After everyone finished reporting, Zhang Chen applauded: "Very good, I am very satisfied with your work." Tindersource Capital has been established for less than half a year, and although it has strong potential, it is still a small company. ”

Zhang Chen looked at everyone and paused, "I remember the first time I met Bellankefen, he asked me what kind of company he wanted Tinder Source to become. Laurd, do you remember what I said at the time?"

Bellankefen smiled: "You said that you hope that Tinder Source will always be a company on Day1, I ask you, what is Day1." ”

Zhang Chen smiled: "Yes, Day1, we will always be the most motivated and enthusiastic on the first day of everything we do." So, no matter how far the company grows in the future, I want to maintain the enthusiasm, curiosity, and efficiency of the first day, and treat each day as if it were the first day. ”

Someone interjected and asked, "Boss, what does Day2 look like?"

Zhang Chen said calmly: "Day2 is a period of stagnation, followed by a stay away from the main business, and then a slump, a painful decline in performance, and finally death. That's why I hope we're always on Day 1. ”

There was silence for everyone, and Zhang Chen continued: "What is certain is that this descent will proceed at an extremely slow pace. A successful company may go through a few decades of Day2, but the end result will come. ”

"I've been thinking about how I can avoid a company slowly moving into Day2. Unfortunately, this proposition is too big for me to solve alone. But," Zhang Chen paused heavily, "even if we can't completely avoid moving towards Day 2, we can resist this day with all our might." ”

"Embracing external trends, resisting formalism, and making quick decisions are the three points that I have in mind. ”

Zhang Chen stood up, and his voice began to get louder: "We come from a rapidly changing society, and the application of new technologies has made the change of external trends more intense than the past few thousand years combined. The most important thing for us to do venture capital is to see through the trend, what will be the trend in the next three, five, or even ten years! Don't care about the immediate gains and losses, don't resist canning technology just because we have invested in a glass bottle factory, and don't go against the trend! This is the first point I tell you. ”

"Second, the entry of countless large enterprises into Day2 is marked by the beginning of endless formalism. We're still a small company, but as we get bigger, our management and business processes will become more complex. However, if you are not vigilant, the process itself can become a problem, which is especially prevalent in large enterprises. Instead of working for results, workflows are processes for the sake of processes. You don't focus on the outcome anymore, you just want to make sure the process is right. When we execute a bad process, the leadership justifies itself as 'the process is prescribed', without anyone really paying attention to what the process actually does and whether there is a better way to replace it. ”

"Third, quick decision-making, I agree with risk control, but not with pathological risk control. To give two examples, the first is that last month, Rockefeller did a bond tender, and Salomon Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Morgan, and Lehman Brothers all signed up for the bid. And in the end, Lehman Brothers didn't meet the tender deadline and didn't participate in the bidding, have you heard about that?"

Everyone looked at each other, and Mira hesitated, "It seems that it is because their offer was not approved?"

Zhang Chen sneered: "Yes, they said that the bidding time set aside is too tight and not enough time for approval, but God knows why other companies can catch up with the bidding? Merrill Lynch's bidding team even had time to go to Salt Lake City to participate in the RV modification competition before the bidding!"

The fact is that Lehman Brothers' decision-making process was too long, requiring the signature of 11 people from seven departments, and the textual changes to the bidding documents took nearly a week. ”

"I can imagine how awkward it would be for the Lehman Brothers bidders to stand in front of the conference room in the Rockefeller Building with the bidding documents they had already made. Yes, their bidders did their best, got all the bidding documents ready and came to the bidding site, but simply because of the stupid management and decision-making process, they were not authorized until the bidding deadline and could only watch Morgan underwrite the bond offering. ”

Zhang Chen looked around at everyone: "The second example is the familiar KPCB. As some of you already know, yesterday we invested $8 million in Amazon, an online bookstore. Previously, the reason why B failed was because of a wrong decision, and their investment manager was limited by various reasons, delayed making a decision, and did not escalate the incident in time, resulting in John Doerr's failure to accurately judge the situation. And just now, John Doerr personally flew to Seattle to visit Bezos, the founder of Amazon, but it was too late, and we had already reached an agreement with Amazon. ”

"KPCB has invested in so many top companies and is the leader of our industry. John Doerr is known as the core competitiveness of KPCB. But the reason why KPCB failed this time was also because they only had one John Doerr. ”

"Except for the 12 partners in the KPCB, no one has the right to make decisions on the spot, and the investment manager doesn't even dare to call the partners, and everyone has to be extremely well prepared to report to the top. Because as long as there is the slightest mistake, you may be scolded or lose your job. ”

"Over time, KPCB has the ability to act, and only their partners are the ones themselves. ”

"I will never, never accept that one day the source of fire will become like this!"

Seeing that everyone was serious and tightly closed, Zhang Chen smiled: "You don't need to be so serious, but you may feel in your heart, 'Is this Chinese kid crazy?' Lehman Brothers has a history of nearly 150 years and is one of the largest investment banks in the world, and KPCB is also a VC with a volume of hundreds of billions of dollars.

Someone sneered, but immediately put on a new face.

Zhang Chen continued: "You are not wrong to think so, but you must know that we are now the largest shareholder of ICQ, the largest shareholder of Starcom, the fastest growing telecommunications equipment company in China, and the majority shareholder of Coloto Industries, holding more than 20% of the shares of Ebay, the largest e-commerce website in the United States, and investing in many start-ups including Amazon and BackRub. ”

"Now we have a valuation of more than $120 million in ICQ shares, and Starcom has received more than $10 million in orders in China, and we will jointly invest $100 million with IDG to complete the Series B financing of Starcom. Ebay, on the other hand, has now begun to make a profit, while Yahoo is still in the red, and analysts at Nasdaq are already predicting the size of Ebay's IPO. ”

Everyone was shocked, and if they thought about it carefully, the source of fire seemed to be just starting, but their vision was extremely accurate. The companies mentioned by Zhang Chen have shown extraordinary potential in the recent past. If it is benchmarked against previous IPOs, Tinder even has the potential to reach tens of billions of dollars of its own funds.

There are many investment companies that can come up with tens of billions of dollars, but there are only a handful of self-owned funds that exceed tens of billions.

Everyone was in a trance, could it be that the small company they joined would become a company of the same magnitude as KPCB and Sequoia in the future?

Zhang Chen smiled: "Do you still think that I am worrying about nothing? At today's meeting, I hope you can remember that no matter how far we develop in the future, we will never forget that we will always be on the first day." Every day is a hopeful first day and a new beginning for us. We must constantly look for our weaknesses, improve efficiency, and enhance our judgment and grasp of trends. ”

"It's still Day1. ”

This chapter is written dizzy, because it was written at one o'clock in the morning, I am very dissatisfied, and I will revise it again when I have time.

There are many problems with KPCB, and it is not for nothing that Sequoia catches up in the back.

(End of chapter)