Invest in the next generation. Joining me today on bloomberg studio 1. 0, sinovation ventures ceo kaifu lee. You came to the u. S. In 1973. You were 12 years old and moved to tennessee. Tell me about what must have been Culture Shock in that moment. Kaifu i did not speak a word of english, but the people were extremely friendly, that southern hospitality. I made a lot of friends. In class i was totally lost. They were teaching in front and i was reading my chinese books. Emily somehow you caught up because you went to columbia, phd at carnegie mellon. You were working on speech recognition, of all things, which now four decades later is the forefront of new technology. Kaifu also Artificial Intelligence, machine learning. It was an exciting age when there is so much unknown and so much naive optimism, but it is gratifying to see finally all of that coming to the real world. Emily you joined apple in 1990. How closely did you work with steve jobs . Kaifu i always say i was there between jobs. My tenure at apple, i joined as he left, and after i left, he came back. We did have some intersection. He did call me to see if i would go back to apple, but at that time it just looked too scary. Everyone was still predicting apples doom and i got this job offer from microsoft. So i said, not this time. Emily you went on to work at microsoft in beijing, then google. Microsoft wasnt too happy about you going to work for google. In fact, i think they sued you. Kaifu thats right. It was a big lawsuit. You guys were probably reporting it. Everybody was reporting it. I could not escape it. I had a flight and said i was going to get on the plane and read the magazine and take a break, and then the magazine was handed to me and there i was on the cover, the lawsuit. But of course google and i had done nothing wrong and two months later was allowed to go to work at google. Emily microsoft was concerned you are going to take intellectual property and things you had worked on, right . Kaifu that was the claim, but clearly i was working on something totally different. What was happening was microsoft was afraid of further exodus. So they figured that would be a good way to stop the next 5000 people from going, but that did not really work. Emily google, not unlike many u. S. Tech companies, faced its own challenges in china. When you were running google in china, youtube got shut down. Kaifu we made a decision we would comply by government law. That allowed us to grow our business from about 9 market share to 24 and search revenue from nothing to almost 1 billion, so i thought we were given space to do our business, but ultimately i think the legal restrictions and googles values really didnt allow google to continue to operate. Emily youtube getting shut down was the beginning of a series of shutdowns. Facebook was blocked. Twitter was blocked. Kaifu none of these companies would have had any chance to succeed in china because American Companies were just too far removed from the chinese users needs. Google agreed to create a chinese interface, but that was in the way of the Silicon Valley way of the world where one platform would serve the world, and that egocentricity would have caused every American Company to fail in china. Also, if you look at the new companies that rose up in china in a very tough competitive environment, i think wechat is clearly a better product than facebook messenger, taobao is better than amazon, and the chinese Payment System fully connected, frictionless, micropayment come up here too. Is clearly better than paypal and credit cards. Many people compare it with gladiators in the colosseum and i am afraid the Silicon Valley companies are not gladiators. They would get killed in china. Emily he left google in 2009, then google left china. What happened . Kaifu i had no idea. I was surprised. New york times called me one morning and said, what is going on . Can we get a quote from you . They said, google just left china. I said, i have no idea. I cant give you a quote. Then i read about it in the news. Emily they didnt want to respond to the censorship demands of the Chinese Government. Was that the right call . Kaifu it is hard to say what is right or wrong. I think if, google is a very valuecentric company, so it will do things according to its values, for which we all respect, but on the other hand that makes it impossible for the company to do business in china, and i would prefer to see engagement, and engagement would give users more choices, and that would ultimately i think lead to the competitiveness and better products, but that requires following the law, and if you choose not to, then i guess you would have to exit. Emily do you think a google will ever return to china . Kaifu i think it is difficult. It is hard to say ever, but the Core Products cannot return unless they follow the laws and regulations. Some secondary products, facebooks oculus is launching in china. I think some of googles new products that are maybe not as core could potentially be launched as an experiment. I think google is a Great Company and i would like to see them launch products everywhere. Emily facebook has been making overtures, shaking the right hands, and yet we saw Facebooks Whatsapp recently blocked. Instagram and facebook are still blocked. Do you see a scenario where facebook can have a substantial presence there . Kaifu if i were mark, i would definitely launch oculus. I would work hard in getting more Chinese Companies to see facebook as a platform for ads so that Chinese Companies can project positive images worldwide. I would consider if i were either google or facebook launching the open source ai projects in china. China wants to be a world leader in ai, so there is a case where the interests are aligned, so it is always better to start in an area where the interests are aligned, rather than go into an area where there is conflict in values. Emily what do you think of the approach the Trump Administration has taken to the Chinese Government . Emily president xi and the government have been more rather than less strict when it comes to the internet, shutting down vpns for example. Is it a mistake . Kaifu i really dont know what are the root causes are of this. I would like to access the world information. I