Self studying Chinese and knowing Chinese Kung Fu... with an annual salary of over a million! At the age of 14, a genius boy joined Musk Company, with an IQ of over 180. | SpaceX | Musk

14-year-old "genius boy" joins SpaceX!

Recently, Musk's SpaceX welcomed a new employee, who is only 14 years old, has an IQ of over 180, and has also self-taught Chinese and Kung Fu as a "genius youth".

In fact, Musk was also a "genius boy". He has always insisted on working with the most talented people, and once wrote a sentence on SpaceX's recruitment page: "SpaceX is like a special forces unit. We are doing tasks that others think are impossible to accomplish."

In terms of talent exploration and cultivation, Huawei has also spared no effort, and the "Genius Youth" project launched in 2019 has been highly regarded, especially the high annual salary offered. It is reported that the annual salary is divided into three levels, with the highest level ranging from 1.82 million yuan to 0.1 million yuan; The second tier is 1.405 million yuan to 15.65 million yuan; The third tier is between 896000 yuan and 1008000 yuan.

It is worth mentioning that among the earlier batch of "Huawei Genius Youth", there have been entrepreneurs who have chosen to resign. Peng Zhihui, a former AI algorithm engineer at Huawei, has received three rounds of financing with a robot entrepreneurship project, and the market valuation may exceed 1 billion US dollars. It is worth mentioning that in the latest equity change of this Shanghai AI company, Robin Lee's Sanya Baichuan Zhixin Private Equity Fund, as well as Jingwei, Gao Rong and other institutions appeared.

The Growth History of "Genius Youth"

Recently, Musk's SpaceX has welcomed a new employee. At the age of 14, a talented teenager, Kelan Quiz, will serve as SpaceX software engineer and join SpaceX's satellite Internet Starlink team. At the age of only 14, Kelan Quez has just graduated from the University of Santa Clara in the United States, becoming the youngest graduate in the school's 172 year history.

According to job search website data, SpaceX's admission rate is only 0.2%, which is even harder than getting into Harvard. Kelan Quez's joining set a record, becoming SpaceX's youngest software engineer, with an annual salary of up to $140000 to $216000, equivalent to approximately RMB 1-1.5 million. Quiz proudly posted on social media, "I have accepted an offer from one of the coolest companies on this planet as a software engineer!"

Exploring the process of "genius youth", according to multiple foreign media reports, in 2009, Quez was born in the San Francisco Bay Area of the United States. His parents were both Bangladeshi Americans, and his father was also a former chemical engineer.

When Quiz was a few months old, his mother found out that he was different from others. He loved to hear people talk. Once others stopped telling him stories, he would lose his temper.

At the age of 2, Quez was able to speak complete sentences. Under the doctor's appraisal, his family determined that Quez was a genius with extremely high IQ. By the time he entered third grade of elementary school, his IQ had exceeded 180, surpassing 99.9% of humans.

At the age of 11, Quez successfully enrolled in the University of Santa Clara to study Computer Science Engineering. However, his life of cheating is not yet over.

During his university years, he not only joined the Computer Machine Association on campus and served as a senior senator for the United Student Union, but was also appointed as a counselor to tutor his much older classmates.

In addition, he has been a research collaborator at Intel Human AI Laboratory since the age of 10 and has been involved in the development of the open-source voice prediction generation platform - the next generation Hawking ACAT system. He is also a guest writer for MIT Technology Review.

After a year, he boarded Shift AI and delivered a keynote speech. At the age of 13, he interned at the technology company Blackbird AI, responsible for using AI to monitor false information.

This resume still stands out in the talented Silicon Valley, let alone a 14-year-old boy. However, the growth of genius is not always smooth sailing, at least when it comes to finding a job, Quez has also suffered a lot.

According to Quez himself, he went through 10 rounds of interviews before receiving the offer from SpaceX, and in the past year, he has applied for a total of 97 jobs, but only three companies have given him opportunities.

He thanked SpaceX for being one of the few companies that does not use age as a measure of applicant maturity and ability, and SpaceX's recruitment manager believed he had the potential to become a top engineer, which also inspired him.

It is worth mentioning that according to the law in the Washington area, SpaceX can legally hire Quez because he happens to have stepped on the minimum legal working age.

Outside of his profession, Quez is obviously also an energetic teenager. According to him, he is working hard to learn Bengali with his family, as well as Mandarin.

