Kai-Fu Lee’s Journey From Google China to Sinovation Ventures

GGV Capital’s Hans Tung and Zara Zhang interview Kai-Fu Lee, the founder and CEO of Sinovation Ventures (an early-stage VC fund in China) and a renowned computer scientist known for his work in artificial intelligence. He was the founding president of Google China and played a key role in establishing Microsoft Research Asia as well.

In this episode, Kai-Fu recounts the journey that took him from Taiwan to Tennessee and then to prominence in the tech sector. At first a computer science student working on speech recognition, he became one of the world’s experts on artificial intelligence. He has helped U.S. giants like Google and Microsoft expand into China and assisted Chinese entrepreneurs as an investor, mentor, and thought leader.

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The 996 Podcast is brought to you by GGV Capital, a multi-stage venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley, Shanghai, and Beijing. We have been partnering with leading technology entrepreneurs for the past 18 years from seed to pre-IPO. With $3.8 billion in capital under management across eight funds, GGV invests in globally minded entrepreneurs in consumer internet, e-commerce, frontier tech, and enterprise. GGV has invested in over 280 companies, with 30 companies valued at over $1 billion. Portfolio companies include Airbnb, Alibaba, Bytedance (Toutiao), Ctrip, Didi Chuxing, DOMO, Hashicorp, Hellobike, Houzz, Keep, Musical.ly, Slack, Square, Wish, Xiaohongshu, YY, and others. Find out more at ggvc.com.