Fei-Fei Li

Stanford Professor, ImageNet Creator, World Labs Founder

Profile

FieldDetails
Current PositionSequoia Professor, Stanford University (on partial leave)
RoleFounding Co-Director, Stanford HAI
CompanyCo-founder/CEO, World Labs (2024)
PreviousVP & Chief Scientist of AI/ML, Google Cloud (2017-2018)
PhDCaltech (Electrical Engineering, 2005)
BAPrinceton University (Physics, 1999)
BirthplaceBeijing, China (1976)

Key Contributions

  • ImageNet: Catalyst for the modern deep learning revolution, paradigm shift in computer vision
  • Stanford AI Lab (SAIL): Director (2013-2018)
  • Stanford Vision Lab: Center for computer vision research
  • HAI: Research on AI ethics, policy, and human-centered AI (Founding Co-Director 2019)
  • World Labs: Co-founded Spatial Intelligence company for 3D world understanding AI (2024)

Research Timeline

PhD & Early Career (2000-2009)

Caltech -> UIUC -> Princeton -> Stanford

YearWorkImpact
2005PhD completed, UIUC Assistant ProfessorPhD under Pietro Perona at Caltech
2006One-Shot Learning paper (PAMI)Methodology for learning from limited data
2007Princeton Assistant ProfessorStarted ImageNet project
2009Stanford Assistant ProfessorFounded Stanford Vision Lab

ImageNet Era (2009-2018)

ImageNet & Deep Learning Revolution

YearWorkImpact
2009ImageNet presented at CVPRInitial 3.2M+ images, 5,247 categories
2010ImageNet Challenge (ILSVRC) BeginsAnnual competition, 1,000 class subset
2012AlexNet WinsDeep learning revolution begins, 15.3% top-5 error
2013Became SAIL DirectorLed Stanford AI Lab
2015ResNet Surpasses HumansExceeds human performance in image classification
2018Stepped down as SAIL DirectorReturned to Stanford from Google

Google & HAI (2017-2023)

Industry Experience & AI Ethics

YearWorkImpact
2017-18Google Cloud VP & AI Chief ScientistIndustry experience, Cloud AutoML launch
2019HAI Founding Co-DirectorHuman-Centered AI Institute, with John Etchemendy
2020Elected to NAE, NAMNational Academy recognition
2021Elected to AAASAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences

World Labs (2024-present)

Co-founded Spatial Intelligence Company

YearWorkImpact
2024World Labs Co-founded as CEOWith Justin Johnson, Christoph Lassner, Ben Mildenhall
2024Series A $230M fundinga16z, NEA, Radical Ventures, and others
2024VinFuture Prize
2025Queen Elizabeth Prize for EngineeringRecognition for advancing deep learning
2025TIME Person of the YearRecognition for AI influence

Major Publications

ImageNet & Visual Recognition

  • ImageNet: A Large-Scale Hierarchical Image Database (CVPR 2009)
  • ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge (IJCV 2015)

One-Shot & Few-Shot Learning

  • One-Shot Learning of Object Categories (PAMI 2006)

Visual Understanding

  • Dense Captioning (CVPR 2017)
  • Visual Genome (IJCV 2017)

AI Ethics & Policy

  • Numerous papers and op-eds on AI ethics and policy

Key Ideas

ImageNet (2009)

Core: Large-scale, high-quality datasets are key to AI advancement

Before: Thousands to tens of thousands of images
ImageNet (2009): Initial 3.2M+ images, 5,247 categories
ImageNet (current): 14M+ images, 21,841 categories, Amazon Mechanical Turk crowdsourced

Impact:

  • 2012 AlexNet -> Triggered deep learning revolution
  • Established data-centric AI paradigm
  • Model for all subsequent large-scale datasets

World Labs & Spatial Intelligence (2024)

Core: AI that understands the 3D world beyond 2D images

Goals:
- 3D world reconstruction from images/videos
- Physical world simulation
- Applications in robotics, AR/VR, autonomous driving

Connection to Physical AI:

  • 3D world understanding -> Essential for robot manipulation
  • Spatial reasoning -> Predicting physical interactions

Philosophy & Direction

Research Philosophy

“True AI advancement requires not just technology but a human-centered approach”

Research Direction Evolution

  1. 2000-2007: One-shot learning, object recognition
  2. 2007-2015: Large-scale visual recognition, ImageNet
  3. 2015-2019: Visual understanding, dense captioning
  4. 2019-2023: AI ethics, policy, human-centered AI
  5. 2024-present: Spatial Intelligence, 3D world understanding

World Labs

Company Overview

  • Founded: January 2024
  • Founders: Fei-Fei Li (CEO), Justin Johnson, Christoph Lassner, Ben Mildenhall
  • Mission: Spatial Intelligence - AI that understands the 3D world
  • Funding: Series A $230M (2024)
  • Investors: a16z, NEA, Radical Ventures, NVIDIA, Sanabil, Temasek, and others
  • Individual Investors: Jeff Dean, Geoffrey Hinton, Ashton Kutcher, and others

Products

  • Marble (2025): 3D world generation from text/images, 6DoF browser exploration

Technology Direction

  • Image/video to 3D reconstruction
  • Physics simulation
  • Applications in Embodied AI

Awards & Recognition

  • Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering (2025)
  • TIME Person of the Year (2025)
  • VinFuture Prize (2024)
  • TIME100 AI (2023)
  • National Academy of Engineering member (2020)
  • National Academy of Medicine member (2020)
  • American Academy of Arts and Sciences member (2021)
  • ACM Fellow
  • IEEE PAMI Thomas Huang Memorial Prize (2022)
  • Foreign Policy Global Thinker (2015)
  • NSF CAREER Award (2009)

Books & Media

  • “The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI” (2023) - Memoir
    • Published by Flatiron Books
    • Barack Obama’s recommended AI book
    • Financial Times Best Books of 2023
    • Princeton Pre-read for Class of 2028
  • TED Talks (multiple)
  • Numerous AI-related interviews and publications

See Also