Life lessons, learned from death

Finding Life in Death: My Credits for Death Education by Kai-Fu Lee. Photo provided to China Daily

Lee made Time magazine's annual list of the world's 100 most influential people in April 2013.

He was born in Taiwan and graduated from Columbia University in 1983. He earned his PhD in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University in 1988.

He worked as a Carnegie faculty member for two years, before joining Apple and then Silicon Graphics. He went to Microsoft in 1998 and moved to Beijing, where he helped establish Microsoft Research Asia, the company's fundamental research arm in the Asia-Pacific region.

In 2005, Lee jumped to Google and became the founding president of the US IT giant's China operation. His hiring made headlines because of Google's unprecedentedly high offer and Microsoft's subsequent court action against him for breaking his non-competition agreement.

Lee left Google in 2009 and founded Chinese tech startup incubator Innovation Works.

He has since devoted himself to helping young Chinese entrepreneurs start businesses. And he had posted actively on China's main micro-blogging platform, Sina Weibo, until he was diagnosed with cancer in September 2013.

"I'v always worked hard, and I've learned and gained a lot during my life," Lee writes in the book.

"But it seems life wants to teach me more."

Li's illness forced him to stop work and "earn credits for death education".

He initially thought fate was being unfair to him.

His friend took him to Buddhist monk Hsing Yun.

Their conversation changed his outlook.