The return journey is getting closer and closer, but Xia Yu is still worried about one thing.

The most important investment project he chose for Bluestar Ventures has not been heard back from until now.

Yes, in the general perception of the investment circle in the future, the probability of the birth of "big fish" in the field of science and technology Internet is indeed the highest, but it also depends on whether there is the strength to seize it.

Of course, the most important thing is timing, even luck.

Google aside, the highest return on investment in the next ten years is still Facebook, the early investor Peter invested $500,000 in Facebook in 2004, and eight years later it became nearly $1.1 billion.

Therefore, Xia Yu must not let go of this opportunity, and he will take advantage of his A round of financing in May this year. For this reason, he explained to Xiao Wenjing early, and while taking the initiative to use the identity of an Ivy League graduate to establish contact and contact with Xiao Za, he also maintained communication with AccelPartners, one of the world's top five venture capital institutions that was about to invest in it.

He knew that Facebook was valued at $100 million this round, and that by the time it received a $240 million investment from Microsoft almost three years later, it had risen to $15 billion — a rare leap forward, and certainly just in time for Microsoft's strategic investment to defend against Google.

But Facebook is really in suspense, after all, there are too many people who are optimistic about it.

And what Xia Yu is waiting for is another opportunity.

A shorter and more reliable time is YouTube, the ancestor of video sites!

One of its three co-founders, and one of the main ones, is none other than Chen Shijun, a Chinese from Bay Island!

And judging from the return on investment in the previous life, YouTube, which started with video sharing, is no worse than Facebook. It was supposed to be established in March this year, and it relied on Chen Shijun's credit card until the end of the year, and then received the first round of financing of $3.5 million from Sequoia Capital.

But just in October 2006, 18 months after its founding, Google bought it for a whopping $1.65 billion!

This means that if Bluestar Ventures can become an angel investor in the early days of YouTube, it is possible to create hundreds of nearly 1,000 times returns in a year and a half.

This idea haunted Xia Yu, who had been worried about developing and producing smartphones. This is the most delicious big fish!

But although Chen Shijun's mailbox was obtained, for some reason Xia Yu sent him several emails without getting a reply, and his mobile phone number from Graham was never answered.

Of course, Xia Yu was not reconciled, and managed to get a phone call from another co-founder of YouTube, Chad Hurley, and successfully established contact.

Of course, YouTube hadn't even been launched yet, and it hadn't even decided on a domain name. Of course, Xia Yu couldn't mention this, but said that he was the investment manager of a Chinese venture capital company, and asked him to help tell Chen Shijun that he hoped to establish a connection.

As another Chinese entrepreneur who became famous in Silicon Valley after Yahoo's Yang Zhiyuan, Chen Shijun's ancestral home is Shanghai. And I worked there for a total of a period of time, and I had a good impression of Huaguo, which is also a little confidence of Xia Yu.

But the news conveyed by Hurley should have arrived, but why did Chen Shijun still not call back?

This made Xia Yu a little restless.

Seeing that it was time to return to China, the matter was also settled in the real yàn room, and he finally decided to go directly to the door to see the situation.

……

This time, Xia Yu didn't do much to prepare the information, because as one of the legends of the Chinese Silicon Valley, most of Chen Shijun's information was familiar to him.

Chen Shijun is a native of Bay Island. However, he came to the United States to study very early, and he loved to tinker with computers since he was a child, and it is said that he wrote the first program in his life in the sixth grade of elementary school.

Later, he entered the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which is ranked among the top five in the United States for computer science. Spend all day in the company of computer enthusiasts, leaving your normal studies out of the clouds.

So the grades are not top-notch, and I dropped out of the last semester of college.

Well, dropping out of school to start a business is probably also a "good tradition" in Silicon Valley. From Gates to Steve Jobs to Zuckerberg and many of the PayPal executives he works for, all dropped out. Of course, this also has an impact on Chen Shijun.

Speaking of which, the founder of PayPal is also famous, Elon Musk is also the founder of Tesla's electric car, which later became popular, and he also founded a solar energy company, and a space exploration company to help many companies launch rockets......

In fact, he is the real-life prototype of the movie "Iron Man".

Well, it is also an investment goal that has been planned for a long time in the small book that Xia Yu carries closely, of course, he has to wait for the right time.

Back to Chen Shijun, like the other two entrepreneurial partners of Youtube, he is an employee of the online payment company PayPal, and he did not leave after being acquired by peer giant eBay, and has been working for six years, during which he also came to mainland China to take charge of business for a while.

At the end of last year, he just went to Facebook, of course, not for long, otherwise there would be no Youtube later.

Xia Yu got the news from Hurley that Chen Shijun had just left his job last week and should be at home in California.

Because he earned nearly $2 million when he was PayPal, three days after the project share reward was issued, this kid spent $1.2 million to buy a house and took his mother and brother over, but it is not the psychology of getting rich or caring for his family.

