Chapter 1103 The Salary of Scientists

The high salary of 6.5 million US dollars can reveal many signals.

Zhou Buqi thought to himself.

He has great faith in Li Yanhong, so the salary that breaks the salary structure is obviously very inappropriate. Baidu's CTO position has been vacant for two years. During the past period of time, there were often gossips with scientists in Silicon Valley, saying that they might be hired.

But the salary issue is a big obstacle.

The salaries of listed companies are set by the remuneration committee, which cannot be easily violated. If a high salary is offered rashly, it will easily cause confusion or even collapse of the salary system.

In the United States, it is relatively normal for a vice president-level executive to get a salary of 6.5 million US dollars, which is similar to the 6.5 million yuan in China.

For example, Lu Qi's annual salary is as high as 15 million US dollars in Yahoo!

But after joining Ziweixing, his salary was reduced to 1.2 million US dollars in order to meet Ziweixing's salary structure.

Of course, this has something to do with Yahoo's self-improvement.

When a company loses its vision for the future and sees no broader space for future development, a situation usually arises—the collective high salaries of executives.

This is a normal but counterintuitive economic phenomenon.

The salaries of executives in those big companies that are thriving are often relatively low; the salaries of executives in companies that are not doing well and have entered mediocrity are generally high.

The reason behind it is options.

Executives are the smartest group of people. In a thriving company, they don't want high salaries. They all want to get a basic salary and then fight for more stock options. In a slow-growing company, the stock has no room for growth, and the only motivation to work is to get a high salary.

Yahoo is the most typical example.

Yahoo, whose market capitalization is only US$40 billion, has the highest salary in the world—US$240 million, for CEO Ms. Meg!

The CEO has such a high salary, and the salaries of other executives are also very high.

The reason why Yahoo's salary committee approved such an exaggerated salary system that far exceeds that of Microsoft and Google is no other way. High salary is the only possibility for Yahoo to survive.

In terms of talent competition, Yahoo can't compete with promising companies such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Oracle. It can only be tempted by high salaries.

However, high salaries are not a panacea, and Yahoo executives are leaving one after another.

Lu Qi would rather come to Ziwei Star to get a salary of 1.2 million US dollars than Yahoo's 15 million US dollars.

Baidu is not Yahoo.

In the domestic market, Baidu is still in a vigorous stage, and its ability to grab talents is a must. Why did Li Yanhong illogically offer Li Yinan a high salary of US$6.5 million?

Zhou Buqi sidestepped.

Fortunately, Li Yinan is a purely technical man, and he seems to know nothing about human relations and intrigue, and he will reveal his truth in a few words.

It is indeed a "super high salary + ultra low option" model.

Li Yinan is not an Internet person.

He doesn't understand the Internet model. When he was in Huawei, his annual salary was 60 million, which was higher than Baidu! The money you get is real money.

Li Yinan is also not at ease about crossing into the Internet industry, and he is worried about the "basic salary + high option" model. High options are not something that can be obtained when the time is up, but depends on performance. Only when the work is up to standard can the options be fully filled. Once the work is not done well, the options will be gone.

The risk is too great.

It is safer to get paid honestly.

Zhou Buqi disagreed with his opinion and explained: "The function of options is to motivate. As long as the work is successful, you can get the options. Then the value of the stock in the future will be several times or even dozens of times the salary you get now. .”

Li Yinan's thinking mode is obviously different from his, "What if there is no result?"

"ah?"

Zhou Buqi was stunned for a moment, thinking that the other party shouldn't ask such a low-level question. If there is no result, of course there will be no stock options. The company can't spend money to support idlers, right?

Li Yinan doesn't know how to judge people's faces, so he said to himself: "When I was at Huawei, I often failed to achieve any results for a few months. But I can still get the highest salary. For example, I applied to go to Shanghai in October last year. It took more than half a year to prepare for the establishment of the chip business, except for the formation of the team, and did not produce any outstanding results, but the salary must not be less.”

Zhou Buqi was taken aback for a moment, but immediately came to his senses.

Depend on!

Sure enough, this is the Great God!

The "basic salary + high option" model can indeed encourage employees' enthusiasm for work, urge him to complete tasks faster and better, and obtain options.

This is a great incentive mechanism.

However, who can guarantee that the results will be obtained after doing the research?

Low-end research can do it.

The results have come out in foreign countries, and the relevant materials have also been made public. While studying and researching, it will be done with effort.

But what level of scientist is Li Yinan?

What a waste to have him do low-end research.

Especially in the fields of telecommunications, communications, chips, etc., the high-end technologies in these fields are technically blocked abroad, and we need to explore a little bit at home.

It is often a team of highly paid scientists who have studied for a year and a half and failed to produce anything.

It's normal if you can't do it, but it's not normal if you do it.

After spending hundreds of millions of dollars on research, in the end, nothing came out of the bamboo basket. What kind of company has the courage to do this kind of thing?

If one study is not enough, just study it ten times, and then billions will be poured in.

Dare to invest a lot of money in research and development in the high-end technology field, in addition to the courage of entrepreneurs far beyond ordinary people, it also requires the company to have a strong ability to make money.

A small company with a profit of hundreds of millions a year can't do it even if it wants to.

The current domestic argument is that ZTE and Huawei are neck and neck, which is really too high to look at state-owned enterprises. ZTE is also doing low-end, and only Huawei dares to play high-end.

It can be seen from Li Yinan's body.

A salary of 60 million a year.

In the past half a year, he has hardly produced any decent results, but he can still get a high salary.

Under the salary model of the Internet, he wouldn't even get a single option stock, but only a few million basic salary... This obviously doesn't meet the positioning of this level of talent.

Only the high salary model is guaranteed!

Only then can a genius like Li Yinan be able to focus on doing research in high-end fields, and only then can he not be affected by scientific research work due to income inequality.

If the model of "basic salary + stock options" is adopted, there will be only one result. For his own benefit, Li Yinan must get "results", and he will actively choose some low-end research, and will reject almost everyone. High-end scientific research without any results.

In this way, research in high-end fields will never be carried out.

But in this mode, it is easy to take advantage of loopholes.

Since high-end research is likely to fail to produce results, and scientific researchers can still receive high salaries...then why work so hard? Wouldn't it be enough to fish in troubled waters? Anyway, the result is the same.

Just like the heartbroken call of Huawei's boss Ren many times to "tear down the pyramid of R\u0026D", it is obvious that he also encountered such a management dilemma.

In contrast, the "basic salary + option" model under the Internet model is easier to manage.

"Hey, high-end research and development is really difficult!"

Zhou Buqi sighed in his heart.

In addition to recruiting top talents, there must be sufficient capital investment and a high level of management... There must be spiritual stimulation and encouragement!

It is necessary for the high-end scientific research team to have a kind of motivation from the inside out to devote themselves to scientific research from the heart.

Every time a hero slaughters more dogs, when the poor are the ones who slaughter dogs, patriotism can inspire people. But if you are rich and rich, are you still a "hero" in the past? Will I still have this feeling? How can we motivate scientific and technological talents to do research and development bitterly after having a lot of wealth?

"Hey! It's so difficult!"

At this moment, Zhou Buqi also realized a lot.

He deeply understands the profound difference between technical research in the field of hardware and technical research in the field of the Internet, which is different at all levels.

Sharing is the gene of the Internet. Many high-end technologies in Silicon Valley can be shared with the world to a large extent. We can learn, learn from, and even download their open source codes for free, such as the Android system.

However, there is no open source free hardware.

Even if it is a screw, we have to study it ourselves.

The difficulties are great and the task is daunting.

Zhou Buqi took a deep breath, he understood the reason why Li Yinan asked for a high salary, and said: "I'll just say it, Baidu is in the Internet business, and it doesn't match your technical direction. Come to Ziweixing Electronics, you CTO, make our own smartphone."

"I've also heard about the Aster mobile phone, but..." Li Yinan looked up at him, "Is that just an assembly machine? If it's just assembly, my past is of little significance."

Zhou Buqi smiled, "What do you think should be done?"

Li Yinan said: "Valuable things."

Zhou Buqi choked for a moment, feeling that chatting with him was really strenuous, so he didn't go around the corner, "By the way, what direction are you making chips in Huawei?"

Li Yinan glanced at him and remained silent.

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "I didn't want to inquire about any commercial secrets. I visited Huawei a few days ago and asked Mr. Ren a lot of questions. I mean...well, Huawei's chips focus on the 3G field. Bar?"

Li Yinan continued to remain silent.

It is easy to talk about his own affairs, and he can confess everything, but it is difficult to talk about the company's affairs. Especially after the harbor incident before, he was even more sensitive.

Zhou Buqi said: "Foreign 3G companies have been in the market for ten years, and now it is too late to enter the market. It is impossible to follow the pace of foreign companies such as Texas Instruments, MediaTek, Motorola, and Infineon."

"Um."

Li Yinan nodded and finally responded.

Zhou Buqi said: "The risk of scientific and technological research and development is very high. It is only a small risk if the research and development cannot produce results. At most, billions of research and development funds will be wasted. The bigger risk is strategic risk. Once the decision-maker's strategy is wrong, it can There will be catastrophe."

These words are not aimless.

The risk of doing research and development is too great. The chip giants that were popular all over the world in the 3G era entered the 4G era, and many giants collapsed. They did not expect that 4G would come so fast, and they were out of touch. Looking at the world, only Qualcomm and Samsung are left with 4G chips.

Li Yinan is really an expert, and he said clearly, "Yes, mobile Internet and smart phones are the big trend, and the future must be the world of high-end chips. In the past, it was a feature phone, and the functions of the phone were not many. It doesn't matter if the processing power of the chip is poor. Therefore, dozens of mobile phone chip factories can be allowed to exist. But once it comes to smart phones, the requirements for chip processing capabilities will be greatly increased, and only companies with real high-end hard-core technology can shine.”

Zhou Buqi's eyes lit up, his foresight echoed the other party's professional knowledge, and he felt very happy, "That's right, from mobile phones to feature phones, the shape of mobile phones has shrunk a lot, and the built-in chips must be smaller. The more The smaller the better. The future trend is also the same. You can see that the design of the iPhone is thin, light and compact, and the requirements for chips are very high.”

Li Yinan heard what he meant, and was a little surprised, "President Zhou, do you want to make chips?"

Zhou Buqi said: "Build a 4G chip and bet on the next generation!"

Li Yinan took a deep look at him, "Mr. Zhou, even if it's just chip design, this is a world-class project."

Zhou Buqi said: "I know, so I came to you."

Li Yinan shook his head, "I can't do it."

Zhou Buqi said: "Try to design your own 4G chip architecture in five or six years. You can go abroad to establish a research center. I don't know the specific technology, but I see that many smartphones use Qualcomm's S chip. , the iPhone uses Samsung chips.”

Li Yinan was silent.

Zhou Buqi was decisive, and stretched out a finger, "100 million!"

"Huh? What?"

Li Yinan was slightly taken aback.

Zhou Buqi said: "I know this matter is not easy, and it is very possible to waste a few years in vain and end up with nothing. The company will not be stingy and will give you the greatest support. Your annual salary of 60 million in Huawei , it’s okay, come to Ziweixing Electronics, and I will give you an annual salary of 100 million!"

Li Yinan's heart trembled violently.

In Huawei, the salary of technical talents is the highest, and he is the chief scientist of Huawei, and he is the highest salary. It is also the highest paid in the whole country.

Unexpectedly, the young Mr. Zhou in front of him seemed to be more courageous?

Zhou Buqi said indifferently: "You must have heard of Ziweixing's reputation. My pursuit of technology is the same as yours. The investment in cloud computing projects is bigger than investing in chips. This is my attitude, I believe you can understand it. "

Li Yinan took a deep breath, "I'll think about it."

Zhou Buqi had already got up to leave, and said without doubt: "It's not too late, the sooner the better. I don't know when the 4G era will come, so we must hurry up. I have already sent someone from the HR department to come over tomorrow. It will arrive in the morning. I will give you one night to think about it. Annual salary of 100 million!"