Zhilin Yang
杨植麟
Zhilin Yang is the founder and CEO of Moonshot AI, the company behind the Kimi AI assistant, which ZhenFund backed at its angel round in 2023 . A top AI researcher, he previously worked at Meta and Google Brain and was first author on influential papers including Transformer-XL and XLNet, per a ZhenFund interview . Moonshot — spun off from Recurrent AI and backed by Sequoia China, Alibaba and others — has focused on a single product, Kimi, with Yang arguing the ultimate AGI product merges productivity and companionship into one; as he put it, "we want to focus on making one product and making it the best it can be" . He has also been publicly at odds with investor Zhu Xiaohu and faced arbitration from Boyu Capital and Jingya Capital, according to his entity profile — note that dispute material dates from earlier reporting and elsewhere's corpus doesn't cover its latest status.
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Coverage
The Full Story of Alibaba's Investment in Moonshot AI
Game Changer.
When the pure-hearted are lonely, they create a world of their own.
Hear your own voice.
Moonshot AI K3 Kicks Off a Lightning War on the Frontend
The big one is actually here.
Early Summer Clarity | Z News
We invite you to look back on the "highlight moments" of June with us.
I'm Not the Pianist on the Ocean, I Choose to Walk onto Land | Terry Zhu in Conversation with OriginFlow's Qin Shentao
Identify the right people, bet on long-term things
2026 MaHui | Source Code Capital's Zhang Xun: Growth Beyond Exponential — A Game With Fewer and Fewer Winners
The AI era has given us the longest slope and the wettest snow. Only one question remains — do we have the patience to keep rolling the snowball all the way down?
Time Rewards Fellow Travelers | BlueRun Ventures and Multiple Family Members Named to 36Kr's 2026 Annual Lists
Let's Define the Future Together
The Unforgettable Series C Funding of Moonshot AI
A stroke of genius.
Moonshot AI K2.6 Released and Open-Sourced: Major Advances in Coding, Long-Horizon Tasks, and Agent Swarms | BlueRun Ventures Portfolio Headlines
Minor Version, Major Upgrade
BlueRun Ventures Closes New Dual-Currency Fund at RMB 3.9 Billion
The louder the noise, the cooler the head.
"Undercover" at Moonshot AI: 100 Hours
Taste is all you need
Kimi Without Titles, Departments, or OKRs: How 300 People Carry a $120 Billion Valuation | BlueRun Ventures Family Headlines
Humans make the rules, silicon executes them, and organizations become vessels for algorithms.
MaKe | From Spring Festival Gala to NVIDIA GTC: Four MaHui Members Become "Global AI A-Listers"
Moonshot AI, Unitree, Galaxy Universal, Li Auto...
NVIDIA GTC On-the-Ground: 6 BlueRun Ventures Portfolio Founders Take the Stage, Breaking Down 6 Technical Challenges in AI Deployment
Welcome to reality.
Hello, the Great Age of AI Entrepreneurship — Pony Ma, Yiming Zhang, and the Day 0 Moment of 21 People
The era rewards those who bravely take half a step forward through the fog of Day 0.
New Forces Keep Coming｜5Y News Monthly
The big news from last month.
Office Is the Main Battleground for 2026 Agents | Moonshot AI K2.5 Goes Open Source, Agents Score First Victory
3, 2, 1, action!
The Fundraising Stories of China's "Six Little Tigers": Six Paths, Six Lives
If Kimi ever goes public, will the bell-ringing photo look very different?
MiniMax Goes Public: The $1.5 Billion Fundraising Blitz, 15 Reasons Investors Bet on It, and How Long Each One Lasts
One Year in AI, Five Years on Earth
Rongbao | Biren Technology and Seyond list successfully in Hong Kong, Moonshot AI completes major funding round
A new chapter begins.
Merge the "Six Little Tigers" to build China AGI.
"Merge the Six Little Tigers"
5Y News｜Moonshot AI Closes $500 Million Series C Round, Aims to Become a World-Leading AGI Company
Moonshot AI will become an LLM that is "distinctive" and "undefinable."
