From Mathematics to Industrial AI
Junjie Yan went from Xiayi County in Henan to study mathematics at Southeast University, then transferred in 2010 to the Institute of Automation at the Chinese Academy of Sciences for a PhD in artificial intelligence. An internship at Baidu Research during the PhD was his first chance to test face-recognition research in a real industrial setting. After receiving his PhD in 2015 and completing a postdoctoral stage at Tsinghua, he joined SenseTime.
During more than six years at SenseTime, he grew from researcher to vice president and deputy dean of the research institute. More exaggerated CTO titles have circulated in public materials, but MiniMax's prospectus does not fully support those claims, so this entry uses only the positions confirmed by the prospectus. The important point is not how impressive the title sounds, but that he gained experience managing large teams, compute, and commercial projects.
Founding Before ChatGPT
In December 2021, he left SenseTime to found MiniMax, serving simultaneously as chairman, CEO, and CTO. This was before ChatGPT's release, showing that the team was betting on generative models and multimodal capability itself rather than pivoting after the trend appeared.
MiniMax tested whether people would use models early through products such as Glow. In 2023 Glow was taken down over domestic generative-AI regulatory licensing issues; after approval it returned as Xingye, while Talkie continued expanding overseas. This setback says more about the team's basic judgment than funding news: it did not abandon the consumer direction, but could change product form and market boundaries.
Multiple Products, Globalization, and the Public Market
In 2024, MiniMax formed a portfolio of Talkie, Xingye, Hailuo AI, and an open platform. By September 2025, the prospectus disclosed average monthly active users of about 27.638 million over the first nine months, about 1.774 million paying users, and revenue of $53.437 million. The cumulative figure of 212 million is an account or device measure, not deduplicated people.
In January 2026, MiniMax listed in Hong Kong, completing the transition from private startup to public company in about four years. Its first post-listing interim results had more operating meaning: first-half revenue was $116.6 million, with the open platform and enterprise services representing 63.4%, suggesting that revenue structure was moving from early entertainment and companion products toward APIs and enterprise use.
The same results provide the other side that must be viewed alongside it: adjusted net loss of $293 million. Junjie Yan has shown that the team can expand quickly across models, products, and capital markets; the next question is whether this system can keep growing at a more sustainable cost.