Google announced today that Kai-Fu Lee, president of the search giant’s China operations, has left the company to start a new venture. Lee joined Google four years ago from Microsoft, where he was a corporate vice president, and the Redmond software giant subsequently sued Google over the hire, contending that Lee’s duties at Google would violate the terms of a non-compete agreement he signed as part of his Microsoft employment contract. The three parties later reached a settlement.
Google said Kai-Fu Lee is leaving to work on his own venture, but not content with knowing so little about the man’s plans for the future, I turned to Google’s Translate service to learn more.
The goal: translate Lee’s blog post and tweets in English for more clarity on the matter. The result: hilarity.
Take this tweet for example. This is what Lee is saying, according to Google Translate:
“To continue to talk to my employees interesting: in 2006 in Jiangsu and Zhejiang Kai-Fu hosted exchange, just who is in the Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Tina, or exchange to another table, called a la carte Kai-Fu advisory matters. Kai-Fu Lee to smoked tea duck and after the class Meat recommended that the vegetables you casually Come on, anyway, are not tasty Where could they be to eat, when the drug ate enough.”
Or this one:
“To continue to talk to my employees interesting: in 2006, when the Chinese first came to know that people in Chengdu, after Kai-Fu, and once I asked why not, Kai-Fu in Chengdu has also opened an Office, the Land of Abundance Well, beauty is also good to eat more than the work of engineers passion will be greatly improved. Kai-Fu said that you all play happy, I will not happy again.”
To be fair, Chinese is not an easy language to learn, let alone translate, but you have to admit the Google Translate service’s desperate attempts to extract meaning out of the (now former) Google executive’s words are funny as hell.
The translation of the man’s blog post is better (barely), and reveals that building Google in China hasn’t exactly been a breeze and that Lee now wants to pass on his knowledge and experience to Chinese youth.
Or not.
In depth information here: http://cnreview...n_20090904.html
I wonder how this ‘article’ could be posted as is here.
The best part is “Come on, anyway,”
“you all play happy, I will not happy again”
classic
@Robin Sorry to let you know but http://twitter.com/KaifuLee doesn’t belong to Kai-Fu Lee, president of the search giant’s China operations.
我们压抑着做更酷、更炫的产品的欲望，努力耕耘最佳中文搜索。
以前离开微软是”follow my heart”，现在离开Google也是”follow my heart”.
这两句话要记住啊…
I suppose not techcrunch is entertaining its readers….goood job with all that technological scope.
hey i am also having problem with same, CHinese language is still different and difficult for the people to understand around the globe yet also difficult for the Google translator… i hope the issue of Chinese language translation will be resolved very soon
I hope you are planning to hope that Chinese language translation will be resolved for a good long while.
How about just going ahead and learning the language…
It seems he’s going to launch an incubator, like YCombinator, to help young geeks. He feels he’s previledged to learn a lot from Jobs, Bill and Eric along his career. Now it’s time to return it to the society. A great mind and a great soul we are talking about here.
haahhahahaahahhahahahaahhahaaaaaaahhahahahaha
hahahahahahahahahahahahahhahaha
“Kai-Fu Lee to smoked tea duck and after the class Meat recommended that the vegetables you casually Come on, anyway, are not tasty”
It would be even more hilarious if Google Translate is spot on, and this is actually what he has been tweeting in Chinese… all of his employees have always been like… wtf is he saying?
BEST LUCK TO kaifu lee!
under current strict chinese gov’t rules of censorship, he’s done an AMAZING job in his 4-year tenure!
http://www.tran...ty.com/#3883341
Google Loses China President Kai-Fu Lee
Googleの失わ中国代表取締役社長カイフーリー
Google China President Kai-fu Lee lost
Googleは中国代表取締役社長カイフーリーが失わ
Google China President Kai-fu Lee is lost
Googleは中国代表取締役社長カイフーリー失われて
Google has been lost China President Kai-fu Lee
Googleの失われている中国代表取締役社長カイフーリー
Google China President Kai-fu Lee has been lost
Googleは中国代表取締役社長カイフーリー失われている
Google has been lost China President Kai-fu Lee
It is doubtful that this phrase will ever reach equilibrium.
Automatic translation between English and Mandarin is a complex computing problem. Yet, one does not need complete mastery (of Mandarin) to gain a greater understanding of China.
与其坐以待毙, it would be far more productive to apply oneself to the acquisition of the Chinese language than to await for technology to play catch-up.
I’d love to see TC build stronger links between China and Silicon Valley, by extending its coverage into China!
That’s what journalists can help
This is the guy who caused Steve Ballmer to start throwing chairs when he learned he was jumping ship to Google.
Or may be he threw it around when he got mad listening to this guy speak! Imagine this guy explaining his issues with the company in an exit interview
The Chinese language has a lot of history, on top of that, there has been a lot of American English influence, and use of propaganda-like messages.
