Chapter 75 April 12 "721" principle

Baidu should make a reasonable allocation of limited resources and implement the "721" principle.At present, 70% of the resources are invested in web search; 20% of the resources are invested in products related to web search, such as image search, knowing, encyclopedia, etc.; and 10% of the resources are invested in innovative businesses, such as Baidu. The reason why we invest in these businesses is that we are optimistic about the potential of these businesses, and the second is that these businesses can take advantage of Baidu's existing advantages.Baidu's advantage is that it has a huge user base. Users actively express their needs every day. These characteristics are not available in other Internet companies. Users of other Internet companies are passively accepting content.Baidu is the first to know about changes in user needs.

This made us realize that based on this platform of its own, Baidu may start some new businesses.So we are willing to devote 10% of our energy and resources to innovative businesses.Once these businesses are completed, we will consider investing more energy. In 2000, a very good engineer left Baidu.In Baidu, the turnover rate of technical talents, especially core backbone talents, is very low, and the departure of this engineer is an "accident".The accident happened because of the engineer's dedication to e-commerce.At that time, e-commerce was very popular in China. The engineer approached Robin Li and expressed his thoughts seriously.Li Yanhong, the project manager and the technical team conducted a careful investigation, and the final conclusion is that the Chinese Internet e-commerce market is not yet mature, and Internet users do not have enough trust in online shopping.The research data at that time also proved that among Baidu's search terms at that time, there were relatively few search terms related to products, and Baidu hoped to develop products in response to the common search requests of netizens.In the end, Li Yanhong could only tell the engineer: "Sorry, we don't do e-commerce at present." In the end, the engineer who was obsessed with e-commerce regretted leaving Baidu.

Seven years later, in October 2007, Baidu finally announced its entry into the field of e-commerce and established a dedicated e-commerce division.This year, when Baidu discussed whether to do e-commerce, people's opinions were almost unanimous: it must be done.And a series of survey data also confirm that the time is ripe: Baidu already has a traffic platform, and the e-commerce market is becoming mature.Compared with engaging in e-commerce seven years ago, the ratio of Baidu's investment to gains, as well as the effective use of extremely limited capital and human resources, are not the same.

With limited resources, we must first choose the most important and most valuable things to do.