When engaging in GPS navigation/location service solutions, the principal of Gu Play was only more than 40 million US dollars. Of all this money, Gu Play invested tens of millions of dollars in R&D costs and operating costs to get the peripheral technology related to GPS services.

Because the basic research and development of drones and artificial intelligence are also promoted in parallel, before the GPS peripheral services are profitable, the research and development costs of drones are spent like water, and more than 20 million US dollars have been burned before and after.

This figure is still acceptable, because in the history of the earth, Dajiang wanted to get the technical level of its products in 2010 and groped for burning money for research and development, and it would only spend more than this

Of course, it is impossible for Gu Wan to use his two-year R&D expenditure to compare with the first two years of Dajiang in the same period in history. Because the first two years of Dajiang were detours, although the money was not very much, the things made were not good.

Since Gu Play has done it in one step, of course, he has to use his two years of R&D funds to compare with Dajiang's total R&D funds for four years in order to calculate who burns money more efficiently

If there is only expenditure and no input, by 2004, the net worth saved by selling AMS mass spectrometers and popular science books should have been spent in research and development.

However, fortunately, after two years of successful operation, the GPS positioning service has been made prosperous, and the automatic flight control aerial photography drone has sold more than 100,000 units worldwide in just a few months after it was launched. The company's capital chain and gross profit margin quickly stabilized, and it was able to live a closed life of self-sufficiency without equity financing.

This state of affairs is certainly not what the industry wants to see.

To be honest, it is indeed not conducive to the rapid development and spread of the industry.

Because at present, Gu Play is only using deep learning artificial intelligence as a tool, and Gu Play has no capital to pave the way for the application potential of other branches of deep learning.

He has enough money to spend, but it is based on the fact that he does not have much to do.

For example, machine vision or something, this thing is also an early application hotspot of artificial intelligence on the earth, whether it is social software or e-commerce software, they like to invest in this direction.

But for Gu Wan, whether he builds drones or navigates, they all serve his ultimate goal and dream of space exploration, so it is impossible for him to engage in machine vision, and that thing only has the value of making money for him, not the value of the front-end technology tree.

For a tech-climbing maniac like him, who misleads the country by spectacle, how can he care about vulgar people's livelihood technology.

So on May Day in 04, Wang Jingming, the owner of the venture capital fund who had been kicked away by him very facelessly, came to the door again licking his face, saying that he wanted to finance Gu Wan.

He also asked for the relationship of Zhou Xuan, a former subordinate and now the CFO of Hanhe Technology, so that he could talk about it and benefit him.

Gu Yu directly expressed his interest through Zhou Xuan's mouth.

Zhou Xuan was very considerate of him: "Cousin, Boss Wang is very sincere this time. Are you interested, you have seen the valuation. He thinks that your current business, if you accept equity financing, will be valued at least billions of dollars. ”

Gu Wan disagreed: "Dozens of billions of dollars? I now have a cash flow of more than 100 million US dollars, an annual profit of tens of millions, and an annual sales of 300 million, which is only how much net assets per share are converted." ”

Zhou Xuan hated iron for a while: "My ancestor, you are a big man in the technology industry, who counts the net assets per share, that is the traditional industry, the algorithm of building houses and selling land." Don't say that you are already profitable, but only the turnover is not profitable. Just calculating the price-earnings ratio, giving you thirty or fifty times is very little, and when the Internet bubble in Oceania is at its worst, it is easy to give two hundred times.

I'm not trying for you to make more money, the key is that you don't make oil and salt, and it will delay the speed of technological progress. There are some things that you don't allocate resources to do, but others want to do them, but they can't find the way in two or three years, so it's better to communicate with each other. ”

What Zhou Xuan said is right.

Artificial intelligence is used as a tool by Gu Play, indeed because this thing is easy to be open source in the future and cannot be blocked. Moreover, algorithms are not protected by patent law, as long as the ideas of algorithms inspire others, others can also start their own ideas.

But on the other hand, although the algorithm is not protected by law, when artificial intelligence is still relatively scarce, others may not be able to copy it if they want to, and there is a time difference problem, which cannot be ignored.

To put it simply, when deep learning artificial intelligence was first born, such as the time on Earth, Google had just hired Jeff Hinton and another professor of the same name, Benjill Young, to work at their institute.

At that time, there were three top professors on the planet who knew deep learning, and the doctoral students they had brought since 2006. At the moment when Google's letter of appointment was sent, there were 30 people on the planet who knew about it.

Therefore, it will take time for talents to split and multiply. From 30 technical bulls to one or two hundred, it may take two years, to thousands of people, and it will take another two years, so until 2016, when Google made the Falfa dog, deep learning artificial intelligence can be regarded as completely starting to enter the public outbreak.

