Author | Yu Kuai Xu Xiaofei
Editor | Wang Yafeng
Leifeng.com exclusively reported that recently, a number of P11 and P12 executives in the DAMO Academy and Alibaba Cloud business line have changed their positions.
In Dharma Academy, Hua Xiansheng (P11), vice president of Alibaba Group and head of Dharma Academy’s Urban Brain Lab, resigned last Friday, and Zhang Lei (P11), a senior researcher of City Brain who partnered with Hua Xiansheng, was also there. At the end of the year to leave the Dharma Institute.
The Urban Brain Lab will be in charge of Zhou Jingren (P12), one of Ali’s highest-ranking computer scientists and vice president of the Dharma Academy.
In the Alibaba Cloud business line, Xiao Lihua (P11), Vice President of Alibaba Group and President of the Alibaba Cloud Research Institute, also resigned on May 7 to start a business.
At the same time, Ren Geng (P11), the former president of Alibaba Cloud China, who chose to stay on, was newly appointed this week. Geng leads.
Previously, the video cloud was led by Ali technical veteran Lin Hao (Bi Xuan). Lin Hao joined Taobao during the most critical period of technological iteration in 2007, and worked with Xiaoxie, Zhang Wensong, Zeng Xianjie, Zhu Hong, Qiang Hui, Cen Wenchu and Yu Feng People, in order to support the growth of Taobao’s ultra-high traffic, have made great contributions. He left the company in August last year.
In 2021, in the upgrade of the organizational structure, Ali will change the sector in charge of Zhang Jianfeng to the “cloud and technology sector”, including Alibaba Cloud, Dharma Academy, DingTalk, Smart Internet (Tmall Genie), and Pingtou Ge.
Leifeng.com learned that Alibaba Cloud and Bodhidharma Institute have divided their personnel since the end of last year. Some mature product technologies that have been incubated by Bodhidharma Institute have been separated from Bodhidharma Institute. After that, Bodhidharma Institute will operate in a more independent form.
1. The Urban Brain Lab entered the era of Zhou Jingren
The city brain was proposed by Wang Jian, and it has been a golden sign of Alibaba Cloud for many years. After Wang Jian quit the Ali front line, the Urban Brain Lab led by Hua Xiansheng and Zhang Lei became the successor of Wang Jian’s will.
The laboratory is also the only laboratory in the Dharma Academy with two P11 experts, and it has a high internal status.
Wang Jian’s retirement, as well as the resignation of Hua Xiansheng and Zhang Lei this time, represent the official entry of the city’s brain into the era of Zhou Jingren.
Zhou Jingren
Zhou Jingren, who joined Alibaba Cloud in 2016 and served as chief scientist, was transferred to Taobao shortly after the establishment of Dharma Institute in 2019, reporting to Jiang Fan and Cheng Li. It is quite interesting that although Zhou reported to Jiang, Zhou Jingren of P12 at that time was one level higher than Jiang Fan of P11.
At the end of 2020, Zhou Jingren moved to Ant Group, but Ant has never officially announced this, and Zhou Jingren has not appeared on Ant’s official website.
Just over a year later, Zhou Jingren returned to the management of the Damo Academy and took charge of the City Brain Lab as the vice president.
In addition, the City Brain Lab also welcomed IEEE Fellow and former President of Ping An Technology Washington Research Institute Lu Le (P10) last year.
2. Behind the changes of Dharma Academy: a bold laboratory management innovation experiment
In fact, the departure of Hua Xiansheng, Zhang Lei, Jin Rong, Wang Gang and others is not surprising in itself.
At present, domestic AI scientists leave big factories and return to academia or start businesses have become the norm in the industry.
But in this normalization, there is no lack of specificity: DAMO Academy will conduct an unprecedented experiment in laboratory management innovation in 2021.
Last year, when Alibaba Cloud sprinted towards the target of 90 billion yuan, the monetization team of DAMO Academy also tried to actively challenge 10-digit revenue figures for the first time, of which the urban brain accounted for a certain proportion.
Specifically, some innovative products developed by DAMO Academy are sold through the Alibaba Cloud business line. Alibaba Cloud’s business line and DAMO Academy implement a dual-calculation model.
The research institutes of technology giants at home and abroad usually have two modes for revenue:
First, partner with the ToB team to make money from customers: The research institute is organized into the ToB department to provide technical support for the solution team. Part of the revenue obtained by the ToB department needs to be allocated to the research institute. However, there will be no mandatory performance appraisal.
The second way to make money is in the form of insourcing: if the business department within the group has a demand, it will issue the demand to the research institute, and the research institute will charge the business department according to the number of people invested and server usage.
