IT Weekly: The Growing Pains of Baidu's Youth

This is a very long comment written by Mao Xinke, a special contributor to the *IT Times Weekly*. It's the longest comment I've ever seen. Starting from the establishment of Baidu, to its building of an independent search engine with remarkable achievements, to Baidu's successful listing on NASDAQ in 2005, and all the way to recent events involving Baidu: sudden layoffs in its miscellaneous lightning department, the Tianji incident, and personnel adjustments within Baidu. The article reviews various events in Baidu's growth trajectory. It provides a relatively objective and sincere analysis and comparison of today's search engines in the Chinese market, as well as Baidu's accomplishments and areas that need improvement. The piece also includes some sharp criticisms. Let's take a look at this comment together to understand more about the outside world's views on Baidu. Below is the original text, which was published as the cover story of Issue No. 114 of the *IT Times Weekly*.