In the following time, Pang Xuelin, led by Morgridge and Chambers, visited Cisco headquarters and Cisco laboratories.

In the laboratory, Pang Xuelin also met Mario, Prem and Luca, three top engineers who later became known as Cisco's heart, soul and brain.

However, Pang Xuelin only said hello to them, and did not communicate too much, although the level of these three technical experts is very high, but the main achievements are still in the field of network switches, and the three of them are Russian, one Indian, and a standard white American, basically it is unlikely that he will fool him into China.

Naturally, it is impossible for him to exchange relevant technology with the other party.

After all, Cisco's stock will have to be sold sooner or later, so let's let Cisco develop normally as it has historically.

At the end of the visit to Cisco, Benson Rafael, who had been accompanying him, smiled and said, "Mr. Pang, how do you feel about Cisco?" ”

Pang Xuelin said with a smile: "A very good company, but the commercial atmosphere is too strong, even the technology department, all around how to monetize, I prefer the kind of company that studies technology in a down-to-earth manner." ”

Benson Raphael laughed: "Aren't companies just for making money?" In the U.S., all new technologies should be for profit! If there really were such a company that thought about R&D technology in a down-to-earth manner, I am afraid that it would have gone bankrupt a long time ago. ”

Pang Xuelin shook his head with a smile and did not speak.

In his view, the biggest role of the market is to allocate resources, and if you want to make real progress, you need the kind of company that can do technology with peace of mind.

At this time, Benson Raphael said: "Mr. Pang, if there is nothing wrong, then I will send you back to the hotel first, if you need anything, you can call me at any time." By the way, how long are you going to stay in the U.S.? ”

Pang Xuelin said with a smile: "It's not certain yet, the embassy gave me a business visa for half a year, and I may stay until the end of the World Cup in July." ”

"Oh, do you need tickets to the World Cup? I might be able to get you a few. ”

Benson Raphael smiled.

He now knows that Pang Xuelin is worth, although he himself works for Don Valentine, but in the face of such a young billionaire, Benson Raphael also has a good heart.

Pang Xuelin was slightly stunned, laughed, and said, "If you can help me get it, it would be great." ”

Although Pang Xuelin is not a fan, in order to prepare for the adventure of entering various worlds, Pang Xuelin has roughly checked the information of each era in history.

Naturally, such a major event as the World Cup will not be missed.

Therefore, he is well aware of the impact and legend of the 1994 World Cup in the United States.

The World Cup was held in the United States from June 17 to July 17, 1994, with a total of 24 teams participating.

The Brazilian national team eventually won the championship, and the Ballon d'Or was won by Romario.

However, in this World Cup, the champion Brazil does not have much to watch, but the sad Italy and the melancholy prince Baggio have become the focus of fans' attention.

From the group stage all the way to the final, Roberto Baggio with a ponytail saved the fate of Blue Italy again and again, winning the obsession of countless fans.

However, in the brutal penalty shootout in the final, Baggio, who was the last to play, kicked the penalty kick away, which also ruined the championship dream of Blue Italy.

Since then, Baggio's back has become an eternal classic on the green field.

However, Pang Xuelin is not interested in the fate of Italy and Baggio, he is more interested in the performance of those dark horses.

The biggest dark horse is Bulgaria from Eastern Europe, in the initial qualifiers, Bulgaria passed the thrilling game, relying on Kostadinov's last-minute goal, directly eliminated France, so that France missed the World Cup finals. In the finals, Bulgaria was beaten 3-0 by Nigeria at the beginning. But then there was a dramatic change, with Stoichkov and Barakov playing well to win 4:0 and 2:0 respectively over Greece and Argentina.

In particular, in the quarter-finals, against the defending champions Germany, they relied on Stoichkov's free kick and Lechekov's header to reverse the defending champions Germany 2-1, and in the end, they won the best result in fourth place in history.

Saudi Arabia from Asia is equally beautiful.

In the group stage, Saudi Arabia defeated Belgium and Morocco to finish second in the group and advance to the round of 16.

It's a pity that the eighths final faced the third place Sweden and lost 1:2.

