
Before ChatGPT made AI a mass-market wager, Yan Junjie set out to build models and products side by side. His Shanghai startup MiniMax now tests that conviction in public, from character chats to video generation and an expanding developer platform.

He was asked to build a search engine. The breakthrough came when he learned to meet people at the keyboard - a lesson that still shadows his second act in AI.
After 16 years building AI products at Microsoft, a few conversations with ChatGPT sent Jiang Daxin into a new job: founder. At StepFun, he is trying to turn a researcher’s long view into models that people can actually use.