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00:00We've saved the best panel for last. Everybody here agree on that. OK so we have three great business leaders here and you're going to learn how to make a lot of money. If you listen to this panel. OK. How many people here want to make a lot of money in the technology area. Anybody. OK. Well these people are going to tell you how to do this. Why don't we start. Eric . Eric you are the chairman and CEO for a long time at Google Alphabet. Now I guess now when you join that company all it really had was a search engine and there had already been a lot of search engines. There was nothing novel about search. Why didn't you give up your career to go to this tiny little company . And did you think they had such an innovation that it was going to change the world . I just simply thought that people were just too interesting and too smart to do something that they would have some impact. And when you start with a startup you have no idea if it will wiggle it will change. But you can tell that it has a sense of purpose and a sense of recruiting momentum and so forth. And that's why I went to Google today. After all these years as a dominant search engine do they really have any rival in the search engine business. They dominate the business still don't they. We never use the word or dominate. They have a very large share of the business don't they. That's correct. And is that because they keep changing the algorithm is still updating it or is it just because it was so good the beginning nobody can catch up . Well so there are thousands of people working on these algorithms. And now all of the Google algorithms use A.I.. And so the core thing that Google does is it just gets better and better every year. And when you join the company was very young but it had a different culture than many cultures. You would see an East Coast kind of companies. You've told me a story once. When you were the CEO you left your office one time and then you came back. Somebody was in your office. You're like oh this fella just sort of moved in. And I said why are you here. He said My office was crowded and you were never in the office. And did you kick him out. No because at Google that would be a political foul. Right. So instead we became best friends. He sat next to me for years. And Google traditionally was spelled a different way. Did they spell it that way on purpose. Different than the way it was well spelled. Google came from the number ten to one hundred and ten to one hundred is spelled Geo o geo L.. And it was hard for people to do it that way. So Surrogate changed that to Google. OK. So today when you look at you are doing many things today but among the things you're doing is you do invest in technology companies and run it around the world. What do you look for when you're looking for an innovator when you're looking for somebody who's saying I need some money I'm going to be the next Google founder . And when you hear that pitch you probably roll your eyes. But what is it you're looking for when you back. Somebody and I was going a young company. The greatest companies have two components. They have a technical platform and they have a new business approach. Right. Both these guys have done the same . This in there in China and so forth. So. So we know this is true. Just having phenomenal technology is not enough. You have to have a phenomenal technology some new invention that people are going to depend on. But you have to have a new way of selling a new way of making money. So when you look at new companies have you ever made a mistake and you didn't back somebody you should have back that all the time . And what do you look back at the mistake you made. It just didn't realize the person was dedicated enough or smart enough . Well for me personally I'm pretty good at figuring what the platform looks like. I'm very. It's hard to see what the use of the platform is. So what happens in our industry is there's new platforms every two three five years. The next platform by the way is going to be an a IBEX platform. It's very hard to pick among the new uses of the platforms and which ones will dominate. So in your career you started at Goldman Sachs and you were rose up. You were a managing director. What could be a higher calling of mankind than to be a managing director of Goldman . So why did you leave Goldman to go to a taxicab hailing company . Why did you do that. Thank you . When I first moved back to Beijing I simply couldn't hail a taxi when I on the street with my three kids. Right. And I always want to join something exciting and be something. So when I met with the founder of D.D. when he was a tiny company I see the potential in it. And so I love the team there. So I just. All right. So your father is a technology star. He started Lenovo . So did he say to you stay at Goldman Sachs or did he say go to ISE startup company. Well he just said actually I asked advice from different people asked for Martin's advice as well. And people warned me saying you know like my X box from Goldman said are you sure you're going to join a taxi company and you need to be prepared. That is a grassroots company and the culture is very hard core and you want to make sure you can survive there . And a lot of people said I couldn't survive and I still feel I'm surviving. But you know and your service was competing for a while with Uber in China. And then you ultimately in effect bought Uber in China. Right. So how did you convince Uber that you were better than they were . Okay . Yeah. So first of all very sincerely we really thank . Competition without Uber we wouldn't be able to play the worldly game. We were a National League right. Uber came when we were three years old and the war test. The money they brought in was