Interview with Dr. Jeff Wei

L: Thanks for talking with us. Your career and thoughts on how alumni can help USTC are our focus today. Let's start with your career. You became one of the founders of World Market Center after you received your Ph.D in Biochemistry. What's the story behind your farewell to science and debut in business?

W: I am glad to be here.

After I got my Ph.D, I went to work at the Massachusetts Hospital (Harvard Medical School) as a post doctor fellow. I was in a difficult situation at that time. Even though the technology I developed in graduate school was a cutting edge invention, my advisor was focusing on funding instead of technology development. In contrast to my expectation to publish a series of papers to cover an area of research, I did not publish any first author paper. It was practically impossible for me to find a job that gives me the necessary back up to achieve my career goal. I decided to try a different career path.

L: Tell us more about your beginning as a businessman. What did you do in World Market Center exactly?

W: At the beginning, I still tried to save my scientific career by heading a non-profit organization in a niche research market. This is the major reason I organized a Chinese traditional medicine foundation. Very soon, I realize that the non-profit market is very tough and hence the funding for non-profit ventures such as pure research. I gave up this idea very quickly. This makes me feel very painful and also prompt me to seriously think about giving up my academic career all together.

The coming of my brother-in-law from China provided me an opportunity to sell auto parts for a Chinese manufacturer. I decided to embrace this opportunity fully. We did sell one container of auto parts to a major auto parts distribution chain. But that didn't last long because the supplier company went bankrupt. This provided me the foundation of another business venture, World Market Center. The idea was to provide temporary sales offices in the form of long-term trade show services here in the US for Chinese companies. I did the marketing research and raised seed money from Willwork, Inc. to support this venture. Some unanticipated regulatory changes in China made the whole venture impossible to progress as originally planned and hence We closed our office in China and started to concentrate on US domestic trade shows. The switch of direction made the scope of this business much more confined. I decided to go to business school to systematically understand business operation and also build a marketable skill set as a safety net for the family. I helped my investor to recruit my replacement to run that business.

L: As someone who holds an MBA from one of the best business schools, what do you have to say to any USTC alumnae/us who wants to apply to business schools?

W: In B school, one learns how to become a professional manager. Anything beyond that is not a reality if the person do not have enough experience before B school. Generally one has three options after B school. The first option is to become an investment banker or trader on Wall Street. It is quite stressful there but the financial benefit is also higher. The second option is to become a consultant. Consulting requires all kinds of soft skills. The work is less intense and the financial reward is not as high as on Wall Street. The third one, which I took, is to work for an operating company. You can work for big companies and acquire valuable operational and organizational experience. Or you can work for start-ups and hope to do well with stock options. It all depends on what you want to do.

I had one purpose in Sloan and that is to learn how to build a company. To build and run a company, you have to learn all kinds of skills, not confine yourself in any segment. I took many courses and met many people. These served me well after my MBA. I did a summer internship at Emerson Electric and built a demand-forecasting model that has an accuracy of 98% in contrast to the previous 90%. Emerson is still using that model today.

L: When asked why you only worked for Applied Materials and Infoseek Corp one year each (World Journal, Finance and Consumption Section, 11/28/99), your reply was that you didn't have the patience to sit there any longer. What were you looking for that you didn't find?

W: That's a long story. Applied Materials is a large company. I learnt a lot and met lot of great people over there as well. These acquired intangible assets are still benefiting me today. I was responsible for $40 million annual revenue and developed a new service product, which brought $10 million revenue the first quarter it was launched, and the new service product was responsible for the closing of $178 million deal for Applied Materials at Charter Semiconductor at Singapore. I was laid off because I did not manage a promotional opportunity well and brought about some uncomfortable situations there.

After Applied Materials, I went to Infoseek. I was the search product manager and in charge of 90% traffic for the company. I learnt my product management, brand management, marketing communication, and deal making skill over there. But I was not happy either in Infoseek after a while.

I finally realized that I was not doing the kind of job I wanted and am very good at. The skill set needed for overseeing the operation of a company is very different from being a professional manager within an organization. I am a creative person and willing to assume the full responsibility of an organization. It is very tough for me to feel satisfied to work on a narrowly defined task. That’s the reason why I left Infoseek.

L: Please tell us what you are trying to do with Uhere. Now that you are sitting in Uhere now, how is your patience doing?

W: Uhere Provides Spot market solution and derivative market solution for the e-commerce world, especially the business-to-business e-commerce world. The spot market solution can help e-commerce start-ups to power up their sites very fast without purchasing hardware and commercial software. The derivative market solution is to help established e-commerce sites to further increase their revenue and to tremendously improving the competitive situation of their markets. Please check our web site (www.uhere.com) in couple of weeks for detailed information.

