To create powerful culture is to ignite employees' desire for self-actualization through meaningful work and a compelling company mission

SCALE UP?is a bi-weekly video series of insightful conversations with senior HR leaders, founders and venture capitalists at Alibaba, TikTok, Amazon, Netflix, Google, Open AI, Sequoia Capital, A16Z… across the globe on topics around?talent strategies, future of work, and how they get to where they are.?I hope these conversations can?democratize the access to information?and inspire those going through similar challenges when scaling their growth companies.

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This week I sat down with Shu Yang, Chief Human Officer @ Kunlun Tech, one of the most prominent AI tech conglomerates in China today with both inbound and outbound businesses across computer games, investment management and digital entertainment. Shu’s reputation has made her a household name within the Chinese tech communities. She has also been constantly featured in magazines and international conferences. In this interview (in Chinese), we delve deep into her journey starting as a software engineering college graduate and evolving into the Head of HR at major US and Chinese tech and startup companies, including 甲骨文 , 阿里巴巴集团 , and TiDB, powered by PingCAP . She shares her personal experiences of leveraging the AI boom in China; the mistakes she made when scaling growth organizations; and the secret ingredients that have shaped her path until now.

To create powerful culture is to ignite employees' desire for self-actualization through meaningful work and a compelling company mission.

Jerry: With the fame of OpenAI and ChatGPT sweeping across the US, the AI boom quickly reached China, resulting in thousands of startups and big tech companies exploring new business models with generative AI. Kunlun Tech's A-list stock price has also surged nearly 300% this year. As a beneficiary of this AI wave, what are the next steps for Kunlun?

Shu: Well, it's not a huge coincidence. We have been investing in AI for a few years now. When the Open AI boom hit, we quickly launched our All-in-AIGC strategy last year. This strategy encompasses both the business and people aspects. Whether through developing our own capabilities or acquiring new technologies, we have made several aggressive moves and will continue to do so. The success of AI opportunities relies heavily on human capital and hardware. With the market's scarcity, the AI talent war has become more fierce than ever. Successfully building an AI talent community and network requires a strategic and targeted approach. Additionally, various AI models, such as large language models, require sufficient software and hardware infrastructure, including CPUs and chips. We will continuously upgrade our capabilities on that front as well.

Jerry: You mentioned the AI talent war. According to a recent McKinsey study, there are only 300,000 AI-ready engineers globally, with only 26% being female. Could you share your strategies and best practices for winning the AI talent war?

Shu: In a new market like this, recruiting is ever more important. For us, we follow the same “buy, build, borrow” model.?

• We first try to leverage our existing talent capabilities and upskilling data scientists and NLP machine learning engineers.?
• We are also enhancing our efforts to attract those research lab scientists and lecturers, who have worked on similar projects in either big tech companies or top universities. The good thing is that we also have an incubator and fund business that can support their entrepreneurial projects. With the AI boom, many of those talents are thinking of starting their own companies, so we can provide the resources and knowledge to help them accelerate their growth.?
• Lastly, we have also been working with consultants overseas, mostly renowned scientists and professors that were early adopters of different language models. We are leveraging their experiences to build out in-house training and talent development initiatives.?

Jerry: You have scaled growth companies a few times now. What is the most memorable failure experience for you??

Shu: For me, it would be the time I was tasked to scale a series C SaaS company from 100-1000. Looking back, a couple of things I wish I could do better

• to have not expanded so quickly without a proper workforce planning. Although it’s never easy to balance between hyper growth and velocity hiring, I think we can do a better job to take phases in achieving those results. And building out reflection mechanisms with the leadership to look back at things periodically to see if we need to slow down or pivot at some point.?
• I was too eager to implement numerous practices from large corporations into a 200-person company at that time. It was premature, and I came to understand that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. What works for other companies needs to be tailored to fit the specific business models, leadership dynamics, and organizational structure in order to be truly effective. If I had the opportunity, I would prioritize the establishment of baseline HR operations and mechanisms before pushing forward with development agendas. Scaling talent requires time and patience, and it is crucial to lay a solid foundation before pursuing further growth.?

Jerry: Let’s talk a bit about your personal/career trajectory. How did you get to where you are today? And what are the secret ingredients you consider that shaped your path??

Shu: Well I grew up in a very supportive family that always gives me the freedom to explore the things I enjoy doing. So after completing my engineering degree in university, I ventured into recruiting because I like talking to people and connecting people with people/resources. On the other hand, I was also quite shy growing up and my face will turn red wherever I talk to strangers. So I think psychologically I was also trying to challenge myself by upgrading my communication skills to overcome those shyness.?

I am deeply grateful to great mentors and bosses at Oracle who value creativity and Being a creative person, I was able to launch successful initiatives such as zero agency usage and social recruiting. Driven by my curiosity, I joined Alibaba in 2014 before its massive IPO to explore the unprecedented China tech phenomenon, which experienced a tremendous growth spurt in the last decade. My journey at Alibaba was eye-opening and involved a process of self-refinement. Many of the conventional thinking and best practices at multinational corporations had to be unlearned and reinvented to succeed in the Ali environment.

Jerry: Alibaba is famous for its aggressive culture and many China centric practices. One of the most amazing things I have observed is the community it helped build in and out of the company. How do you think Alibaba has been able to build such a mission-driven organization? And what lessons do you think the world can learn from it?

Shu: Haha, you could call it a tribe or a cult. However, any successful organization that harnesses a large workforce needs some guiding principles or a shared purpose to thrive. This is not unique to Alibaba; similar approaches have been adopted by successful companies across the globe as well. What sets Alibaba apart is its ability to connect the company mission with employees' personal aspirations. Work at Alibaba is not merely a means to an end; it is a way to realize one's own potential and find personal fulfillment. If we consider Maslow's hierarchy of needs, self-realization is at the pinnacle of human desires. Alibaba has devised various mechanisms to ignite this desire among its employees, giving them a higher purpose.

However, I believe that intensive modifications would be necessary to adapt these practices to different cultures. Nonetheless, the objective of helping people find meaning in their work is universal and can be embraced by many companies. This also explains why the Alibaba alumni community remains strong after all these years—it's because we shared a sacred period of life experiences together.

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