Two days before Wen Ming got the news of the four-party merger and acquisition, Silicon Valley, the United States, Facebook headquarters.

As a young man who was compared to Bill Gates by the media, Mark Zuckerberg was conceited a lot of the time, especially when it came to work.

"Why buy InstagramArm?"

Mark Zuckerberg was puzzled by this, and he questioned the bill.

"There are only more than 10 million registered users on Instagram, which is not even a fraction of ours, and Instagram has only been created for more than a month, and our Facebook has been created for more than five years. Can any of you tell me what threat it can pose to us? ”

Mark Zuckerberg's question is normal, as it was early July 2009, and the number of Facebook users worldwide had reached nearly 400 million, with 100 million monthly visits in the United States alone and 300 million users worldwide.

Compared to ins, which only has more than 10 million registered users, Facebook is undoubtedly a giant.

The head of the Facebook operations department said with a blank face: "Boss, you need to pay attention to one problem, we only have 70% of active users, and the vast majority of them still use computers to access our Facebook. ”

"The data I got about Instagram shows that although the number of registered users is only 12 million, the number of active users accounts for 93% of them. Among them, more than 85% of users use mobile clients to access ins. ”

The comparison of these two data made Mark Zuckerberg face up to the ins product for the first time, and he didn't pay too much attention to ins before. He only knew that this product was also developed and promoted by a Harvard student, and that this Harvard student had a similar experience to him, who was also a computer science student, and was currently on leave from Harvard University.

Of course, Mark Zuckerberg is going through the withdrawal process.

The head of the operations department continued: "We have done a study on the usage habits of Facebook users, and combined with the current development speed of smartphones, we have determined that in the future, whether it is Facebook or other social networking sites, the number of users using smartphones will completely exceed the number of users using computers. ”

"In other words, whoever can give users access to their social software on their smartphones will be able to capture the social software market."

Mark Zuckerberg is a genius, otherwise he would not have been able to create Facebook, the fifth most valuable brand in the world in the future.

With his own employees explaining, Mark Zuckerberg quickly reflected on the reason for the acquisition.

But he was still a little puzzled and asked: "The crux of the problem is that ins is just a tool-based social software, the purpose of its existence is to beautify photos and share photos. ”

Mark Zuckerberg has also used ins, and for this new product, he naturally can't miss it. But it is precisely because he has used this software that he ignores other aspects because of the tooling nature of this software.

The head of the planning department said: "What if they also make a website similar to ours? Relying on the usage habits of mobile phone users, they have begun to establish an online virtual community, and now many ins users have become accustomed to sharing the photos they take into the online virtual community of ins, not our Facebook, nor other social networking sites of the same type. ”

"If I were the head of Apple's development planning department, then I would definitely find a way to transform the online virtual community into a real social networking site."

The market is limited, especially the market of social networking sites and software, the vast majority of users will only be accustomed to using a social software, which social software feels better, then they will switch to which social software.

One of the most critical issues is the network network accumulated by users on social software.

The head of the planning department continued: "Instagram already has a friend recommendation function, which means that soon they will be able to transfer users' moments on our Facebook to their software. If we can't beat them to occupy the social software market in the smartphone software market in the future, then they will peek into our computer social networking site market based on the mobile phone software market. ”

No company or product is impossible to fail, and Mark Zuckerberg suddenly thought of the rivals he had defeated since he created Facebook.

Myspace, for example, is a social networking site created in 2003 that has been a direct competitor to Facebook. In the beginning, Myspace didn't pay enough attention to Facebook, because it started late and the user base involved was also college students.

But what about after that?

Myspace became the second largest social network in the world, while Facebook was the number one in the world.

Don't underestimate the difference between the first and second place, in 2006, Myspace was acquired by News Corp. for $530 million, and in the same year, Google made a $2.3 billion offer to Facebook, but Mark Zuckerberg did not sell it.

As for now, Facebook's valuation has exceeded $10 billion, while Myspace's valuation is only $1 billion, which is the gap between the first and second places. It's not an exaggeration to say that a winner takes all.

After some discussion, Mark Zuckerberg finally sensed the seriousness of the problem.

In the early stage of enterprise development, it is natural to use products to defeat competitors, but in the later stage, when the product has been done to the extreme, it is necessary to use funds to acquire competitors, strangle opponents in the cradle, and even be able to make a profit.

Facebook's development model has been fixed, it is a social networking site, unlike hardware manufacturers, it is only a social networking site even if it plays with flowers. Therefore, Facebook continued to invest in other industries in order to increase the market value of its company and increase revenue.

"How much is Apple worth?"

Mark Zuckerberg, who asked this question, has decided to buy ins, but not only ins, he also wants to buy the junior who created ins. is also a computer science student at Harvard University, Wen Ming was originally a junior of Mark Zuckerberg.

The head of the Ministry of Commerce said: "Unfortunately, we can't buy Apple, because the product of ins no longer belongs to Apple." ”

After some introductions, the relationship between Apple, Teresa Roy, and ins was clarified by Mark Zuckerberg. Mark Zuckerberg's news was not so backward in the first place, all because ins developed too fast, including its last fundraising, which was far beyond the financing speed of normal companies, and of course, more than the amount of the first financing of many companies.

"$470 million?" Mark Zuckerberg frowned and said, "I think if we want to buy ins, there must be more than so much money." ”

Someone replied: "Actually, we have made a preliminary estimate that the current valuation of INS should be around $750 million." But if we don't buy him at this time, at its current rate, soon, we will need to invest more money. ”

Facebook acquired ins because ins threatened it, and only ins, with more than 10 million users, was still able to threaten, so after a few months, the number of ins users became more?

The greater the threat, the greater the price to pay when you want to acquire.

Mark Zuckerberg asked, "What do you guys think?" ”

The head of the investment department said: "Equity swaps, and part of the cash. ”

Mark Zuckerberg asked again: "But we should not have much cash on our books, and besides, we still need to develop." ”

"We don't have any money, but there are a lot of rich people who want to be able to take a stake in our company. For example, Li Jiacheng from Huaxia still has a part of the preferential financing right in his hand. ”