bigger than our market cap. So we were scared for a moment and there was a big decision whether we give in or not. Right. And all the senior executive i.e. the 25 year old gather together every morning 9 a.m. in the meeting room inspires buy some inspirational songs and trying to figure out the tactics. So you know I think a few things. First of all we worked really hard. You know the product teams stay in the office you know for three months. They sleep in the office and we roll out for product lines after Mubarak came in. And secondly we think we understand the market more. Right. We like you said not just technology but also understanding of the market understanding what people really care need. So we do a different approach . When you joined the company the market capitalization was roughly 500 million dollars . What's it today . Well I don't say you can say worth more. Yeah I can't say. But if somebody wanted to invest that 500 million today would you take their money or not so much. Well we would talk about you know strategic operations if you want to find out how your company is doing. You can look at statistics but you actually go out and drive the car yourself sometimes as a driver. So what is the most frequent comment you get when you're the driver . They say you're a good driver. DAX . I'm up for driver by the way . Actually you know the other day I went on the street with my colleague who tries to protect me if I run into something. And you know there's a young guy a sophomore coming on this jump in the car. And my my colleague told him this is the president FTSE and he wants to survey you for some question. And the guy to strut shrug it and say whatever. If you are doing a survey can I get some coupon instead . So you know this is the young generation of China. They're read though is at heart. They actually you know they they don't give you know wherever you are. So so. Martin you also were at Goldman Sachs. So is there something in the blood or water there. What is it about Goldman Sachs that produces great entrepreneurs in China . Well we got good people good people. Yeah. All right. Was she working for you at one point or. Yes she was an intern. She was a media. In three four for a while. And then and then I left. And then I didn't make managing director. You didn't . She made it. Really. So I left it when I was. Right. So do you still think about the fact you didn't make managing director . You ever thought how your life would be better if you made managing director. No. You don't think about it too much. OK . So on ten cent in the market cap is about 400 billion dollars or so something like that. So today you are competing with other technology companies that are often based in China like Ali Baba or I do. Why do you think that the great technology companies in China have not yet penetrated let's say the United States. Why is that. Well I think there are a lot of discussion this morning which give you some hints of that but I think Neal fought for the law for a long time right. Chinese tech companies have large market to address in China. Right . And and as a result we spend a lot of time basically sort of penetrating China. And I'll give you example. You know it's very difficult for us to even you'll find managers who wants to uproot from China and say you know what move the US and then develop the U.S. market . That's one and two is I think the cultural difference is actually quite different. I know for products that are very popular in China. You may not catch fire in the states right now. Your company has done a lot in video games. Yeah right . That's one of our is one of your business. Do you think video games are really healthy for young people. They spend too much time on video games and you have young children. You want them to spend a lot of time on video games. Well I think you know video games are good when it's used in moderation. I remember it. You know I I study engineering because I got my first apple to me and play video games on it. I was fascinated by the video games. So I think you know like anything else in the world if you do it in moderation it's good. It trains your reaction time and change your strategy. You know it puts you in teams that you work with people just like sports now. Now I don't think you you should play a lot of YouTube games especially when you are young kids right now. So that's why we actually put together a system which limits the amount of game play by minors . How do you like what about people who work in your company during the daytime if they want to play video games. Is that OK . Because they could they could play video games or they want . Right. But then usually they stay behind and finish the work . Now we chat. Did you invent that or who came up with that . Which ad is actually what. What. What the company was founded was actually instant messaging platform and social network which is called CAC. Right. That's almost like a pre cursor to WeChat. But then that's a product which is built on P.C.. So when the mobile age comes near we say you know this is advancing too slowly for mobile. This is designed for P.C.. This is not designed mobile only right now. So at that time actually you know we said we need to have a mobile only in the messaging platform. And within our company three different teams actually put their hands and say they want to do it . So we actually allowed it all three teams to do it. And the one team which came up with the best user experience actually won out. And then we back it up with all our corporate. They get a big bonus for that. Sure. A lot of stock . And why has we had not taken off let's say in the United States . Well that's a very good question. And I think what first of all I think you had in the US you know a lot of you she used as a Manus Cranny and