The Bodhidharma Institute belongs to the first category, but it is also different from the first: after the cloud and technology business group adjusted its structure last year, the Bodhidharma Institute is relatively independent, and the bond with Alibaba Cloud has become weaker.
There are pros and cons to this situation.
The disadvantage is that by throwing some of the Bodhidharma team into the commercial battle, the pressure on the scientists is obviously unprecedented.
But the advantage is that it can let the person who hears the gunfire command the battle. This is also similar to Ren Zhengfei’s methodology in recent years.
In 2019, Ren Zhengfei said in his speech: Our algorithm team needs to directly enter the project, and it is easy to break through with both algorithms and data on the front line. You organize excellent doctors to form a Google-style army, pounce on it, and you may tear the opening. The abstract platform must be tested by practical things, and there will be an abstract platform when there are more concrete platforms. Don’t be locked in the deep palace compound, go to the battlefield and make meritorious deeds, maybe you will be promoted from second lieutenant to major general. I hope your Google-style army can take the lead in breaking a bloody road, and I will come to see you if it succeeds.
In fact, in recent years, many large companies have been trying to reform their research institutes, so that their technology can be both top-notch and stand-alone, and by the way, they can make decent money.
But how to find the balance between the white snow in the spring and the fields? This is still a cross-century problem even for companies with decades of research management experience such as Microsoft and IBM.
Too much sunshine and white snow is tantamount to a company building a university by itself, with investment only in but not out, and it goes against the rules of business.
Too much in the field, the rich fireworks gas naturally cannot attract the top technical talents.
The management model and the technical architecture system are exactly the same, and can never be designed once and for all. Instead, through continuous testing and grinding and stress testing, we can infinitely approach the balance between the white snow in the spring and the fields.
The adjustment of the management model of Bodhidharma Institute last year is undoubtedly a bold grinding and stress test, grinding stones into a river that has not been waded by predecessors.
Although under the pressure of performance, the quality of products developed by DAMO Academy is uneven, and some Alibaba Cloud sales lines are quite resentful. But this is a process that must be experienced to approach the optimal balance point.
It is always better to face a problem than to avoid it. It is also better to correct mistakes than not to admit them.
In fact, after more than a year of testing and grinding and stress testing, Bodhidharma Institute has begun to make adjustments this year. The laboratory no longer bears KPIs for revenue and is moving towards a balance point.
3. Hua Xian wins his people
This personnel change is undoubtedly the most discussed among scientists in the circle of Hua Xiansheng.
There is an unwritten consensus in the corporate executive recruitment market that scientists who have the attributes of both “technical vase” and “business economical male” are the most popular type of people in the high-level recruitment market.
If a Fellow-level scientist, the technology he invented is widely cited and applied in academia and industry, and at the same time, his technology can withstand the test of large-scale engineering during the enterprise period, and he has excellent product capabilities. , enough to make it stand on the commanding heights of the wise.
For example, Zhang Zhengyou, the inventor of Zhang’s calibration method, and Sun Jian, one of the authors of ResNet.
Hua Xiansheng, Zhang Zhengyou, Sun Jian and others who also meet the above conditions are the highest paid AI expert group in China, 2-3 times that of other IEEE Fellow scientists.
In the post-Wang Jian era, Hua Xiansheng, who can almost be equated with the four characters of the city brain, will not repeat his research achievements here. The city brain of Hua Xiansheng era has realized the landing of multiple cities.
Going forward, in 2015, the Huaxiansheng team was responsible for the optimization of e-commerce image search technology, and the function of searching for goods by image. It has withstood the engineering test of the order of 100 million during the Double Eleven period and became a phenomenon-level product.
Hua Xiansheng not only exerted the talent appeal that a scientist should have, but also brought innovation in products, met the engineering needs of technology implementation and even achieved profitability.
In retrospect, Hua Xiansheng participated in the “China Artificial Intelligence Security Summit” held by Leifeng. From the fields of transportation and public security, it is constantly migrating and sinking to the fields of industry, medical care, etc., towards commercialization.
After the City Brain was recognized by customers from all walks of life, Hua Xiansheng also filled out a song “Like a Dream” with emotion: the road is long and the wind is high, so don’t be afraid of thousands of mountains.
The outside world’s interpretation of scientists leaving office is often somewhat biased.
They have just completed a phased mission for the company and themselves, and it is time to go to the next stage of life and find a new answer.
The constant search for new answers is the spirit of science.
The author of this article pays attention to AI, smart cities, industrial technology giants and innovators. If you have their stories that you would like to share, please contact the author of this article Yu Kuai, WeChat Yukuaikuaier
This article is reproduced from: https://www.leiphone.com/category/industrycloud/jBhA8F5CnzYJ6EHQ.html
This site is for inclusion only, and the copyright belongs to the original author.