Steve Keys scoffed: "Forget it, now all ISPs are transitioning to ICPs, and AOL's current strategy is to beat Yahoo and become the world's largest portal." The model you are talking about is too asset-heavy and is not in line with AOL's development strategy. ”

Zhang Chen still advised: "ICP is not necessarily suitable for AOL's business model, it is better to make a business bigger and more refined, it is your basic disk, if you lose the ISP business for ICP, it will be a little dangerous." ”

Steve Keys simply didn't listen, and now AOL has surpassed Yahoo in market capitalization to become the world's largest Internet company. As a popular fried chicken in the American business community, even the president of the United States is not a bird, how can he listen to the advice of a yellow-mouthed child?

Steve Keys laughed a few times and changed the subject: "Let's talk about something else, recently a few friends and I are going to set up a yacht club, do you participate?"

Zhang Chen sighed lightly, it's really good words to persuade the damn ghost, forget it, then let's talk about this topic another day.

Since experiencing Delphina's yacht, Zhang Chen is indeed a little interested, but in the short term, Zhang Chen has no time to play this, and he is idle when he buys it. But the yacht club that Steve Keyes wants to build is a bit interesting, as if there are hotels, golf clubs or something, Zhang Chen promised Steve Keyes to come up with five million dollars to be a minority shareholder.

As AOL's stock price climbed to new highs, Steve Keys became more and more aggressive, throwing a lot of money at it, even buying a two-month-old streaming company for $60 million.

This is fundamentally different from the acquisition of ICQ, which at least will bring a sizable user base to AOL and increase its paid Internet access. But what the hell is a two-month-old streaming company? It's incredible to swindle tens of millions of dollars out of Steve Keys without any content creation.

Of course, it's not just Steve Case, the entire Silicon Valley and the entire investment community are basically crazy now.

In 97-98, the field of financial investment can be said to be turbulent.

In the field of traditional hedge funds, the financial turmoil in Southeast Asia set off by the quantum fund has spread into the Asian financial crisis that the whole world is frightening, and the international bears are frantically grabbing the wealth accumulated by emerging countries for many years; in the field of international economy, the debt problem of Rakshasa is in danger; and the emerging venture capital is the craziest, and countless capital institutions are waving money into Silicon Valley and entering the dune road. Those who didn't have time to get on the bus also patted their heads and walked a few steps to catch up with the secondary market on the NASDAQ and NYSE.

Yahoo's market value exceeded 30 billion, AOL's market value exceeded 30 billion, eBay's market value exceeded 6 billion, and Amazon's market value exceeded 5.3 billion.

It's crazy, it's all crazy.

Zhang Chen really didn't want to see AOL fall like in his previous life, after all, his first and second pots of gold in the real sense were earned from AOL. It can be said that without Steve Case, there would be no Zhang Chen today.

Even if he doesn't mention any thanksgiving reports, Steve Keys is now half of Zhang Chen's ally, and if the ally falls, it will not benefit him at all.

Although the mall is like a battlefield, even if it is a real battlefield, it is impossible to have only enemies and no comrades, if you just fight alone and see who is the enemy, sooner or later you will be destroyed.

Therefore, whether emotionally or intellectually, Zhang Chen wanted to help Steve Keys escape this catastrophe.

But how easy is it to say?

AOL finally came to an end, although the direct fuse was a wrong merger with Time Warner, coupled with bad luck, a large amount of money was just spent, just in time for the dot-com bubble to burst.

But even without these two reasons, AOL will gradually decline and eventually go to extinction, and it will be difficult to support it in the mobile Internet era.

Essentially, AOL is not an Internet company, but a telecommunications company.

Until now, AOL is still charging users 19.19 per month in this field, which is almost a monopoly, and it has also become the largest Internet company with the highest revenue in the entire Internet industry, and has obtained a super high market value.

Steve Keys is not stupid, he clearly judged that the future of the Internet industry must be content king, so he relied on his own walled back garden to hope to achieve a smooth transition from ISP to ICP.

But this transformation was undoubtedly a mistake, with a bloated AOL structure and a prevalent bureaucracy. If it is placed in the telecommunications industry, it can be regarded as strong execution and efficiency. But in the internet industry, AOL is like a huge and clumsy mammoth giant elephant, seemingly powerful, but a few primitive people with stone spears can poke it to death by flying a kite.