Lee was borne in Taiwan and moved to the US when he was 11. So the style of writing also reflects some of latest local slang.
Talking about “Cool” being translated to Chinese and then translated back to English.
I was just sharing the news with one of my colleagues. I asked my accountant (not very good at english) “do u know Kae Fu Lee ?” he says “are you teasing me?”
Jokes apart I wish Mr Lee all the best in his new venture.
I tried Google translate on one of our travel sites. English to Hindi. We had a great week laughing our heads off before we had to remove it.
LAWLZ its funny man! Thats why he is leaving!
Here is my translation of Dr. Lee’s farewell letter.
I wish WordPress can translate this automatically (FYI: WP can correct grammar now)
Farewell to Google
Kaifu Lee
Time flies and it’s been another four years. In retrospect and looking back at the four years I spent at Google, all the happiness, successes and challenges kept on flashing in my mind like a movie. In this touching farewell moment, my heart is filled with gratitude. In the past four years, Google China has steadily grown into a stable, mature and well-managed company.
During the whole four years, I’ve strived to bring to China the sprit of Google – equality, innovation, fun, and audacity. This process has not been easy, but we adhered to our beliefs and values steadfastly with intensive perseverance.
We have focused on perfecting Chinese search, and have suppressed the temptation to develop more cool and ostensible products. Today, the quality of Google Chinese search is the most accurate, most comprehensive, and most real-time among the peers. We have also developed several dozens of new products, expanding the territory of Google China. Among those, Google Maps, Google mobile search, Google mobile maps, Google translations are the best in China. In addition, we introduce the music search, which allows users to enjoy the copyrighted but free music for the first time, creating a new model for free music download in the whole world.
I am particularly impressed with the conducts of our employees, who developed timely products to help China combat devastating snows, earthquakes, and hurricanes, confirming my believe and that Google China employees love not only Google, but also China, and that they possess not only creativity, but also loving hearts.
I always smile heartily when I walk into some café shops, and see young people using Google integrated search, or looking up the real time traffic maps, or listening to copyrighted Google music, or selecting an iGoogle ‘skin’.
Google is both a great and lovely company, and I’m very grateful for this life-time opportunity to build Google China from scratch. I’ve learned a lot in the process – Internet technology, innovation models or values.
I have no regret on what has been achieved at Google. However, there is still one regret in my life and I want to tackle it. In the past 20 years, I have had the privilege to experience Apple and Microsoft in the PC era, to experience Google in the Internet era, and to see all three world-class companies growing and become successful. I have had the privilege to do the most creative work when both the silicon valley and Zhongguancun were ascending. My knowledge in the tech arena and my insights learned are my most valuable assets. I deeply hope to pass these assets on to young people in China.
My next step is to, together with young Chinese entrepreneurs, create new technological marvels. I want to take initiative to do some overall planning. I have reached this stage in my life that my heart tells me that it would be too late if I procrastinate.
So, although Mountain View, CA offered me an olive branch and hoped me to stay for another four years, I have made up my mind. Deep inside my heart, I want to help young people fulfill their dreams, and in the process, fulfill my own entrepreneurial dreams.
This past weekend, I was finally relieved from business strategies, career transitions, and knowledge transfer. I will comb my thoughts over this weekend, and soon will share with you my next plans.
Whenever I think about this step, I think of Steve Jobs famous saying:
“have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Thank you very much for your translation. Much appreciated.
excellent translation
Lee is admirable.
thanks for the translation!
Well lets hope they get there finger out and sort it, Google and translation doesn’t seem to go hand in hand unfortunatly lol
reminds me of the scene from tropic thunder:
http://www.yout...h?v=on6apb-Gni8
I can only gather that one of his senior executives has the nickname, “Meat.”
I heard he’s going to imeem.
This is exactly what I always tell my colleagues: y All those automatic translation tools are cool and inspire our mind, but you cannot turn to Google Translate when you need a sound translation for real needs. I recommend using a service called OneHourTranslation.com to translate business documents, for urgent needs. Look at the Hailin Wu’s comment: There’s no alternative for professional human translator when it comes to important stuff!
Years ago when he was still working at Microsoft, I sent Kai Fu Lee my resume. I can only assume he immediately threw it in the garbage as I never heard back from him. Needless to say, it has been interesting to follow his career over the years and I wish him luck with his new venture.
why would he not throw away any unsolicited resume?
看来TC应该聘用一个懂中文的编辑了
I tested the google Translate with his Good-bye Google post at it is pretty understandable which can be consulted here: http://bit.ly/v9a6j compare that to the human translation posted by @Hailin Wu and make up your mind, they’re damn close, so I don’t get why techcrunch insists in saying that google doesn’t get chinese.
Google may plan to do something in China.