Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

February 12th, the day before classes started at Xuyuan.

Students returning to campus dragged their suitcases along Xue Lin Road. The cold early-spring wind rustled the leaves of the plane trees. Along the Pearl Lakefront, the early cherry blossoms were dense and clustered, resembling a pink cloud from a distance.

A silver Bentley drove slowly from the direction of the faculty apartments, passing the stadium and library before heading off toward the East Gate.

”Hey, I think that’s Senior Chen Yansen!”

”Forget ’I think’! Besides the chancellor and the deans, he’s the only one at our school who can drive a private car on campus.”

”Oh yeah, I heard Orange Technology is hiring voice data labelers. It’s ten yuan an hour. Too bad my Mandarin proficiency is only Level 2-B; they require 2-A.”

”Are there a lot of openings? I have a Level 1-B certificate. I want to give it a try.”

”Bro, who said you need Level 2-A Mandarin? As long as your dialect dictation skills are strong enough, you can get the job.”

Five or six students chattered amongst themselves as they watched the Bentley drive away.

Just then, a freshman came over and asked curiously, ”Excuse me, seniors, where can I sign up? I’m looking for a part-time job too.”

”The Orange Technology website. You have to go to your user profile and enter your Xuyuan student ID number first. Only then will the application section appear,” one of them replied.

”Thanks, seniors.” The freshman thanked them repeatedly.

Before Chen Yansen came to Xuyuan, the only part-time jobs available to most students were library assistant or cafeteria janitor. Not only was the pay low, but the competition was also fierce.

The positions were usually all snatched up within the first week of the new semester.

The rest could only work as internet cafe administrators, deliver clothes for laundromats, or hand out flyers downtown. The daily wage was usually only 30-40 yuan, and you’d be exhausted by the end of it.

But ever since Orange Technology and Pinbei came along, college students who wanted to earn some spending money could, at the very least, find a job as an online customer service representative. They could sit in an air-conditioned office, enjoy free fruit, snacks, and drinks every day, and easily make 100 yuan.

Because of this, Chen Yansen enjoyed a quiet life living at the school.

For one, many people hoped to work at Orange Technology or Pinbei Mall after graduation, and Chen Yansen was their potential future boss, so no one dared to disturb him casually. For another, everyone saw him on campus so often that the novelty had worn off.

「Meanwhile.」

Chen Yansen arrived at the Zhuxianzhuang Science and Technology Park, parked his car, and strode into Building 9.

”Good morning, Boss!” a tall, beautiful young receptionist called out sweetly.

Chen Yansen nodded slightly and walked toward the elevators.

”Morning, Boss!” Zhou Chuangxi was standing in the elevator and was just about to press the close-door button when he saw the big boss walking toward him. He quickly held the open-door button instead.

”Morning, Lao Zhou! By the way, has the Ke Da Xunfei voice database been synced yet?”

Chen Yansen replied, asking casually.

Before its official launch, YuXi needed to collect a massive amount of voice data. Only through precise manual labeling, combined with deep learning algorithms, could more advanced acoustic and language models be developed.

This would, in turn, improve YuXi’s voice recognition accuracy!

Generally speaking, there are four ways to acquire voice data. First, collection with user authorization. Second, professional audio recording, which is mainly a paid model.

Third, free and publicly available voice data covering multiple languages, dialects, and different speech scenarios. Fourth, data sharing.

Chen Yansen chose the fourth option. With Tao Jingwen acting as an intermediary, Orange Technology established a partnership with Ke Da Xunfei. Data generated by Orange Mobile Phone users using the voice function would be shared between both parties.

Orange Technology saved a great deal of money and time, while Ke Da Xunfei could take the opportunity to enrich its own voice database.

”Boss, it’s already done. However, about 30% of the voice data hasn’t been manually labeled yet, so it can only be considered raw data.”

Zhou Chuangxi gave a dry laugh and quickly replied.

Having only been on the job for two weeks, he was already used to how Chen Yansen addressed him.