think one thing important to realize on the u. S. Side is that dont assume every chinese person really wants to get on facebook and google. If you do a survey, the great majority dont know these sites exist, and those who do generally think they can do without them. I think people have to understand that the chinese substitutes are really, really strong. It is much easier for a chinese person to build a virtual Friendship Circle around wechat than it is for an american person on facebook. It is much easier for a chinese person to use the phone to order services, buy books, and pay other people money, so the chinese internet has become an easier to use set of tools than the american internet. Emily what do you think of the approach the Trump Administration has taken to the Chinese Government . Kaifu if i was on the american side, i would be concerned about president trumps visa and immigration policies. If you think about the competitiveness of america, the core competitiveness relies on the brilliance of the universitys and researchers and americas ability to draw the top talent to the universities here, and a certain percentage will stay, and i was a case in point. I think if visas became difficult for the worlds top brains to come to these top universities, that is going to be a huge longterm negative differentiator for america. Emily is china leapfrogging the u. S. When it comes to Artificial Intelligence. Kaifu google is clearly well ahead of the rest of companies, and American Companies and universities are ahead of chinese universities and companies, but china has three big advantages that may give it a chance to leapfrog. The first is data, because ai is about having a huge amount of data that you can train on and get better than it is about having brilliant minds. The second is the huge army of engineering grad students. Engineering and math is the strongest point of chinese universities. In july of 2017, the state council came out with an ai plan, and that is a set of policies that have teeth and are sent to all the provinces and cities with lots of funding for ai companies, so with these reasons together i think chinese leapfrog is possible. I would say it is 5050 right now whether ultimately the u. S. Or china will lead the world in ai. Emily how do the strategies of baidu, tencent and alibaba differ from facebook and google and amazon when it comes to the strategy itself and implementation . Kaifu interestingly, microsoft, facebook, and tencent have chosen to build the research in a powerful but kind of ivory tower kind of way, whereas google, amazon, baidu, alibaba are trying to take a productdriven approach to ai. I think both are interesting. I also think ill seven companies are sucking up the worlds top talent, which is not good for entrepreneurship and from an antitrust standpoint, and i think Chinese Companies probably the one part that sets them apart from the u. S. Companies is there is not as strong a concern or regard for antitrust consequences, so you see the Chinese Companies really building empires, whereas i think the American Companies having seen what microsoft went through with antitrust, what google and maybe facebook are going through, are more cautious with their core business. Emily can baidu, tencent, and alibaba become substantial players and markets were google and facebook are dominant. Kaifu i think the Chinese Market as a market is probably larger than the rest of the world combined. Not in the number of people or in the number of dollars, but if you think about the number of people who can be online and immediately be paying for something. This is 730 Million People fully connected, can pay anything to anybody anytime without commission. We see companies in china acquiring and investing in Many Companies in Silicon Valley, but even more so in southeast asia, india, islamic world, so i think the chinesedriven outside China Expansion challenging american Top Companies is something that is going to happen, probably not on a one to one basis, probably not fought on u. S. Or china, because the incumbents will win, but the rest of the world, it will be interesting to watch. Emily what do you make of tencents investment in snap, buying a 12 stake . Is this the beginning of bigger u. S. Ambitions . Kaifu i think tencent is very smart about making global investments. I think they teach a lot to the companies they invest in. I have spoken to evan and he really appreciates all that tencent has taught them based on chinese user behaviors, social, and things like that, but i also think evan has taught tencent through its experiences, so tencent is this very powerful and amazing learning machine, so these investments are teaching what they know, just like tencent and facebook were connected by yuri milner, so there is learning going both ways. So i think, i dont think tencent has global domination ambitions. I think they are primarily a Chinese Company, but they want to continue to increase their presence and learn and teach at the same time. Emily what do you think of amazon selling its Cloud Business, part of its Cloud Business in china . Kaifu i know very few domestic Chinese Companies using amazon services. Amazon services are doing well in china for Chinese Companies that want to go overseas, so that i think will restrict its widespread use. I think alicloud is stronger. Google sells ads in china, but just for Chinese Companies to place ads outside of china, so if American Companies limit themselves to the outsidegoing part of china, that will be such a small business, i dont think it is interesting. The only American Company doing ok in china is apple actually. Emily apple returned to growth in china, but still face cheaper smartphone competitors come and yet now they have this 1000 iphone on the market. What is apples potential in china . Are we going to see it plateau . Kaifu i think overall apple is gearing up for some exciting products iphone 11 and beyond, and i think those, i think those may take it a step ahead of the competitive, xiaomi, huawei, opo, and others in china, so i am midtolongterm bullish because i can see apple building these great leapforward from products, but beyond the iphone it is tough. Emily how much is devoted to chips manufactured in china . Kaifu everybodys