Yahoo's acquisition of Quora, which is expected by everyone, is also unexpected, not long ago Adam Angelo also said that he is not willing to be acquired by large companies, and now the news of being acquired by Yahoo suddenly comes out, you say that it is not surprising.

Zhou Shi's reason for persuading Adam Angelo is obviously not only the monetization of Quora Big V, but also a deeper strategic arrangement.

"With the addition of knowledge or content payment and fan economy, we can also encourage more people to spread more effective knowledge through material incentives.

If it has always been Quora's model, if someone wants to consult a complex problem and requires a certain amount of time and energy, no one may be willing to help, or subconsciously ignore it. But if material incentives are adopted, it is clear that more people will be involved.

The knowledge and skills mastered by elites in a certain field are the wealth of mankind, but they may not be willing to show their talents to everyone, but if we give him more praise and material compensation, let him pass on his knowledge, experience and skills, it will be a good thing for mankind itself. "Zhou Shi

"But payment itself undermines the equity of knowledge dissemination. "Adam Angelo

"Do you want to give up knowledge and content that is already better in itself in order to maintain your fairness? In my vision, most of the content would be free, and only a few would have to be paid for. "Zhou Shi, in his plan, Yahoo! FM's charging model is divided into monthly and paid, and there will be licensing income for free works......

"......" Adam Angelo

"From different perspectives, the ecosystem we build has different meanings, Yahoo official account, new media incubation, knowledge and content payment, fan economy, all of which are part of the self-media industry chain, which is a major change in traditional media and knowledge dissemination in the Internet era. No one knows what lies ahead, and we need a leader with ideals, abilities and vision. "Zhou Shi

"I can't think of anyone better suited to lead it than Simon!" said Adam Angelo subconsciously

I don't know much about the Internet market environment in China or the United States, whether it is the preferences of users, copyright laws, or various taboos. People like me are only suitable for setting directions, not for specific execution. If Yahoo didn't have a group of great people working with me, it wouldn't be where it is now. So please believe my sincerity, Yahoo needs Quora, and Toutiao needs you!"

"I'll think again!" Adam Angelo's tone softened slightly.

A few days later, Adam Angelo agreed to Yahoo's acquisition, and the two sides entered the price negotiation stage, which was valued at around $400 million last year, $900 million in next year's financing, and $1.8 billion in 2017, a modest development. Yahoo actually has a Q&A service, that is, Yahoo Answer, and the two sides have different development mechanisms, and in general, the quality of Yahoo Answer's answers is better than Quora's. For nearly three years, Zhou Shi learned from Quora's experience and improved Yahoo Answer, but it was of little use, and high-quality talents were concentrated in Quora. Yahoo Answer had to move on to more simple and life-like questions. In other words, Quora is cold and professional, and Yahoo Answer is popular. This differentiation also hit Quora's development in a sense, and this year's fundraising was not very smooth, so there were opportunities for Zhou Shi and Yahoo.

Of course, Adam Angelo also asked about the competition between Quora and Yahoo Answer, but that wasn't a problem for Zhoushi, who believes in Taoist culture. The unity of yin and yang opposites of things makes people believe that success has more than one direction. Moving in both directions at the same time may be more effective, and everyone can learn and develop from each other.

In any case, Yahoo eventually acquired Quora for $600 million in cash and stock, and the content creators of Yahoo's official account have been greatly strengthened.

"Simon, are you really optimistic about knowledge payment?" Chen Shouzong, the price of acquiring Quora is not large, compared to Yahoo, which has a market value of nearly $70 billion, Quora is just a small business, but he doesn't understand Zhou Shi's logic very well.

"Does this matter? There are countless possibilities in the future, and there will inevitably be many choices and directions outside of our three core industries. Just choose one according to normal logical reasoning. "Zhou Shi, there are as many people as there are people who support and oppose knowledge payment, after all, in the eyes of most people, paying for knowledge restricts the dissemination of human knowledge. But for hundreds of years, human beings have been paying for knowledge, buying books, and studying for what to explain?

"But if we develop this industry, it will inevitably consume a lot of capital, and will it cause more pressure on the company's operations. "Chen Shouzong

"You have a point, knowledge payment will not be the company's focus right now, and we will wait until the development of several of our projects slows down. "Zhou Shi

In fact, where to pay for knowledge is Zhou Shi's focus, what he wants is not this, but a broader field of AI education. In the future, an AI teacher who can be separated by thousands of people can do one-on-one tutoring. However, no matter how intelligent a robot is, it needs a lot of data feeding training to grow. The progress of Yahoo Brain will inevitably find ways to cash out in the future, and big health (health care, etc.) and big education (learning and training, etc.) are the main development directions, and tax and legal consulting and maintenance may be the first to be realized. For example, in a country like the United States, personal tax issues are particularly complex, and it is very simple to leave them to AI.

Perhaps China's taxation will also be reformed as a result, such as popularizing the personal consumption tax and reducing the tax on goods in social circulation. It is not enough to let half of the retail price of a steamed bun be used to pay taxes, and it can also make black-hearted merchants such as Lenovo Yang Zhiyuan have no reason to deceive the public. Sometimes I think about why the protection of consumers in China is not enough, and some local governments allow counterfeit and shoddy manufacturers to exist, perhaps because enterprises pay taxes, but consumers do not pay taxes, so they give priority to protecting enterprises. Otherwise, why did the Xi'an Mercedes-Benz incident happen, and why did the food safety problem not be solved?

The role of artificial intelligence and the impact on society are just beginning, and perhaps there will be an unemployment rate of more than 30 percent in China in the future, and I am afraid that the unemployment rate of 30 percent in European and American societies will become the norm. A very simple example, ordinary accounting positions in the enterprise will be perfectly replaced by AI, and the average lawyer will have no place to survive and use. Oh, and it's also possible that there will be new jobs available for those who can make the perfect use of AI.

Yahoo and Zhou Shi's transformation of the world has only just begun, and I don't know if the trillion-dollar enterprise is about to come to the end of its life.