as a mass has always been free. And from that point forward a lot of people used a messages because the iPhone penetration is actually very high. Now the WhatsApp was actually set up almost like the global instant messaging mobile instant messaging platform. And and at the time when WhatsApp was actually conquering the world I think you know there . Their positioning is very simple. I know that the user experience is actually as light as possible. It's SRM as replacement and as a result are any people around the world can be using it for us. At the time we actually decided to go deep . We say no we Chad if we can actually make it as a platform that everybody uses in China we can actually start adding other features to it and make it a platform right now. So from insta messaging we added the social network a moment and then we add it that official content platform which allows people to publish . And then we have payment which I pay which become the largest mobile payment platform in China. And that would mean the program which has allowed people to run all sorts of different app like activities. Eric you've become a advisor to government leaders in our country on artificial intelligence. So should people be worried about artificial intelligence taking away the jobs of people who have jobs today or should people embrace artificial intelligence. Going to make our life so much better . I believe very strongly we should embrace artificial intelligence. The artificial intelligence is not the thing that you see in the movies. You know where the robot kills kills the man and saves the girl and that sort of thing. Artificial intelligence is going to revolutionize health care. So for example the doctor spends all his time looking at you your skin your eyes what have you that's going to be better done by computers advising the doctor. The doctor will make the decision. All the evidence is that A.I. will be used in conjunction with people not to replace jobs . There are perhaps jobs which are very very routine which are better done by computers. But that process has been going on for a very long time. I may accelerate that. But the other thing to say is that because of the demographic problems right . Remember we have more and more older people and fewer young productive people in terms of workforce. They're going to need to be more productive in terms of economic productivity and they need to use a right to do so. So if I wanted to invest in young artificial intelligence companies should I go to China to find them. United States Israel. Where would I find this one. Yes . All those. Yes. And in fact we we really ought to study a couple of weeks ago about where a I was in the global scene . And there are a number of countries that are leading. There's no question that the U.S. is the farthest advanced. However China has as a national priority made leadership or at least co leading in A.I. a huge priority for their STEM related fields . They're producing many many more articles patents computer scientists and so forth. There's every reason to think that China will be a leader as well. Now you're the head of a commission that the Congress has authorized to study and figure out what to do about artificial intelligence. The members of Congress understand artificial intelligence since they hired us. Let me just say that they could use some education. OK. All right. And finally you made a very famous statement of maybe a couple of years ago now so that if we don't we're not careful we're gonna have to Internet. So Chinese Internet and American Internet. Are you worried that that's going to happen now. I continue to worry not about the Internet itself but that the applications environments will begin to be diff different. If you look at here we have these fantastic entrepreneurs that move very quickly and sort of came to sort of these extraordinary things in China which are generally not available in the United States. Similarly there are many many services in the United States that are not available in China . Eventually that's a bad thing right. The whole idea of the Internet was global connectivity global access global knowledge that collectively as human beings we're all better off. And I continue to believe that when the Internet was invented some people would say in the United States some people might say France wherever you. Was the United. All right United States . So Adam let's say DARPA or out of Pentagon or the first four sites were on the West Coast. OK. So when it was all up it was saying everybody come in and come in. Share the information . And as a result of that it's possible for people to come and hack where they're not really welcome. Is it possible to reinvent the Internet so that hacking is not possible. Well today there are many many people working on making the Internet much more reliable much more secure. The original Internet for example the DNS is the technology that does naming the DNS servers were all open. You could just change them. You could change China to be India or vice versa. Because the people who were building all of this were naive professors and academic people like me. And it would never occurred to us that people would try to sort of attack this kind of infrastructure because it was so pleasant and nice . And so as a result the Internet was not built in the early versions of IP with the kind of security that you would put it in if you knew it was going to become a global standard that has since been added. Now in the technology world the Silicon Valley which you're part of. Nobody wears a tie. I assume Utah did this for this purpose. But is it if you wear a tie does it slow down your thinking process. That the reason people in Silicon Valley don't do it are they don't want to take the time to put a tie on. What are you