What Did He See? | A Conversation with Zhang Fan: Former Zhipu AI COO, Founder/CEO of Yuanli Intelligence — Why Is He Convinced AI's Opportunity Lies in ToB?

Chinese entrepreneurs and VCs generally feel a kind of "visceral fear" toward toB. But this week, Zhang Fan, our guest on Crossing, chose to swim against the current.

Zhang Fan was formerly COO of Zhipu AI, the large model company. He recently left Zhipu, secured an $8 million angel investment from BlueRun Ventures, and founded Yuanli Intelligence — choosing toB enterprise services as his entrepreneurial direction. He's committed to using commercial reinforcement learning to provide businesses with digital workers that can genuinely create operational value.

Zhang Fan once paid tens of millions of dollars in "tuition" for his first startup, Miaoji Travel. He also served over a thousand enterprise clients at Zhipu AI. In his view, today's ToC entrepreneurship is an "asymmetric war" against giants, while toB — thanks to AI — has ushered in entirely new opportunities.

In this episode, Zhang Fan shares his story as someone who stood at the very forefront of China's large model wave.

You'll hear about the passion and regret of his pre-AI life as founder of Miaoji Travel: how he raised tens of millions of dollars over five years, only to ultimately "pay tuition" because he failed to understand the essence of the industry. You'll also hear how, as COO of Zhipu AI, he led his team to frantically serve over a thousand clients, witnessing Chinese enterprises' hunger and confusion for AI — an experience that ultimately solidified his resolve to start again, this time in toB.

We hope this content offers you fresh perspective and inspiration.

🎬 Our video podcast is here! Coming soon to Koji Yang Yuancheng's channels on WeChat Video, Xiaohongshu, Bilibili, and YouTube.

📒 The transcript will be published shortly on the Crossing WeChat official account.

🟢 00:01:01 Counter-consensus: Why is ToC "an asymmetric war"?

"I'm always thinking: what's the counter-consensus today? The current consensus around entrepreneurship actually worries us a little." Why can't we use the "old map" of the internet era to find the "new continent" of the AI era? Why is an AI travel agent with the best possible experience still no match against a giant like Trip.com Group? An experience advantage can be closed in a year, but supply chain and operational moats might take a decade. In today's world where "online is full too," what's the real difficulty for startups in building effective barriers?

🟢 00:05:27 After paying tens of millions in "tuition," what did I learn?

"When you shift attention from the external reward model (fundraising, media) back to the business reward model (retention, satisfaction), you see very different things." First startup Miaoji Travel: an AI travel project technically perfect but commercially failed. "The Wrong Reward Model": VC chasing, media hype — why are these "positive feedbacks" the most dangerous illusions for entrepreneurs? Core lesson: the essence of travel is a supply chain problem, not a product problem. "Advanced information" that can't be delivered is worthless. The power of trends: why was it easy to raise tens of millions in 2014, yet in 2022 — when capabilities were 10x stronger and preparation more thorough — fundraising became harder?

🟢 00:21:02 Reflections from Zhipu AI

Human brain capacity hasn't changed in 5,000 years, yet productivity has grown 1,000x. How? Education, division of labor, tools, and collaboration. This is precisely where AI is headed next. The real reason for leaving the Zhipu COO role: not bravery, but seeing the certainty of opportunity in AI's second half. Seven client meetings a day, serving thousands of enterprises over two years — what chaos and longing did he see in the market? Foundation model intelligence has evolved from 60 to 110, reaching a "critical point." The value of further IQ gains is diminishing. New mission: building a "social form" for AI, becoming a "training institution for models" — turning smart generalist models into specialized "professions."

🟢 00:37:24 The divide between old and new worlds: AI is a colleague, SaaS is zero-sum

Chinese enterprises will pay for productivity outcomes (human outsourcing), not for processes (software tools). AI's true benchmark isn't the software market — it's the labor market. Why hasn't SaaS worked in China? When "conversion capability" is treated as fixed cost, SaaS becomes zero-sum against employees, and employees are non-negotiable. AI's disruption is that it directly acts on "conversion capability" itself — a positive-sum game with the boss. Stop viewing AI through old coordinates: model "hallucinations" aren't bugs, they're features; humans hallucinate too, and the key is how to harness them. A CEO's required course: understanding "Model-Nature," just as one understands human nature — this is a business problem, not a technical one.

🟢 01:09:15 Survival law: build ships, not lighthouses

Foundation models are a constantly rising sea. Building "lighthouses" (applications) on top will soon be submerged; what you really need is to build a "ship" (business moat) that rises with it. How do startups build their own "ship"? The answer is the "50% model content" rule. Why could Notion ride the wave while Jasper fell fast? The biggest misconception: "I have lots of data." Data itself isn't a moat; the "business scenario" that continuously generates data is. You want a field, not a pile of crops. Individual best practices vs. industry best practices: why are vertical agents merely compromises, while finding each enterprise's own optimal solution the real future?

🟢 01:23:56 The last $3 million: who would you invest in?

A surprising choice: why he would put his money into a low-profile company — Thinking Machines Lab.

Welcome to subscribe to Crossing:

🚦 We track the industry transformations and new entrepreneurial opportunities brought by the new wave of AI technology.

🚦 Crossing is Steve Jobs' metaphor for Apple — standing at the intersection of technology and liberal arts, where great products are born. AI is transforming industries across the board. We seek out, interview, and bring together a new generation of AI entrepreneurs and active participants in the AI era. Together with them, we explore and embrace the new changes, the new possibilities.

👦🏻 Host Koji: I founded Crossing and launched AI Hacker House, a community space for a new generation of AI entrepreneurs. I serve as Venture Partner at ZhenFund. I believe technology, especially AI, represents the greatest value creation opportunity of our generation. Koji's Jike, Koji's website

👧🏻 Host Ronghui: I co-founded Crossing. I've worked at a dollar-denominated VC and spent five years as a Silicon Valley correspondent, following tech development and business stories. Feel free to reach out and chat. Ronghui's Jike