And Sweden is also second only to these two dark horses in this World Cup.

Although he didn't encounter too many strong opponents along the way, he stumbled and finally won the third place.

For Pang Xuelin, these three teams will be a good opportunity for him to harvest wealth in this World Cup.

At least Pang Xuelin is sure that he will pass 50 million US dollars and increase the principal tenfold after the World Cup.

As for betting a little more, it is possible to attract the attention of the bookmaker, and in case there is a butterfly effect on the outcome of the game, it will not be fun.

Therefore, Pang Xuelin prepared to stay in San Francisco during this time.

San Francisco is one of the nine cities hosting the World Cup, and in addition to hosting the four group games in Groups A and B, Stanford Stadium also hosted Brazil vs. the United States in the quarterfinals and Romania vs. Sweden in the quarterfinals.

It's time to experience the atmosphere of the World Cup live.

After talking to Rafael about the World Cup tickets, Pang Xuelin pondered for a moment and said, "Rafael, can you give me a car?" I'm going to Stanford. ”

"To Stanford?"

Benson Raphael couldn't help but be stunned.

Pang Xuelin laughed and said, "I'm going to go to Stanford for a walk, so I'm coming to San Francisco, so I can't turn a blind eye to the city's highest university!" ”

Benson Raphael laughed, handed his car keys to Pang Xuelin and said, "Mr. Pang, then you can use this Lincoln City first, and call me at any time if you need anything." ”

Pang Xuelin nodded and said, "Raphael, then I'll trouble you." ”

Saying goodbye to Raphael, Pang Xuelin drove directly to Stanford.

When he went to Stanford, he didn't just hang out at this top university in the United States, he was looking for someone in the past.

In 1994, whether it was China's Internet that had just taken root, and the American Internet, it had begun to officially enter a period of growth.

Several of the Internet companies that later became famous were founded in this year, including Yahoo, co-founded by Yang Zhiyuan and David Ferro.

And the time to create Yahoo should be on a certain day this month.

In April 1994, Yang Zhiyuan and Fei Luo, who were still studying at Stanford University, became obsessed with the Internet in order to complete their dissertation, and spent all day searching for information on the Internet. In the process, they collected and bookmarked many sites that they were interested in, such as scientific research projects, tennis tournaments, and so on, so that they could find them.

However, as more and more sites were collected, they found it very inconvenient to find.

So they organized the bookmarks into categories, and when each directory didn't fit enough, they subdivided them into subdirectories, a core method that remained a Yahoo tradition even in later generations.

Compiled into software and put on the web for other surfers to enjoy, their website soon attracted many users and received great attention and wide popularity.

People have responded with feedback and constructive comments to make the content even better.

In the winter of 1994, the two were so busy that even eating and sleeping became a luxury, and their studies were also thrown aside. At the time, the name of the software was: "Jerrys Guide to the World Wide Web".

As the Guide became more and more popular and concerned, many netizens entered the workstation of Stanford University's Department of Electrical Engineering to use this software, which greatly troubled the school and complained that the invention affected the normal operation of the school's computer.

However, Yang Zhiyuan and Ferro still actively worked on this and launched featured columns: "Cool Links" and "Hard to Believe", and renamed the website "Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web".

Due to the conditions at the time, the data on the website was stored in Yang Zhiyuan's computer, nicknamed "Akebono"; And the search engine was stored in Fello's computer with the nickname "Konishiki", which was the name of two of their favorite wrestlers.

At the time, there were many competitors on the web, such as WebCrawler, Lycos, Worm, Infoseek, etc., all of which started with software that automatically searched, which was broad but inaccurate.

Yahoo, on the other hand, is purely handmade, accurate in search, and more practical.

In fact, by the end of 1994, Yahoo had become the leader in search engines.

With the surge in traffic, Yang and Fei Luo were keenly aware of the huge business opportunities involved, so they officially changed the name of the website to Yahoo while actively looking for potential investors to further develop Yahoo.

In the end, Yang Zhiyuan and Ferro's company was recognized by Sequoia Capital, and after the second round of financing, it received investment from SoftBank.

