Half of the cameras with a dozen long guns and short guns were pointed at Viggs, Goldfinger, and Wady.

After the news of AOL's $700 million acquisition of ICQ's entire stake was announced, the whole of Silicon Valley was boiling. No one thought that just after the Thanksgiving holiday, ICQ would break such a big news.

From its inception to being acquired, in just five months, ICQ staged a miracle directed by the Internet and capital, which happened to Yahoo, AOL, and ebVan before, and now, the miracle has appeared at one time, and everyone has seen the speed and wealth creation ability of the Internet again.

The reason why ICQ is worth so much money is that in just five months, it has captured 90% of the instant messaging market. Oh, and that's not true, because the other 10% of Internet users haven't used any instant messaging apps.

The near-monopoly market share has allowed ICQ to gain a valuation of $700 million, and at the same time, the three founders of ICQ have also become stars in the limelight.

Viggs is excited, 700 million US dollars, the founding team of the three people has a total of nearly 300 million US dollars, an average of 100 million per person, in an instant, several people have become billionaires!

Under the agreement with AOL, all three will work in AOL's newly formed AOL Messenger division, with Viggs as department head and reporting directly to Steve Case. Responsible for the resource integration of ICQ and AOL.

At this point, some people will ask, where did Zack go a few months ago?

Zhang Chen consciously faded his personal label out of all kinds of news, and replaced it with the company's name - Tinder Capital. In most press releases, the most mentioned sentence is "ICQ has received $400,000 in venture capital from Tindersource Capital." ”

Bellakfen attended ICQ's press conference, which was also very low-key, completely ceding the halo of the protagonist to the three Israelis.

Some people want to be famous, some people want profits, and each takes what he needs, which is very perfect.

At the same time, San Jose

"Didi. The phone rang, Zhang Chen said sorry to John Doerr opposite, picked it up and looked at it, "Congratulations, billionaire." ”

It's Natalie.

Zhang Chen smiled, and replied quickly with his fingers: "Congratulations, the big star in Woody Allen's movie." ”

Since September, Natalie has participated in a Woody Allen movie "Everybody Says I Love You", playing a small role, and Woody Allen also played the leading role himself. Zhang Chen hadn't seen this film in his previous life, according to Natalie, it was a song and dance film.

But even in a musical and dance film, being able to work with a great director like Woody Allen, who won an Oscar twenty years ago, and there are one or two rival scenes, still makes Natalie happy.

After replying to the text message, Zhang Chen looked up and smiled apologetically: "Sorry, John, it's a friend." Let's move on. ”

John Doore drank his coffee, the corners of his mouth raised, "It's okay, but the plan you just made is really unattractive to KPCB." ”

Zhang Chen also picked up the teacup: "John, Amazon itself is an attraction." ”

John Wall shrugged: "Maybe, it's true that I'm interested in Amazon, but if I can't get the investment dominance, the interest won't be as great." ”

Zhang Chen took a sip of coffee: "John, let's put it this way, the cooperation was proposed by you, and we do have a certain complementarity, but it is only in terms of human resources and IPO." Like you said, we don't have a lot of IPO experience, but I can give them more than 7% of the underwriting fee and let their team do the pre-IPO work. ”

John Doall had a headache, and Zhang Chen in front of him was the kind of person he didn't like to deal with the most.

It's not that John Doall thinks Zhang Chen's business skills are powerful, but that this kid's style is completely different from other venture capitalists he has come into contact with.

The venture capital industry is not only the most risky industry, but also the industry that pays the most attention to risk control. Therefore, no matter how attractive a project is, people tend to prefer multi-person or multi-company joint investment strategies to jointly reduce risks. The initial division of shares was not so fierce.

Therefore, John Doerr felt that his initial plan was already very sincere, and bought 10% of Amazon's shares for $8 million, which is equivalent to Zhang Chen getting 5% of Amazon's shares in just ten days. It not only realizes the cash return, but also retains the qualification to get on the car, which can be said to be a sure profit and no loss.

Moreover, KPCB will completely take over Amazon's IPO operation, and Huoxingyuan will easily take a free ride to make a lot of money, why will it not agree?

John Doerr originally thought that even if the negotiations were unfavorable, he would make concessions, and both sides would take 7.5% of the shares, and the price paid by KPCB would be $6.5 million, and Zhang Chen should accept it, but he really didn't expect to be rejected by him.

Is it because of the IPO? Yes, Amazon basically meets the listing conditions of the NASDAQ, but it is still a long way from the New York Stock Exchange, and it must go through financial packaging. He now values Amazon at more than $80 million. The price is already very high, and the risk is actually not small.

According to John Doerr's calculations, if Amazon does not choose to be on the New York Stock Exchange, but after the NASDAQ IPO, Zhang Chen's 15% stake will be worth about $30 million.

Of course, this is without the involvement of KPCB. If KPCB were to operate, it was entirely possible that the 15% stake would turn into $50 million.

Even if it is 7.5%, it is worth $25 million, plus the $6.5 million in cash paid by itself, it will only make more money than the operation of Tindersource itself, and Tindersource has almost no risk.

John Doall chuckled, "Zack, you're too stubborn about stocks, that's not what VCs do." I've already analyzed the pros and cons for you just now, and now I don't understand why you don't want to accept it. ”

Zhang Chen naturally would not say that Amazon, which had an IPO price of only $18 and only $1.71 per share after the spin-off, had a stock price of nearly $300 more than a year later, that is to say, the $8 million he currently invested would theoretically be able to cash out more than $7 billion by the second half of 98.

Taking into account the market reaction, it is impossible for all stocks to be sold at the peak, they must be shipped in batches, and Rao is so, at least about 6 billion can be set.

Of course, this is also the peak of Amazon's market value in the next decade or so, and Amazon's stock price has fallen by more than 95% as the bubble bursts. It wasn't until 2010 that Amazon returned to its peak market capitalization of $60 billion in '99. Since then, the stock price has fallen less and risen more, and until Zhang Chen's rebirth, Amazon's market value has approached $500 billion.

It is no exaggeration to say that the NASDAQ index peaked at 5,000 points in March 2000, while in 2001, after the bubble burst, it was only a little more than 1,000 points.

The market value has evaporated by more than 80%, and there is no one in ten dead companies.

As long as Zhang Chen successfully escapes the top in 99 and slowly sells all the shares of listed Internet companies in his hands at the high point, such as Amazon, Ebay, and the shares of domestic companies such as Netart, which will also be listed per share in the future, it is conservatively estimated that he can cash out close to 20 billion US dollars in cash assets. The only NASDAQ-listed company that Zhang Chen intends to keep is Starcom.

20 billion US dollars, as long as it is operated properly and successfully copied the bottom, within ten years, a capital empire that is not inferior to Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, and Goldman Sachs will be truly born!

At this time, even losing 1% of the shares will make Zhang Chen sad, let alone 7.5%. If it weren't for KPCB's resources, Zhang Chen wouldn't want to work with anyone at all.

(End of chapter)