FreeWheel Diane Yu: Gather the best people to do the happiest things

[51CTO.com original article] This is not the first time that the reporter has seen Diane. A few months ago, at the FreeWheel New Year's Appreciation Party, the FreeWheel co-founder and CTO wore a light green dress and a soft lake blue sweater. She tilted her head and told us with a playful look that she had specially matched this dress for this speech, hoping that everyone present could feel the vitality and vigor of FreeWheel. Perhaps it was too rare for IT women with this style, or perhaps Diane's expression was playful and lively at the time. In short, the reporter deeply remembered that moment. When 51CTO was preparing to do a series of interviews with IT women to welcome Women's Day, the reporter first thought of Diane.

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The CTO who prefers a blank sheet of paper

Before becoming FreeWheel's co-founder and CTO, Diane had worked at DoubleClick for nine years. During these nine years, the company basically rotated her positions every two years, allowing her to get in touch with different work content, enrich herself and meet more new challenges. During this process, there were many other job opportunities for her to choose from, but none of them moved her.

Soon, two colleagues who had worked with her at DoubleClick found her and invited her to start a new company. They told Diane their views that most digital content was concentrated on text media at that time, but these two colleagues with a keen sense of smell had realized that after the digitization of text media, the next step would be the digitization of high-end video and TV content. A very key difference in this transformation process is that the video itself is a complete content with flexible fluidity, which will bring a new way of inserting advertisements, that is, the advertisements should flow everywhere with the video to reach the end users.

DoubleClick was the most advanced advertising platform at the time, but it was built on the basis of digital text media, without the concept of video fluidity, let alone the concept of video ad playback duration. Diane immediately realized that this was a huge market opportunity in the future. First of all, from the perspective of existing technology at the time, it was a blank sheet of paper and a blank market; secondly, she could also satisfy her hometown sentiment by establishing a research and development center in Beijing and building an excellent team from scratch, which was really attractive to her who loved challenges.

The three of them hit it off immediately, with Diane in charge of engineering and the other two partners responsible for product and sales, forming a perfect combination with complementary capabilities. FreeWheel actively communicated with target customers about their ideas for video advertising, and was soon recognized by more and more customers.

What is the most important thing? Talent!

Diane told reporters that FreeWheel's core product is called MRM, which is very different from ordinary advertising platforms. Most advertising platforms sell ads based on existing ad space, and the highest bidder wins. FreeWheel is different. MRM will make decisions based on factors such as the content of the ad, the ownership of the content copyright, and the target users. First, it will determine which platform the ad can be played on, and second, which platform can guarantee the highest revenue. The last step is to determine which platform's ad space is the best match for the ad content.

"MRM includes many patented algorithms developed by our Beijing R&D center, which ensures the leading position of technology in the market." Diane said frankly, "But compared with technology, I value talent more. Talent will always be the Key Differentiator (core competitiveness) of FreeWheel."

She told the reporter that the company's philosophy has always been to build offices wherever the best people can be found, not just in Beijing, but also in New York. She gave an example, when she invited a very outstanding engineer to join FreeWheel, but the engineer was unwilling to go to the West Coast office, so FreeWheel decided to build an office for him in New York in order to retain him. "I don't think our current products are unsurpassed. I think the people who build these systems are the company's real competitive advantage and the secret to FreeWheel always being one step ahead."

Today, FreeWheel has been widely recognized, with 80% of traditional US TV media and operators using FreeWheel's digital video advertising services, and most of the top 10 video websites ranked by ComScore being the company's customers or partners. FreeWheel will now focus on developing the European market, upgrading its existing 50% market share.

Believe in yourself and dare to express yourself

As a female programmer, Diane believes that women working in the IT workplace must believe in themselves and dare to speak out. "When I was young, I didn't have much experience. When everyone discussed work together, male programmers accounted for the majority. Because male and female thinking are completely different, when most male programmers reached a consensus, I had different ideas. At the time, I thought I must be wrong, but later I found that it was not the case."

Diane encourages women to share their perspectives on many occasions. Only by speaking out their own ideas can everyone look at problems more objectively from a different perspective, thus avoiding detours and growing faster. "Research data shows that if a company has a very good balance of men and women, a whole-brain effect will occur and the company will be more likely to succeed." She explained that because women are not good at expressing their opinions in public, when the number of women reaches a certain proportion, women's opinions are more likely to be supported, allowing the team to make more informed decisions.

In just a few hours of interview, the reporter found that Diane has many admirable qualities. She dares to express herself, likes challenges, and fully enjoys everything in the present. Perhaps it is because of such a unique CTO that FreeWheel's growth path is so calm that it "does not ask about the past and is not afraid of the future."

[51CTO original article, please indicate the original author and source as 51CTO.com when reprinting on partner sites]