If it were just a merger between Google and Baidu, Henry would not have personally gone out and asked Zhou Xin to be a lobbyist.

The significance of this event lies in the fact that they hope to make the combined Google IPO a landmark event, rebuild investor confidence in Internet companies, and take advantage of the opportunity to profit from it.

Preparations for the merger of Google and Baidu began in June, and it was arranged to go public in early 2001, that is, in the new year, implying the end of the millennium Internet crisis.

The potential benefits to Goldman Sachs are hard to estimate. If it weren't for the storm effect brought by Zhou Xin, it would have been PayPal's IPO that would have taken on this important role.

But PayPal's listing was far from the desired effect, and later forced Google to go public.

When Google went public, it had more than a billion dollars of cash lying on its books, and there was no shortage of money at all, and it was Wall Street investment banks that forced Google to go public through various means.

Because he rejected Henry's first two requests one after another, for the third request, Zhou Xin was not good at refusing again.

However, he didn't say anything to death, but said that he would talk to Robin about the merger between Google and Baidu.

It's better to hit the day the next day, and it just so happens that pony horses also came to Ameriken, Zhou Xin thought about forming a bureau and shouting pony horses and robin, which can be regarded as BT in BAT meeting in Ameriken in advance.

"Senior brother, come, sit, this is Pony, Pony Ma, the founder of Tencent, QQ is their product." After introducing Pony to Robin, Zhou Xin continued:

"Pony, this is Robin, Robin Li, the senior brother of Yenching University, who is just ten years older than me.

I stayed at Yan University for a year, and my brother stayed at Yan University for four years, he is the founder of Baidu, a very popular search engine on the Ameriliken side. ”

The reason why Pony will come to Ameriken is because the company QQ is doing very well in China.

In the process of communicating with Pony, Zhou Xin told him that the profits from selling enterprise software in China are very thin, most companies do not have the concept of informatization, and the market is also very narrow.

On the Ameriken side, from demand to profits, it far exceeds the current Huaguo, and Zhou Xin plans to hand over the enterprise communication software of the company under his name to Tencent.

One of the most in-demand is Matrix, which has more than 1,000 employees, most of whom are R&D personnel, and involves multi-disciplinary collaboration.

QQ is an instant messaging software that can greatly improve the efficiency of collaborative office.

It is equivalent to Zhou Xinxiang cooperating with Pony to jointly build enterprise QQ into an instant messaging software for enterprises, first using Matrix and Riot Games as a foothold, and then promoting it to other companies by the way.

Originally, Zhou Xin wanted to talk to Bill Gates and make Enterprise QQ Microsoft's office software, but this belongs to meat buns and dogs.

Microsoft developed instant messaging software as early as '97, and after they bought the enterprise QQ, they found it to be a good thing, and they would imitate a similar product at a faster pace, and then use their powerful resources to promote it.

Therefore, the disadvantages of marketing enterprise QQ to Microsoft far outweigh the benefits.

And the later other Internet companies realize it when they sell it to other companies, the more advantageous they will be.

"Pony, hello, I have always heard from my domestic classmates that there is a very popular software in the Internet community in China, which is QQ, and your QQ show is also very distinctive.

Ameriken's ICQs were the first to find a profit model. "Robin has always been concerned about the development of the domestic Internet industry.

If it weren't for Zhou Xin's investment in Baidu, he would have returned to China to start a business.

"Hello, I've always heard about Baidu, Baidu's valuation last year seemed to be over 100 million US dollars, and compared with Baidu, Tencent still has a long way to go." Pony is very modest in private, and it is difficult to associate Tencent, which is aggressive in business, with his own personality.

Robin continued: "Haha, I've seen the news, and my junior brother has also invested in Tencent, and we are all working for my junior brother.

So my junior brother called me to come to dinner, and I came without hesitation, this is all hard work. Robin teased.

Because he had dinner with Henry two days ago, Zhou Xin knew that Robin was facing a lot of pressure, and he could see from the other party's look that even if he was joking, the sadness on Robin's face did not completely dissipate.

The pressure to promote the merger of Baidu and Google was transmitted to Zhou Xin, and Goldman Sachs, as a representative of Wall Street, tried to persuade Zhou Xin to put pressure on Robin.