Traditional enterprises, switching to the Internet, few can not die.

Just like a strong man who weighs 500 pounds and practices sumo, you have to let him train Swan Lake to the level of a Paris Opera Ballet in a year?

Everything is done with genes, and enterprises do not have this gene, blind transformation, even if the direction is right, the result may not be correct.

Of course, Zhang Chen is also hindsight, if he is not a reborn, he will also feel that AOL must be transformed.

Zhang Chen had implicitly mentioned similar opinions to Steve Keyes before, but Steve Keyes didn't care at all.

Zhang Chen didn't think about how to change AOL's fate at that time, so he didn't say much.

The reason why he brought up the old story and called Steve Keys specifically was also because he had found a way to save AOL.

And the person who helped him discover this path was none other than Xavier Nil, who was sitting across from him.

Xavier Niel is exactly thirty years old this year, with a typical French face, wearing a white French shirt with cufflinks, and is well-dressed, looking no different from some French gentlemen that Zhang Chen has seen in the past two days.

If there's one thing Xavier Nil is different from other Frenchmen, it's his eyes.

The French people Zhang Chen saw had casual eyes when facing work. When you see a French man suddenly with a bright gaze, then you follow his gaze and you will definitely see a beautiful woman.

This is especially true in Paris.

It is said that Paris is the capital of romance, and after Zhang Chen came, he found that this was indeed the case. It's wave enough, and it's slow enough.

Parisians are very casual in everything, and there is basically no time when they are not late, and they are very inefficient and slow.

Zhang Chen and Tang Miaomiao made an appointment to meet in Paris, and then returned to the United States together. Tang Miaomiao had never been to Paris before, and was full of fantasies about the romantic capital of Paris, so she must take Zhang Chen to take the subway to experience the romance of the French people.

Not to mention, it's really a wave. Non-commuting time, there is still a seat in the subway, the two sat on the subway for a while, and saw that the girl who was reading a book opposite suddenly said a word of French to the people around her, and then began to hold the book and began to read it aloud.

As soon as I finished reading, the subway arrived at the station, the French girl said sorry in French, and ran off the car, and a young French man sitting next to Zhang Chen suddenly stood up and chased out, hugged the girl and began to gnaw, and then the whole car applauded.

Tang Miaomiao sat next to an old lady in her fifties, who was quite nice, seeing that Zhang Chen and Tang Miaomiao didn't understand French, and enthusiastically explained, saying that this girl was reading a book, and when she read it, she said that I wanted to share this paragraph with you, so she began to read aloud, and the young man was attracted by the girl who read aloud, and fell in love at first sight.

Zhang Chen was speechless, Tang Miaomiao's eyes were full of peach hearts, Zhang Chen pursed his lips, hugged Tang Miaomiao, and kissed him.

Ahem, it's far away.

Xavier Nil is really different from other Frenchmen, if you don't look at your looks, you look more like a German or an American, with ambition in his eyes. And he has a strong sense of time, and he made an appointment with Zhang Chen at five o'clock in the afternoon, which is not bad for a minute or a second. The work efficiency and concentration are very high, which gives Zhang Chen a new impression of French men.

Zhang Chen had never heard Xavier's name before, nor did he want to meet him, but Matrow, the investment manager of Tindersource, asked him to meet this person, saying that he was someone who could subvert the entire French business order.

Tinder currently has six investment managers, four in the US, one in the UK and one in Israel.

Maklavine is the investment manager recruited by Tinder in the UK, and he worked at Barclays for a few years before and wanted to transform into venture capital, and Frank Kefen recruited him when he was in charge of Tinder's venture capital business, and has been until now.

Ma Kraven had also invested in a few projects before, and now he can't tell whether he is making money or losing money, and the amount is not large, so Zhang Chen didn't pay too much attention to it.

But Xavier's investment was different, as Maklaven applied for $8 million in financing for Xaviernier, a 40 percent stake in Xavier's OrldNet.

It's not that Zhang Chen can't afford to invest in eight million dollars, but it is impossible to invest in such a nobody who has never heard a name in his previous life, and it is impossible to do more investigations.

It happened that Zhang Chen was in France, and Maklavin asked Zhang Chen to meet Xavier Nir. Before meeting, Zhang Chen really didn't expect that there would be such Internet talents in France.