thinking . I think it's a cultural statement. California has always been different from I feel like you have colorful socks as a part of the Apple store that's considered. I don't think that that's considered acceptable. So today you're working on and Google has been working on as well artificial too much automatic driving or autonomous driving I should say . So how long will it be before I can be behind one of your cars and not have a driver in it and feel safe. Is that yours . First of all you said Alan first you're working on it. You've spun your division off here. And I think Google did you spend years off as well. OK. So I guess nobody wants to have it on their balance sheet because we have that. I can assure you . It's on our balance sheet on the ballot. Okay. The engineers will tell you it's five years five years away now but five years later they will tell you another five years. Now these engineers willing to go into the car. That's the question when they actually willing to go in the car where there's a autonomous driver. OK. Are you with your IBEX. You've been in one of these cars yet. Yes. Yes. As that in in the car. And you know I didn't put my hand up to the hotel the whole time . Well the fact that you know all these big companies put you know where a small one but they're a big one put aside. This means it takes a lot of commitment. And I think the fundamental drive for us to do this is we think this will make driving safer . Like you mentioned I'm a poor driver. So you know our key you know our key mission here is really to not just technology make kid mature but also commercialize a right. So I think what takes longer will be how to commercialize it. OK. But let me give us an idea. About one point three million people die in car accidents worldwide every year . Can you imagine how many people that is just in terms of death . Imagine if you could cut that in half. Six hundred thousand people would be alive. So the goal of our industry collectively is to reduce is to increase safety and reduce death. Yeah. So you know what I mean. Why in the world would that humans drive these cars. How long do you think it's five or ten years away before we get it. It's it's in the United States. Whammo has trials that are underway that have been quite successful in Arizona. So in China you are one of the more senior women running a major company or president of the company. So is it easier than in the United States to be a woman CEO or harder . Well I think first of all in China is actually quite encouraging for women to stay in the career. However it's still very hard right. You know you can. For men. I'm sorry. But you know no offense but normally all the men can plan their career for the next 30 years. Right. Without pausing . But for women in tech or not in tech in U.S. or in China you always think about you know what happens if you get married. If you have kids if you come back to work do you still have your position. So there are a lot of you know distractions you know fair or fairly or not. I think now you know it's much better than before but still has huge room to improve. So you're saying that men don't spend as much time on child rearing as women. Does that. I didn't say that. You didn't just say you didn't say that. OK. Mad Men has boring lives. So today when you started at the company you had 30 competitors in China. How many competitors do you have now. We still have a lot of competitors. I think we have one competitor to every province . And and you know China is a very very competitive huge. A lot of people experience it. You know I think everyone is trying so hard to please Chinese consumers. We have the most spoiled consumer in a good way. Everyone come here and compete. Right . So you have a camp when somebody is in one of your cars. You have a captive audience. So why don't you sell them advertising sell them financial services sell them anything. Why do you not do that. Or are you in the process of selling people things when they're in your money or cars. Well it's not our it's not our current focus yet. However when 5G comes when the experiencing side of the car can be significantly improved. We think we have better content for everyone to sit in the car that can have a karaoke. They can watch some video from 10:00. They launch one soap opera every week. 70 episodes all the time. So we have a lot of good content in China. However how to make it happen inside of a car requires better technology. So far you know if we sell something it's hard sell and I don't think people will buy it and should buy it. What about if somebody wants your service names show up your car shows up and the person is drunk you put him in the car. And what do you do with the drunk people . You actually ask the key question right. You know for a young company we are 7 year old. Right. You know that the thing that keeps us awake is actually was how to understand our responsibility. And how do you communicate with a commute you know communicate with the community right now. For example the question you ask. We got hundreds of complaints from our drivers saying they get assaulted by drunk passengers every day every day and they complain to us and say can we reject them . Right. And originally we thought we cannot let them let that happen cause bad things will happen to them. Right. So these are things we can make decision now. What we are doing is we put public consultation. We set up blog and we seek consultation from people. How many drivers you have 30 million or so. Yeah we have 30 million registered drive. How many of those are women. Well well we have two million drivers. Female drivers who million female of your customer base is at 50 50 . Female. Male or not. Yes. And is your average customer 70 years old or 30 years old. We have a diverse range because