History of KaiFu Lee (李开复)

Move from Microsoft to Google
In July, 2005, Lee left Microsoft to take a position at Google.

On July 19, 2005, Microsoft sued Google and Lee in a Washington state court over Google's hiring of its former Vice President of Interactive Services, claiming that Lee was violating his non-compete agreement by working for Google within one year of leaving the Redmond-based software corporation. Microsoft argued that Lee would inevitably disclose proprietary information to Google if he was allowed to work there.

On July 28, 2005, Washington state Superior Court Judge Steven González granted Microsoft a temporary restraining order, which prohibited Lee from working on Google projects that compete with Microsoft pending a trial scheduled for January 9, 2006.On September 13, following a hearing, Judge González issued a ruling permitting Lee to work for Google, but barring him from starting work on some technical projects until the case goes to trial in January 2006. Lee was still allowed to recruit employees for Google in China and to talk to government officials about licensing, but was prohibited from working on technologies such as search or speech. Lee was also prohibited from setting budgets, salaries, and research directions for Google in China until the case was to go to trial in January 2006.

Before the case could go to trial, on December 22, 2005 Google and Microsoft announced that they had reached a settlement whose terms are confidential, ending a five-month dispute between the two companies.

At Google China, Lee helped establish the company in the market and overseen its growth in the country. He was responsible for launching the Google.cn regional website, and strengthened the company's team of engineers and scientists in the country.

On 4 September, 2009, Lee announced his resignation from Google. He said “With a very strong leadership team in place, it seemed a very good moment for me to move to the next chapter in my career.” Alan Eustace, senior Google vice-president for engineering, credited him with "helping dramatically to im­prove the quality and range of services that we offer in China, and ensuring that we continue to innovate on the Web for the benefit of users and advertisers".

Two executives in the company have taken over Lee's roles, Boon-Lock Yeo, who is now working as director of Google’s Shanghai engineering office, will take over the engineering department, and John Liu, VP of sales and operations, will assume the business and operations side.

Innovation Works
On September 7, 2009 he announced details of a $115m venture capital (early-stage incubation and seed money business model) fund called "Innovation Works" that aims to create five successful Chinese start-ups a year in internet and mobile internet businesses or in vast hosting services known as cloud computing. The Innovation Works fund has attracted several investors, including Steve Chen, co-founder of YouTube; Foxconn, the electronics contract manufacturer; Legend Holdings, the parent of PC maker Lenovo; and WI Harper Group.

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Previous jobs
Corporate Vice President, Natural Interactive Services Division (NISD), Microsoft Corp. 2000 - July, 2005
Founder, Microsoft Research Asia, China, 1998-2000
President, Cosmo Software
President, Multimedia Software Business Unit, Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI)
Vice President & General Manager, Web Products, Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI)
Vice President, Interactive Media Group, Apple Computer, 1990-1996
Assistant Professor, Carnegie Mellon University, 1988-1990

Education

Ph.D. in Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, 1988

B.S. in Computer Science, Columbia University, 1983