However, this just provides convenience for Xia Yu to come to the door, otherwise I don't know where to find someone!

$1.2 million, you can buy a good house in California in 2004, this is a typical townhouse area, Xia Yu found the address and grinded for a while before getting access from the security guard. I checked again that the high-grade Longjing tea brought from China was well packaged, and then I rang the doorbell directly.

"Wait a minute!"

There was a beautiful little boy's voice inside, which should be his younger brother.

Of course, Chen Shiming didn't open the door directly, but looked out vigilantly from the video access control phone, saw that a Chinese boy appeared on the screen, and asked again: "Who are you looking for?"

Xia Yu also picked up the phone and said politely: "Hello, may I ask if this is Mr. Chen Shijun's home? I am Xia Yu from Huaguo, and I want to ask him about some things!"

"My brother went to work!"

Chen Shiming thought for a moment, turned around and shouted inside, "Mommy." Someone is looking for my brother!"

At this time, a middle-aged woman's voice came from upstairs: "I see that young man, let him in!"

As a young rich man who was later worth hundreds of millions of dollars, Chen Shijun's home decoration at this time was not luxurious, but it was quite chic, and many of the ornaments were full of Bay Island ethnic customs.

After Xia Yu entered the door, he politely greeted the mother and daughter of the Chen family, and once again clarified his intentions: "In fact, I am a partner of an investment company in Huaguo, and I want to find Mr. Chen Shijun for some things, but his phone has not been able to get through. ”

Chen Shiming didn't wait for his mother to speak, and said, "Oh, my brother has changed the phone!"

The woman glared at him before turning around and welcoming Xia Yu in and saying, "Ah Hua has recently changed jobs. It is true that the phone has also changed, and it is too busy to be at home. But you are a friend of Huaguo, please sit down and rest first, and I will help you call Ah Hua!" and instructed Chen Shiming to hurry up and make tea.

Chen Shiming grimaced at Xia Yu and trotted all the way to the kitchen.

Xia Yu put aside the gift he was carrying, and said with a smile, "That's bothering you!"

In Xia Yu's incomplete "memory", the domain name of YouTube was won on Valentine's Day in 2005, that is, there is still half a month. The website was launched in March, calculated by time. At this point, YouTube's idea and even some preparations should have been made.

However, according to one theory, the early YouTube website was supported by Chen Shijun's relatively large credit card, so it should not have received angel investment until the end of the year until it received a $3.5 million investment from Sequoia Capital.

This is the opportunity he dreamed of.

Of course. Whether it is Chen Shijun or those two Americans, they are all employees of Silicon Valley itself, and they should be able to save a lot of money from their salaries. I don't know if they are willing to accept angel investment!

The closer he got, the more apprehensive he felt.

……

In fact, Chen Shijun's situation at the beginning of 2005. It's not as good as Xia Yu imagined.

He had just found a job at Facebook, but he was not happy, and he quit his job a few days ago without telling his family, this time because he wanted to start a business.

Back then, he dared to drop out of school and travel to San Francisco alone from Illinois with $200, but now that he has the idea of starting a business, he can't stop anymore.

He already has two ideas, one is a Web2.0 community website, this is a popular project, it is estimated that it is easier to get investors' money, but he prefers another project, to create a video sharing community.

Nowadays, in an era when video recording equipment is popular, small video recorders and mobile phones with video recording functions are fashionable gadgets in the hands of young people, in fact, young people in the United States like to bring video recorders to parties, and watch the scenes of friends joking and even pranking each other over and over again.

Coupled with the fact that a video of a mobile phone shot of the tsunami in Indonesia had more than 1 million views on his blog, he and Chad Heli were shocked by the idea of creating a community dedicated to sharing videos.

Of course, now that Flash is becoming popular, website technology can also solve the problem, but it should be difficult to get investment for such a project!

Not only does he have no money now, but he has even started to rely on credit cards to get by, and he also bears the cost of writing off his family - he has not yet told his family about his resignation.

Hurley is more supportive of video communities, but another good friend, Judd Karim, suggested that he would start a Web 2.0 website first, and after raising money, he could secretly start this project, and many people in Silicon Valley did the same.

As for taking their own money, those two guys who spent money like dung were almost overdrawn on their credit cards, and they couldn't count on it at all.

This led him to hesitate.

He had just come out of a café when he received his mother's call, and had just finished a fruitless debate with Hurley.

Oh, a Huaguo investment manager?

How did I come into contact with it when I was working in Shanghai, and how did I find myself?

But it wasn't a bad thing, and he drove home immediately. (To be continued......)

PS: The second update is here!

I recommend a book that my brother wrote very seriously and interestingly, "Rebirth of Japan in the 90s", the theme, writing and story I think are of the upper middle level, you can go and see it.

There is still the last week of the new book month, continue to ask for all kinds of support! There are still 6 monthly tickets left to reach 90, everyone check it out again...... There is only one new book month for a book!