An AI Pioneer, and the Researcher Bringing Humanity to AI

In 1990, Kai-Fu Lee packed his bags and left Carnegie Mellon University, where he had been teaching artificial intelligence and speech recognition. He headed west to his first Silicon Valley job, running a new group trying to build speech interface technologies at Apple. Eight years later, Lee was hired by Microsoft with a specific mission: to go to China, start a research group, and develop a technology hub--and talent. Today, China's prowess in artificial intelligence can trace many of its roots back to that research group. In a now infamous move, Lee left Microsoft and--after prevailing against the company when it sued him for violating a noncompete agreement--went to Google in 2005 to lead Google China.