Life in the world of film and television

Chapter 173 Financing and Algorithm Optimization

At the beginning of December 2016, under the auspices of Andy, Yuandian Technology's A-round financing was officially completed, with a post-financing valuation of up to 80 billion US dollars.

In this round of financing, Yuandian Technology took a total of 15% of the equity and raised US$12 billion. Sequoia, Huaxin, CICC, Temasek, Shengxuan... a total of 7 large investment funds participated in the financing.

With a valuation of US$80 billion and a financing amount of US$12 billion, Yuandian Technology began to gain fame in China and became a well-known unicorn company.

At the end of the A round of financing, in addition to the 15% equity of the additional financing, Li Mu took out another 10% of the equity and established an employee stock ownership platform as an option pool for Origin Technology to attract and retain more talents.

In this way, the shareholding structure of Origin Technology is as follows:
Li Mu holds 75% of the shares, and is undoubtedly the largest shareholder; the employee-owned platform holds 10% of the shares; and 7 investment institutions hold 15% of the shares.

For Yuandian Technology, which has just been established for more than a year, its valuation is as high as 80 billion US dollars. Countless people are amazed and discussed.

But this is just the beginning. As the country vigorously promotes speed increase and fee reduction, traffic becomes cheaper and cheaper, and short video platforms will usher in an explosion.

With 12 billion US dollars in the account, the cash flow of Origin Technology is full again.With sufficient ammunition, a new round of money-burning plan was launched again.

……

In the blink of an eye, another few months have passed, and the time has entered 2017. With sufficient cash support, Yuandian Technology has developed rapidly during this period.

The total number of daily Toutiao users of its two software is as high as 4.5 million, and the number of Douyin users has just exceeded 1.8 million. It has become the largest integrated media platform and short video platform in the country.

During this period of time, the Happy Five Sisters network media company also developed rapidly. It launched the A round of financing, with Li Mu and Andy jointly investing 5000 million, with a post-investment valuation of [-] million.

All of a sudden, Fan Shengmei, Qiu Yingying, and Guan Juer became wealthy young women with a net worth of tens of millions.

Qu Xiaoxiao was especially happy. After the Qu family fell, she stood up again with hard work and opportunities. In the future, she might not be able to start from nothing like her father.

……

As Douyin users officially exceeded [-] million, some problems began to appear. Li Mu began to further optimize the algorithm of Douyin based on real-world experience as a reference.

The current algorithm mechanism of Douyin can be summed up in one sentence: "You are browsing Douyin, and Douyin is also staring at you."

Use the user's browsing traces, preferences, etc. to give a portrait of the user, and then through a whole set of mechanisms, finally push the content that the user loves to watch, making the user addicted to it.Douyin's algorithm is actually a complex "For You" algorithm system, with emphasis and distinction for different groups of people.

For example, for video publishers, when the video is successfully released, the algorithm system will first automatically allocate 0~1K initial playback volume, and the satisfaction degree of these users after watching, "comprehensive click volume, completion rate, likes, etc. Volume, comment volume and other indicators” will determine whether the work can enter the next-level traffic pool to obtain more traffic.

If the user is satisfied, then the second wave of traffic pool (1K ~ 5K playback volume) will be given, followed by the third wave of traffic pool (1W ~ 10W playback volume), and so on.

The videos launched in this way are high-quality videos that users really like to see. Under this algorithm mechanism, on the one hand, video creators will be encouraged to continuously create better videos, and on the other hand, high-quality videos can also attract more and more people. users and traffic.

At present, Origin Technology has different traffic pools for accounts with different weights. The main evaluation criteria are: number of likes, comments, reposts and completion rate.

Views > Likes > Comments > Reposts.

For the user level, the design of this mechanism is much more complicated.According to the different preferences of each user, the system can rank videos by various factors to recommend content.

In fact, from the moment you register your account, your series of user behaviors have been continuously feeding data to the "For You" algorithm.

These user behaviors basically cover various aspects: such as account settings and device models, regional settings, device models, etc.

Categories of interest selected during registration: news, travel, entertainment, etc.; user usage scenarios: user's geographic location, scene of watching videos, etc.; released video information: hashtags, video content, etc.; various user interaction information, click , likes, favorites, comments, forwarded content.

Finally, after comprehensive weighing and continuous correction, draw an increasingly accurate self-portrait for the user. Sometimes the software understands you better than you.

Although the mechanism itself seems very complicated, the entire recommendation process is completed in the background "moisturizing things silently".

No need for the user to do anything, just click on the video or click a few likes, and the TikTok background can gradually determine your preferences, and the algorithm recommendation is tracked and updated in real time. The more traces of your browsing, the better the software will understand you.

However, the current set of algorithms seems to be advanced, and it is indeed very advanced. It is also top-notch in the world, and there are still many problems.

Based on his experience in the real world, Li Mu discovered some signs in advance.

For example, it is not obvious at present. In two years, more and more people will find that according to user preferences, this algorithm mechanism will form a huge information cocoon room, divide various users, and let them immerse themselves in their own experience. I can't extricate myself in the small circle, and I can't get in touch with more outside information.

Since Douyin’s users exceeded [-] million, the information cocoon effect has begun to appear. At present, not many people pay attention to this issue. If no changes are made, it will definitely cause greater controversy in the future.

In view of this, according to the experience of Byte in the real world, Li Mu has recently started to optimize the current algorithm of Douyin on a large scale.

It will be more humane and flexible, so that the software can not only automatically screen out which are wrong and deceptive browsing traces, but also will not push a large number of homogeneous videos "mentally handicapped".

From time to time, some related, similar or even opposite videos will be pushed to test, induce and stimulate users, so that users can get out of the information cocoon and have more interests and concerns.

In this way, a steady flow of high-quality videos can be guaranteed and continuously pushed to those who are really interested.

Of course, this is not just an algorithm problem. The deep logic behind it is actually the decentralization of traffic distribution.

As long as your video is high-quality and interesting enough, even if you are a newly registered novice account, your video can get tens of millions of clicks; on the contrary, even if you are a big V with millions of fans, but your video is mediocre and boring, you can still get tens of millions of hits. It is difficult to lie down and win.

At present, Li Mu has recruited and recruited hundreds of experts in algorithms to create and optimize this algorithm system.When it is hatched, in the next few years, Douyin will be the only one in the short video field, even on a global scale.

As long as there are no mistakes in other aspects, the future will not be far behind!

(End of this chapter)