Did anyone else here grow up being told that the Chinese government stole search technology from Google when they tried to do business there, and this is how Baidu got started?
Robin Li was working in the US on search before Google existed. That includes at IDD and Infoseek.
Circa 1999-2000, if you understood how PageRank worked (along with some other similar approaches), combined with some funding, talented engineers, and Li's background in search, it would not have been necessary to steal technology from Google to found something like Baidu.
Baidu had already been popular in China before Google officially entered China, so there is no 'this is how Baidu got started' thing.
Lots of others have done this (some parts of Facebook, too) and I don't think this was based on Google source code or anything, but it doesn't exactly smell terribly innovative on its own?