Robin Li Yanhong (; born 17 November 1968) is a Chinese software engineer and billionaire internet entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of the search engine

Baidu Baidu, Inc. ( ; , meaning "hundred times") is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in Internet-related services and products and artificial intelligence (AI), headquartered in Beijing's Haidian District. It is one of the l ...

. As of March 2022, his net worth was estimated at US$8.5 billion. Li studied

information management Information management (IM) concerns a cycle of organizational activity: the acquisition of information from one or more sources, the custodianship and the distribution of that information to those who need it, and its ultimate disposal throug ...

Peking University Peking University (PKU; ) is a public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education. Peking University was established as the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 when it received its royal charte ...

and computer science at the

University at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 18 ...

. In 1996, he created RankDex, the first web search engine with page-ranking and site-scoring algorithms."About: RankDex"
rankdex.com; accessed 3 May 2014. In 2000, he founded Baidu with Eric Xu. Li has been CEO of Baidu since January 2004. The company was listed on

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

on August 5, 2005. Li was included as one of the ''15 Asian Scientists To Watch'' by ''

Asian Scientist Magazine ''Asian Scientist'' is an English language science and technology magazine published in Singapore. History and profile ''Asian Scientist'' was launched in March 2011 by Asian Scientist Publishing Pte Ltd (now known as Wildtype Media Group Pte L ...

'' on 15 May 2011. In August 2014, Li was appointed by the

United Nations Secretary General The secretary-general of the United Nations (UNSG or SG) is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the six principal organs of the United Nations. The role of the secretary-g ...

Ban Ki-Moon Ban Ki-moon (; ; born 13 June 1944) is a South Korean politician and diplomat who served as the eighth secretary-general of the United Nations between 2007 and 2016. Prior to his appointment as secretary-general, Ban was his country's Ministe ...

, as co-chair of the Independent Expert Advisory Group on Data Revolution for Sustainable Development. Li is a member of the 12th

Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC, zh, 中国人民政治协商会议), also known as the People's PCC (, ) or simply the PCC (), is a political advisory body in the People's Republic of China and a central part of ...

Early years

Li was born in Yangquan,

Shanxi Province Shanxi (; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-level ...

, 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's degree in

from

. In the fall 1991, Li went to the

in the US to study for a doctorate in computer science. He received his master's degree in 1994, after deciding not to continue with the PhD.

RankDex

In 1994, Li joined IDD Information Services, a

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...

division of

Dow Jones and Company Dow Jones & Company, Inc. is an American publishing firm owned by News Corp and led by CEO Almar Latour. The company publishes '' The Wall Street Journal'', '' Barron's'', '' MarketWatch'', ''Mansion Global'', ''Financial News'' and '' Privat ...

, where he helped develop a software program for the online edition of ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

''. 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, which was awarded a U.S. patent. It was the first search engine that used hyperlinks to measure the quality of websites it was indexing, predating the very similar algorithm patent filed by

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

two years later in 1998. Google founder

Larry Page Lawrence Edward Page (born March 26, 1973) is an American business magnate, computer scientist and internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-founding Google with Sergey Brin. Page was the chief executive officer of Google from 1997 unti ...

referenced Li's work in some of his U.S. patents for

PageRank PageRank (PR) is an algorithm used by Google Search to rank webpages, web pages in their search engine results. It is named after both the term "web page" and co-founder Larry Page. PageRank is a way of measuring the importance of website pages. A ...

. Li later used his Rankdex technology for the Baidu search engine.

Road to Baidu

Li worked as a staff engineer for

Infoseek Infoseek (also known as the "big yellow") was an American internet search engine founded in 1994 by Steve Kirsch. Infoseek was originally operated by the Infoseek Corporation, headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. Infoseek was bought by The Wa ...

, 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 search engine in the world. On 5 August 2005, Baidu successfully completed its IPO on

, and in 2007 became the first Chinese company to be included in the

-100 Index. He appeared in CNN Money's annual list of "50 people who matter now" in 2007.

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 August 2005, he was named in the twelfth session of the "ASEAN Youth Award". In December 2005, he was named one of the "CCTV 2005 Chinese Economic Figures of The Year". In December 2006 he was named 2006's "World's Best Business Leader" by the ''American Business Weekly''.

Personal life

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

References

External links

"NEWSMAKER-Baidu founder rules China's Web with pragmatism"
by Melanie Lee, ''

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was est ...

'', 19 January 2010.
Robin Li profile
ir.baidu.com; accessed 3 May 2014.

September 2009; accessed 3 May 2014.

accessed 3 May 2014. {{DEFAULTSORT:Li, Robin 1968 births Living people 21st-century Chinese businesspeople 21st-century inventors Baidu people Businesspeople from Shanxi Businesspeople in information technology Businesspeople in software Chinese billionaires Chinese computer businesspeople Chinese computer scientists Chinese inventors Chinese software engineers Chinese technology company founders Dow Jones & Company people Engineers from Shanxi Internet pioneers Peking University alumni People from Yangquan University at Buffalo alumni Members of the 12th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Members of the 13th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference