FROM ST:TNG FAN TO CTO
— Dr. Yan Ke, CTO at Clobotics, shares his unique career journey with us in ten Q&A questions
A new school year is right around the corner, do you feel prepared? Dr. Yan Ke shares his career stories and practical advice on how to be prepared for next steps.
Dr. Yan Ke, co-founded Clobotics, a computer vision startup, with three other ex-Microsoft executives in 2016. His Ph.D. thesis topic was on using computer vision to automatically recognize human actions in videos. Prior to Clobotics, Yan spent eight years at Microsoft leading the Bing Entity Understanding Group, where he architected and developed the core algorithms for Bing’s Knowledge Pane, Question Answering System, Satori Knowledge Graph, and Web Index Selection. His work in part helped Bing’s world-wide market share grow from 8% to 21%. He is a recipient of the Intel Research Scholar Award, NSF IGERT Fellowship, Microsoft Technical Leadership Award, multiple Microsoft Gold Star Awards, published over 18 top tier conference and journal papers, and holds 7 U.S. patents.

Q: Yan, you spent more than ten years at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), from a freshman to a PhD. What did you enjoy the most at CMU?
Yan: CMU had a vibrant and multi-disciplinary research environment. One of the great benefits at CMU was that any student could take classes from any department. The environment encourages everyone to be more well-rounded and think about the big picture. In addition to my computer science and engineering courses, which provided the technical grounding, I also took courses from the music, drama, psychology, and humanities departments. Not only were the course materials themselves interesting, I also got to mingle with people from different backgrounds and thinking styles.

Q: After eight years in Microsoft, you left and founded your own company. What made you want to leave a big corporation and start your own company? Why did you pick wind power and retail industry specifically?
Yan: There are many reasons, but the primary reason was to give myself a challenge — to build a startup from scratch which I’ve never done before, and at the same time to be able to make an impact in the world. My training is in computer vision and computer science, but I’ve always loved to play with electronics and hardware as well. Computer vision is a very general tool that can be used in a wide range of applications. We chose these verticals because the business processes which we help to improve are labor intensive, tedious, and sometimes dangerous for people to do. It takes a crew of inspectors half a day to inspect a turbine which we’re able to finish with one person in less than half an hour. Our company is a computer vision plus hardware plus cloud services company and we are able to leverage our DNA to build solutions for these verticals.

Q: You moved from China to the US when you were very young. What are your impressions of China then and now?
Yan: China has experienced explosive growth and increase in wealth. I’m glad to see so many opportunities available in China. I see a lot of hope, optimism, and energy in everyone. There is a lot of potential for growth, especially in startups, because everyone is so eager to adopt new technologies. It used to be that China would copy whatever came out of Silicon Valley, but it has now surpassed it, for example in mobile. Everything is so convenient and reachable via the phone. Although I would never do it, but I can imagine living an entire year without leaving my apartment and ordering everything I need online.

Q: You worked in the technology industry in both China and U.S., what are the differences you noted between these two?
Yan: Because of the cultural background, Chinese students are more willing to work long hours without complaining, and if led correctly, produces more raw output. American workers generally prefer a more work-life balance and prefer to engage in personal activities outside of work. While the raw output may be less, the diverse life experiences may lead to more well-rounded individuals. These are of course broad-sweeping generalizations and individuals differ greatly, and I wouldn’t say that one style is better than the other. Overall, I think it’s important to have people from different backgrounds since many innovations come from a mixing of ideas.
Q: Name one of biggest challenges you’ve faced in your career and how did you overcome it?
Yan: I’ve always enjoyed working at the boundary of research and engineering. To solve problems that are just beyond what’s obviously possible, but at the same time have a direct impact to the consumers after these problems are solved — that’s what excites me the most. However, this makes it difficult to have predictable development schedules or very clear deliverables at each milestone. You make your best effort to estimate a reasonable schedule, but sometimes you encounter a problem that’s more difficult than you thought it would be. One thing I learned is to never be afraid to ask for help. There are many smart people around you who are more than willing to help if you simply ask. Sometimes, it was just to bounce ideas and brainstorm. Sometimes, they might have a library or algorithm that you can use. Other times, they might jump in your project and contribute directly.
“One thing I learned is to never be afraid to ask for help.”

Q: How does one get a job in a cutting-edge AI technology company?
Yan: It is important to have a solid theoretical foundation in your field, no matter what it may be. The learning does not necessarily need to come from a classroom. It could be self-learned through books, by watching others, or through hands-on projects. By truly understanding the theory behind a piece of technology, whether it is a software library, or an algorithm, or a piece of hardware, you can further innovate upon it when you reach its limitations. Otherwise, you’re simply putting component pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle, with no capability to paint your own bigger picture.
“…Otherwise, you’re simply putting component pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle, with no capability to paint your own bigger picture.”

Q: What do you like to do when you are not working?
Yan: Although I’m a very left brained, logical person, I enjoy the performance arts a lot, for example orchestra, dancing, singing, etc. I’ve dabbled in some of them, not only for personal enjoyment but I also believe that exercising the right brain leads to more creative ideas during work as well.
Q: If you could choose to be any superhero, who would you like to be? Why?
Yan: I grew up with ST:TNG when I was a child. Though not possessing any super powers, Jean-Luc Picard became my role model, so much so that I took his name in my French class in school. Very nerdy, I know. He was confident, moral, logical, and caring, all qualities which I still admire today.

Q: What advice would you give to someone who is considering getting a PhD in Computer Science?
Yan: The best way to prepare for doing something is to practice ahead of time. In graduate school, you primary do research, and so it’s good to get research experience in your undergrad or masters program. During my undergrad at CMU, I got internships with professors doing research in computer vision, NLP, and speech analysis. At the same time, I took graduate-level courses early, read research papers, and did interesting research projects. At Clobotics, we also offer research internships where the students engage in practical research which could lead to paper publications as well.
Q: What would be the most important career advice you give to a fresh college grad?
Yan: Learning is a never-ending process and goal, even after one leaves the university. It is important to find one or more mentors that not only give technical advice, but also advice in other areas such communication and collaboration and long-term career advice. The mentors does not necessarily need to be from within the company, and could be from other companies or communities. Many newly grads believe that they can only learn if they join a large company. While it is true that many such companies have well-established processes and supporting infrastructure to help the new graduates, it is not the only place to learn. Joining a startup will typically expose you to more diverse people from different departments and functions, not to mention different projects as well.
“It is important to find one or more mentors that not only give technical advice, but also advice in other areas such communication and collaboration and long-term career advice.”
Yan will be presenting at O’Reilly AI Conference Startup Showcase in San Francisco Hilton Union Square on September 5th. Drop by and say hi!
