Apple once invited Kimi founder Yang Zhilin to join, but he insisted on returning to China to start a business.

According to Beating monitoring, in response to discussions about “Why Yang Zhilin didn’t stay in the United States,” his PhD advisor, Russ Salakhutdinov, posted a clarification. Russ said there were many misunderstandings about Yang Zhilin’s visa, the H-1B lottery draw, and the reasons for leaving the United States.

Yang Zhilin had many opportunities to stay in the United States at the time. Russ exchanged emails with an Apple executive who reported directly to Tim Cook. The executive asked whether Yang Zhilin would be willing to join Apple. After learning that Yang Zhilin wanted to return to China, the executive also suggested that he could go to the Beijing office.

But Yang Zhilin had already decided to return to China to start a business. He had told his advisor that if he didn’t at least try to found his own company, he would regret it for the rest of his life.

Russ said he respects Yang Zhilin’s choice. Now it seems that Yang Zhilin’s decision back then was the right one. Russ is currently a professor in the Machine Learning Department at Carnegie Mellon University.