Hi! I am Xinru Yang. Currently I am a software engineer at Google/YouTube, working on multimodal large language model. My prior work includes Search Generative Experience (SGE) in Search.
Before joining Google, I obtained the Master of Language Technologies from Language Technologies Institute, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University. I was fortunately fully sponsored during my 24-month master program and advised by Alexander G. Hauptmann.
Broadly interested in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, I have diverse academia / industrial internships in University of California, Irvine, Microsoft Research Asia, and Alibaba on natural language processing, computer vision, information retrieval, reinforcement learning, recommendation system, etc.
Deeply passionate about innovation and entrepreneurship, I am also very active in helping early-stage founders shape their ideas and find product market fit, by providing technical support and financial advisory. Book a slot for a quick chat on my calendar if you have something exciting to share!
Most recent hobby: bouldering ๐ง๐ปโโ๏ธ
๐ฅ News (1-year sliding window)
- 2025.03: ย ๐๐ I invested in Dexmate.
- 2025.03: ย ๐๐ I became a reviewer of ICML 2025, NeurIPS 2025.
- 2025.01: ย ๐๐ I will be giving a talk at Data Innovation Summit (DIS) 2025.
- 2024.10: ย ๐๐ I became a reviewer of COLING 2025.
- 2024.07: ย ๐๐ I became a reviewer of NeurIPS 2024.
- 2024.06: ย ๐๐ I invested in Zettablock.
๐ฏ Portfolios
I invest in early-stage startups (pre-seed to A) individually. Here are some of my portfolios since 2021.
๐ Community Contributions
- Since 2021: Core member of Chinese Googler Network (the biggest Chinese Googler group at Google internally)
- Since 2020: Venture Scout / Fellow of multiple VCs including Uphonest Capital, Linear Capital, Miracle Plus, etc
- Since 2020: Program Committee of AAAI 21, CVPR 24, NeurIPS 24, COLING 25, ICML 25, NeurIPS 25.
- 2021: Chair of Chinese-youth Cloud Summit
๐ฌ Reading Records
I am trying to read more books since 2024. To keep myself more motivated, I will list the books I have finished reading with some comments.
- Hit Refresh: Empathy and culture [Jan, 2024]
There are many summarized principles by Satya in this book on working and building companyโs culture. Satya has his very unique perception about empathy given his personal experiences. I am more curious about how he had climbed the ladder over time and what were the turning points in his career before he was given the chance and stage to lead.
- Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg [Jan, 2024]
My eyes were wet multiple times when I saw how the world treated women decades ago. Rights are not given or granted, but fought for. It is also a fortune to have a supportive and spiritually fulfilling companion. We, as women, should always and never forget how the rights of us are here today. We need to protect it and support each other.
- Steve Jobs [Feb, 2024]
In this book, Jobs cried more than 20 times (or at least holding tears in his eyes). It is surprising to see how many times that Jobs showed his emotions even vulnerability bluntly, while he was admired and worshiped by the world as a hero. I honestly also cried once I started reading because I realized that I would never have a chance to talk to him in person regardless of how many familiarities I have found in myself and how profoundly I echo on his experiences. It is the greatest shame but I am also deeply grateful to read this book. I knew I was not the only one.
- ่ฏ็ๆตชๆฝฎ [April, 2024]
A thorough documentary of chips history. Very informative and useful in knowing the development of chips manufactory. The business acumen, competition war, and firm conviction all make this book a good read.
- ๆ่ต [Jan, 2025]
Rich context of development of private companies and their relationships with governments in China. It is a bit surprising to me that many lessons / experiences shared in the book are no surprise to me that I take them for granted already. Even though I have never had the chance to practice any of these skills, it does seem so nature to me. Maybe it is what I have learned imperceptibly in the past few years in VC journey. It is science to work with code, but an art to work with people.
๐ Honors and Awards
- 2019 NSF Student Scholarship for theWebConf (WWW)
- 2017-2019 Graduate Research Fellowship, Language Technologies Institute, Carnegie Mellon University
- 2015-2016 China Scholarship Council Grant for Exchange Program at Lund University, Sweden.
- 2015.10 China National Scholarship
- 2014.10 China National Scholarship
- 2014 ACM/International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) Beijing Regional Invitation, Bronze medal
๐ก Entertainments
I keep developing new hobbies to entertain my life. Ranked by frequency.
- Photography, I love being models for portrait photography.
- Bouldering, I love the feeling of strength in my muscles and especially when accomplishing a new challenge.
- Singing, I love challenging songs and served as soprano in univeristy choir in undergrad.
- Sports, I love playing basketball and was on school women basketball team in undergrad.
- Traveling, I love exploring the world and has been to 31 countries and districts, mostly free (on business trip or fully sponsored)!