In 2019, Chinese media also reported on this talented young man, who was reportedly self-learning Chinese and Chinese Kung Fu at the time.

Musk's "HR" Philosophy

Like Quiz, Musk is also a "genius boy".

Mother Mayer Musk, when talking about Elon Musk's success in entrepreneurship, once said that it was more due to his personal talent, rather than purely nurture. "Elon Musk has had his own unique imagination since he was very young. If I have something I want to do, he always gives me a smart answer. He has had adult intelligence since he was three years old. So, I think he was born like this."

It is reported that Musk had already read the encyclopedia at the age of 8. At the age of 10, Musk purchased his first computer and a programming textbook in his life, and taught himself programming. Two years later, Musk successfully designed a space game software called "Blastar" and sold it to PC and Office Technology magazine for $500, earning his first bucket of gold in life.

Perhaps it was his teenage experience that made Musk insist on working with the most talented people. In the recruitment process, Musk spared no effort in searching for top talents, which laid the foundation for the success of later companies such as Tesla and SpaceX.

Musk once wrote a sentence on SpaceX's recruitment page: "SpaceX is like a special forces unit. We are doing tasks that others think are impossible to accomplish."

In fact, whether it's Zip2, Tesla, or SpaceX, Musk has been consistently recruiting top talent since its inception.

In 1995, Musk founded Zip2. At that time, Musk was still an unknown entrepreneur. When facing financial difficulties, Musk went to the Christian Youth Association to take a shower and even couldn't buy a bed rack. He could only sleep with a mattress on the floor. However, despite this, Musk still spared no expense in hiring. It is rumored that Musk once had a crush on an engineer and offered free accommodation, transportation, and other benefits to lure him to Zip2.

In the first six years of SpaceX's establishment, Musk participated in the recruitment of each of SpaceX's top 1000 employees, including janitors and security guards.

The first engineer of SpaceX was a tall and thin man carrying an 80 pound rocket booster that Musk saw while visiting a rocket manufacturing workshop. He interviewed on the spot and, after asking a lot of detailed questions, successfully dug him into SpaceX.

This also led SpaceX to form a star team shortly after its establishment.

Tom Mueller, Chief Technology Officer of the Propulsion Department, worked at TRW, the largest engine manufacturer in the United States, for 15 years and was involved in the development of the landing power system for the Apollo lunar spacecraft.

In addition, Chris Thompson, the chief designer of the Hercules rocket at McDonnell Douglas, and Tim Buzza, the head of Delta rocket testing at Boeing, were also recruited by Musk.

SpaceX was once rated as "Best places to interview" by Glassdoor, an authoritative American workplace information community.

Musk once said, "If you start a business, you need to do everything possible to find the most talented people." He has been practicing this principle himself. It is rumored that Musk often consults universities about "who is the most hardworking, intelligent, and unmarried graduate student", and contacts them as soon as possible, interviews are held nearby, and once talent is found, an offer is immediately issued.

Many of Tesla's employee recruitment and hiring processes are also personally approved by Musk. Although Tesla was already a leading company in the industry last year and did not lack outstanding talent, Musk still advertised on Twitter for the 2022 recruitment plan at the Austin Tesla factory.

Years of experience have shaped Musk's mature "HR" philosophy.

He once openly talked about his interview methods. Musk mentioned that job applicants will be asked to talk about the difficult issues they have dealt with in their career, the results, and how they make decisions at critical turning points to understand a person. And he will ask for detailed details, believing that only those who are truly responsible for solving the problem will know these details.

In 2014, Musk publicly mentioned his recruitment preferences. He said, "If a person graduates from an excellent university, it may mean they have the ability to do great things, but the fact is not necessarily so. You see, Bill Gates, Ellison, Jobs, and others are not college graduates, but if you have the opportunity to hire them, it would certainly be a good idea."

When recruiting for Tesla's artificial intelligence department, Musk also stated, "A doctoral degree is not necessary. I don't care if you graduate from high school." He cares more about people who have a "profound understanding" of artificial intelligence.

Musk always insists on seeking evidence of extraordinary abilities. If he maintains impressive achievements in the past, this is likely to continue into the future.

Musk once quoted Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel, saying, "Only paranoia can survive." This statement may be the best footnote for his entrepreneurship, and when recruiting, Musk remains stubbornly focused on finding "geniuses" like him.

Huawei's "Genius Youth" Project

In terms of talent exploration and cultivation, Huawei has also spared no effort, and its previous "Genius Youth" project has received much attention.

