Mid-February 1995.

After Goldman Sachs invested $1 billion and the news of its strategic stake in Pangu Computer Company was spread by the media, various capitals around the world heard the news and began to inquire about the price of the "admission ticket" to the IPO feast of Pangu Computer Company.

Goldman Sachs explained: "Goldman Sachs is only a minority shareholder of Pangu, and the introduction of new strategic investors is a matter for Pangu and its major shareholders to decide. Goldman Sachs, as a minority shareholder and investment bank with a 2% stake, has the main obligation to help Pangu Computer Co., Ltd. improve its financial accounting system and corporate governance in a more standardized and more compliant direction with the standards of listed companies. ”

As the CEO of Pangu Computer Co., Ltd., Gao Tian said: "For capital operation, investment and equity participation (Pangu Company), please contact Miss Zhang Ru, CEO of the parent company Xinchuang Electronics Group, who is now in charge of this big project. At present, Pangu Computer Co., Ltd. itself does not need additional financing, mainly because the parent company transfers part of the equity and introduces strategic investors. ”

After Gao Tian's explanation, soon more capital began to contact Zhang Ru.

More than 10 years of experience in shopping malls, Zhang Ru is currently growing into a qualified CEO, although, within the new venture electronics group, the CEO rights are actually very limited, but at present, Pangu Company introduced strategic investors and listed projects, Lin Qi still gave Zhang Ru a lot of decision-making power, of course, this decision-making power, in fact, is in accordance with the established script.

That is to say, the valuation of the introduced capital is restricted, and Zhang Ru can have some room to play when deciding who to introduce to invest in Pangu Computer.

"We welcome new strategic investors, but we are not blindly introducing capital, in fact, our requirements for investors are mainly two: first, not to interfere with the strategic development of Pangu Computer. The second is to bring some help to Pangu Computer, whether it is brand influence, word of mouth or market channels, it is okay, if it is just money and can not bring other help, it is not a welcome investor. Zhang Ru said confidently, "As for the valuation, it starts at $100 billion!"

The inquiries of many capitals on the opposite side, whether it is the new venture electronics group or Goldman Sachs, are all valued at a fixed price of $100 billion.

This sky-high price naturally scared off a lot of capital. You know, the current market value of IBM is only more than $50 billion.

Although IBM is currently experiencing some difficulties in its operation, the history of IBM has convinced many investors that IBM's predicament is temporary, and IBM will definitely create miracles again in the next era. But in reality, what IBM will do in the coming decades is to keep cutting R&D and unprofitable projects, streamlining IBM's people and teams, and making short-term financial statements look better. But in fact, relying on this practice of constantly cutting people and projects, IBM's financial statements can only be temporarily optimized, and it cannot really allow IBM to win the future. The way for technology companies to really win the future is not to streamline teams and projects to do subtraction, but more to rely on innovation to make some popular products and make an addition of a new industry and technology direction, so as to obtain excess returns. The more we rely on the management of professional managers to "save" technology companies, the more mediocre the future of technology companies will be.

In other words, Pangu Computer has a valuation of $50 billion, and a lot of capital is still willing to invest in it. However, it is twice as high as IBM's valuation, which will naturally make many capitals question why Pangu Computer can get such a high valuation!

Moreover, Goldman Sachs invested only 50 billion yuan in valuation, and in just a few days, the valuation doubled, and no one will accept this kind of price discrimination.

"We will use time to prove that Pangu is completely different from IBM, which is worth $50 billion. But we're far more than $50 billion!" Zhang said, "The $100 billion valuation is just the valuation at this stage." Over time, our valuations will become more and more expensive, as Pangu Computer is becoming profitable and optimizing its competitiveness every day. ”

Of course, this is actually to whet the appetite of all kinds of capital, and first attract the attention and research of all kinds of capital. After the continuous disclosure of more business information and good news, and the listing is only one step away, supplemented by the bull market atmosphere of the securities market, then all kinds of capital may rush to subscribe for the original shares of Pangu Computer Company.

Goldman Sachs and New Venture Electronics Group are not in such a hurry, after all, Pangu Computer Co., Ltd. is currently at the peak of profits, and can earn an average of $50 million a day.

This kind of enterprise that is not bad for money does not need to be like the Internet start-up company that burns money, in order to maintain the most basic operation and expansion, the kind of unprofitable enterprise, can not wait to introduce round after round of financing, before not profitable, can only rely on investors' money to expand and maintain.

Pangu Computer Co., Ltd., although it is no longer a high-growth company. Revenue, profit and market share are actually close to the top of the ceiling. However, the reduction in the growth rate is due to the decline of the entire industry, not the growth rate of Pangu Computer Company alone. The slowdown in the growth rate of the entire market also means that there are fewer and fewer new competitors entering the market, and the revenue growth rate of the industry's leading companies is slow, but the profits are far more lucrative than before.

The fastest growth in the PC industry was in the 70s. But most of the personal computer companies established in the 70s are in vicious competition, very few can make money stably, the most successful Apple computer at that time, the success is also a complete accident, after all, the same era of microcomputers, Apple is not necessarily the best, not necessarily the most cost-effective, but Apple is in the 70s can rarely get the favor of venture capital, to help it successfully expand production capacity and spread out sales channels. While other PC companies were small workshops and the computer giants were not yet looking down on the microcomputer market, Apple was the first to mass produce and commercialize the market, making it the lucky one in the 70s when the PC pioneered period. However, Apple's control over the core technology and supply chain is not strong, at least, there is no way to restrain CPU manufacturers to upgrade Apple's computers and develop the next generation of CPUs, which led to Apple's advantages in the 70s, which were not able to successfully accumulate in the 80s. Apple in the 80s basically scrapped the 6502 chip as the core to create a software and hardware ecosystem. In the early 80s, Jobs was once a strong man with a broken wrist, planning to burn money to burn a new Apple computer ecology and completely abandon the old platform of the 6502 chip. As a result, because of short-term financial losses, the CEO and capital hired by Jobs himself joined forces to drive out Apple Computer. After that, Apple Computer cowered in burning money to build a new platform, reduced investment in technology research and development, and achieved a turnaround, but cut off Apple's future. Therefore, it has also led to the fact that after entering the 90s, Apple computers have been difficult to return to and have completely lost their market competitiveness.

In the 80s, the PC with the largest market share was because of the long-term intrigue between IBM and compatible machine manufacturers, and they were constantly engaged in infighting. In the 80s, the entire PC camp was busy with infighting, so it selectively ignored the expansion of Pangu's computer ecology. In the 90s, after the PC camp had determined Intel's leading position, it made serious technical mistakes because of Intel, resulting in the market share of the PC camp being completely surpassed by the Pangu camp.

In 95 years, the Pangu camp has maintained a leading position in terms of software and hardware ecology. At the same time, Pangu Computer Co., Ltd. maintains a leading position in brand influence within the Pangu camp, and there is still a certain gap between other Pangu compatible machine manufacturers and Pangu Computer Co., Ltd.

Various advantages have led to Pangu Computer Co., Ltd., which can adjust the gross profit margin. Even if the hardware and price of competitors are the same as those of Pangu Computer Co., Ltd., Pangu Computer Co., Ltd. can guarantee that the cost is 5%~10% lower than that of its competitors.

All kinds of advantages, coupled with the fact that the money is not bad, has led to the fact that Pangu Computer is now qualified to be sold at a price and make various gestures, just to have enough eyeballs to pay attention to it before going public.