we have luxury black car. We also have bikes. Right. And you know express cars. But maturity. I would say 25 to 35. Are you in the electric scooter business also or. Yes. Is that safe for people you think. Yeah. We want to make sure it's safe. Yeah we have helmet helmets. Yeah. That's still they don't go to a hospital breaking bones that you don't have that here. We have that. The United States people breaking their bones on that. Good. Yes. Actually that's what we want to you know that's what we are working really hard on. Right. To make it safe. And when are you going to expand the United States . It's very crowded. Well you're not going to. Yeah I think we're we will pick a market that we can create real user value . Right. When there's a market that need our service then we will go to karaoke cars. Karaoke. Okay. I remember that. Martin I'm when people come to you presumably all the time and say I have the next week that I have the next great video game. How do you decide which ones to back. You have a team of people that looks at all these ideas and how many proposals you get for new ideas and how many do you reject. Ninety nine percent of them you reject. Yeah we get a little proposal. But at the same time I think our team actually go out and reach out to these entrepreneurs right now and try to look at the product. I think you know basically you look at the product the value proposition the tech and the people you know that's certainly the suite of things that you look at and eventually decide whether you want to mess and not. Right. So far I think the Web probably invested in about 600 companies. And when you want to get around China you use her service or you don't use her service. Sometimes you do. Yeah. And how do you rate it . Okay. That's great. And do you use. We chat a lot. I'm on it every second. And how do you rate it. Pretty good. Very very good. By the way we are a very early backer of the idea. So that's why I always want to use that service to make sure that they are actually providing good service. So Eric you are electrical engineer PHC and that from from Berkeley and you started a number of technology companies. But how would you say the technology world has changed in the United States and China since you first got into the technology world . When I started which was more than 40 years ago this was basically engineers scientists who were should have thought tinkering and inventing things that were interesting . There was no notion of marketing . There was no notion of branding. There was no money to be made . The salaries were low. And in the last 20 years that's completely changed. The industry is now immense. The teams are immense. The amounts of funding is immense. This is global . Talk about China. China companies will have 10000 people 20000 people in them. These are massive organizations. I keep wondering why do you need a thousand people to do A B or C. And the answer is you do because these things have gotten so complicated. So there's a story that when Google got its first money from venture capitalists they were supposed to go out and hire an adult to be the CEO . They didn't do it for a while. And the venture capitalists said give us the money back and they didn't want to give it back. So ultimately they decide to hire a CEO. You were the CEO but you ever ask the founders of Google whether they IBEX I've consider giving them money back or they never considered it. I don't think they ever considered. That was before I showed up. OK . So one of the things that Google has become famous for and other technology companies are is for a very free lifestyle. You come in. You feed people there so they don't leave. You take care of their laundry. You let them work all kinds of hours . Is that part of the culture. And you think that. Innovation or it just makes people feel better. Well the key with these workforce strategies is to have people who select in so the kind of strategies that we use. Work with people who are capable of working independently. They're highly motivated to care about what they're doing their passion about their work. So we select for that right. So our approach may not work in other industry where you don't select for it. So when you're interviewing people to hire when you were doing that earlier days where you're looking for people who are brilliant hardworking well-dressed well groomed. What was the thing I was looking for . We certainly the only dress code we had is that you had to wear clothes. OK that was a rule but we had to actually have that rule. So . But but the important point was we generally we found in the tech industry it moved so quickly that you have to look for people who have a kind of intelligence that's fluid. In other words they not only do they see something but they have to be able to deal with the many changes . Historically you could find people who had done something in a previous company but they were in to come to your company do it the same way. That doesn't work. Now many technology stars dropped out of college or didn't get their final degrees. So Bill Gates dropped out. Steve Jobs dropped out. Mark Zuckerberg dropped out. Now you got a page. Did you ever think how much more successful you would have been had you dropped out . You ever thought of that. I'm very happy I stayed in the educational system. OK. So in your case if you were to leave tomorrow and do something else what would you do. I suppose you've already done all the great things you could do. Didi would you. What would you do. Would you want to start your own company be a venture investor. I go back to Goldman Sachs . I'm glad that's an offer that I haven't really thought about this to be very frank. Right. I talked to my kids about if mommy retire that start at a cake shop and my biggest girl can play