"The commercial order in France is very stable, and like in Italy, for many years, the Betancourt, Arnold, Bouygues, Bennier and other families have firmly held the pulse of the country's economy. Xavier Nier peeled back the cocoon to popularize the French business order to Zhang Chen.

"The French elite go to the same school, and the parents know each other well. In all respects, belonging to the same circle. In this circle, each other does not want to offend each other. If they are at peace with each other, they will not break the tacit understanding of competition. Who wants to reduce their profit margins? They just don't want to fight in the nest. ”

"Most of the French business leaders belong to the 'family lineage', who are always in and out of the same social circles, or whose positions are directly or indirectly given by political forces, and then enrich themselves in large pockets, usually with little success. If you look at the French stock market, it's clear: in the CAC 40 index (the 40 largest listed companies in France), there is not a single company less than 30 years old. There are only a handful of countries in the world where this happens. ”

"A pool of stagnant water. Xavier Nir commented dismissively.

"But that's why it's my chance. Xavier's eyes were full of fighting spirit, "Orldnet's dial-up Internet access is now, broadband network is tomorrow, and triple play is the real future!" Xavier Nir confidently.

Zhang Chen really doesn't know if the triple play is the future, at least in China, the triple play is only implemented on a small scale in some areas after 2010, Xavier Neil put forward this idea so early Zhang Chen doesn't know whether it is feasible, but Xavier Nier's description of the French telecommunications industry makes Zhang Chen feel quite interesting.

"Now the two major French telecom operators SFR and Bouygues, and Orange, which has just entered the French market, have reached a tacit agreement on telecom charges, which can only make 300 minutes of calls at 300 to 500 francs a month, which is the highest in Europe. Speaking of this, Xavier Nil was a little angry, "The same is true for Internet charges, which cost 500 francs a month, but only 2,500 minutes of Internet time. If you live in France for a while, you will understand why Balzac was able to write the old Grandet, and why the Revolution broke out in France in the first place. ”

"Poof!" Zhang Chen almost squirted out a mouthful of water, Xavier Nil was French, and his mouth was damaged enough.

Zhang Chen looked at Xavier Neil with interest: "Then what way do you want to change this status quo?"

Xavier Nir firmed: "I am ready to launch a telecommunications network with unlimited Internet access and unlimited telephone calls for 150 francs per month, and I will definitely have a place in the current situation of the French telecommunications industry." As long as the expansion rate is fast enough, the cost can be reduced to an acceptable level. I expect that in three years, we can completely change the current competitive landscape of the French dial-up Internet market. ”

Zhang Chen smiled: "There is a question, what if your competitors follow the price reduction? They are strong, even if you hurt people, it is difficult for you to compete with them." ”

Xavier Nill smiled confidently: "No, at least not for two years." ”

Zhang Chen smiled: "It's too careless, right?"

Xavier Nill smiled slyly: "I'll tell you how this happened: first, when their junior managers heard that such a company had launched such a package, they would first laugh and drink champagne to ridicule how inadequate this small company was, and they would not report the news to their superiors, nor would they pay more attention to this news." ”

"Secondly, when our market share reaches 5%, there may be some responsible middle-level people who report the news to those young ladies and young masters, but they will not get any response. ”

"We are growing faster and faster, and when the market share reaches 10%, finally there are competitors who start to look at us squarely, and they start to negotiate with us with arrogance, and of course we will refuse. ”

"When we have a 30 percent occupancy, they start to get scared and start plotting seriously about what to do with us. ”

"However, if they want to reach an agreement, it will take at least three months to six months, and after six months, we have captured more than 40% of the market, and the countermeasures they discussed before are no longer working for us. ”

"In the end, it's the price reduction. Xavier Nil said calmly, as if stating a fact that had already happened, "At the last minute, they had to lower their tariffs to keep up with us, but by this time, we had become the largest Internet service provider in France." ”

Seeing that Zhang Chen still looked incredulous, Xavier Nir added: "If you think about it during World War II, France only took 42 days to surrender like Germany, and it was said before that the blitzkrieg was to describe the German attack speed was fast, like lightning, but in fact, this sentence is completely used to describe the speed of the French surrender like lightning, and you haven't reacted yet, he has already surrendered。。。。。。 ”

(End of chapter)