11/22/2010

Ex-Googler teaching China 'Silicon Valley 101'

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Kai-Fu Lee, Chairman and CEO of Beijing-based Innovation Works, an early stage venture fund, is mobbed by fans and young entrepreneurs outside his Innovation Works office in Beijing China, on October 15, 2010. The visitors won a competition sponsored by the local TV show "Hall of Fame" which is produced by the Economy Channel of the Beijing TV Station. The show featured a visit to Innovation Works and a presentation by Lee which was attended by the fans. (LiPo Ching/Mercury

BEIJING -- It is just a simple piece of plywood, but it is a striking symbol of the frenzied adoration Kai-Fu Lee, perhaps China's most prominent technologist, elicits in this country.

"One overanxious entrepreneur knocked down our door," said Lee, explaining why the plywood used to cover the damage is on display in his spaceshiplike offices.

Few Chinese executives have the technology cred of Lee, who was tapped by Bill Gates to lead Microsoft's operations in China, personally wooed away by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and turned down an offer by Steve Jobs. His new venture, Innovation Works, a $115 million fund to back early-stage technology companies, is something of a laboratory to teach this nation of 1.2 billion people a course that could be best described as "Silicon Valley 101." His efforts tap into the ambitions of a rising economic giant to someday have its own world-dominating technology companies.

Illustrating the importance the country places on his efforts, the government subsidizes the rent of Innovation Works. And Lee's new headquarters was designed -- for free -- by one of the designers of Beijing's National Stadium, also known as the Bird's Nest, constructed for the 2008 Olympics.

On a recent October Saturday afternoon, he was mobbed by 100 wannabe entrepreneurs who won a competition sponsored by a local TV show that let them hear a presentation by Lee. They arrived at his office in formal business attire and cheeredas if he were, well, Steve Jobs.

Read more at Mercury News

Nov 22, 2010 8:23:21 AM | Business, Education, Technology

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