BiographyHub

Robin Li: The Billionaire Behind Baidu's Rise

Robin Li, a Chinese software engineer and internet entrepreneur, is the co-founder and CEO of Baidu, China's largest search engine. Li's journey from a software engineer to a billionaire is marked by his pioneering work in search algorithms and his leadership in building Baidu into a global technology giant.
Chinese software engineer and billionaire internet entrepreneur (born 1968)
Robin Li
李彦宏
Li in 2020
Born (1968-11-17) 17 November 1968 (age 55)
Yangquan, Shanxi, China
EducationPeking University (BMgt)
University at Buffalo (MS)
Occupation(s)Software engineer, internet entrepreneur
TitleCo-founder and CEO of Baidu
Chairman of iQIYI
Board member ofEducation & Technology Group Inc.
SpouseDongmin Ma
Children4
Chinese name
Simplified Chinese李彦宏
Traditional Chinese李彥宏
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinLǐ Yànhóng
Gwoyeu RomatzyhLii Yannhorng
Wade–GilesLi Yenhung
IPA[lì jɛ̂nxʊ̌ŋ]

Robin Li Yanhong (Chinese: 李彦宏; pinyin: Lǐ Yànhóng; born 17 November 1968) is a Chinese software engineer and billionaire internet entrepreneur who is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Chinese multinational technology company Baidu. As of June 2023, his net worth was estimated at US$8.6 billion by Forbes.

Li studied information management at Peking University and computer science at the University at Buffalo. In 1996, he created RankDex. In 2000, he founded Baidu with Eric Xu. Li has been CEO of Baidu since January 2004. The company was listed on NASDAQ on August 5, 2005.

Li is a member of the 12th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

During his tenure as CEO of Baidu, Li has been criticized for a number of controversies, including the death of Wei Zexi, advertising of unqualified hospitals on Tieba, and ad fraud.

Early life and education

Li was born in Yangquan, Shanxi Province, where he spent most of his childhood. Both of his parents were factory workers. Li was the fourth of five children, and the only boy.

He earned a Bachelor of Management with a major in information management from Peking University. In the fall 1991, Li went to the University at Buffalo in New York to study for a doctorate in computer science. He left the doctoral program with a master's degree in 1994.

RankDex

In 1994, Li joined IDD Information Services, a New Jersey division of Dow Jones and Company, where he helped develop a software program for the online edition of The Wall Street Journal. He also worked on improving algorithms for search engines. He remained at IDD Information Services from May 1994 to June 1997. In 1996, while at IDD, Li created the Rankdex site-scoring algorithm for search engine page ranking. Google cofounder Larry Page filed a patent for the PageRank search algorithm, two years later in 1998, which references Li's work on RankDex. Li later used his Rankdex technology for the Baidu search engine.

Baidu

Li worked as a staff engineer for Infoseek, a pioneer internet search engine company, from July 1997 to December 1999. An achievement of his was the picture search function used by Go.com. Since founding Baidu in January 2000, Li has turned the company into the largest Chinese search engine, with over 80% market share by search query, and the second largest independent[vague] search engine in the world. On 5 August 2005, Baidu completed its IPO on NASDAQ, and in 2007 was included in the NASDAQ-100 Index.

Recognition

In 2001, he was named one of the "Chinese Top Ten Innovative Pioneers". In 2002 and 2003, he was named one of the "IT Ten Famous Persons". In April 2004, he was named in the second session of "Chinese Software Ten Outstanding Young Persons". In December 2005, he was named one of the "CCTV 2005 Chinese Economic Figures of The Year".

In August 2014, Li was appointed by the United Nations Secretary General as co-chair of the Independent Expert Advisory Group on Data Revolution for Sustainable Development.

Personal life

Li is married to Dongmin Ma, who also works for Baidu. They have four children and live in Beijing, China.