piano. And you know my youngest one can be the chef. But that's a joke. You know our job is so intense and challenging . If anyone in our service we understand you know we're fully occupied. You know we're awake all the time. So I don't have the luxury to think about what's the next stop for to be very honest. So in your case you're very young as well Mom. Have you thought about what you might do in the next stage of your life and now that you have a fair amount of money by normal human standards. We thought about philanthropy and things like that. Yeah . Well I think there's still a lot that we can do with the cream platform that we have now moving beyond that. I actually felt that you know there are certain things. Right which . Your Internet has really revolutionized but there are sectors which they have not right. So. So I think charities I think with very big opportunities actually digitizing the world and helping a lot of organizations digitize themselves. I know . And and I always look at technology advancement. And every time you have a 3G and 4G and new video platform the point industry is actually the first to innovate. And the last one is actually charities and education. Right. So if there is anything I can do right now I would actually want to help . Charities and education institutions to teach how are your parents alive . And are they proud of you or they tell you how they've raised you and if they were responsible for all your success. They tell you that or should be pretty happy. They aren't happy . Yeah. So if I had some actually I had some extra money and I said I can only buy one stock in China. I'm either gonna buy Alibaba 10 cent or buy what stock. By which I mean do you think you have the best future project projection of your original Dow Jones you buy. Yeah I'm looking for good. Yeah. Well you don't need more money. David always . OK. So you're tense and I assume you would say is a better investment. We try to do it. And if your stock is still a good investment this very high valuation that you won't say it's not you can't buy it but our long term investor I would advise you to. OK. And what is your company going public. By the way we don't have a specific timetable . You don't ever want to go public. No. OK. So if Google went public in a very unique way it kind of houses for a very unique way. The stock went public at about eighty five dollars a share . So today it's at more than two thousand split in 2000. Wow. OK. So I guess you have no regrets about going public. Right. We have nothing . We certainly have no regrets and we recommend it. Now you are involved a bit now in flat philanthropy. You've been involved before but how do you decide what to do as a philanthropist with your money. You're involved in technology things or other kinds of things. What does it look for. And for me personally we've given away money for environmental causes for a long time. But for me personally I was interested in the application of artificial intelligence to science. So we've been doing a great deal of money there and there are many many hardcore science problems that are now solvable that were not solved before in physics chemistry climate science et cetera. The newest idea which I'm very proud of is we decided to focus on the next generation of talent and we announced that we're going to contribute a billion dollars over a lifetime to searching for the next generation of incredibly smart people. This is sort of the future Einstein. So we did a partnership with Roads through the Rhodes Trust. So the road scholars to help them they will help select the people and it will help get them into global universities help them with their careers that kind of thing . So do you think that having fancy degrees is important or just a desire to work hard and not having the fancy degrees is important. When you're looking at young entrepreneurs you care whether they have a degree they don't have a degree. Well when you talk to somebody the great thing about the an advanced degree from a top university is the selection has already been done for you right. All of the various winnowing and so forth . You know they can show up. You know they're creative. You know that. They're hard working . There are exceptions. You see you quoted them. But if you look longitudinally at incomes a college degree and in particular an advanced degree and technical subjects is very important for wealth creation personal professional advancement so forth and so on. So if you were to put your finger on the one thing that made Google the search engine that conquered the world in some respects what would you say it was. It was the CEO. No certainly not. Was he. What would that what the founders said the founders set a culture of excellence with respect to engineering. And the search engine moved very very quickly to get just better and better and better. And people could sense it was better. And if we look at these two companies both Didi Didi and Tencent each of the moved very very quickly into these markets. And the story that's not told it has to be repeated is the window to get into a market is very narrow. Listen to her story of how quickly she had to respond to the challenge from Uber right in her description of how they work. And the Chinese folks work really really hard. Nine nine six and all that kind of stuff. So part of the outcome is luck strength timing but also a discipline at being lucky at the right time. How do you think women have as good a chance to rise up in technology companies as men in China. Sure. Absolutely . And you therefore you go out of your way to hire women or you don't go out of your way because they're equally talented . You're just gonna get the cross-section anyway. I think first of all women need to you know get rid of the glass ceiling