leave school and put aside the degrees and research they had promised to complete. This inconsistency in words and deeds has caused some professors in the United States to doubt the integrity of Chinese students. It should be pointed out that there are only a minority of Chinese students who engage in this kind of behavior. However, just such a "minority" has caused great damage to the reputation of Chinese students. In addition, some professors in the United States are currently unwilling to pay attention to the recommendation letters from some Chinese students because they know that these recommendation letters are simply written by the students themselves and have no reference value. This is also the inevitable result after integrity is compromised.
I have encountered similar problems at Microsoft Research.
A student who came here for an internship once unexpectedly reported a very good research result. However, the results of his research cannot be replicated by others. Later, his boss discovered that the student had selected the experimental data, leaving only the data that met the best results and discarding the "not so good" data. I believe that this student will never achieve a true academic breakthrough and become a truly qualified researcher.
The last thing I want to mention is some people who like to take advantage of small things. They use their school or company phones to make private long distance calls and reimburse themselves for taxi fares. Some people may think that students focus on grades and careers, and other details are just trivial things. If you do whatever you want, it's no big deal. However, the so-called "little things" around you often become the key to building a person's personality and accumulating integrity. Some behaviors that are greedy for petty advantages and cleverness will only characterize oneself as a person who is greedy for small profits and has no future. In the end, he will lose a lot because of a small gain. There is an ancient Chinese saying, "Don't do evil for small things", which is worth remembering.
Living in a group
Compared with most American students, Chinese students' expression skills, communication skills and team spirit are relatively lacking. This may be due to differences in cultural background and education system. Today, when we face a society that is moving toward a highly globalized society, it is particularly important to live in a group, perform better, and gain more.
The ability to express and communicate is very important. No matter what kind of excellent work you have done, if you can't express it and let more people understand and share it, it's almost like doing it in vain. Therefore, during the learning stage, you cannot just live in one person's world, but you should try your best to learn to interact and communicate with all kinds of people, actively express your views and opinions on various things, and even give speeches at public gatherings. Exercise your expression skills.
Expressive ability is not just your "eloquence". Professor Ambady of Harvard University recently conducted a very interesting experiment. He asked two groups of students to evaluate the teaching quality of several professors. He played the lecture videos of these professors silently for two seconds to a group of students to get a set of evaluation results. Then compared with the results of students who had listened to these professors' lectures for several months, the conclusions of the two groups were surprisingly similar. This shows that in the process of expressing one's thoughts, non-verbal expression is as important as language, and sometimes the effect is even more obvious. The non-verbal expressions mentioned here refer to a person's appearance, behavior, tone, tone and expression, etc. Because from these aspects, people can judge your personality and ability to do things more intuitively and vividly, see your confidence and enthusiasm, and thus gain a very important "first impression."
For a group, a company, or even a country, team spirit is very critical. Microsoft is known for its special team spirit in the United States. The research and development of products like Windows 2000 involved more than 3,000 development engineers and testers, and 50 million lines of code were written. Without a highly unified team spirit, without the tacit understanding and division of labor of all participants, this project would be impossible to complete.
I have seen the opposite phenomenon in other companies before. When a project is arranged, everyone knows that it cannot be completed, but they all tacitly agree to it and do not tell the boss. Because it couldn't be completed anyway, everyone simply didn't work hard to do the work, but spent more time figuring out how to blame others for the failure of the project. It was these people and their work style that almost brought this company to its knees. In order to cultivate team spirit, I suggest students to actively participate in the work of various social groups after studying. In the process of dividing labor and cooperation with others, sharing results, and helping each other, you can realize the importance of team spirit.
In the learning process, you must not be unwilling to share your good ideas, ideas and results with others. Worrying about others getting ahead of you is unhealthy and will not help your success. There is a proverb that says, "The more you give, the more you get."
Just think, if your behavior makes people think "What's yours is mine, mine is mine", when you need help, do you think others will come to help you? On the other hand, if you help others generously from time to time, will you receive more favors from others?
In a team, be brave enough to recognize the contributions of others. If you rely on the wisdom and achievements of others, you should declare it. If you get help from others, you should express your gratitude. This is also a basic manifestation of team spirit
Be a proactive person
Thirty years ago, an engineer’s dream goal was to enter IBM, the leading technology company. At that time, IBM's definition of talent was a person with professional knowledge and hard work. Time has passed and things have developed to this day, and people's views on talents have gradually changed. Nowadays, many companies are looking for people who are proactive, passionate, flexible and confident.
As a contemporary Chinese college student, you should no longer just passively wait for others to tell you what you should do, but should take the initiative to understand what you want to do, plan them, and then go all out to complete it. . Think about the most successful people in the world today. How many of them are submissive people who wait for orders? When dealing with your studies and research projects, you need to be fully committed and work hard with the same sense of responsibility and love a mother has for her children. If this is the case, no goal is unattainable.
