Technologist·Yunyou Intelligent CEO Tang Zhengrong: Consistent values lay the foundation for working together, technological innovation accelerates industry change

Tang Zhengrong, Founder and CEO of Yunyou Intelligent Technology
Senior Director (M5/P10) of Taobao, Alipay, and B2B, CTO of Japan Alibaba. He was responsible for Taobao's technical architecture transformation, the creation of Paybao, the reconstruction of Alibaba International Station, Tao Japan and other projects. After leaving Alibaba, he served in Weibo Medical CTO, Travel CTO, iTutorGroup (VIPABC) COO&CTO.

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Tang Zhengrong is one of the active promoters in the field of Internet technology in China.

The most recent active cycle of Tang Zhengrong's frequent appearance was in 2019. Lao Tang, who was the COO of iTutorGroup at that time, ran around to preach his concept and practice of "artificial intelligence technology driving educational reform".

In July 2019, Ping An of China strategically became a shareholder of iTutorGroup, and Laotanggong succeeded in retiring. Since then, "Where has the Laotang gone" has become a stubborn comment made by insiders after drinking and drinking.

"Science and Technology" is fortunate to have this opportunity to talk to Tang Zhengrong, who has been in a low-key manner for two years.

Dropping out of Tsinghua University, a big adventure in life
Irrational decision

Tang Zhengrong has shown unsatisfactory characteristics since he was a student. When applying for Tsinghua University, I chose computer major not because of my passion, but because it is "difficult." However, he was admitted to the Department of Computer Science and Technology of Tsinghua University, and he was thinking about studying abroad. He was afraid that he could not pay the "large" training fee of 2500 yuan per year. He had to choose to withdraw from school. Being able to withdraw from school means a huge risk: once the study abroad is unsuccessful, he can only reopen. Taking the college entrance examination, but in fact, the probability of unsuccessful studying abroad is very high, because the computer undergraduate can not get the full prize, and the high probability will be rejected.

In the end, Tang Zhengrong was lucky enough to get a visa, but this was just the beginning of a bitter study abroad journey. After arriving in the United States, he found that there was no second Chinese undergraduate in the whole school. In addition, he had to study part-time and part-time. He learned how to survive earlier than his peers...

Dare to think, dare to do, dare to take risks, Tang Zhengrong is destined to embark on an extraordinary career and life.

Technologist: If you come again, would you still choose to drop out?

Tang Zhengrong: I once thought that if I didn't choose to drop out, my life would be very different. It's not that dropping out of school changed me much, but that it gave me confidence in my irrational decision-making. I am a very logical person. If I were allowed to make rational decisions, I would definitely not take such a big risk, because it was very illogical and irrational. But most major decisions in life, because of lack of information, can only rely on irrational decisions, which may have affected many of my subsequent decisions.

You can decide your own importance
The shortcut to the ultimate is to work harder than others

Lao Tang has worked in the United States for 10 years. In previous interviews, these ten years have often been taken over. In fact, Tang Zhengrong's career outlook is closely related to this decade, including attitudes, beliefs and principles.

After graduating from graduate school, Tang Zhengrong chose a start-up company for his first job. Like many young programmers who are technically supreme, Lao Tang can easily disagree with what other programmers write. Work overtime every day to change programs written by others. Colleagues looked at this newcomer so passionately and stubbornly, and let him go, and 80% of the company's code was maintained by him alone.

Soon after, the Internet bubble gradually reached its peak, and the company airborne the well-known CEO and moved the office to the most expensive office building in the city center for "$900 a chair."

As you might expect, the company declared bankruptcy a few months later, and the manager called Tang Zhengrong to the office, "The company will lay off almost all hundreds of employees. The next is the bankruptcy protection period. The bankruptcy protection law will give the company some time. To try to restore operation, so there will be 5 people left to continue to work, we will all be laid off, but you must stay."

Work hard, is it involuntary, or is it the fuel for growth? According to the 2021 marketing number standard, Tang Zhengrong, when he first entered the workplace, can be called the king of scrolls, but facts have proved that achieving the ultimate, being indispensable, and being proud of it can greatly accelerate growth.