I feel very excited about my work right now. In April 1999, I quit Infoseek and started to work on Uhere. We have over 10 people. We are currently looking for people with different skills to scale our organization. If any USTC alum interested in join my team, please drop me a line at jwei@Uhere.com.

L: Is there any chance of selling Uhere, rather than taking it public as you are now planning? What does either outcome mean to you?

W: The derivative market is our central strategy. If our vision can't be fully realized, selling the company to a suitable organization is a viable option. Otherwise, we will take Uhere public.

L: The economy and especially the stock market in the US have been going very strong. Some say we have a "new economy". Others say it is a bubble that will soon pop. As an entrepreneur in the eye of the hurricane, what's your opinion?

W: My opinion is that neither extreme is right. The truth probably lies somewhere in between. The "new economy" theory has some merit. You see, communication cost is almost coming down to zero, thanks largely to the Internet. I also believe the market is still efficient. In the last several days, Infoseek was down much, so was Excite@Home, whereas Yahoo was up. As far as I can see, the market is not too hot or too cold, it is running as normal.

In the specific case of Uhere, our major objective is to increase shareholder value. Earnings growth will be the #1 priority at Uhere. There will be rainy and shiny days in the stock market. Only companies with solid fundamentals will survive. To build a dominant lasting concern that continuously meets or exceeds shareholder expectations is our goal at Uhere.

L: Tell us about your key team members.

W: Our chairman is Joseph Jeng. He has an MBA and a degree in Physics from Harvard in 1976. His first job was with Spectra-Physics, a fast growing laser company at that time. After 7 years he became a division president. Joseph was then recruited to be the CEO of Digital Optics, a Kleiner’s portfolio company. After he successfully sold the company to Matrix, Joseph started his own contract manufacturing company “Altatron” and grew it to the size of $900 millions annual revenue. I met him at our church. Our VP - Operations, Curtis Paige, got his MBA from University of Virginia. Curtis also has a Master of Operations Management degree From University of Michigan. He had his own company before, which was a Tier 1 supplier for Ford. We met at an MBA job fair. In our Engineering team, we have 2 Tsinghua alumni, 1 USTC and 1 Berkeley alumni. IBM is our technology partner and it provides a full range of services to help us launch our product.

L: Looking down the road as far as possible, where do you see yourself?

W: I think I will be either running companies or helping people run companies. With Uhere, I am as busy as I ever want to get. Currently I am also serving on the boards or advisory boards of 4 start-ups. All the 4 companies, ColorStamps.com, Ecompare.com, AboveJob.com and FavorFood.com, have got funding. ColorStamps.com was founded by a USTC alumni, whereas AboveJob.com by a USTC and a Beijing University alumni. FavorFood.com right now is looking for bilingual managers since most partners can only speak OK English.

I see myself doing different things with/without money. Right now I don't have much money so the helping part is more of what I do with other companies. I get shares as a board member, etc. If I had some capital, I will become an investor as well.

L: I know you are a permanent member of the AF. What comments do you have on USTC and AF?

W: Believe it or not, I wanted to staff some USTCers as key members in my team and that didn't seem to work out well. Eventually I ended up giving those positions to Qinghua people or Americans. What's happening here? After some long soul-searching, I came to the conclusion that it has to do with the value system that USTC has been promoting.

USTC is by and large a science school, where individual excellence is valued most. Leadership and teamwork skills, on the other hand, have been put on the sideline. Qinghua people have not only taken prominent positions in China, but also done well in Silicon Valley. The reason? Team work, I believe. Qinghua people know some of their alumni have become top political leaders and business managers. They also know that they will be helped by other Qinghua alumni to reach their goals. In Silicon Valley, one Qinghua company often serves as a seed to several more companies. Another case in point is Harvard University. Harvard, as they said, "looks for leaders and produce leaders for this nation to go forward". I would ask AF this question: how can you promote leadership and teamwork skills among USTC alumni?

L: How can USTC and AF go about doing these, in your opinion?

W: I think three things can be done. The first is that USTC can realign its departments and majors, and emphasize interchange with the society. This will enhance a different set of skills compared with what we normally get from a pure science program. The second is to modify the course work to promote teamwork and communication skills. People need to share what and how they think with other people. The third one is to develop team projects and evaluate the results on the team basis. If the final score is based on the team performance, students will have a different perspective. Both USTC and AF can do these things. All we USTC people should think how we could make bigger and real contributions to the society. Leaders have to be willing to change, work effectively with successful people, taking calculated risks and assume responsibilities. Both USTC and AF can think more about developing leaders for this society. Some of these changes don't necessarily require a lot of money, but are as difficult to achieve.

L: Thank you.

W: What you are doing at the AF are adding value to USTC and I thank you for that.