Kai-Fu Lee

Kai-Fu Lee is a Taiwanese computer scientist, businessman, and writer. He is currently based in Beijing, China. Lee developed a speaker-independent, continuous speech recognition system as his Ph.D. thesis at Carnegie Mellon University. He later worked as an executive, first at Apple, then SGI, Microsoft, and Google. He became the focus of a 2005 legal dispute between Google and Microsoft, his former employer, due to a one-year non-compete agreement that he signed with Microsoft in 2000 when he became its corporate vice president of interactive services. One of the most prominent figures in the Chinese internet sector, he was the founding director of Microsoft Research Asia, serving from 1998 to 2000; and president of Google China, serving from July 2005 through September 4, 2009. He created a website, Wǒxuéwǎng dedicated to helping young Chinese people achieve in their studies and careers, and his "10 Letters to Chinese College Students" have spread widely on the web.