hardware is manufactured in china. So i think that is currently chinas competitiveness. Now some companies are beginning to come back to manufacture in the u. S. In the less humancentric type of manufacturing. I am on the board of foxconn. Foxconn has built a number of factories here, so i think americas competitiveness will probably come from the automation part of manufacturing. The existing type, i think china has a lead. Emily who is going to win on self driving cars in china . Emily who is going to win on self driving cars in china, and why . Kaifu well i think our investments will win. We invested in three companies in Autonomous Vehicles. I think they all have a good shot. Each of them has an executionoriented approach, so i think with Autonomous Vehicles it is incredibly important to launch, collect data, and use that data to make your product better. Baidu has a big investment. We have a lot of respect for them. Didi has a big incentive to make it work because they will lose more money if they dont replace the driver. Same with uber. So i think on a whole world basis i am actually a little bit contrarian in believing that sharedeconomy companies have a good shot, because they are the ones who most desperately need to get autonomous driving to work to fix their profit and loss problems. Emily bike sharing is taking off around the world. You are an investor in mobike. Other bike sharing players have simply disappeared. Do you see these businesses going under and investor cash disappearing . Kaifu i think shared bicycle is definitely a winner take all market, so consolidation has happened. There are two players left. They can kill each other or merge. We think mobike has the right product, so we hope it will be merged. Emily are they considering a merger . Kaifu not that i am aware of, but on peoples minds. Emily it is something you would like to see . Kaifu as investors, we want to facilitate the fastest road to prosperity, and we can see a single platform for shared bicycle make a lot more money, because due to competition people are paying cents per hour for shared bicycle rides, but we know shared bicycle is appealing to a fundamental need for people and they are probably willing to pay one dollar per hour, and that will rapidly push the company from loss to massive profitability, and that is something i think mobike and the other company have to think about. Emily uber pulled out of china. Airbnb is trying to charge in. What are the prospects of airbnb succeeding were many other u. S. Companies have failed . Kaifu well, i am not a fan of lightweight American Internet Companies succeeding in china. I am a huge fan of airbnb. I stay in it when i come to the united states, but its thinveneer approach to Building Products does not work in china. In china, you need to build a very big fence that blocks your competitors, otherwise they will eat your lunch. In china, the Chinese Company that is building airbnb, they are leasing buildings, buying buildings, refurbishing the whole place systematically and costeffectively, replenishing the refrigerators at a costeffective basis, and the Chinese People traveling are still looking for a good return on investment, lower costs, so the airbnb approach is great for chinese travelers to go abroad, for foreigners to go to china, but again that is such a small market compared to Chinese People consuming products and Services Within china. Emily so you think airbnb is toast in china . Kaifu not toast. They will have a decent business, just like google and facebook, just like amazon, but it will be a small percentage of the overall market size. Emily talk to me about sinovation ventures, more than 1 billion under management. Where do you think are the hottest places to invest your money right now . Kaifu well, Artificial Intelligence is our big bet. We are investing in ai applied to fintech for banks, insurance, customer service. We are interested in ais use in health and medicine, Autonomous Vehicles. We invest in robotics, primarily industrial robotics, because i think that is where people can see making money or saving money. We are invested in new types of sensors that will bring way down the cost of Autonomous Vehicles and robots, so ai is probably half of our fund, but under ai there are six or seven areas where we invest in. Emily we have seen countries like tencent continue to rise. Where do you see the valuations of Chinese Companies going public and private . Kaifu chinas market for Internet Companies is larger than the rest of the world, so current valuations u. S. To china are roughly one to one, the u. S. Slightly higher. I think china should be 50 higher than u. S. When it is all said and done, so both valuations will grow. I think chinese will grow more in the next five years because leveraging all this online access, payment capabilities, and the speed of acceleration, i think probably a reasonable equilibrium is maybe 1. 5 china, 1. 0 u. S. , company to company. Emily really . Wow. Kaifu on the other hand i see a bubble as well, so i dont say everything will continue to go through the roof. The venture capitalists who do not discriminate will surely put too much money and companies that are not ai companies and getting double, triple valuation, and that has to become rationalized overtime. Emily kaifu lee, ceo of sinovation ventures, thank you for joining us on the show. Kaifu thank you. Retail. Under pressure like never before. And its connected technology thats moving companies forward fast. Ecommerce. Real time inventory. Virtual changing rooms. Thats why retailers rely on comcast business to deliver consistent Network Speed across multiple locations. Every corporate office, warehouse and store near or far covered. Leaving every competitor, threat and challenge outmaneuvered. Comcast business outmaneuver. Megan when Satya Nadella took over microsoft, he was only the third person to lead the company. Satya i grew up in the company that bill and steve built. I am proud of it. Megan in his book, nadella candidly outlines the changes he has made as c. E. O. And what defines the company today. Satya success is not built by moving from hit to hit. Megan from evolving with the Tech Industry to company culture, that is ahead in this conversation with Satya Nadella