Apple wanted Kimi founder Yang Zhilin—he chose to return to China instead

After Kimi launched K3, people started asking: why didn't founder Yang Zhilin stay in the US? His PhD advisor Russ Salakhutdinov says it wasn't because he couldn't — Yang Zhilin made the choice to come back and start his own company.

According to Russ, Yang had plenty of opportunities to stay. He was in email contact with an Apple executive who reported directly to Tim Cook. The exec asked if Yang was interested in joining Apple.

Russ told them Yang wanted to return to China. Apple then offered him a spot at their Beijing office instead.

But Yang had already decided to go home and start a company. He told Russ that if he didn't even try building his own venture, he'd regret it for the rest of his life.

Russ says he respects Yang's decision — "and it turns out he was right." He also acknowledges the uncertainty of US immigration processes, even for the best PhD graduates from Carnegie Mellon University.