In other words, by this point in time, the scale of relevant top technical personnel is large enough for all billion-dollar valuation technology companies to hire a few talents in this area.

From 30 sufficiently professional talents to thousands, it took 6 years for the earthlings. In 2016, the graduation salary offered to a deep learning master's student on the earth was at least 300,000 yuan per month, and the doctoral degree had a monthly salary of 800,000 yuan, all of which were calculated in RMB. (This price drops quickly after a year, because every year or two, the number of talents splits up several times.) Although there is still a gap, it will not be as scarce as it was at the beginning. ）

Therefore, after thinking about this truth, it also provided Gu Play with an idea:

Although algorithms and ideas are not protected by law, he still has a bargaining chip to control, that is, the talent layout in artificial intelligence in the next few years.

Because there are still too few people, they are all his and Ma Yiyi's protégés, classmates and colleagues, and these people have not fully realized their value in the industry, which has room for operation with people as bargaining chips.

If Gu Play plays the role of Jeff Hinton or Professor Bengil on the earth, he will be able to influence who will play the role of the leader of the martial arts alliance of Google on the earth in the next few years.

He himself doesn't want to be the leader of the martial arts alliance at the commercial level, he is not that material, and he can't operate. Even if Ma Yiyi is added, it can't be operated.

Ma Yiyi is the kind of CEO who is a top student, and scheduling a technology company is already her limit.

Therefore, Gu Yu spent a few days thinking about the cause and effect of this problem, and then replied to his cousin:

"I still won't let a speculator like Wang Jingming who has milk is a mother hitchhike. But what you said is not unreasonable, my perspective on the application of artificial intelligence is really narrow, and I don't have the energy to broaden it. The follow-up basic investment is not much.

Therefore, I decided to bring in the top socially responsible technology companies in China to work with me. I can use technical support in exchange for them to pay technology transfer fees or other financing support to Hanhe Technology, but I will not allow any financial capital to get their hands on Hanhe's shares.

On the contrary, I would like to be able to use technology support to take a stake and have a certain stake in other technology companies, not too much, as long as it reflects the value we create. I can help that company and be the leader of the martial arts alliance of the artificial intelligence open source platform.

Of course, it also has to fully demonstrate social responsibility, such as investing enough money in open source basic research. This money may not be directly fed back to funders in the form of profits, but become a general tool for society, and everyone can benefit from it. ”

Zhou Xuan heard his cousin relieved, and finally breathed a sigh of relief: "You donkey has finally opened his mind, I'm going to help you Zhang Luo, there must be a lot of Internet giants with intentions, do you have any specific requirements? Or is it as long as the strength is stronger, the better?"

When Gu Wan heard Zhou Xuan's statement, he was a little dissatisfied, and expressed it very bluntly: "Didn't you understand me? I'm talking about a 'technology company', not an 'Internet company'!"

Don't think that companies with Internet names are qualified to be called technology companies, those travel agency companies that rely on burning money to subsidize and play financial games are also worthy of being called technology companies?

You give me a good check, scale, financial strength is not the first, social responsibility is, those companies that have no dreams, harm primary school students, do demographic dividend business, no matter how rich you are, don't put it in for me, I don't see it. ”

Zhou Xuan understood his cousin's concerns, and then immediately went to arrange it.

A few days later, he screened out one of the top Internet companies in China, which is said to be more socially responsible, willing to spend money on hard technology, and never makes online games and mobile games, and is more upright at first glance.

In addition, I also found a few spare tires to accompany me and sent them to Gu Wan's desk together.

Gu Yu saw it and said that he could see them all.

Zhou Xuan immediately went to arrange the details of the meeting.

I heard that the top technical boss and originator of deep learning artificial intelligence are finally willing to expand cooperation, and those domestic Internet technology companies are of course all excited, and everyone is drawing up preferential conditions, wanting to be the leader of the martial arts alliance of the open source algorithm platform.

In such an atmosphere, one day at the end of May, Gu Play and Ma Yiyi met with the first batch and the most important potential collaborator, Jack House, at the headquarters of Hanhe Technology in Ark City.

It was a responsible technology company, and although the boss had an English name, he was definitely a yellow-skinned and yellow-hearted Oriental.

"It is a great honor for Mr. Gu to choose us for cooperation negotiations, and it is my honor to hear that this is Mr. Gu's first cooperation with external industrial capital. ”

"Mr. House is overrated, you are one of the top few people on the rich list, and I am just a small person. ”

"Money is not a measure of a person's contribution to society, and I have always respected scientists the most. ”