Rebirth of the Wild Age

There is a saying that goes like this, you only envy thieves eating meat, but you don't see thieves being beaten.

Years later, people looked at the shareholder composition of major Internet companies and found that this company was invested by Sun Zhengyi, and that company was also invested by Sun Zhengyi. This old guy's vision is really accurate, he is so fucking rich!

But at this moment, Sun Zhengyi was most confused.

Before the global Internet bubble burst, Masayoshi Son held stocks in more than 300 Internet companies and his personal assets exceeded US$70 billion. But at the end of the year, Sun Zhengyi's book assets shrank by 95%, leaving only a pitiful 3.5 billion US dollars, all of which evaporated in the cold winter of the Internet!

Historically, Sun Zhengyi invested in Alibaba at such a time, and he is really not afraid of death. At that time, Ma Xiaoyun made some bold words, and after finishing his impassioned speech, Sun Zhengyi said with a smile: The CEO of my internet company, who came to see me during this period of time, has completely changed the content of his speech. Only you still use the same rhetoric from a few years ago.

To what extent has the Internet industry exploded?

Bill Gates, who sells operating systems, has been greatly affected. Last year, his net worth exceeded 100 billion U.S. dollars, and this year it directly fell to 63 billion U.S. dollars.

Song Weiyang had just finished his conference call at Sohu when he received a call from Tencent.

Brother Xiao Ma said: The company is running out of funds. The venture capitalists I have contacted before are all unwilling to invest now. I am going to let QQ charge fees, and maybe I can get some funds back. What do you think, Lao Song?

Qq can't charge fees, at least at this stage. If there is no money, I will provide funds, Song Weiyang said, We must attract as many users as possible.

Brother Xiao Ma complained: I'm worried about too many QQ users now. There are hundreds of thousands of new registered users every day, and two new servers will be added every month. The cost of the servers will soon bring down the company!

Song Weiyang said: Don't be afraid, I will pay for it.

Brother Xiaoma said: Old Song, no matter how much money you have, you can't afford to burn like this. Now QQ's server fees are too high, and the income is pitifully low. I asked QQ to charge for registration, not only for making money, but also for more money. The reason is to limit the number of QQ users, otherwise the company will be burned to death sooner or later!

This is really black humor. An Internet company actually has a headache because of too many new users.

Song Weiyang said: Two ways. First, release news to the outside world. If QQ has not been online for three months, Tencent will directly take back the account. This will avoid malicious registration and false account numbers, and save some server resources; second, China Mobile is about to launch Monternet, so if you get in touch with China Mobile, you might be able to find new profit points.”

Brother Xiao Ma asked: How much can you invest this time? If it is less than 2 million US dollars, I still have to limit the growth of QQ users, because Tencent can't afford it.

Song Weiyang said: I am willing to increase the investment by 3 million US dollars. If you contact Yingke and idg again, I am willing to buy the Tencent shares in their hands.

Okay, since you are not afraid, then I will go all out! Brother Ma gritted his teeth.

Historically, Yingke Digital and idg jointly invested more than 3 million US dollars in Tencent in 1999. These shares were later sold to South African mih, and Li Chaoren's son made a profit of 10 million US dollars, which was cited as an investment story at the time, but later proved to have missed 400 billion (RMB).

There is still no change. Song Weiyang sat back and watched idg and Yingke invest last year, not afraid of being robbed of Tencent's shares at all.

Whether it is Yingke, idg, or Xiao Ma, they all want to sell Tencent shares now. And it's a cheap sale, not trying to make a lot of money, as long as you don't lose money. Because the general environment is too embarrassing, no one is willing to continue to invest, and Tencent's income is not even as good as Sohu's, but the server costs far exceed Sohu's.

In history, the reason why Xiao Ma didn't sell Tencent was because he couldn't find a buyer, and everyone thought QQ was a scam. The same is true for Netease. During the cold winter of the Internet, Ding Sanshi couldn't sell it even if he wanted to, so he could only bite the bullet and continue to carry it to death.

In the absence of a profit point, Tencent must die!

If Huawei hadn't developed the domestic intelligent network technology, and the mobile company had launched Monternet with it, Tencent would probably have died without any dregs left, and NetEase would not have the money to develop Journey to the West.

After Xiao Ma conveyed Song Weiyang's opinion, idg and Yingke Digital responded immediately, willing to sell all Tencent shares they held, only raising the price by 10% compared with the original investment. Song Weiyang bargained over the phone, and pressed down to 5%, and the remaining 5% would be paid to the two families as interest.

idg and Yingke Digital actually agreed, and more than 30% of Tencent shares were bought back by Song Weiyang at a price of less than 4 million US dollars.

It's normal to think about it. These two companies originally wanted to invest and make a profit. Judging from the current market situation, it is lucky not to lose money. It's a miracle that they can still earn 5% interest, and they still treat Song Weiyang as a takeover of the offer.

Song Weiyang didn't have enough cash at all, so he immediately contacted Bank of China Investment to sell 1.8% of his personal shares in Golden Bull Capital, cashing out $30 million in cash.

Among them, US$7.5 million was used to invest in Tencent. In addition to the shares held before, Song Weiyang now owns a total of 43.5% of Tencent's shares.