For example, Tang Zhengrong, after struggling with life and death in the United States for several years, he received a kind invitation from Wu Jiong, then CTO of Alibaba.

Alibaba's explosive development of technology master
Criticized by Jack Ma for refactoring too much

Tang Zhengrong said with a smile that the reason for returning to China was "coveting" Alibaba's free ticket. In fact, he has long thought of returning to China, but he has been in the United States for a long time and has never known whether he can adapt to the culture of the domestic company. This opportunity is two-way. While Alibaba interviewed him, he also wanted to understand the differences between domestic companies and American companies. Therefore, he made serious preparations and prepared a lot of technical dry goods to share. Everyone".

Tang Zhengrong's life has once again changed drastically because of "pursuing the ultimate, thinking one step more, and doing one more layer". As the first returned engineer invited by Taobao that year, the company attaches great importance to it. Two days of interviews and communication, from Jack Ma to the first-line engineer, left a deep impression on him. Tang Zhengrong was surprised by Ali's positive, motivated, active and open temperament. He was vaguely aware of his homeland, and a storm with the Internet as the core was brewing.

Tang Zhengrong did not agree to join in the first time. After all, he really wanted to give up the high salary in Silicon Valley and move his family back to China. It is difficult for him to take this step rationally. Ali kept the offer very sincere. Until one day later, Tang Zhengrong, who was on his way to work, received a call from Wu Jiong, "SoftBank’s $84 million investment is in place. If you don’t come, the offer will be gone." , He plucked up the courage to make an important irrational decision again: cut his salary and return to China.

Responsible for the structural transformation of Taobao in 2004-Responsible for the creation of Alipay at the end of 2004-Responsible for B2B work in 2005-Responsible for the technology of international websites for the first 3 years, and Alibaba (Japan) for the next 3 years-2011, Back to Alipay and Taobao...

Tang Zhengrong witnessed the rise of Taobao and the birth of Alipay, and became a witness to the huge waves of China's Internet. Talking about the eight years in Ali, what Tang Zhengrong impressed the most was not his brilliant achievements, but a lesson he learned.

Technologist: What is the biggest pit you have ever stepped on or the most impressive lesson?
Tang Zhengrong: After taking over Ali International Station for more than a year, because its underlying structure is not well done, more and more needs cannot be realized, and my own requirements for technology are very high, so I decided to reconstruct the bottom layer. What I didn't expect was that this reconstruction took nearly a year, and the impact on the business was very large. The project was criticized by Jack Ma.

This matter is very important to the company in the long run, but in retrospect, the method of execution is still too radical. The dominant thought at the time was to deny history and start over. This is a mistake that many technicians make easily. I also want to thank the business colleagues of the international website. They are very tolerant and even took the blame for me. The main responsibility for this matter lies with me.

After experiencing this incident, I really understand why we need to change the engine while flying. Of course we need the future, but it is impossible to skip the present and go straight to the future. We must take into account the ongoing business.

Two principles of life in decision-making: human beings, artificial intelligence

Technologist: After leaving Ali, you have served as CTO of WeDoctor, CTO of Tutor Group, COO of iTutorGroup, and now you have established Yunyou Intelligent Technology, which spans multiple tracks of health, tourism, and education. It seems that you are not If you are desperate in a specific industry direction, what is your principle for choosing your career direction?

Tang Zhengrong: The choice of the track is of course very important. As long as the information is not blocked, the possibility of choosing the wrong track is unlikely. With the development of technology, more and more good tracks have emerged. But when choosing a specific company or project, I have my own principles:

The first principle is to judge whether to join a team. I actually recognize people. When I recommend jobs to colleagues and friends, I will give them advice: Before the interview, you must know who the boss is, and you'd better know how to work in the future. Who are my team colleagues? Because everyone will work together for a long time in the future, and the core values must be consistent. This is my biggest experience. I am lucky for the next few jobs and will soon be integrated after joining.

Why is the selection of people so important, because it determines the cost of trial and error. Although everyone is in the same direction, the specific goals and specific methods cannot always be the same when implementing them. In the process of starting a business, a lot of mistakes will inevitably be made. When everyone’s core values are the same, there will be less mutual accusations within the team, more trust in each other, and more confidence in the team. The internal friction is less, the efficiency is higher, and the trial and error cost is lower.

