The AI Products You Don't Know About Are Quietly Making a Killing Overseas | A Conversation with Gao Ning: Co-founder of Linkloud, Host of OnBoard!
July 7, 2024
AI and going global — that was the hottest entrepreneurial bet of 2024. A wave of Chinese founders rode the AI momentum to launch their own age of exploration.
This is a crossover episode between the podcasts OnBoard! and Crossroads, because we've noticed that quite a few AI companies going overseas have already earned their first real money. In this episode, we try to distill and summarize what these companies have in common, hoping to broaden your thinking and spark some ideas.
When we say "quietly making serious money," the "serious" part doesn't necessarily mean massive wealth. We also don't plan to reveal their specific revenue numbers on the show, because we believe that making money itself is an extremely positive signal. It means the product has found product-market fit (PMF), found paying users who actually want it — and it means the flywheel has started turning.
What we're mainly discussing today are AI companies founded by Chinese entrepreneurs. Some are headquartered in China, others in Silicon Valley, Singapore, and elsewhere. Wherever they are, they share our social circles and cultural framework, which makes their experiences the most direct and relevant inspiration for us.
Why did I think to invite Gao Ning for this episode? In my eyes, he's a living dictionary of the AI industry — a walking vertical-domain large language model. His information density is enormous; there's hardly any industry news or gossip he doesn't know.
Gao Ning is the host of OnBoard!, and he and Monica were the ones who inspired Ronghui and me to start Crossroads. He's also co-founder of Linkloud (WeChat official account: Linkloud), a going-global community. Before becoming an entrepreneur, Gao Ning worked at Hillhouse.
Linkloud is one of the most influential Chinese communities for AI going global. Every quarter, Gao Ning leads dozens of AI founders and executives on study trips to Silicon Valley and Japan. He's been observing Chinese AI's global expansion for years and serves as an important bridge for AI exchange between the tech and business communities of China and the United States.
Welcome to share your listening thoughts in the comments, and let us know about more "AI products your podcast didn't mention that are quietly making serious money overseas." The person who benefits most from sharing is usually yourself.
We'll select 3 commenters to receive Freakonomics 7, a new book from Citic Press Corporation. Crossroads was honored to record a 10-episode audio guide for this new release, which will also be included with the book.
🎬 Timeline:
01:53 Why are Chinese AI teams going global?
Companies/products mentioned:
05:30 PictureThis
07:36 Answer.ai
10:00 Study X
11:27 Speak
13:57 Children's education AI hardware products
15:09 UMU
17:18 ChatOn
18:30 CrushOn
19:12 Chai
19:53 Talkie
22:28 HeyGen
23:28 Opus Clip
24:17 Creatify
24:38 ACE Studio
28:50 Fotor
29:50 Cutout.Pro
30:57 Monica.im
33:13 Notta
35:07 Final Round
36:40 Retell
38:00 Devin
39:09 Octopus
Reasons Chinese AI teams are dominating:
39:53 ① Accumulated experience from the mobile internet era
40:35 ② Advanced understanding of short video + marketing
41:25 ③ Engineer dividend
42:33 ④ The rise of indie developers
44:02 Gao Ning introduces his going-global community Linkloud
45:26 Why Japan deserves attention too?
50:32 How can AI practitioners in China and the United States learn from each other?
🚦 Welcome to subscribe to Crossroads. We track the industry shifts and entrepreneurial opportunities brought by the new wave of AI technology. "Crossroads" was Steve Jobs' metaphor for Apple — standing at the intersection of technology and liberal arts, where great products are born. AI is transforming every industry. We seek out, interview, and bring together "active agents" of the AI era, exploring and embracing new changes and new possibilities alongside them.
👦🏻 Host Koji: Co-founder of The Fair and Tangdao, and someone actively diving into AI himself. Jike — a self-introduction from Koji
👧🏻 Host Ronghui: Works at a tech VC, former Silicon Valley correspondent for Yicai. Jike
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