A proactive person should also be open to the criticism and opinions of others. In fact, this is also a manifestation of enterprising spirit. If you cannot humbly accept criticism from others and learn from it, you will not be able to make greater progress. Bill Gates once said to all employees of the company: "Customer criticism is more important than making money. From customer criticism, we can better learn the lessons of failure and turn it into motivation for success."
In addition to humbly accepting criticism from others, you should also work hard to find a mentor that you particularly respect. This mentor should be someone other than the teacher who directly teaches you. Such a person can give you some advice more objectively. In addition to teaching you academically, this mentor can also give you guidance in other aspects, including how to behave, how to look at problems, and how to deal with emergencies. I was lucky enough to find such a mentor when I was in charge of a research department at Apple. At that time, he was the senior vice president in charge of Apple's global operations and production business. Many of the teachings he gave me in career development have benefited me throughout my life. If you have such people to help you, you will definitely grow faster than others.
Most Chinese students are reserved and shy, and are not used to self-promotion. However, if you want to seize the fleeting opportunity, you must learn to persuade others and sell yourself or your ideas to others. Before convincing others, convince yourself first. Your passion and intelligence often reflect your potential, and a good self-promotion strategy can make things even better. For example, one time I received a very unique job application. Unlike most job seekers in the past, this applicant's job application materials include his self-introduction, his yearning for Microsoft Research, and why he thinks he is a suitable candidate. In addition, he has published papers, Recommendation letters from teachers and topics he hopes to do at Microsoft, etc. Although the school he graduated from is not the most prestigious in China, his self-promotion worked. I saw his passion and seriousness in these documents. When I interviewed him, he submitted a more complete profile. Finally, when I asked him if he had any questions for me, he asked me: "Do you still have any reservations about me?" At that time, I did have doubts about whether he could enter a new research field, so I asked further. gave him some problems in this regard. He gave two telling examples. Finally, we hired the candidate. He's doing a great job now.
Challenge yourself and develop your own potential
When I was working at Apple, one day, my boss suddenly asked me when I could take over his job? I was very surprised and said that I lacked management experience and ability like him.
But he said that these experiences can be cultivated and accumulated, and he hoped that I could do it in two years. With such tips and encouragement, I began to consciously strengthen my learning and practice in this area. Sure enough, I did take over his job two years later. I personally believe that a person's leadership qualities are very important for his or her future studies, business, or politics. At any time and in any environment, we should consciously cultivate our leadership skills. At the same time, I suggest that you give yourself some opportunities to show your abilities in this area. Maybe like me, you will be surprised that your potential in this area is far beyond your imagination.
It is very important to set goals for yourself. It is unrealistic to set goals too high, but never set goals too low. In the 21st century, competition has no boundaries. You should open your mind, stand at a higher starting point, and set a more challenging standard for yourself. Only then will you have the correct direction of efforts and broad prospects. Don't be a "frog in a well". In addition, it is ridiculous to think that you have become famous just by getting good grades and rankings in one school. You must know that there are mountains outside the mountains and there are people above them. Moreover, the measurement standards are different in different places. Therefore, when setting goals, never have the thought of "I'd rather be the head of a chicken than the queen of a cow".
A first-class person and an average person may behave the same on general issues, but their performance on first-rate issues will be vastly different. The famous American writer William Faulkner once said: "Don't try your best to compete with your colleagues. What you should care more about is: you are better than you are now." You should always set something very challenging for yourself , but not an unattainable goal.
When setting your future career goals, don’t forget to ask yourself: "Is this the major I love most? Am I willing to devote myself to it?" I hope you will be passionate about the work you choose to do. and imagination, fearless of all kinds of difficulties and obstacles that may arise on the way forward. Speaking of love for work, a Microsoft researcher I knew once touched me deeply. He often drove out on weekends and said he was going to meet his "girlfriend." Later, by chance, I saw him in the office and asked him, "Where is my girlfriend?" He pointed at the computer with a smile and said, "That's her." Bill Gates also gave a very wonderful explanation of his love for work. He said: "Every morning when I wake up, I think about the huge impact and changes that the work I do and the technology I develop will bring to human life. , I would be extremely excited and excited. "
A few months ago, there was a discussion in the "Beijing Youth Daily" about who was greater, Bill Gates or Paul Korchagin. Since I grew up in the United States, I didn't know about Paul and his deeds. However, I very much agree with Paul's famous saying: "The most precious thing for people is life, and life belongs to us only once. A person's life should be spent like this. When he looks back on the past, he will not regret for wasting his years. Don’t be ashamed of doing nothing..." Therefore, you should choose a career that you truly love, constantly challenge yourself, improve yourself, and live a wonderful and fulfilling life.
