Apple had once invited Kimi founder Yang Zhilin to join, but he insisted on returning to China to start his own business.

According to Dongcha Beating monitoring, regarding the discussion on "Why did Yang Zhi Lin not stay in the United States," his Ph.D. advisor Russ Salakhutdinov made a post to clarify. Russ stated that there are many misunderstandings in the public about Yang Zhi Lin's visa, H-1B lottery, and reasons for leaving the U.S.

At that time, Yang Zhi Lin had many opportunities to stay in the United States. Russ had communicated via email with an Apple executive who reported directly to Tim Cook. The executive inquired if Yang Zhi Lin would be willing to join Apple. Upon learning that he wanted to return to China, the executive even suggested working in the Beijing office.

However, Yang Zhi Lin had already decided to return to China for entrepreneurship. He had told his mentor that if he did not try to start his own company at least once, he would regret it for the rest of his life.

Russ stated that he respected Yang Zhi Lin's choice. In retrospect, Yang Zhi Lin's decision at that time was the right one. Russ is currently a professor in the Machine Learning Department at Carnegie Mellon University.