When Zhou Yuxiang founded Black Lake Technologies, he did what seemed sensible: He trusted experience, hiring salespeople from traditional Western software companies like SAP and Siemens. But as the Shanghai-based AI startup moved from enterprise clients to China’s smaller factories—some 4 million of them—those polished professionals proved useless.
“They couldn’t even figure out how to get into the factory, past the security guard and the guard dogs,” Zhou recalled in an interview with Fortune during the Fortune Leaders Forum in Macau on Sept. 8.