The second letter from Kai-Fu Lee to Chinese college students Category: Default column
First of all, on behalf of Microsoft, I would like to express my most heartfelt gratitude to China’s MVP and China’s technology heroes. I remember a speech I gave at Tsinghua University two years ago. After the speech, a classmate came up to me and asked me, you gave more than ten or twenty speeches at Tsinghua University, but I think the thing that got me the most was not your coming. Introduce the most profound technology, but you are here to teach us how to succeed, how to cultivate the best qualities, and let us know what opportunities China has in the world's software industry, so the title of my speech today is China The development of the IT industry, and I hope to take this opportunity to express some of my suggestions to you.
I once wrote an article when I left China, called "A Letter to Chinese Students". Has anyone here read it? My speech today can be said to be to China's MVP. There is a second letter from Chinese friends. The topic I want to talk about today is first of all the future development of IT in the world. What role can China play? What kind of talents and qualities are needed for China to play this role? , Let China become a technological power and let Chinese talents develop well around the world. Everyone knows that the software industry is very prosperous. I personally feel very lucky to be able to develop myself in the software industry during my twenty-year career. Everyone knows that this is a very big industry. It not only provides the world with It has brought wealth, and it has cultivated a lot of talents for the world. There are more than 10 million people working in the IT and software industries around the world. These more than 10 million people have not only been well developed, And it allows people in the world to achieve higher efficiency, so that everyone's efficiency can be improved, and software can help people realize their potential.
The future development of software will continue to grow. We can see from IDC's future software that the growth of the entire software industry will be more than five times the growth of the world's GDP. Mr. Bill Gates once said that the next ten years will be the so-called digital decade. In the digital decade, the opportunities and changes in the IT industry will be greater than before. In other words, the opportunities in the future will be opportunities for everyone in the future. Opportunities in every industry will be greater than in the past, and there are four reasons why.
The first reason is that smart devices will be ubiquitous. There are hundreds of millions of PCs in the world today, but in ten years there will be tens of billions of devices in the world, including televisions and phones. , watches, cars, it can be said that anything with a power supply can be calculated and can access the Internet.
The second is structure, which will change everything about the content. We will see this in Joe Peterson’s speech later, because structure allows people to search for the content they want in a more orderly manner.
The third WEB service has changed the entire programming method. In the past, the programming method was to use API. Through WEB services, we have a new way to program. Of course, Microsoft WEB service programming is called .NET.
Fourthly, in the future, the user interface of a computer will be closer to an assistant than a tool. Our communication with the computer will not be to tell it step by step how to do something, but to tell it how to do something. To achieve the goal, let him help us step by step and help us do this like a capable assistant.
So we are full of hope for the future, which is why Mr. Bill Gates has increased his investment in R&D by 15-20% each year in the past two years despite the world economic downturn. We can see that the future is bright.
If China hopes to become a major player in the IT world in the new century, what it needs most is talents, IT talents. My feeling in the past two years in China is that China’s talents are very good. In terms of mathematics, programming ability, perseverance, learning attitude, and progressive attitude, it can be said that it far exceeds the classmates and friends I saw in the United States, but there are still many aspects that need to be done in China. It's better. I always think that Chinese education may spend more time on how to memorize this thing, rather than how to understand it. I think more time should be spent on actual operations, such as a Many employees who join Microsoft have more than 100,000 lines of programming experience, which is relatively rare in China. What may be more important is actual experience, rather than just learning theory or memorizing theory.
Technology is only a part of talent. Management capabilities and business capabilities are also needed. China also needs more development in these aspects.
In addition to technical personnel, China also needs architects, managers, and even more visionary leaders who can see far and know how to develop a very large, world-class set of software. This is something that China currently lacks, but the good news is that China now understands this need very well. We have cooperated with the Chinese government and Chinese schools in many aspects.
In terms of talents, how can we achieve success? From my experience, from the experience of my friends, and from the experience of my employees, I think the Chinese people actually have great opportunities in the future. , the advantages of the Chinese are actually very prominent, but there are also several aspects where the advantages of the Westerners are also very prominent, so now I would like to introduce what I think are the four stages on the road to success.
The first stage can be said to be how to be a good technician, the second stage is how to cultivate excellent personal qualities, and the third stage is how to become a good leader. , and finally, how to become a person who can truly drive and influence the entire industry, a very influential person like Bill Gates.
