After the AI tool Sora gained global attention, a Tsinghua University Ph.D. holder in China became famous. However, it wasn’t his AI contributions that sparked the attention, but rather the speed at which he exploited AI to make money.
Thanks to Sora’s exceptional performance, the Chinese market witnessed a frenzy of paid AI knowledge, with many people willing to pay for AI courses, hoping to make big money through AI.
Building on this trend, Li Yizhou, bearing the title of a Tsinghua Ph.D., launched a 199 yuan AI course, attracting millions of followers on Douyin (TikTok).
Li Yizhou’s popular videos on WeChat’s video platform also frequently went viral.
According to some estimates, Li Yizhou has sold over 200,000 copies of his AI video courses, earning nearly 50 million yuan!
However, journalists who contacted several course buyers found them very dissatisfied with the course content.
“I regret it so much. I bought the 199 yuan course, and there’s hardly anything useful. What’s most infuriating is that on the second day of the live broadcast, students were asked to upgrade to his advanced course for 1,980 yuan. The 199 yuan course taught nothing, yet they pushed for an upgrade. It’s a complete scam.”
“I expressed my opinion in the study group and was immediately blocked and kicked out.”
“I bought it impulsively, but later found many free videos online that are much better than his course.”
“After watching over a dozen classes, it’s just a waste of time. The course content is too shallow; it’s like I already know calculus, and you’re still teaching me addition and subtraction.”
In recent days, Li Yizhou has been exposed by many media outlets and netizens. His Tsinghua Ph.D. credentials were also revealed to be in industrial design from the Tsinghua University School of Fine Arts, which doesn’t qualify him to teach AI courses.
Public records show that Li Yizhou studied “industrial design and design innovation methods” at Tsinghua’s School of Fine Arts, and his bachelor’s and master’s degrees were both from the School of Design and Arts at Hunan University, specializing in art-related fields, with no direct relevance to AI.
After graduating from Tsinghua, Li Yizhou tried selling mobile power banks, ventured into 3D printed accessories, invested in sleep trackers… but all his ventures ended in failure.
However, with the rise of short videos, Li Yizhou found his springboard.
By flaunting the title of “Tsinghua Ph.D.,” Li Yizhou began selling courses on how ordinary people could make money and turn their lives around on platforms like Douyin and Xiaohongshu (Red). Courses like “How the Poor Can Rise” and “How to Improve Your Cognitive Skills at 35.”
In just three years, Li Yizhou earned 175 million yuan just by selling courses. Among them, “AI for Everyone” generated 27.86 million yuan, and “One Course from Yizhou” priced at 2980 yuan earned 1.49 billion yuan.
Following the success of ChatGPT, he began offering a 199 yuan “AI Course for the Whole Family” and became a leading seller in this category of courses.
In fact, these courses were all basic, some even involved illegal links (China does not have legal channels for using ChatGPT and Sora).
However, due to the lenient copyright environment and rampant piracy, Li Yizhou managed to package and market them as high-end “AI courses.”
“Last spot! Last spot! Follow and save!”
Amidst his clamor, countless anxious middle-class individuals and students fell for it…
One netizen ironically commented to him: “Since Sora became popular, you are the only Chinese god in the AI circle who can sit on par with Sam Altman.”
Today, facing the technological gap between China and the United States, many of our elites are not thinking about catching up but rather selling anxiety and cutting leeks.
Like Li Yizhou, who cut more than 200 million leeks.
In response to this shady phenomenon, on February 22, Li Yizhou’s AI course was officially taken down by the authorities.
His WeChat mini-program “One Course from Yizhou” was also suspended due to violations of the “Interim Regulations on the Development and Management of Instant Messaging Tools’ Public Information Services.”
Li Yizhou’s personal video account has been banned from being followed.
His Douyin store shelf now only shows books for sale.
The official outcome has left Li Yizhou trembling.
In response to journalists, he expressed helplessness about the current situation and refused further questions, citing the difficulty of responding amidst public opinion backlash, saying, “Let’s talk about it later.”
Selling knowledge is a good business.