concept. Secondly as a corporation we should create a more friendly environment for women. For example you know a lot of them when they give birth you know we create a work from home environment for them. And we actually initiated a women's network a few years ago actually four years ago just to encourage women to work from home. Actually one technology which I would really look forward to is to invest in a ROV ISE and and should totally do that. So that you know you can you can replicate this atmosphere at home. You can have the full experience had a home in this is emotional like the Bloomberg for is emotional. Right. If we could replicate this at home . Right. It empowers all the women. And I think it's off all the problems we talked about at this forum. Right. People get understanding. You know The New Yorker sees what's Beijing or is experiencing. Right. We understand what David's talking about. So I think you know went technologies you know can really empower a lot of things including women you know women's career in the end who are more responsible workers women or men . ISE. Well you asked my biased view. Yes. Well I'm not going to tell you. OK. So on the China dispute with the United States on trade you're probably familiar with it. Has it affected you in any way or do you really care whether it's resolved in the near term and won't affect you one way or the other . Well it hasn't affected us per say but then you know it's actually kind of dangers right. The way it is going right now . And if there is really going to be additional sanction or you know that the two countries actually go further apart because I think you know if you look at technology advancement and you know what we're talking about is innovation. Innovation really happens when people collaborate. And even if you look at China the the tech industry right now it's really fueled a point. You know a lot of grassroot energy entrepreneurs who know about the market. But at the same time there are a lot of engineers and entrepreneurs who have had experience in the states and come back and the capital which is funding this growth rate you know like your very company and you actually suddenly get a lot of them associated with the states . In experience. Right. So this kind of bio diversity is actually very very important. So innovation when you're looking to hire somebody you're looking to hire someone who's really really smart really really hardworking really really nice really really well-dressed. What are your big things . All of the above without the well-dressed well-dressed. Nobody is allowed to wear a tie in your company. They get it ties . But then usually I know that they just joined the company. OK . So nobody wears so that U.S. China trade agreement or not agreement yet. Does it affect you one way or the other. You care. Not really. How does it affect you. Yeah it doesn't affect Erik. Do you have any sense whether there's gonna be an agreement between the US and China. I don't and I don't think any of us know. I think it's important that it be resolved. This this this process that we seem to be going through of decoupling China and the United States is dangerous at many many levels. An example is that in the United States and our report from a high commission pointed this out the United States is critically dependent upon Chinese graduate students Chinese undergraduates but a particular Chinese graduate students who are exceptional and there in the American system and they are advancing American research. So as you begin to cut those limits it can hurt the United States as well as obviously China. So if somebody is sitting here and they say you're a very smart technology person I'd like to follow your lead. Where would you have people invest some of their money. And what areas would you think are the most attractive in the next five or 10 years and in technology. Well in general the biological revolution is going to be profound right. We've gotten to the point where the squishy stuff the hardcore biology can quickly be translated into analytical things digits and then huge insights come out whether it's in genetics or in treatments and so forth and so on. In many cases the payback for that is very long. However much shorter is the payback in medical field. So for example hospital services doctor services and so forth. So if I had one area to start I'd start in health care where the health care has a technological component where the technology is improving very quickly. The health care needs of the world are massive. Right. All of these countries have huge problems with respect to dealing with an aging generation and the health problems. It's a huge market . So if you were talking to students you teach at Stanford from time to time what would you tell students about the most important thing they should know about innovation and what brings innovation about . Well ultimately this is all about entrepreneurs. Right. And these entrepreneurs are good examples of what it takes and they're there. They are skilled and they're lucky and they're clever and they move quickly. You need to teach people that entrepreneurs need to be identified protected and trained. You will have many things in common. You're very smart very talented very successful. But the key the secret is this. Each of your companies has two syllables. So I got it right. Hang Seng Theda and Google. So that's what is the unifying thing . ISE. Right. Think of our life. So our law as well. So if you have two syllables in your company you're gonna make a lot of money. That's the key thing everybody should remember. Thank you. We're out of time. Thank you very much for a conversation that didn't happen .

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China Innovation: Schmidt, Rubenstein, Didi's Liu, Tencent's Lau (Video)