Such pressure cannot be resisted by Google, which has almost monopolized the search engine market in later generations, let alone the current Baidu.

Zhou Xin chatted with the two for a while and asked: "Robin, have you been under a lot of pressure recently, Goldman Sachs has found me and asked me to persuade you to accept the merger of Google and Baidu." ”

Robin showed an angry look: "It's a merger, but it's actually Baidu being acquired by Google."

Goldman Sachs is still very powerful, and in recent times, previous investors have been persuading me to accept Google's acquisition.

After Google buys Baidu, I can get shares in the merged company, and then they will push the new Google to go public, and after the new Google goes public, the market value will definitely skyrocket.

I can get a huge benefit from it.

Not only investors are persuading me, but even Baidu's internal executives have many people who have similar ideas.

Because they all have option incentives, it's good for everyone.

Relying on Baidu itself, it will not be able to go public in the short term, and even if it is listed in the short term, it will not enjoy the same premium as the merger of the two companies in terms of market value.

After all, in the second generation of search engine technology, Baidu and Google combined, which is equivalent to monopolizing this market.

So almost everyone except myself was telling me to let go.

Senior brother, are you going to persuade me too? ”

Zhou Xin waved his hand: "I'm not here to persuade you, I just want to hear your thoughts."

When I invested in Baidu, we reached a gentleman's agreement, I will not interfere with Baidu's specific operations, and I will be consistent with you on major matters.

Although we do not have a concerted actor agreement, I will abide by it.

Baidu and Google merged and went public, and I can get huge benefits from it, but this huge benefit is nothing more than hundreds of millions of dollars, and I can't see this benefit. ”

To be honest, since the bursting of the Nasdaq bubble and the surge of blue chips in the S&P 500, Zhouxin's book profit has approached the scale of $10 billion.

Although there will be some losses after cashing out, he really doesn't like the benefits brought by the merger and listing of Google and Baidu.

If Baidu and Google can continue to fight and disrupt Google's development process, this will make him feel happier than this profit.

Zhou Xin doesn't have an opinion about Google, but Google will be a direct competitor to many things he wants to do.

For example, the mobile phone operating system, without Google, he can directly dominate the mobile phone operating system market outside Apple.

If there is Google, even if Matrix buys Android, Google will develop other open source operating systems to compete.

There are also public cloud services, which will also have one less major competitor.

Moreover, search engines need to use a large number of servers, and Google's data centers have been built to the bottom of the sea.

The existence of Baidu means that Zhou Xin has mastered half of Google's server supply in the future, which is also related to the entire chip industry chain.

After listening to Zhou Xin's words, Robin regretted a little in his heart, and at the beginning, Zhou Xin's shares accounted for nearly 50%.

The agreement between the two on persons acting in concert was only a gentleman's covenant, and it did not fall on paper.

Therefore, in order to prevent follow-up financing, Zhou Xin's share proportion was further expanded, causing him to completely lose control, and he tried to dilute Zhou Xin's shares in the next two rounds of financing.

Now I know that this trick belongs to driving the wolf, and Wall Street investment institutions have much more requirements than Zhou Xin.

Robin smiled wryly: "In terms of voting power, the two of us together have close to 65% of the voting power.

As long as we are consistent, there is no way for the other side to force Google and Baidu to merge within the rules.

But the problem is that all the executives, as if they were moved, want Google to buy it and make a fortune by going public.

People change their minds, and if it goes on like this, executives don't have the heart to focus on their work, and the company can't maintain normal operation. ”

Pony listened and memorized that these lessons might be useful in the future.

After listening to this, he realized that venture capital institutions not only have a warm side in the snow, but also an aggressive and bloody side.

Zhou Xin asked: "Senior brother, what you need to think about clearly is whether to accept the merger of Google and Baidu."

If you make up your mind not to accept it, just change all these executives.

The entire senior management team has been replaced, and it will not affect the company's operation, and Baidu's advertising distribution system has been on the right track after its launch.

These executives are disobedient, wouldn't it be nice to replace them with a group of obedient executives?

Are there fewer bankrupt Internet companies in Silicon Valley during this time? Three-legged toads are hard to find, and two-legged executives are everywhere.