The second principle is to judge how much technology can promote the transformation of this industry. For example, in Tuniu, technology can disassemble non-standard tourism products, and use server computing power to arrange and combine many factors such as tourism routes, transportation methods, travel time, how to join groups, and help users find the best travel plan. Even because of technology, a new business model of destination group joining has emerged.

At the time of iTutorGroup, algorithms became the core of business management. For example, teacher management, courseware management, customer service management, sales management, etc., most of the daily operations are supported by algorithms. The most important thing is that technology has overturned the inefficient model of institution scheduling or students choosing teachers in traditional education. The three core elements of each lesson: students, teachers, and courseware are not arranged in advance, but are matched by the AI algorithm of the lesson scheduling system. At the end of each class, the students will score the teacher. If the student scores a low score, it means that the match is not good enough, and the algorithm will re-match; if it is a high score, the algorithm will continue to push similar teachers to the students. . In this way, not only has the teacher's rate of enrollment increased, but customer satisfaction has also been higher.

Of course, this judgment sometimes fails. For example, in the case of WeDoctor, technology can make hospital registration move from offline to online, making it more convenient for patients, but it cannot solve the more fundamental problem, that is, the problem of medical resource mismatch. Patients register on their own and often choose the most famous and "good" experts, even if they are only a minor illness. Patients often choose the wrong experts, which leads to a large amount of medical resources not being used for suitable patients. After the epidemic, the global shortage of medical resources has become more serious. The matching of medical resources required a change, but the technological conditions at that time could not promote this change.

Breaking smart wearables

Based on new material technology, weaving technology, Internet of Things, big data and artificial intelligence, Tang Zhengrong’s Yunyou Smart, built by Tang Zhengrong’s two-year retreat, has developed a smart clothing that can monitor data such as heart health, sleep health, and mental health. The accuracy of the data has reached the medical level and obtained the national medical certification. At present, the product has entered the stage of large-scale sales.

Technologist: What attracts you most about the Yunyou Smart project?
Tang Zhengrong: It is a set of solutions that can serve specific health scenarios and solve specific health problems. From a technical point of view, Yunyou is "smart wear + Internet of things + data intelligence technology". I have been focusing on wearable devices for many years, and there are few commercial products that can provide complete value. In the past few years, wearable devices are almost equivalent to bracelets and watches. They have many functions, but lack sufficient penetration, such as health services. Previous products can collect part of health data, but only data near the wrist, such as pulse waves. This is not enough to implement a complete health solution, or simply mislead consumers with loose rhetoric, such as sleep detection. The device only collects a small amount of inaccurate data to promote the sleep stage analysis function. At this point, I admire Apple very much. Apple Watch only monitors when you sleep and wake up. Uncertain data will not be displayed.

Our smart clothing can collect the bioelectricity of the human body. The sampling frequency is 250 Hz (250 times per second), which is much higher than that of ordinary watch bracelets, reaching medical-grade standards, and is continuous and uninterrupted. Our products have obtained national medical equipment certification. Such smart clothing is not only as comfortable, breathable, perspirable, and washable as ordinary clothing, but also at a very affordable price. We can collect personalized health data with medical value in multiple scenarios, multiple dimensions, long-term, 24X7 and low-cost. Using big data and artificial intelligence, we have developed expertise in cardiovascular, respiratory, neurological, sleep, traditional Chinese medicine and other fields. There have been many breakthroughs in chronic disease management.

I believe that such technology will promote tremendous changes in healthcare.

Technologist: "Medical grade" is an expression symbol of high value. In your opinion, is it sufficient to constitute consumer demand?
Tang Zhengrong: After the epidemic, consumer demand in the health sector has increased significantly, but products that can truly monitor and improve health must be medical grade, because only products based on serious medical care can stand the test and truly solve people's health problems . Our corporate positioning is to use medical-grade products, collect data with medical value, and provide solutions with medical inquiries, but our products and solutions must have the price competitiveness and ease of use of ordinary consumer products. We hope to provide low-cost and convenient health management solutions for people with sub-health and chronic diseases.

Focus on sleep scenes at the start stage

Technologist: What are the target customers and markets of Yunyou Intelligent?