Another US$1.5 million was invested in Sogou, because Sogou was about to be overwhelmed. After the increase in holdings, Song Weiyang owned 51% of the shares of Sogou Search.

It's not that Song Weiyang wants to eat alone and has such a high shareholding ratio in the two companies, but that he is the only one who is willing to stand up and take the offer now. Just think about Masayoshi Son’s experience. Within a year, his personal net worth shrank from US$70 billion to US$3.5 billion, because this guy invested in Internet companies everywhere.

During this difficult period, Ma Xiaoyun initiated the first West Lake Discussion of Swords, intending to call a meeting of industry leaders as the host. But Ma Xiaoyun was afraid that his influence was not enough, so he invited Jin Yong to sit in the town. Wang Jundong, Wang Zhidong, Ding Sanshi and Zhang Chaoyang were all fans of Jin Yong, so they ran over.

Surprisingly, Song Weiyang was also invited, and he was a special guest just like Jin Yong.

CCTV 2's Dialogue column, the recording was postponed again, because of the cold winter of the Internet, part of the content needed to be rewritten.

When Song Weiyang came to the West Lake, Ma Xiaoyun met him and said, Old Song, I'm afraid I was wrong, very wrong. I don't tell the truth about other shareholders, so I just want to talk to you.

Shrink the business. Song Weiyang said.

I can only accept it, but I can't accept it. Ma Xiaoyun shook his head and sighed.

The vast majority of people will take a lot of detours when doing business, just to see if they can learn from their failures.

Ma Xiaoyun has experienced ups and downs, but he has never controlled a large multinational company. In just one year, Alibaba was nearly collapsed by him.

Due to successive huge capital injections, Ma Xiaoyun, who is rich and powerful, lost his mind and wanted to become a multinational group overnight.

At the beginning of 2000, Ma Xiaoyun moved the headquarters of Alibaba to the United States, and established the domestic headquarters in Shenghai, implementing a dual-headquarters structure, leaving only one branch in the Linzhou headquarters. At the same time, he also set up branches, joint ventures and offices in various countries in Asia and Europe, invited the vice presidents of the world's top 500 companies to join him, and invited a lot of high-end talents. Even the branch in Linzhou has foreign employees with six-figure monthly salaries in U.S. dollars.

It spread into a big stall at once, trying to dominate the global b2b market, and appeared on the cover of Time magazine.

Now I can't hold it anymore, the environment is harsh, and Alibaba's internal hidden dangers will be detonated early.

Song Weiyang didn't care about it, and said with a smile: This is a good thing. If hidden dangers are discovered early, we can take the opportunity to clean them up, otherwise the ship will turn around.

You've invested so much money, so you're not worried at all? Ma Xiaoyun said, Foreign shareholders are going crazy and they've been putting pressure on me. Alibaba may go bankrupt right now.

I believe in your ability. Song Weiyang said sincerely.

Ma Xiaoyun was quite moved when he heard this, and patted Song Weiyang on the shoulder and said, Thank you for your trust! Now I don't know what to do, please help me out.

Song Weiyang said: Move the headquarters back from the United States, and cut off all overseas branches, leaving only a few key offices.

Ma Xiaoyun said: If we do this, the employee severance pay will be nearly ten million dollars, plus other losses, at least twenty million dollars!

A strong man breaks his wrist, Song Weiyang said.

Ma Xiaoyun is still undecided. Historically, he did not make up his mind until the beginning of next year to send a newly appointed senior official to do layoffs.

I have to say that Alibaba's corporate culture is doing very well. Years later, the person who presided over the layoffs recalled that the most repeated word was crying. Mingming gave severance pay of three months’ salary. The foreign employees working in China cried when they left, and the employees working in Hong Kong City also cried when they were resigned. Even the Korean employees cried and said that they were willing to cut their salaries and stay. Overcoming difficulties together.

They are all very dedicated and passionate employees. They resigned without making any mistakes, and it was a collective layoff of dozens and hundreds of people. It is even more cruel to Chinese employees, because during the Spring Festival, when people go home to celebrate the New Year, they will be laid off with just one phone call.

This mess was all caused by Ma Xiaoyun, who swelled a lot some time ago.

Ma Xiaoyun said: Once the global layoffs, the company's funds will bottom out. Judging from the current market situation, it may not be easy to attract investment. Lao Song, do you have any connections to help introduce some Wall Street investment institutions?

Song Weiyang said with a smile: I just sold some shares of Jinniu Capital and raised tens of millions of dollars. Tencent and Sogou are almost unable to hold on. I invested some, and the rest can be injected into Alibaba.

Ma Xiaoyun waved his hand and said: No, no. This time I made too much trouble, and the general environment is not good. I am not sure about bringing Alibaba back to life. If you invest now, it is very likely that you will be in vain. I can't be fooled like this. friend.

Anyway, you have already invested so much, why do you care about the rest? Song Weiyang said with a smile.

Ma Xiaoyun took a sharp puff on his cigarette, then suddenly threw the cigarette butt on the ground and stomped on it: I'm going all out, if I don't succeed, I'll be a benefactor, if the company dies, I'll just jump off the building!

Song Weiyang was still joking: Then I will prepare a coffin for you in advance, I hope this coffin will not be needed.