Especially in a country with such a large population, where many people can’t even distinguish between Sam Altman and Ultraman Taro.
In such an environment, false knowledge can easily be sold.
Before Li Yizhou’s downfall, there was another “friend circle of Cheng Qian,” who sold not AI courses but entrepreneurial methodologies.
By selling entrepreneurial methods, he became a leading business interview blogger, earning millions of yuan a year.
However, stripping away the scripts and editing, people would realize he wasn’t selling knowledge but anxiety, a heap of chicken soup seasoned with chicken essence.
From these commonalities, I’ve extracted a concept:
Why are these people able to package themselves so well in the era of short videos?
I think there are two aspects:
On one hand, videos can be meticulously edited.
Behind the eloquence of these big shots lies countless retakes, edited into a formidable appearance.
On the other hand, under the halo effect created by such IP manufacturing and amplification, viewers easily mistake the person reading the script as genuinely knowledgeable.
Finally, short videos are easily spread due to vivid imagery and exaggerated titles, attracting attention.
Nowadays, many platforms have videos with tens of millions of views, some of which are just a few words, regurgitated, yet they can generate massive shares.
In such an ecosystem, a large number of “charlatans” have emerged.
They exploit the public’s desire for quick success and wealth, designing a set of specialized rhetoric and products to fleece users.
Take Li Yizhou, for example; just being a “Tsinghua Ph.D.” is enough to fool many. Most ordinary people might never encounter a Tsinghua Ph.D. in their lives. Now, here’s a Tsinghua Ph.D. teaching you AI, and it’s only 199 yuan.
People with fantasies think: buying the course brings them closer to Tsinghua…
But actually, just thinking a bit deeper reveals the logical fallacy:
If a Tsinghua Ph.D. is so great at AI, why would they have time to promote “the last 6 spots” every day in the live broadcast?
In the AI era, the gap between China and the US needs to be bridged.
While catching up, we must first drive out the market’s “bad money.”
Recently, those selling AI courses online are as numerous as crucian carp crossing a river, all claiming independent research and deep backgrounds.
But they’re basically all illegally accessing US application software ports, using a registration generator to register tens of
thousands of accounts, collecting some free tutorials online, and repackaging them.
Then, at zero cost, they sell them to users for 99 to 199 yuan, all pure profit.
Upon closer examination, this business model is essentially exploiting legal loopholes, doing “pirated” business under the guise of knowledge.
Moving AI tools – becoming an AI big shot – and making money while lying down.
This is the ideal money-making model they promote.
But making money isn’t that easy, is it?
Although Li Yizhou didn’t become an AI big shot by learning AI or turn course buyers into AI experts.
But he did gain millions of followers and made billions of yuan by exploiting the popularity of trendy knowledge.
Want to join the high net worth community? Want to easily become a boss?
Fine, pay to join the group, pay to listen to the lectures, pay to communicate privately.
You could say he’s pimping, but he could also say he’s into “knowledge monetization.”
This exposure of Li Yizhou cutting leeks is meaningful.
He tells us that in a place where high-end AI hasn’t been developed, teaching people how to make money in AI is unreliable.
And the essence of these mentors is actually the “micro-business” of the past.
It’s just a more embellished image.
Throughout, these people create an illusion of “my success can be replicated” for the masses, repeatedly emphasizing that following them leads to wealth and status.
Then they engage in “fishpond economics,” picking out those willing to spend 199 yuan on courses as initial victims, then selecting those willing to spend thousands more on advanced courses from the evolved victims, and finally picking out those willing to pay tens of thousands to join exclusive groups from the ultimate victims…
And the route of this layering is through attracting eyeballs to monetize.
“I’m a Tsinghua Ph.D., I understand AI…”
Using exaggerated statements to attract enough leeks into the field, then inducing them with fantasies of wealth.
Why am I so ruthless in exposing these hypocritical knowledge elites?
It’s simply to tell everyone that in a normal business environment, people shouldn’t benefit by selling their integrity.
When Li Yizhou and others win big, what we lose isn’t just the development of real technology.
It’s the entire business environment, the entire social ecology!