<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"The CEO of Baidu, one of China's largest and most powerful Internet companies, says 99% of China's online population uses its search engine, but he maintains the company isn't anti-competitive.\nBaidu, China's largest search engine, doubled in value since January and is worth just as much as Facebook and eBay.  It has even been outperforming Google in China, something very few companies can claim.\nRobin Li, Baidu's CEO, is on stage with journalist John Battelle at Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, speaking about Baidu's rapid growth, Google's recent decision to leave China and the differences between the Chinese market and the U.S. market.\nHere are our live notes from the conversation:\nLive Notes: Robin Li, CEO of Baidu\nAll times are in Pacific Standard Time\n5:16 PM: Battelle: If you were Eric Schmidt, what would you have done to win China?  Li's advice would have been to live in China for at least six months.\n5:17: Battelle: Baidu has a $40 billion market cap, and the stock price has doubled in January.  Do you feel pressure to keep the rocket ship going?  Li: No. I never thought search would be so profitable.  Stock goes up and down.  What matters to me is that revenue, users and profit keep growing.\n5:19: Battelle: How big can it get? Li: Already, 99% of China's users use Baidu.\n5:22: Robin Li on Google leaving China earlier this year: People think Baidu is the only choice in China.  In reality, there are many more choices than in the U.S., including Tencent, Sogo and a several others.  \n5:24: Battelle asks again about why Google failed in China.  Li is focusing on the competitiveness of the Chinese Internet space, the difference between cultures and Chinese engineering talent willing to go back to China to start companies.  \"If you're not prepared to compete in this market, you're not going to be successful.\" \n5:27: Baidu has many other products, including Baidu Notes (100 million questions answered by Chinese users so far).  It also has a social flavor that makes it hard to leave.\n5:29: Battelle: Would it ever make sense to integrate Facebook Connect? Li: We don't have a full-blown social graph yet.  The purpose of our product is make search easier.  If any product will make it easier, we're happy to look at it.\n5:31: Battelle asks about building an entrepreneurial company in an environment like China.  Li responds that it's still an emerging market, so we need to be patient.\n5:33: Battelle asks about censorship and whether it was a frustrating issue for Li.  Li says it was a frustration.  His first reaction was to move to Hong Kong.  He then realized that wouldn't work for Baidu.  If he moved to Hong Kong, \"they would call me anti-government \u2014 my life would be ruined.\"  If an American company decided to break Chinese law, it would have to be called a \"strategic partner.\"  \n5:34: Some part of the Chinese government is making a search engine, apparently.  Robin Li doesn't seem worried about it. \"We're allowed to compete,\" he says.  \"It's OK.\"  Battelle follows up, saying it would be unthinkable in the U.S. for its government to compete with the free market like that.  Li responded, \"I'm not worried.\"\n5:35: Li: Most of China uses 2G phones to get on the web.  That means it's slow and expensive, since users are charged by number of bytes.  There are some people, very few, who use smartphones; and 3G is available but not popular yet.  Most people are low-income migrant workers or nannies who can't afford things like laptops or smartphones.  That makes user behavior very different, but it'll change as 3G networks become more popular.\n5:38: Battelle: Could Baidu provide something like Android?  Li: \"Our vision of the future of mobile and web search is 'box computing.'\"  In the future, for whatever device you use, when you turn on the device, it'll be on instantly, instead of waiting 20 seconds.  In one second, you see a search box.  It's not just search though, it's ubiquitous.  It replaces the OS.  It's the starting point of everything.\n5:40: Battelle: In the U.S., part of the entrepreneurial mythos is to be offered an ungodly amount of money for your company or product and to reject the offer. Baidu had that situation, it had acquisition offers; why did you say no? Li: At the time, the Internet market was very small.  He didn't think Yahoo, Microsoft and Google realized that revenue could increase exponentially in five years.\n5:44: Li says, \"We have the largest Internet population in the world.\"  In 2003, Baidu made it social.  It's hard to switch.  Tencent is probably earlier than Facebook to building a social network, he says.  That company started as an instant messenger but quickly became dominant.  \n5:46: Last question: Will Baidu expand beyond China? Li answers that it has ambitions for Japan.  The U.S. is not a high priority because it's a relatively large and mature market. Baidu will have to think more carefully about it."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2010/11/15/baidu-robin-li/>