Born in 1961, Li Zexiang was an undergraduate at Central South Institute of Mining Metallurgy in 1978. From 1979 to 1992, he studied and worked in the US, earning a doctoral degree at the University of California, Berkeley in 1989. He worked as an AILab researcher at MIT in 1989. In 1990, he joined NYU's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences as an associate professor.In 1992, he returned to China and worked as a professor at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology ever since. In 1999, he founded motor control company Googol Tech. He is well-known for incubating DJI and became the chairman of Shenzhen-based drone and aerial photography systems company.