MaHui | MaHui Member Moonshot AI Closes $500 Million Series C, Aims to Become a World-Leading AGI Company
Source Code Capital was an early, long-standing shareholder in Moonshot AI.
Moonshot AI Completes $500 Million New Funding Round, Zhilin Yang: Kimi Will Become a Distinctive LLM
"Become the world's leading AGI company."
Where Did the Money Go? Who's Still Writing Checks? A 2025 VC Debrief With Jing Liu
VC takes a certain amount of instinct.
2026 AI Year-Opener: The Year of R | A Conversation with Yusen Dai of ZhenFund
History rewards those who take the first small step into the fog.
New Year 2026 Conversation with Koji: The Year of R
[Recommended] Winning the World's Admiration Bare-Handed in the AI Era | Buming Startup Camp Now Recruiting
"Winning the world's admiration with nothing but bare hands is usually a young person's privilege."
Winning the World's Admiration Bare-Handed in the AI Era | Buming Startup Camp Now Recruiting
Let's Get Ready to Rumble.
Monolith Raises $488 Million in New Funding
Assets under management exceed 10 billion RMB.
HKIC Joins Forces with BAAI to Host "AI Global Talent Summit," BlueRun Ventures Powers Global Chinese Talent in Tech Innovation
Talents of the Era, an Era of Talents
Are Model and 'Shell' Values Both Underestimated? ZhenFund's Yusen Dai's Mid-2025 AI Review
In 2025, the "Sedol moment" for industries far and wide is only just beginning.
Conversation with YouWare's Ming Chaoping: They're Skeptical That AI Coding Is a New Form of Creation — and I'm Thrilled | Z Talk
The promising AI product founder chose a path few others dared to take.
A Conversation with YouMind Founder Yu Bo: The Man Taking on Douyin | 100 AI Creators
He believes future content platforms will shift from Douyin addiction to universal creation.
ZhenFund's Yusen Dai: A Guide to Entrepreneurship, Investing, and AI for Young People
Abundant energy, an intense desire for success, and a fearless spirit of innovation.
Elsewhere is looking for operations interns.
We're hiring.
Exclusive | Kimi Arbitration Settlement Fails, Zhang Yutong May Face Separate Lawsuit
The AI landscape has already shifted.
When Post-'90s Founders Cluster Into the Unicorn Club: A Look at China's New Unicorns in 2024
Forty-four companies made the list, with hard tech taking center stage.
China's USD Funds Won't Disappear
Live long enough to long China.
ByteDance Is Dancing, Alibaba Is Restless, the AI Six Little Dragons Are Shaken — A Year-in-Review of the Foundation Model Wars with *LatePost*
Elephants can dance, and ByteDance keeps on dancing.
ZhiLin Yang's Late-Night Response: Yutong Zhang, Kimi, and the Loop of Past Events
"Grateful to all our investors for supporting the entrepreneurial dream."
Exclusive | On the Kimi Case, Allen Zhu Spoke With Us for 20,000 Words Straight
On gain and loss.
A Conversation with Li Xiang: Throwing Questions at Someone Who's Always Asking
Reflections of a Lifelong Business Journalist
First Snow, Clear Skies After Frost — Good News as Autumn Departs | Z News
The early winter breeze is crisp and clear.
Exclusive | The Full Untold Story Beneath the Surface of "Kimi Yang Zhilin Arbitration Case"
Who saw the sixpence, and who saw the moon.
Exclusive | Kimi Founder Yang Zhilin Faces Arbitration Filed by Former Investors
Another scandal at a high-profile AI company.
127 startups founded by Tsinghua alumni, all backed by this one fund
On average, one out of every six companies ZhenFund has invested in comes from Tsinghua University.
We invested in large language models, AI applications, and embodied intelligence, but BlueRun Ventures still feels it hasn't FOMO'd hard enough.
The more optimistic doers.
Moonshot AI Founder Zhilin Yang's Latest Take: Deep Reflections on OpenAI's o1 Paradigm Shift | Z Talk
The Next Phase of Foundation Models: A New Paradigm?