Subsequently, Yahoo gradually expanded, building an ecosystem of search engines, email, instant messaging, web advertising, and website building platforms that covered all aspects of people's lives, becoming the world's largest Internet portal.

In 1999, when the Internet was just in its infancy, Yahoo had 120 million unique users, 100 million of whom had registered with at least one of Yahoo's channels or featured services.

For example, Yahoo Mail once had 243 million users worldwide, and many Chinese Internet users started with the suffix @.

Just over a year after its founding, in 1996, Yahoo landed on the NASDAQ. The stock price rose 154% on the day of listing, reaching a market capitalization of $800 million.

On January 3, 2000, Yahoo's market capitalization reached $128 billion.

How good was Yahoo back then?

It was the first website in the world to offer internet navigation services.

It pioneered the free Internet model, that is, the content is free and the advertising is charged.

In 2000~2006, it has been dominating the first place in the global Internet rankings.

In 2006, it dominated three of the top 20 Internet companies in the world, with Yahoo, Yahoo Japan and Yahoo China ranking 1st, 7th and 14th respectively.

Google and Facebook in the United States, and Sina, Sohu and NetEase in China are all its followers and imitators.

At that time, the Yahoo "empire" was almost invincible, and it could even be said that it was equivalent to the entire Internet.

Unfortunately, as it grows in size, Yahoo's bureaucracy grows, resulting in a massive waste of organizational resources.

In later generations, the most successful companies in the Internet field were basically led by founders, but Yahoo was dominated by professional managers.

What's even more bizarre is that Yahoo has changed 7 CEOs in 22 years, with the longest tenure of 6 years, and the short one was ousted by the board of directors in just 4 months.

The Internet is developing with each passing day, but Yahoo is suffering from internal friction and swaying left and right in the frequent changes and changes of management, and the gap between Yahoo and other Internet giants is getting wider and wider, and finally going into decline.

……

In the real world, when Pang Xuelin was studying at ULCA, he had followed Tao Zhexuan to Stanford several times, and he was no stranger to this university.

Stanford in 1993 has hardly changed much from 2018.

Lincoln City circled along the asphalt road on campus before the Stanford Office of Student Affairs building came to a halt.

Pang Xuelin got out of the car, went straight into the office building, found the office of the secretary of affairs, and knocked on the door.

"Please come in!"

Pang Xuelin pushed the door in.

There was a female secretary in her twenties who was in charge of student affairs sitting inside, and when she saw Pang Xuelin coming in, the other party couldn't help but be a little curious: "This classmate, is there something wrong?" ”

"Ms. Rosa, Professor Frederick Tomman called me over, Yang Zhiyuan and Fei Luo used the school computer to create a website two days ago, and they haven't been in class for several days, Professor Tomman asked me to ask what's going on, but I don't have the phone number of their dormitory, you should have it here, right?"

Rosa didn't doubt him, and said with a smile: "Why do you students in the Department of Electrical Engineering always do such bastard things, wait a minute, I'll check the phone number for you." ”

Soon, Pang Xuelin, who got the phone number of Yang Zhiyuan's dormitory from Rosa, left the office building directly and returned to his car.

Subsequently, Pang Xuelin took out his big brother and dialed the phone number of Yang Zhiyuan's dormitory.

The phone beeped a few times and was quickly picked up.

"Who?"

The other said in English.

The accent is not particularly pure.

Pang Xuelin couldn't help laughing, and said in Mandarin: "Is it Yang Zhiyuan?" ”

"I am, who are you?"

"It doesn't matter who I am, I'm more interested in the Jerry Global Information Network guide that you and Ferro founded, I don't know if you're interested in coming out, I'll wait for you at the door of the library."

The voice on the other end of the phone froze slightly, and he wondered: "How do you know that we created this website?" ”

Pang Xuelin laughed and said, "I naturally have my own way, I hope to meet with you and talk about my thoughts on this website......"

Yang Zhiyuan pondered for a moment and said, "Okay, I'm in the dormitory now, but Fei Luo is still in class, and it is estimated that it will take half an hour to pass." ”

"Okay, then we'll meet in half an hour at the entrance of the library."