Kai-Fu Lee

"The pursuit of efficiency made me neglect my health. Being buried in work every day caused me to lose sight of the subtle beauties of life. Subconsciously quantifying the value of everything made me forget the connections with the ordinary and the opportunity to relax with fate. I cared too much about the future, which made me sacrifice the appreciation of many present moments. In my pursuit of efficiency, I became cold and indifferent to things not in the plan."

"Imagining a world without you and comparing it to the world with you to create beneficial change due to your attitude and choices, the professor said, is the philosophical meaning of life’s existence. Making a difference, maximizing life’s impact, provided me a way of thinking and a worldview."

"■Value is not how much you have, but what you leave behind. ■Lead your life with your dreams and ideals, with a mindset of gratitude, sincerity, and helping others realize their dreams, and with persistence, fearlessness, and optimism. If you do these, fate will bestow upon you everything you deserve. ■Do not be confused by dogma, blindly following dogma means living in the results of other people’s thoughts. Do not let others’ opinions drown out your inner voice. Most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. Your heart and intuition already know what you truly want to become; everything else is secondary."

"This event, like a convex lens, focused on the beauty and ugliness of human nature and highlighted the powerful force of “following the heart’s choice.” When all the storms passed, what remained was a stronger life and a more determined will. Looking back on this time, I feel it shines like gold because it gave me a more precious experience in life: facing the lows of life, how to choose – whether to wallow in sadness or rise against the tide? These experiences were all used in my subsequent four years at Google China."

"I feel a kind of energy gradually filling my heart. This energy gives rise to many whimsical ideas about products from the depths of my mind. Some of my thoughts often gallop in the air but get submerged by the enormous workload in front of me. Gradually, I hope I can have a space not confined to the tight schedule at hand, where I can relax and let these whimsical ideas take root and grow so they can bring “surprises” to people’s ways of living. Furthermore, I want to gather all the clever ideas about technology into a box, then let them collide and spark, and finally, under the guidance of experienced mentors, form independent teams and start operations. My ideal is to make this box a “Harry Potter’s magic book,” producing the magic of “changing some details of the world.”"