As a top student from Huake University’s class for gifted youth and a PhD in electrical engineering from UIUC, his expertise was in computer vision, image processing, and voice recognition technology.

In his opinion, Chen Yansen calling him Lao Zhou actually added a sense of familiarity.

Back then, the two had only chatted briefly for half an hour during a video interview, but Zhou Chuangxi had immediately decided to return to Hua Country and join Orange Technology to build a large-scale AI voice model software.

”The HR department is helping you recruit data labelers. Next week, Daniel Povey from Microsoft will also be joining. I’m leaving the Orange Technology Artificial Intelligence Laboratory to the two of you. I hope to see the product launch soon.”

Chen Yansen said, clapping Zhou Chuangxi on the shoulder.

One of them was twenty years old, the other thirty-one. But in front of Chen Yansen, Zhou Chuangxi, the PhD in electrical engineering from UIUC, acted like a humble student.

The main reasons were twofold. First, Chen Yansen offered an extremely generous package: a monthly salary of 100,000 yuan, plus 100,000 shares of Orange Technology stock options vested over four years. If he achieved significant results, there would be additional equity rewards. All told, it amounted to an annual salary of over 4 million yuan.

Second, when he learned that the entire system framework for YuXi had been single-handedly written by Chen Yansen, he was utterly shocked. After reviewing the code, he developed a sense of awe for his new boss.

’He knew in his heart that with Chen Yansen’s programming skills, he could become a top master in the field of AI voice recognition, even in the Lighthouse Country.’

Therefore, under the guise of work, Zhou Chuangxi would find time to discuss the optimization of the voice model with Chen Yansen whenever he could.

These days actually reminded him of his time studying at UIUC.

”Daniel Povey?” Zhou Chuangxi asked subconsciously after hearing his new colleague’s name.

”You know him?” Chen Yansen asked, surprised.

At this time, Daniel wasn’t very famous in the AI field. The Kaldi speech recognition toolkit he was developing was still in its early stages, and his most impressive title was merely that of a senior engineer at the Microsoft Research Institute.

”He gave a guest lecture at UIUC once. He left a deep impression on me. The man’s accomplishments in voice recognition technology are immense.”

Zhou Chuangxi praised him without reservation.

”That’s right, it’s him!” Chen Yansen said with a smile.

”Boss, isn’t he a professor at Johns Hopkins University?” Zhou Chuangxi asked in confusion.

”I told him that the Orange Technology Artificial Intelligence Laboratory will build a computing cluster with petabyte-level storage and 600 GPUs, achieving a total computing power of 15 PetaFLOPS.”

Chen Yansen shrugged, revealing the main reason Daniel was willing to join Orange Technology.

PetaFLOPS meant it could perform 15 quadrillion floating-point operations per second.

Of course, this also had to do with his superhuman, almost ’Succubus-like’ Spiritual Power; with just a few words over the phone, he had secured a top R&D engineer from the future AI world.

Seven years from now, Facebook would offer him the position of chief scientist and a million-US Dollar annual salary, and he would reject it flatly.

Yet Chen Yansen had only offered him a monthly salary of 22,000 US Dollars, and Daniel had eagerly accepted.

A server with 15 PetaFLOPS of computing power was simply too alluring!

After all, the total computing power of the speech processing center at Johns Hopkins University at the time was barely 0.5 PetaFLOPS.

”Boss, are you serious?” Zhou Chuangxi swallowed, asking in disbelief.

”What’s there to be serious about? I had someone run the numbers. The cost is only 300 million yuan.”

Chen Yansen smiled and shook his head, looking unconcerned.

DING. The elevator doors slowly opened.

Zhou Chuangxi hurried after him. ”Boss, that’s 15 PetaFLOPS of computing power! The Lighthouse Country’s Titan supercomputer is only 17.6 PetaFLOPS.”

Chen Yansen just smiled faintly.

’He sighed internally, marveling at how quickly computer processing power evolved.’