When everyone thinks about how to achieve success and what is the road to success, the first thing that comes to mind is that technology must be good, but I think technology is only the most basic and basic. Although the basic ones are necessary, they are by no means the most important. I can give many examples at Microsoft. What kind of qualities do our people have at each level? Why can they succeed? You may have seen how Microsoft hires people. People, wisdom has always been considered very important. In fact, under such a triangle or trapezoid, wisdom is only one of them. It is also very important to have practical skills such as programming technology, and to have 100,000 lines of programming experience when entering Microsoft. In addition, teamwork is required Ability, a team to program or a larger team, for example, working on Windows at Microsoft may be a team of 10,000 people, how can these 10,000 people cooperate, and how can we make these 10,000 people understand that we are going to achieve ** *Win does not mean that I am doing well. It does not matter if you are not doing well. It is very important for everyone to understand this method, how to divide labor and cooperate, and how to do this process well. When it comes to technology, Microsoft actually used to make a mistake that we often made ten years ago. Ballmer spent a lot of time correcting the direction of our culture in these ten years. If you look at Microsoft's values, ten years ago You will see that it is very important for us to be passionate about technology, but today this value has been changed, which means that our passion is not focused on technology. What we consider is paying attention to the needs of customers and how to pursue customers in business. It is very important to make appropriate products according to the requirements, rather than looking at what level our technology can achieve.
The second quality of life, for Microsoft, we have very high requirements for this, honesty and integrity. When we visited the Forbidden City with the vice president the day before yesterday, we saw a plaque in the palace. When he asked me what the plaque said, I told him the four words above, "Be upright and above board". This is the most basic thing in being a human being. It does not mean that each of our employees must be a moralist, but our company treats every employee very seriously. With a high degree of trust, we allow every employee to have a great degree of freedom to make many important decisions and be the protagonist in making decisions. If you have such a high level of trust in an employee, he must have a very good quality of integrity. We Only then can you give him so much trust.
Being proactive people is something that Chinese people are lacking in. Americans are better at selling themselves, while Chinese people are more reserved and shy, but a philosopher once said, If a capable person cannot communicate, he is the same as an incompetent person. Therefore, I suggest that in addition to doing a good job, you should also be able to properly tell others about your success.
Finally, challenge yourself and learn for life. This is especially important in the IT society, because the only constant thing in the IT industry is that it will always evolve. It can be said that it has changed in almost five years. There is a revolution, so if a technician cannot learn forever, he will be eliminated.
Of course, I think every MVP here should be very successful in many aspects. When I chatted with my colleagues, they also believed that the most open, objective and direct communication comes from MVPs, so thank you very much for your support. We communicate straightforwardly, and we also hope that everyone can work together to help us make all products better.
Let’s talk about how to become a leader. A very famous Harvard professor in the United States did a study. He concluded that although IQ is important, EQ is more important. He found that if we Dividing the people in 188 companies and comparing successful people to less successful people, he found that the difference caused by IQ was very small, but EQ was twice as important as IQ among all employees. If we look at They are the most senior people in the company. EQ is nine times greater than IQ, so it is very important to prove emotional intelligence. What is emotional intelligence? This researcher divided emotional intelligence into several points. The first one is self-awareness. You must be self-aware. Chinese people attach great importance to this, but they often ignore it when doing technology. Many of us say that if you find a hundred technicians, Let everyone fill in. 45% of the people here have no self-awareness. They overestimate their abilities. If they overestimate their abilities, they may accept some jobs that they cannot do, but they will encounter problems. To many failures. Relatively speaking, if you underestimate your ability, you will shrink when doing things, and you will not dare to accept some challenges, but you will not be able to achieve the highest success. Therefore, people who have self-awareness know what they can and cannot do. A successful manager will admit his shortcomings. He will tell his subordinates that I don’t understand this field and you can teach me. He will not think that this is a shameless thing, but his subordinates will think that my boss If you know what you don't know, you will respect him for it. The second is self-discipline. As a leader, you must be able to control yourself, because everyone is watching him, and his words and deeds will directly affect the entire team. The third is to be able to put yourself in others’ shoes and know how others think about you. When thinking about such a thing, you cannot always start from your own perspective, so I require every manager of mine to understand what their subordinates have done. Achievements, express a very appropriate appreciation for this achievement. The happiest thing about being a technician is that his contribution can be understood by his superiors. A leader with these abilities will be a successful leader.
The last influence, which can also be said to be social skills, after becoming a qualified leader, how to become an excellent person with huge influence on the entire industry will be what they face. The most challenging subject.
At the end, I will make a summary. I think that in an era full of opportunities and challenges, in an era when the IT industry is facing future growth, there are many, many opportunities in China. Only those who learn with humility can Only those who are humble, persistent, and courageous can achieve the best success in such an environment. Finally, I sincerely wish that China’s IT industry can flourish in this era, and that Chinese software talents can reach a higher level and grow from excellence to excellence. Achieve excellence. Thank you all.