Isn't the cash on the books used to buy back their options?

If you are not ruthless at this time, when will you wait?

If you want to maintain control of the business, be ruthless when you need to. Baidu is your child, and these executives want to help outsiders snatch your child. ”

Robin has an extraordinary desire to control the company, but he is too indecisive in internal management and lacks the courage of a strong man to break his wrist.

In other words, Pony has already opened up this group of executives who are not focused on corporate management.

It was also evident in the later generations of the takeaway war, Baidu glutinous rice spent money to deliver takeaway riders home for the New Year. Meituan and Ele.me have increased subsidies to keep delivery riders, don't go back for the Chinese New Year to deliver your takeaways to me.

Robin nodded, "I'll think about it again." ”

Zhou Xin said: "You have decided to reply to me as soon as possible, I can prepare." ”

Zhou Xin knows that it is not a problem to reject Wall Street all the time, and they have already suffered a lot of vitality in the bursting of the Nasdaq bubble.

Only a few large investment banks have escaped this catastrophe, and even large investment banks have not been able to suffer any losses.

Zhou Xin plans to throw out the NewPay A round of financing that was originally going to be carried out to distract attention and reassure Wall Street a little.

Originally, NewPay was a bargaining chip in the novice of Zhou, and at the current scale, if you want to continue to grow bigger and stronger, it is difficult to avoid introducing powerful investment institutions.

In order to become a national-level electronic payment application, it is necessary to have enough community of interests.

So at this point in time, it is appropriate to throw out NewPay financing.

In the long run, Baidu's value will not be lower than NewPay, even if Baidu is only half of the original Google.

"Wall Street investors only think about profits, they are completely profit-driven organizations, and they only see short-term benefits, and they don't care about long-term interests.

Therefore, when it comes to choosing investment institutions, the investment institutions established by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs will be better than those on Wall Street. Zhou Xin finally concluded.

"I'm not putting gold on my face, even if I don't have as much money as I do now, I only have a net worth of a billion dollars, I will support my brother's decision.

I can talk to you about a more naked logic, and that is price.

Even if Google does not merge with Baidu, with the profit model of the search engine and Google's market share, they will go public sooner or later.

Wait until Google goes public to buy Baidu, and they can offer a price several times or even dozens of times higher than it is now.

Now is a certain degree of pie, the market value of all Internet companies is falling, why does Goldman Sachs dare to guarantee that after the merger of Google and Baidu, the listing will rise sharply?

Wait until the situation is clear before going public, and Goldman Sachs' underwriter fee ratio will also be lower. ”

Robin nodded his head, "When I talk to other entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, they have made the point that Wall Street investment banks should be seen as tools, not partners.

If you look at Wall Street investment banks as partners, sooner or later they will take advantage of the trust you place in them. ”

This belongs to the big loss, so I will say so.

"Pony, you're okay, you only have me as an investor now, and the help I provide to you is still obvious." Zhou Xin said.

Pony smiled shyly, "Newman, your insight into the product is far beyond my comparison.

We had been skeptical of the QQ show before, but the actual effect was far beyond our imagination.

At present, our point card sales channels are only spread to the first and second tier cities, and all cities in Guangdong Province.

It has not yet sunk to third- and fourth-tier cities in other provinces.

But QQ Show has been able to bring us tens of millions of revenue every month.

At least server expenses and staff salaries are met.

Breakeven has been achieved just by relying on QQ show, and the income of enterprise QQ is pure profit.

It's just that at present, many Internet companies on the market want to do enterprise QQ, and we are facing great competitive pressure. ”

Zhou Xin said: "Have you played "Genting Game"? ”

Robin: "Played. ”

Pony Horse: "I've seen the video and know what the game is. ”

Zhou Xin continued: "The charging model of Genting Game is very similar to that of QQ Show.

QQ Show is a character avatar, and Genting Game sells both character avatars and game environments.

Users are willing to pay for these virtual products based on the fact that the free services are of sufficient quality, and they are willing to spend money to buy virtual products to enjoy differentiated services.

The premise that QQ Show can be sold is that QQ has a large audience, and the premise that the virtual image of "Genting Game" can be sold is that the game itself is of excellent quality. ”

Raven is back to diligent update!

(End of chapter)