Tang Zhengrong: After more than two years of polishing, Yunyou's products have been polished and gradually introduced to multiple markets. The first direction is Internet medical care. Yunyou has begun to cooperate with Internet medical institutions to carry out Internet chronic disease management. The second direction is the sports market, including professional sports and mass sports. At present, the national team and the provincial team have begun to purchase and use Yunyou products for the health management of professional athletes. The third direction is the middle-aged and elderly market. Yunyou has provided remote health management tools for pension institutions and insurance companies. Finally, another very important direction is the sleep market.

We have done detailed market research, and the potential user groups that are plagued by sleep problems are huge, and there is a lack of medical-grade solutions in the market. For example, there is no sleep department in the medical system. If you want to solve sleep problems, you may have to go to the respiratory department and neurology department. Departments and other departments are very troublesome, and the measurement methods are even more troublesome. Many measuring devices have to be worn throughout the body, which will affect the patient's sleep, and it is impossible to track the patient's sleep for a long time. I think this is a market with huge potential.

Our solution is "Zenmian" pajamas, which can detect various health data such as arrhythmia, apnea, mental stress, physical fatigue, sleeping posture, etc., to help users discover the reasons that affect sleep quality, and effectively improve sleep quality. I was tested to have very high mental stress and slight apneas. The most frightening thing is that deep sleep is almost zero, which is very different from the results measured by the bracelet and watch. After comparing with the professional equipment of the hospital, our data is accurate. Less deep sleep means that the probability of Alzheimer's is greatly increased.

In order to solve the problem of lack of deep sleep, I tried various medical methods such as ventilator, neurological drugs, Chinese medicine, etc., but finally changed myself through natural and healthy means. At present, I can have 1-2 hours of deep sleep. My personal experience convinced me that our "Zen Sleep" pajamas can help many people with sleep problems improve their sleep.

Technologist: For new entrepreneurial projects, "Technologist" is most concerned about barriers to competition. What do you think is the strongest barrier for the product "Zenmian"? Is it a high-tech material? Or cutting-edge textile technology?
Tang Zhengrong: We have invested a lot of resources in material technology and textile technology, and cooperated with the world-class loom company Santoni to develop hundreds of garments, but we don't want to use this as a barrier to competition. On the contrary, we are willing to cooperate with clothing brands and share new technologies in this area with them, so as to promote the development of smart clothing together. We believe that most garments will become smart garments in the future. Empowering garment enterprises and helping garment enterprises transform is what we are more willing to do.

Our barrier advantage comes more from the data and algorithm layer. The reason why we have been so low-key these years is that most of the resources have been invested in data and algorithm research. We have studied the medical big data of thousands of people and tens of millions of minutes from children to the elderly, from chronic patients to professional athletes. Through multi-dimensional data analysis of ECG waveform, HRV, breathing, body position, etc., our AI algorithm can calculate many important health data, such as ECG waveform parameters, arrhythmia, apnea, sleep cycle (deep sleep, light Sleep, REM), sympathetic/parasympathetic balance, and various conclusions of the TCM system. Combining professional medical services, we hope to transfer health management and chronic disease management from inside the hospital to outside the hospital, into millions of households.

Technologist: You mentioned that data intelligence application is a long-term business. What is the biggest difference between it and phased changes such as Internet + and digital transformation?
Tang Zhengrong: It is that you will continue to find new and high-value data. At first, electrocardiogram (ECG) data is only used to analyze heart health; later, heart rate variability (HRV) data can be used to analyze autonomic nerves, immunity, etc.; then posture is added Data can be analyzed for sleep cycles, apneas, etc.; further combined with PPG data, blood pressure can also be continuously collected; and further combined with the time dimension, we can even calculate a personalized health balance curve...

Humans have never collected these medically valuable data continuously for a long time, and these data will promote medical reforms. For example, what is the relationship between blood pressure during sleep and blood pressure during exercise and our blood pressure when we are awake and quiet? These data that have not been collected in traditional medical engineering, with the support of artificial intelligence algorithms, can reversely drive the innovation and upgrade of the medical industry. This is what I am most excited about. It is worth doing 10, 20 years or even Longer career.