"Discussing the Recent Public Statements of Three Influential Figures"

This article is Lu Canwei's 93rd original piece.

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Today, no more motivational talk, let's discuss the recent public statements from several big names.

Baidu

In the past decade, with the rise of mobile internet, it seems that Baidu has missed one opportunity after another. Accompanying this are not only market skepticism but also various negative reports. The company's reputation has fallen from grace, and it has become a company that everyone criticizes but cannot escape from.

This company is Baidu.

Baidu began laying the groundwork for AI ten years ago, with Xiaodu Smart Screen ranking first globally among smart speakers with screens. While everyone else was studying smart bike routes, Baidu steadfastly researched vehicle-road collaboration technology. When other cloud vendors were competing in CDN and IaaS, Baidu was studying deep learning frameworks and high-end AI chips, and it is the only global participant that spans almost all aspects of intelligent transportation, including intelligent driving systems, automotive intelligence empowerment, vehicle manufacturing, autonomous vehicle operations, vehicle-road collaboration, and digital city management.

However, we cannot see the achievements mentioned above because of search engine bidding rankings. Bidding rankings have created over 170 billion yuan in annual revenue for the Putian system, but they have also harmed many people. When I read in a letter that Baidu is committed to promoting human social development, hoping to bring welfare to all humanity, eliminate poverty, extend life expectancy, achieve carbon neutrality, make the Earth more vibrant, and improve life, I suddenly understood Baidu a little.

Here’s a previously mentioned trolley problem: there is an uncontrollable trolley whose path will cause the death of five people. If you control the lever to change the path, it may lead to the death of one person instead. What would you do?

This question is difficult to answer. Baidu is committed to solving the development problems of all humanity, which means finding the optimal solution for the group rather than the individual. Take bidding rankings as an example; you exclude certain specific groups, but they can still disguise themselves to bid. Machines cannot identify these disguises without new rules. According to the algorithm, the highest bidder gets the advertising rights, so without intervening with the machine, this is the only outcome.

It is clear that Baidu firmly believes that technology can change the world. However, extreme technology is purely rational and lacks humanity. In the trolley problem, Baidu chose to change the path, sacrificing some people to allow more people to have a better future. But in our eyes, we do not see the trolley problem; we only see the innocent person who is about to be sacrificed.

Baidu's all-in approach may only be answered by the future.

Xiaomi

On the other hand, there is Lei Jun, who recently hopes to help young people own their first car, defining three major transformative moments as "flashing ROM," which is very Xiaomi.

In just 75 days, through 85 internal visits and communications, deep exchanges with over 200 people, four internal management discussions, and two formal board meetings, Xiaomi is finally going to make cars.

Moreover, it will invest $10 billion in the future, and this is Lei Jun's last major entrepreneurial venture, choosing an all-in attitude.

In terms of revenue, Xiaomi's mobile phones account for 59% of its total revenue, while most of its other smart hardware businesses are basically revenue from OEM collaborations. With the smartphone market becoming increasingly saturated, Xiaomi urgently needs another project that can generate revenue, and that project is internet cars.

Speaking of internet cars, which are new energy vehicles, why are they called new energy? Because they do not use oil, and thus do not need to emit carbon.

Here, carbon refers to "carbon dioxide," which is the culprit of global warming. The consumption of various carbon elements leads to massive carbon dioxide emissions, such as from oil, coal, and wood. Recently, on September 22, 2020, the Chinese government proposed at the 75th United Nations General Assembly: "China will increase its national contributions, adopt more vigorous policies and measures, strive to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030, and work hard to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060."

So, what is carbon neutrality?

Carbon neutrality means offsetting the emitted carbon dioxide through methods such as afforestation and energy conservation, essentially balancing the positive and negative.

The European Union requires some companies within the EU to pay 25 euros for every ton of carbon emissions, and the possibility of other countries imposing carbon emission taxes in the future is quite high. Another aspect is carbon credits; for every new energy vehicle produced, a certain number of credits can be obtained. Each company has fuel consumption credits, and if a company's fuel consumption credits do not meet the assessment standards, it can only buy carbon credits to offset...

Tesla earned $1.58 billion through the sale of carbon credits. When you consider that Tesla recently spent $1.5 billion on Bitcoin, think about it. Revenue from carbon credits is Tesla's second-largest source of income. Currently, policies are strongly supporting new energy, and carbon credits will definitely become a significant source of income in the domestic market in the future.

Additionally, Tesla's localization has developed the supply chain and industrial chain for domestic new energy vehicles. Therefore, the money Xiaomi is investing in car manufacturing is definitely not enough; it can refer to how Jack Ma is making cars next door. Based on Xiaomi's own development, it will definitely aim to create a platform in the future, mainly integrating vehicle networking into the entire Xiaomi smart platform system. Cars should be manufactured by mature factories or through OEM.

As for pricing... it will definitely have to undercut existing car manufacturers. Following the strategies of Xiaomi TVs and Xiaomi phones, they will sell cars at low prices and then profit from software, possibly even having an ad on the central control screen when it starts up.

To be honest, Xiaomi must be under significant pressure regarding its current stock price...

ByteDance

Zhang Yiming's calmness has flooded my social media feed, making me feel like I've entered a new realm.

Yesterday, I saw a piece of text that said when a boy suddenly sits down to give you a lecture on profound truths, you never know how many breakdowns and tears he has experienced before delivering those insights.

I don't know how many people understood Zhang Yiming's speech this time, but at least my middle-aged friends who posted about it all felt a sense of regret for not having encountered it sooner. These are all seemingly simple truths that are very difficult to practice. Many people have heard many such truths but still cannot live their lives well.

Zhang Yiming mentioned that we are all ordinary people. Sometimes we see some people who do not consider themselves ordinary, thinking they are much better than others. When our perspective changes, we see that others actually have many great qualities, which are all shining points.

I remember it was mentioned in "Dog Money" that we should strive to discover the shining points in others.

I recall when I first started posting on my public account, I said I had no label. Many people told me I should first give myself a label, like being a tech person and sharing more technical content, so that my followers could grow quickly. Indeed, I was a bit confused at first about what I could share with everyone and whether my content was focused enough.

Later, I came across an article discussing user demand research, which mentioned that when you conduct interviews with users, never preset your questions, as this will lead to unreliable results. Because during the interview process, your actions may distort the answers toward what you want, complicating simple matters. You should listen to the other party without any purpose and then record what they say.

Focusing on the present, I remember reading about this in "The Courage to Be Disliked." Adler's philosophy encourages us to focus more on the present because the person who determines your life is "you at this moment." Just like running, when running a marathon, you only need to focus on each step you take in the present to reach the finish line.

All-in is seen as laziness, which is the most criticized aspect. Because just before, Lei Jun said he wanted to go all-in, I also reflected on this. Recently, I read some articles related to investments that mentioned that even with a 90% success rate, going all-in still gives you a chance to fall into the 10% area, and you could still lose thoroughly.

Due to space limitations, I can't elaborate further, but I want to share a sentence from my article that resonated with me:

Three people: one is a passionate young person dreaming of changing the world, one is a middle-aged person suffocated by a mortgage seeking a side job, and one is an elderly person who has seen through life.

Interesting, truly interesting.

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