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SVYEP club officers interviewed 7EDU founder Jun Liu last week on her thoughts about being an entrepreneur. Jun’s finely honed insight into the business world proved at once thought-provoking and inspirational to our team.

The government is the result of the formal contract between citizens of a country and said country. The citizen gives up the ability to act lawlessly, with the promise that the government, in turn, will systematically regulate the needs of the people and establish a just society. Instead of letting people run free with whatever weaponry they can find, guns are controlled–in turn, a police force and court are created so justice could be enforced. Citizens have to obey traffic laws, and in turn, governments can create a driving system everyone is required to follow, allowing more safety than if everybody followed their own driving rules. However, one area of debate still ongoing is, “How big of a role should the government play in regulating businesses?” People who are against governments playing a big role in regulating business cite the low satisfaction in current government-ran projects in the United States, including a bad public education system, slow progress in public construction projects, and generally error-prone path of obtaining citizenship and other documentation, such as a driver’s license. This results in a major argument being, “How can we trust the government to do a good job regulating private businesses when they can’t even manage theirs properly?” Similarly, another argument against heavy government regulation is the fact that private businesses thrive because they are private and have the ability to make choices for themselves. As discussed in our previous post, what makes startups thrive is their innovation. How can innovation occur when under government management? Lastly, people are scared of government regulation because it’s a “slippery slope.” At first, even if corrupt industries are regulated for the better, the government may start to abuse their power onto other businesses simply because they feel like it. On the flip side, people who support government ordinance cite how workers are often abused and underpaid. A study has found that in 2022, 44% of workers aged 18 to 64 earn low hourly incomes, which is problematic due to the fact that housing prices have risen by 500% in the past fifty years, with income only rising by 300. If the government plays a bigger role in businesses, the government will be able to improve the living conditions of workers. In fact, acts have already been passed that do exactly this: the minimum wage in California is $16.00/hour, over twice as high as the federal minimum wage, which is $7.25. As soon as June, the minimum wages in California will be raised again. Additionally, the government will also be able to systematically address ethical issues raised by corporations, especially in controversial fields such as biotechnology. What do the members at SVYEP think?

In Silicon Valley, where innovation determines everything, one would assume that monopolies with access to the biggest pool of resources—which fund research for said innovations—would always be driving new technological advancements and stay in power. However, a quick look reveals that only one of the top ten companies with the highest market capital in 2000 remains on the list as of 2024, and less than half of the biggest corporations in 1980 are even in the top hundred today. Yet, this comes as no shock: simply having access to wealth doesn’t guarantee a company’s future success. History has taught us that no matter how powerful a person or entity may be, complacency, misuse, or a general disconnect from current trends may bring the most gigantic titan crashing down. A prominent example is how IBM, a company who had once supplied up to 70% of all business computers, fell from grace due to gradually losing touch with its audience and squandering its money on R&D that yielded a low ROI. In current years, however, the government has been trying to artificially break up monopolies, evident in the massive number of antitrust lawsuits filed against the biggest corporations of our era: Google, for one, has had three since just 2020. These companies are often described as having “ridden the wave of the internet,” and since their inception, have managed to remain relevant by keeping up with the latest trends and developments in technology. Yet, people wonder if government interference is even necessary. Since the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, people have begun to question whether these monopolies have stayed too complacent and lack the ambition to ride the next wave of technological development: artificial intelligence. A notable example is Alphabet, the parent company of Google. Despite being the fourth biggest technology company in the world (and fifth biggest overall), owning a subsidiary that developed the first AI bot to beat a world champion at the board game Go, and publishing a paper that is the cornerstone of modern day artificial intelligence titled “Attention is All You Need” (115010), many people cite Alphabet as having “missed its mark” in regards to artificial intelligence. Alphabet is often criticized for being too content with its current position and not capitalizing on its research in artificial intelligence, despite investing money into AI R&D for over a decade. Alphabet’s mistake has given opportunities for dozens of startups, including OpenAI, to catch up and arguably even gain a lead on the behemoth that once led AI development, leading us to where we are now. After Alphabet’s failed launch of Gemini, which people speculate was due to increased pressure to compete with ChatGPT, cost Alphabet losses of almost 100 billion, many individuals are asking themselves: In the new revolution of artificial intelligence, is it really the monopolies that are leading the race and edging out small competitors, or the startups, which have a fresh vision of their goals? Nevertheless, the resources big companies have access to are indisputable and can’t be understated. So in the struggle between the big tech and startups over AI, who will emerge victorious?