Rongbao | Embodied intelligence, chips accelerate commercial rollout and R&D; AI transforms creative industries, finance, and more
Several companies made it onto the annual lists by *China Entrepreneur* and *Fortune*.
Late Summer Sun, Breezes Bringing Autumn | Z News
A gentle breeze blows warm and pleasant.
MaHui Spotlight | Multiple MaHui Members Named to Wealth's 40 Under 40 China Business Elite and Other Lists
Young leaders are driving a revolutionary transformation of productivity.
Zhilin Yang: The Man Who Got Alibaba and Tencent to Team Up
Call me by your name.
A Conversation with Zhilin Yang: Focus on Productivity, Build the One Product That Is Kimi | Z Talk
Resist organizational inertia.
I'm Zhilin Yang of Moonshot AI, and I'm here for Alibaba Cloud.
This endorsement is a little too salty.
Yusen Dai: Embrace the Era, Optimism, and the Power of Young People | Crossover with AI Tech Review Talk
BlueRun Ventures and Its Portfolio Companies Win 36Kr's TOP 3 Early-Stage Investment Firm in China and Other Awards
Walking alongside founders from zero to one to redefine the future.
The Road to AGI | BlueRun Ventures' AGI Investment Thesis Updated to Version 2.0
Six takes, posted here for the record. Subject to revision.
Large Language Models Are Still in Elementary School — Don't Rush Them Into the Workforce | A Conversation with ZhenFund's Yusen Dai: What Stage Is AI At Right Now?
This is a crossover episode between the ZhenFund podcast *"Seriously Speaking"[1]* and the Crossing podcast[2].
A Good AI Should Be Like Doraemon | Koji x Yusen
Two Roads Diverge, But You Can't Travel Both | 2024 · Under 36
Make your choice.
Zhilin Yang: Internet R&D Is "Planting Trees," Large Model R&D Is "Contracting a Forest" | BlueRun Ventures Headline
Climbing the stairs, not just looking at the view.
Zhilin Yang: Innovation, Long-Term Thinking, First Principles
I'll see you on the other side of the moon.
Allen Zhu went left, Zhang Yutong went right
When Allen Zhu chose to stay put and ride out the storm, Zhang Yutong decided to find a new table.
At the Crossroads of AI, the Future Comes Roaring In | 16 Observations and Reflections from Q1
Setting Out on a Journey at 36 | Call for Submissions
"Knowing would be fatal. Uncertainty is what makes it enchanting."
Standing at the AI Crossing, the Future Comes Roaring In | 16 Observations and Reflections from My Q1
The green mountains endure, the clear waters flow on — change never misses its cue.
BlueRun Ventures Headlines | Moonshot AI's Intelligent Assistant Launches Beta for 2 Million Character Lossless Context Window
From 200,000 to 2 Million Words: Moonshot AI Opens Beta Test
In less than six months, Moonshot AI's smart assistant has increased its capacity tenfold, now supporting 2 million characters of lossless context.
The Power of Focus
China's LLM Funding War: The Quick Death of Romance
Do the investors regret it?
Qidi Weekly | The AI Face-Off Between Zhilin Yang and Allen Zhu
"Inspiration Weekly" is a column I'll update every week. Here, I'll record five people or things that inspired me during the week — to help me reflect, grow, expand my intellectual boundaries, and become freer and happier.
BlueRun Ventures Headlines | Zhilin Yang: Advancing Toward the Uncharted Snow-Capped Mountains
"If your ideal is something everyone can think of, it adds nothing to the total stock of human ideals."
Moonshot AI Kicks Off the "Long-Context Era" for 100-Billion-Parameter Models
A 100-billion-parameter LLM product that supports 200,000-word context windows
Entrepreneurship is a climb where the journey itself is the reward.
The journey is the reward.
Monolith's Xi Cao and His Eleven Musketeers
Starting a business is like climbing a mountain — the meaning lies in the climb itself.
Exclusive | The General-Purpose LLM Startup Wave: The First Battle Is About to End
Contestants, take your positions.
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