Roy's side set off for the appointment to meet with the departing Peter Thiel again, and a groundbreaking coup was taking place within PayPal.

In a large conference room, all PayPal directors participated.

David Sachs, a product executive at PayPal, picked up a stack of petitions signed by a large number of the company's employees and showed them to the directors. He stood at the front of the conference room like a tough guy, his voice was sonorous, his tone was irritable, and he was full of anger, "Look at what good things Musk has done since he became CEO?!" The answer is: Heaven is angry, people are resentful! Our petition makes it clear, today, if the board of directors does not fire Musk, the bastard, we will resign en masse! ”

Musk sat in a corner of the conference room, his head slightly bowed, and the whole person curled up in the chair, without saying a word. The development of the company's situation has been completely beyond his control, and in the face of menacing public opinion, even he, the future Iron Man of Silicon Valley, is powerless.

Peter Thiel, a shareholder of the board of directors, naturally attended the meeting, and he flipped through the petition in his hand, which listed a large number of accusations against Musk's absurd behavior, including a particularly bold black font - insisting on changing the PayPal brand name x.

At the end of the petition, a separate page lists the results of a user survey on brand name preferences. (Appendix 1)

The reason is that some time ago, when Musk came to power, he wanted to gradually replace the name PayPal and replace it with x. Musk thought the domain name he bought for $1 million was very memorable, so he went it alone and replaced the PayPal brand with x.

As a result, PayPal employees were very unconvinced. They took advantage of the boss's absence to conduct a user survey. They randomly selected a few thousand users and asked them what they thought of two brand names. As a result, users liked the name PayPal as everyone imagined, and many people said that x. sounded like a love site.

Musk was naturally furious when he learned about it, and ordered the product manager to immediately stop the research and ask David Sachs to resolutely replace the brand.

Coupled with the old feud accumulated by Musk and CTO's conflicting opinions, and the passive resistance of many former PayPal employees when they passively execute orders.

As a result, this fuse became the last straw that pressed the camel's camel.

……

In another reception room at PayPal, Roy, Ulysses, and Debra are waiting to meet Peter Thiel.

Roy's idea was to take advantage of PayPal's turmoil to buy or merge with a competitor at a low price.

I didn't have to wait long.

Peter and Musk, two legends, came together, and the perseverance on their faces could not hide their exhaustion.

This is the second time Roy has seen Peter in a formal setting, and the first time he has seen Musk. These two legendary figures who will call for wind and rain in the mall in the future have to be on an equal footing with a young little man at the moment, which is also a spectacle in the eyes of those who have come over.

It's just that who knows how many days and nights Roy worked hard behind his back to sit at the table of this game?!

Roy stood up and said, "Congratulations Peter, once again getting the position of CEO. ”

The surprise on Peter's face flashed, and he smiled politely, "Nothing can escape your eyes." ”

Historically, after the merger of PayPal and X., Peter and X. executives first clashed, and then chose to resign for the benefit of the company; Musk did not do well after taking office, and CTO Max Levchen and product executive David Sachs also went toe-to-toe with him, so that in the end there was a forced palace drama of collective resignation. After this toss, who would dare to say that he could take over this stall and tame this group of unruly cattle men under him?

Roy turned to Musk and shook hands with him, but Musk didn't seem to care much about etiquette and gave people a maverick feeling.

A psychologist once analyzed Musk and Jobs, saying that their walking posture is very similar to that of autistic children, and the way they speak is also very direct and unpleasant.

At this time, Jobs Joe is about to go out of the mountain again, return to Apple, and start a super legendary life; And Musk's future investment projects, such as electric cars, Martian immigration, super subway...... It is even more eye-catching all over the world. What a real two gods. (Jobs returned to Apple in 1996 and took power again in 1999.)

Roy casually glanced at it and saw another familiar person - Mary Beth Brown.

The girl immediately touched Roy's thoughts, and the look in her eyes became more complicated.

Who is this Brown girl?

In the future, she is a legend of SpaceX and Tesla, a personal secretary who has worked by Musk's side for 12 years, shuttling between Los Angeles and Silicon Valley every week, working 24/7 overtime, while arranging Musk's schedule in both companies, and being responsible for public relations, and often having to make business decisions......

It is said that her desk is in front of Musk, and every employee who wants to find Musk will stay at her desk for a while, and if Beth Brown shakes her head, on the surface Musk is in a bad mood at this time, and it is not a good time to apply for a budget, everyone will leave with interest.

However, it was such a secretary who had been with Musk for 12 years who told him that he wanted a salary increase, and he was immediately fired. (Appendix 2)

Roy sighed and empathized, thinking that if he was Musk, he should not be able to do it. No wonder he is a legendary entrepreneur, and he is a small business fighter, today is a lesson.

Everyone sat back down at the negotiating table and began to test each other, to see if there was a chance of a merger.

"If the two companies were to merge, I think a 70:30 ratio would be a very good fit," Peter said. ”

Roy said: "Worry-free payment accounts for 70%? ”

"No, no, it's PayPal."

"Oh? How did you arrive at this magic number? Roy smiled openly and quietly watched the other party's performance.

"First, there is no cash flow for worry-free payment, which means that the huge number of users in the company is not only not a plus, but also a minus, and the high daily operating subsidy burden will only accelerate the pace of bankruptcy of worry-free payment.

"Second, there are all kinds of negative reports about worry-free payment in the newspapers, so in terms of brand value, it is definitely a minus, which also makes your company worse.

"Third, the technology owned by Worry-Free Payment is PayPal all of it, and it is also ahead of an online shopping guarantee service, so in the long run, it is only a matter of time before PayPal beat Worry-Free Payment......"

Peter is clearly well prepared, and his strengths are eloquent, making people feel that the general situation is in his hands and he is confident.

After watching the performance, Roy looked relaxed and comfortable, the corners of his mouth rose slightly, and he asked in questioning: "Hmph, that's it?!" ”

【PS】Appendix 1: An interesting fact:

At that time, Musk was not in the company, and PayPal employees secretly conducted a survey behind the boss's back. At that time, they randomly selected a few thousand users and asked them what they thought of two brand names. But it was a special coincidence that among the thousands of users they randomly selected was Elon Musk - according to the number of PayPal users at the time, this is less than 1 in 1 000 probability.

Addendum 2: The story of Mary Brown is from Iron Man of Silicon Valley. In the end, although Musk fired Brown, he also compensated for a year's salary.