JUST after the match in Wuzhen, Qi Lu joined Baidu. There, he did what he’d wanted to do at Microsoft: build a self-driving car. The company launched its project years after Google, but Lu was sure it would put cars on the road far faster than its American rival. This wasn’t because Baidu had better engineers or better technology. It was because Baidu was building its car in China. In China, government was closer to industry. As Baidu’s chief operating officer, he was working with five Chinese municipalities to remake their cities so that they could accommodate the company’s self-driving cars.
