"Mr. Zhou, as far as I know, you also hold a large number of shares in Baidu Company in China, from 20 percent at the beginning, to 15 percent now. After you transferred the 5 percent stake to Temasek, the Singapore equity holding company, Temasek, which owns 23 percent of the shares, has become the second largest shareholder of Blink, and has played a decisive role in Brace's Asian growth plan.www.biquge.info At present, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, including Thailand and Vietnam, all intend to make whiteness a search engine company that their country focuses on. This will have a fatal impact on Google's Asia development plans, how will you reconcile the contradictions between the two companies in the development stage, and how will you protect Google's interests? Thank you. ”

Facing the hundreds of reporters in the audience, as well as Larry Page with a ceremonial smile next to him, Zhou You sighed helplessly in his heart. Before coming to the U.S., he expected to be asked this question, because it was pretty much the biggest problem he faced at Google.

Google and Baidu are both search engine companies, and the development of the two companies is always short-handed, and the same is a shareholder of the two companies, and they are in a relatively awkward position in this war without gunpowder.

The trajectory of the company has been heavily affected by Zhou You, and many of their previous shareholders have been rejected by Zhou You, except for the two American companies that were originally angel invested, and the remaining shares are mainly in the hands of the founders and Zhou You and Temasek.

As a major shareholder, Temasek will certainly contribute to the international development of Baidu, and use its influence in Southeast Asia to vigorously promote the development of Baidu in Southeast Asian countries, and has achieved brilliant results.

But in this way, in addition to affecting Yahoo's position in Asia, it has also seriously affected Google's development plan in Asia, although Google is not a big company now, and is not in a hurry to go international, but the contradiction has been highlighted.

To solve this problem, Zhou You also thought it out and thought that the most feasible way was to let the two companies hold each other's shares, so that with the convergence of interests, the two companies would compete in mutual exchange and learning, which was an orderly competition, not malicious competition.

"As you know, I own 15 percent of the shares of Whitescale and 10 percent of the shares in Google. Although I can only own five percent of Google's shares before going public in the final round of financing, I have found a suitable home for my five percent stake in Google, and that next home is Baidu. ”

There was an uproar in the audience, and even Larry Page showed a surprised expression, but before the excited reporter continued to ask, Zhou You continued: "But at the same time, I am also ready to transfer 5% of the shares of Baidu Company to Google, so that the two companies can hold each other's shares, so that the two companies can have a friendly relationship in terms of interests." ”

Immediately, another reporter asked: "There is a relatively large gap between the valuations of Baidu and Google, if this plan is really implemented, how will the transaction be carried out?" ”

"This is the purpose of my visit to the United States, and this is what we are going to discuss seriously at this meeting. Next. ”

"Mr. Zhou, we all know that the mainland is relatively closed commercially, are you confident that you can persuade the mainland government to accept the proposal of cross-shareholding shares?"

"It's also something for the future, and I don't want to speculate at this time. However, I would like to remind you that the mainland joined the WTO the year before last, and I don't know where you came to the conclusion of the so-called closure. Is it true that those tens of billions or even hundreds of billions of dollars of foreign investment every year are fake? Next. ”

"Mr. Zhou, Microsoft has offered Google a total purchase price worth nearly $20 billion, are you satisfied with this price?"

"No, I don't think Google is worth only 18 billion, or even 20 billion is far from the actual value of Google. For Google, only our current biggest competitor, Yahoo, is the only criterion for evaluating our value. ”

As soon as these words came out, there was another uproar in the audience, and all the reporters became even more excited. Although Zhou You is difficult to contact and rarely gives interviews, whenever he is serious about facing reporters, he always throws out some sensational remarks.

Who is Yahoo? In 1999, Yahoo's market capitalization reached $128 billion, $20 billion higher than the market value of Berkshire Hathaway, which is controlled by Warren Buffett. Although Yahoo's market value has fallen sharply due to the Internet crisis, Yahoo is still a well-deserved giant in the Internet industry.

In 2002, Yahoo made its first attempt to monetize by inserting ads into search results, and that year earned more than $900 million, but Google's revenue in 2002 was only $99 million, a difference of nearly ten times.

