Is it me or does Qi Lu, president of Microsoft's online services division, sound kind of crazy? Or at least, kind of like a really driven robot. The
New York Times recently ran a profile on Lu, who has taken on the daunting task of challenging Google's domination of the search market:
A Hired Gun for Microsoft, in Pursuit of Google:
The challenge for Mr. Lu and his team remains enormous, and success appears improbable. But since Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, tapped him to become president of the company's online services division in December, Mr. Lu, a self-effacing engineer who is one of the most private and atypical executives in the upper ranks of the Internet industry, has earned the confidence of Microsoft's troops and helped to bring a dose of optimism to a beaten-down team.
Possessing unusual stamina and a maniacal work ethic, he has pushed his team hard to give Microsoft an important victory. In nightly 9:30 meetings over several weeks, he leaned on his managers to find creative ways to structure a sweeping and complex partnership with Yahoo. The deal, signed in July, will give Microsoft something it has coveted for years: a vastly larger audience that will make Bing, its search engine, the runner-up to Google.
9:30 meetings every day?! That's 9:30
PM, by the way. His team recently secured a partnership with Yahoo that will make Bing, Microsoft's search engine, the runner-up to Google.
Gawker thinks the article makes Lu sound a bit like Ivan "I will break you" Drago from
Rocky IV:
He sleeps three to four hours a night. One most weekdays, he wakes up around 4 a.m., goes through his e-mail and runs four miles on a treadmill while listening to classical music or watching the news.
He prefers to be in his office between 5 and 6 a.m. to have uninterrupted time to prepare for his day. He is often sending e-mail to his staff until midnight or later.
Lu previously worked at Yahoo for almost a decade, building the company's search and advertising technologies, but ultimately saw Yahoo fall further and further behind Google. He sees his latest challenge as "an unfinished mission," and apparently will not stop until Google's ass is his.