On May 19th of this year, according to Huawei's recruitment official WeChat account, Huawei is recruiting talented young people from around the world, who are eager to challenge world-class challenges with the ability and willingness. It is understood that Huawei is recruiting talented young people with no education or school restrictions. They have made special achievements in fields such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, materials, computers, intelligent manufacturing, and aspire to become technology leaders. Becoming Huawei's "genius youth" will also receive generous salaries and resources, such as world-class challenge projects, great mentors, global platforms and resources, and 5+times the salary.

Huawei has been launching the "Genius Youth" project since 2019, and the high annual salary offered has attracted social attention. It is reported that the annual salary is divided into three levels, with the highest level ranging from 1.82 million yuan to 0.1 million yuan; The second tier is 1.405 million yuan to 15.65 million yuan; The third tier is between 896000 yuan and 1008000 yuan. Previously, Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei signed an internal document proposing to recruit outstanding young people from around the world. "These talented young people are like 'loaches', drilling through Huawei's organization and activating Huawei's team."

It is understood that joining the Huawei Genius Youth Program requires three steps: resume screening, interview communication, and employment decision-making. Among them, the resume screening stage mainly involves understanding the achievements of the candidate in research directions, scientific research projects, and innovative topics. The interview communication stage involves face-to-face communication between technical experts, business presidents, and job applicants to understand their professional knowledge and problem-solving abilities. Finally, the hiring decision stage mainly involves comprehensive evaluation by a professional recruitment team.

In March of this year, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei gave a symposium speech at Shanghai Jiao Tong University regarding the "Genius Youth" plan, stating that after joining Huawei, the term "Genius Youth" no longer exists, and the positioning of "Genius Youth" is mainly used for job grading and salary adjustment. During the onboarding training for all new employees in Sanya Slope, there are various posted topics everywhere. Everyone should actively reply to the posts. Some people will read this post, while others will come to you for coffee. You should communicate seriously, oppose opinions, or praise Chengdu. They are selecting people, and these experts have the power to rank and position you on the spot, because they are already very skilled experts. If he thinks you can be trained, the rank will be set very high, why do you have to start from the lowest level? He can also pull you into his project team, and you can directly enter the big project team. A large project team does not refer to a large scale, but to a high-end project team.

According to the financial report, in 2022, Huawei continued to increase its research and development investment, reaching 161.5 billion yuan, accounting for 25.1% of the annual revenue, which is at a historical high. As of December 31, 2022, Huawei has a total of approximately 207000 employees, including approximately 114000 R&D employees, accounting for 55.4% of the total number of employees.

Huawei's rotating chairman Meng Wanzhou previously stated that regardless of the pressure the company faces in its operations, it will continue to maintain an open attitude and attract more outstanding talents to join Huawei.

It is worth mentioning that among the earlier batch of "Huawei Genius Youth", some have chosen to resign and start their own businesses. Peng Zhihui, a former AI algorithm engineer at Huawei, has received three rounds of financing with a robot entrepreneurship project, and the market valuation may exceed 1 billion US dollars.

In 2020, Peng Zhihui became an expert in edge computing of Ascension AI through Huawei's "gifted youth" plan. At the end of 2022, this "genius youth" announced his resignation and entrepreneurship. Two months later, the parent company of Zhiyuan Robotics, Shanghai Zhiyuan, was registered and established with a current registered capital of 48.47 million yuan.

Less than 4 months after its establishment, Zhiyuan Robotics has completed three rounds of financing, and well-known VCs such as Hillhouse, Qiji Chuangtan, and Jingwei have appeared one after another. According to Tianyancha Equity Penetration, funds under CATL, as well as Chinese Academy of Sciences Venture Capital and Beijing Chaoyang Science and Technology Innovation Fund, are all prominently listed. Currently, Peng Zhihui holds 13.79% of the shares, with a final beneficial stake of 6.6%.

At the end of May, Zhiyuan Robotics completed the third round of financing. It is worth mentioning that one of the new shareholders, Sanya Baichuan Zhixin Private Equity Fund, holds a 1.33% stake in Shanghai Zhiyuan. The above fund belongs to Baidu Netcom Technology, which is controlled by Robin Lee.

Regarding the phenomenon of "genius youth" resigning, Ren Zhengfei has also made a special comment, stating that Huawei cannot monopolize talents. If an employee wants to go out and start a business or go to other companies, "everyone should give full play to their talents and realize their value, which is useful for the country."