“We truly sensed that AI would change education—as soon as OpenAI launched ChatGPT, we started work on our own company. With our vision, we launched our product just a month after.” In the beginning, AnswerAI wasn’t the company we know of today. Headed by Zhou (Ric) Li and Leo Zhang, it had been developing a social media app called Livein back in 2022. However, when OpenAI’s ChatGPT launched in December 2022, blowing everyone away with its human-like capabilities, Ric and Leo set out to reinvent their business on the surge of AI. “Most of us saw ChatGPT launch, but we didn’t see a lot of companies fully trusting it,” Leo said. Ric and Leo were part of the group who saw the potential of AI. Instantly pivoting development, they decided to particularly focus on the development of AI for education in a project called AnswerAI. If AnswerAI worked out, it would be at the vanguard of this new AI revolution. Later, when giving details about the history of AnswerAI at a business conference, Mr. Li specified why he decided to head into education: “Not everyone in America can get access to high quality education. Especially in the Midwest, there are so many students who wish to learn, but don’t have the resources or guidance needed to. Our company can fill that hole by providing students with access to an AI that doesn’t just give them answers, but can also help them learn.” AnswerAI profits by requiring a subscription from students after they run out of their daily free uses. Though Leo doesn’t believe AnswerAI will totally replace teachers or tutors, he stated that there are advantages for using AI to learn in comparison to a traditional classroom setting. “There are people who are ashamed to ask questions in a classroom. However, it’s okay for them to ask an AI. [...] When you talk to a robot, you won’t be judged. You won’t feel pressured, and you’ll also know that the AI will be gentle and patient.” However, there were others with similar thoughts as Ric and Leo. They were aware of the competitors in Silicon Valley. Besides, AnswerAI was a small company at the time, in comparison to well-established behemoths in the industry such as Google, who had done search and development in AI for over a decade. However, AnswerAI was able to work around these difficulties and outpace its competitors through efficiency and a clear vision of their goal of changing the world through AI education. “The key is speed,” Leo said. “In big companies, you have to attend a lot of meetings. You have to report again and again to your boss. But in a startup, you can do it all very fast. You go launch, you test it, and if there’s any issues, you repeat. That’s the advantage of being a small company.” Through this philosophy, AnswerAI was able to become a leader in the field of AI education. AnswerAI launched just one month after ChatGPT, quickly gaining popularity and usage. Their LinkedIn claims AnswerAI has over 1.5 million users, and the app now sits as the seventh most popular under “Education” in the app store, above companies such as Google Classroom, Quizlet, and Brainly. AnswerAI can help students in subjects ranging from mathematics to geography to business. However, to Leo, AnswerAI is more than just a company. Artificial intelligence was conceived of as and created to be a tool for humanity—a tool that aids human creativity, human emotions, and most of all, human passions; a tool for aiding humanity’s innate desire for education, to learn, and to think. “The users do more than just get an answer to their question and leave,” Leo said. “They are trying to get more answers, explanations, and they want to know how to get the answers and how to get the steps. [...] [AnswerAI] helps you find out why you should learn something, not just push you to get a final answer.” In their eyes, this is a big success, even beyond revenue.

Investor and former chairman of Chinese video game company Dalian Zeus Entertainment Andy Zhu (Zhu Ye) speaks on entrepreneurship in a new interview with SVYEP. In 2015, Zhu was the winner of the Warren Buffett charity lunch auction, where he paid $2.35 million for a lunch meeting with Buffett. Who is an entrepreneur? There are two sides to being an entrepreneur: the subjective side and the objective side. Subjectively, I believe most entrepreneurs are born with a love for business; we simply cannot be satisfied with stillness. But objectively, entrepreneurs get where they are often because they seek to change their place in life. What did you seek to change? I wanted to lift myself from poverty. It's as simple as that. Not every entrepreneur has to change the world. If you have no understanding of the world, why would you try to change it? For me, it's about finding an opportunity, thinking about how you want to make use of it, and then taking action. Focus on what's in front of you. How did you get started? How did you choose your industry? It's all about looking at the statistics and identifying the right areas. As soon as you identify areas of growth in an industry, enter the market. When I see that an industry has room for improvement, and the data backs it up, then that's a great opportunity right there. Entrepreneurship, in summary, is just a game of supply and demand. How did you build your team? First, you need to have faith in what you're doing. Entrepreneurs are fundamentally optimistic. Your team will mirror your attitude as a leader; if you are motivated, your team will be motivated. More practically speaking, you have to take advantage of team building to cover your own weaknesses. Learn to find strong partners. Set common goals, long term, but don't neglect the details either. You need to be very clear about how you want to win. Which skills are most necessary to being an entrepreneur? Everyone has their own skills and a "right path" for them. My expectations for myself are to be clean, reliable, and diligent. These are the fundamentals. Often you'll find you don't need much more these to succeed because most people can't even fulfill the basic three. What's it like being an investor on top of an entrepreneur? I am an entrepreneur to begin with, not an investor. All of my investments were based on my own experience as an entrepreneur. After all, I already know the industry I work in, and so I have a good sense of what might succeed. In reality, what's far more important than what you're investing in is when you invest. Give your advice to aspiring young entrepreneurs: Read first. Get the foundation. Then, find people like yourself or like me to work with you and guide you. If you do that, you will find your business.