Zhou You compared Google to Yahoo, which is really a bit overwhelming.

Therefore, a reporter asked: "Does Mr. Zhou think that Google's actual value has reached $80 billion now?" ”

Zhou You shook his head and said, "Of course not, the current Google can't be compared with Yahoo." But Google is focused on the development of search engines, and our development potential is far greater than that of Yahoo, which has a portal as its core concept. Yahoo is more like an entertainment company than an Internet high-tech company, and I really can't agree with their development philosophy, and you can also confirm the accuracy of what I said today. ”

At this time, Larry Page, who was standing on the side, was really afraid that Zhou You would throw out some sensational remarks, his dissatisfaction with Microsoft's acquisition price, and his criticism of Yahoo made Larry Page feel that he would be very ashamed to face bigwigs like Gates and Jerry Yang in the future.

He hurriedly stood in front of the microphone and said: "Thank you, that's all for today's press conference, more news, we will inform you at the press conference after the meeting." ”

Although the reporters present were a little dissatisfied, today's harvest is rich enough, and any one of today's travels can become tomorrow's financial headlines. Holding shares with Baidu Company, believing that Microsoft's $18 billion acquisition price for Google is too low, and criticizing Yahoo for not distinguishing between priorities and priorities, all of them are remarks that have caused a sensation in the entire industry.

The housekeeper opened Zhou You's suite, pushed a cart for Zhou You and the two founders of Google, and placed all kinds of fruits, snacks, and drinks in the bar room of the room, and then quietly withdrew.

Sanchez pulled out the electronic signal detector and walked around the room, confirming that there were no listening devices. Only then did he take out his notebook and sit next to Zhou You.

Zhou You was the most relaxed one, and after asking everyone's requirements, he opened two bottles of wine, poured a glass for each of them, and lay down on the comfortable sofa.

Sergei Brin was the most anxious and asked: "Evan, what you said about letting Google and Whitescale hold shares in each other, is this your serious idea?" ”

Zhou You nodded and said: "Although Baidu and Google are both focused on search engines, at least at this stage, there is no need for the two companies to compete directly, and the two sides should join forces to deal with the giant Yahoo." And even if the two companies have different priorities in the future, I don't think Baidu will become Google's enemy. ”

Larry Page asked, "Why do you say that?" ”

Zhou You picked up his wine glass and gestured, took a sip and said: "This is because the national conditions of the two countries are different, for Google, there are perfect laws in the United States to keep the Internet clean, we can shout the slogan of not doing evil, and focus most of our energy on technology research and development, but Baidu can't do this." They have to spend most of their energy on digging advertisers, and don't even dare to shout the slogan of not doing evil, do you think whiteness can really be a competitor to Google? Yes, in terms of the market, we will have competition, but in terms of core competitiveness, whiteness will not be Google's opponent. ”

"What you mean is that although Baidu is a search company like us, the company's development focus will not be the same."

"So to speak. By the way, do you know Keyhole Satellite Imagery? ”

Sergey Brin said: "I know that this is a satellite detection company that originally belonged to the US military. ”

Zhou You nodded and said, "What do you think, what if we buy this company?" ”

Neither of them spoke, but pondered, and for a while, the two of them glanced at each other before turning to Zhou You and asking, "What is the similarity between the map business and the scientific and technological exploration?" And how do we rely on this business to make a profit? ”

Zhou You shook his head and said: "Not every business must be profitable, relying on the value-added brought by the impact of the business itself will be what the company must do for a long time." And the map business is not unprofitable, when we can travel to every corner of the world at home, it will make many people interested in it, whether it is advertising on the map, or from the suffocation of the channel of profit, these should know better than me. The acquisition of Satellite Exploration is just the first step, which will give us a complete global perspective, and then we can send out Street View to shoot cars and provide Street View maps of all the areas with roads, which can give us a core competitive project that is almost monopolistic. ”

As two technical controllers, they were inspired by Zhou You, and immediately developed countless ideas from this type of business, and soon designed a number of profit models for this plan, which made Zhou You have to admire.

They are the real elite, not the pseudo-elite themselves. I can only understand many things, but they can directly trace back to the inside, the principle, and the context of development derived from this, which is really amazing.

(To be continued.) )