Thirteen years later, NVIDIA would launch an AI supercomputer called Project DIGITS, capable of providing 1 PetaFLOPS of floating-point operations per second for only 21,999 yuan.

But in 2012, building a computer server with equivalent computing power—not including electricity and maintenance costs—would cost nearly 30 million yuan in hardware alone.

Zhou Chuangxi’s eyes widened and his jaw went slack. He finally understood why Daniel, that guy from the United Kingdom, was willing to come to Hua Country.

A server with 15 PetaFLOPS of computing power alone was enough to attract a whole wave of computer science PhDs from Evergreen Ivy and Tsinghua and Peking Universities.

There were actually quite a few labs with massive computing power in the Lighthouse Country. But with Zhou Chuangxi’s and Daniel’s level of influence in the industry, even if they got in, they would at best be used as stepping stones for others. How could that compare to the comfort of joining Orange Technology and being given full responsibility for a project?

”Lao Zhou, the hardware needed to build the server cluster will arrive this week. You decide on the location for the server room. Also, the telecom company has set up a 4G experience point in the Science and Technology Park, so you don’t have to worry about the network.”

Chen Yansen added before entering his office.

”Got it, Boss. I’ll get back to work then.” Zhou Chuangxi smiled, walking cheerfully toward his workstation.

As he walked, he marveled at Chen Yansen’s local influence.

After all, this was 2012. The three major carriers hadn’t even received their 4G licenses yet, but Orange Technology was already enjoying a 4G network ahead of schedule.

Chen Yansen pushed the door open, plopped down into his soft chair, and casually turned on his computer.

Compared to Sweden, Norway, Korea, and the Lighthouse Country, Hua Country’s domestic 4G network was still in the exploration and construction phase for commercial use.

He first checked the business status of Pinbei, Orange Technology, Kuai Pao, and Clound Speed. Seeing no issues, he slowly started browsing the news.

’February 11th: The nation’s first 4G experience point opens to the public in Hang City, with average download speeds reaching 30 Mbps...’

Chen Yansen scoffed. ’Hua Country’s first 4G site is obviously here at the Zhuxianzhuang Science and Technology Park.’

’But this little perk was specially approved for him by Xu Zhenhui and Zhao Maolin. It was something to be used, not talked about.’

’Vipshop submitted its IPO application to the Lighthouse Country Securities Association yesterday, with an estimated fundraising goal of 125 million US Dollars.’

’The Great Group Buy War heats up! Lashou, Nuomi, and Meituan form a three-way standoff, with Dianping, WoWo Group, and QQ Group in hot pursuit!’

’Walmart announces increase of its stake in Yihaodian to 51%, officially taking control!’

’Ma Liyun and Wang Jianlin make a 100 million yuan bet: Can e-commerce capture 50% of the retail market?’

’The food delivery war erupts! Eleme is losing to the Overseas Dragon, with its Hu City market share down to 60%!’

Chen Yansen glanced over them casually, thinking that the internet scene in 2012 was far more fertile than it would be a decade later.

A bunch of vertical e-commerce sites he’d never even heard of were raising tens of millions at the drop of a hat.

’This truly was a golden age for entrepreneurs!’

’As long as you dared to dream and could spin a good story, venture capitalists were actually willing to cough up the cash!’

Take Zhang Yiming’s Byte, for example. Nothing was set in stone yet, but he managed to secure 5 million in funding with just a PowerPoint presentation.

「At the same time.」

Ah Li was busy upgrading its B2C business and using Wealth Treasure to expand its payment scenarios.

Qian Du was busy optimizing its search engine algorithm and had started experimenting with adding recommendations for nearby businesses, restaurants, and entertainment to Qian Du Map, directing traffic to group-buy websites to earn advertising fees and commissions.

Penguin was busy stepping up its promotion of WeChat, which was locked in a love-hate relationship with its own QQ, while also announcing that its total user base had surpassed one hundred million!

Meanwhile, Chen Yansen was quietly poaching two tech titans from the AI field in the Lighthouse Country, embarking on the path to developing a large-scale voice model.