“A lot of people told me it was impossible,” Jun said. “How can a foreigner start a business with no networking, no resources, nothing? But I had faith. That’s the thing to make it happen.” On a winter morning in Mongolia, a girl, all alone, forces her way through the frigid doors of her elementary school classroom. She lights the fireplace before she can cook her lunch for the day: two sweet potatoes. Outside, her horse shuffles in the snow, tied down to a post. But Jun Liu cannot be tied down. Jun was born to be wild. Founder and CEO of the 7EDU Impact Academy, Jun learned to be an entrepreneur at an early age. Her life philosophy, “make it happen,” reflects every step of her journey from a half-Mongolian, half-Chinese girl with a dream to study abroad to an esteemed businesswoman and educator at the heart of Silicon Valley. “Growing up in the middle of nowhere in very severe weather, you have to figure out everything every day,” Jun said. “When I had to ride my horse to school in the mornings, I met wolves, I lost books on the way, so a lot of my time I spent looking for the resources to make something happen.” Jun first made it happen when she secured a prestigious job opportunity at New Oriental, China’s leading private education company, back in the early 2000s. After coming to the U.S. for her MBA, she set out to create the best education solution for high school students in the form of 7EDU. “A lot of people told me it was impossible,” Jun said. “How can a foreigner start a business with no networking, no resources, nothing? But I had faith. That’s the thing to make it happen.” Besides the academy, Jun also founded the K-12 Leadways School in 2020. Her goal: to harness children’s innate ability to perform by infusing her own enthusiasm and optimism into the curriculum. “I feel like the kids naturally know ‘make it happen,’” Jun said. “You don’t want them to play video games, they will hide it and play it. You don’t want them to talk to their friends, they will manage to text them in the middle of the night. As long as we can redirect that kind of energy to something more positive, I say every single child can manage to do the things they want.” As a counselor and life coach, Jun spends much of her time guiding students to want something—she explains to them what opportunities they have. As 7EDU approaches its 10th anniversary this year, it is clear this method did not fail. “In my work with students over the years, a lot of miracles did happen,” Jun said. “For example, Cornell: my student’s afraid they can’t make it because they have a B, but they get in. Or with five Bs they get into MIT. So they are the miracles, and they are the peers helping other students understand that if you do believe, you can actually make it happen.” Now, Jun wants to share her entrepreneurial spirit with her students through the Silicon Valley Youth Entrepreneur Program. She understands that experience is the most valuable tool for today’s aspiring entrepreneurs. “I don’t think there is a lack of resources for learning about business anymore. What students really need is the opportunity to know the real business world and meet the real life entrepreneurs. That’s why we founded this program.” Entrepreneurship is more than business, says Jun. Social impact is what ultimately gives her the faith to make it happen. “Why will a person consistently do something, regardless of challenges, troubles, stress, all the hard work? Impact. The impact that I put into my community, into every student that I meet, gives me accomplishment. That's the only way to be an entrepreneur."

The 7EDU Impact Academy celebrated its 10th founding anniversary with a music-filled lunch party and presentations from 7EDU founders at the Leadways School campus on March 9. SVYEP sold out its first boba fundraiser at the gathering and presented to over 80 students, parents, and local businesses. Other highlights included an iPad and Apple Watch raffle, musical performances by 7EDU students, and speeches from Cupertino Mayor Sheila Mohan and Chamber of Commerce member John Tang.

Over 70 entrepreneurs and 11 students attended the 1st AI Demo Day by the Bay Area Founders Club on Feb. 25. Six students joined the event through SVYEP. Speakers included Warren Buffett Charity Lunch winner Andy Zhu and congressional candidate Rishi Kumar.

The Bay Area Founders Club hosted congressional candidate Rishi Kumar for its 12th AI dinner at the 7EDU Impact Academy on Feb. 12. About 50 entrepreneurs and 5 students attended to discuss the transformative impact of AI on Silicon Valley's future. They engaged in a networking session afterward.