Top of the big era

Zhou Buqi felt very relaxed.

At some point, it feels like doing business in the United States is easier than at home.

In China, just having money is not enough. People also look at your social background, industry status, whether your connections are strong, and whether you have many friends in the circle.

It is mysticism from top to bottom, and many things are dealt with by simplifying them and making them complex.

It's much easier in the United States. There is only one standard: whoever is rich is awesome.

Capital society depends on the power of capital, which is very pure.

In many cases, even black money and dirty money are accepted, and businesses that whiten cash from shady sources are everywhere without concealment. Many accounting firms and law firms that engage in fringe business advertise openly and blatantly provide criminals with reasonable legal protection.

This is almost impossible in the country.

One has to wonder whether the US imperialism is intentional and whether it is deliberately leaving a loophole so that the world's U.S. dollar black money can flow back and drive the US economy.

But this has nothing to do with Zhou Buqi.

On the contrary, because of the capital standard here, he can do business with ease.

The standard is simple, whoever has money is popular.

This made him a duck to water in Hollywood, and even more comfortable in Silicon Valley.

Entering February, Zhou Buqi quickly promoted three investments.

On February 2, he acquired 1.2% of LinkedIn shares for US$12 million.

This investment is a personal act and funded by family funds.

On February 4, music streaming platform Spotify’s Series B financing finally reached the final plan after five months of research and discussion.

There are three participants in total, with a valuation of US$200 million, diluting 25% of the shares, and raising US$50 million. Among them, Ziweixing International invested US$20 million, Zhou Buqi’s Fangfei Fund invested US$20 million, and Founders, a well-known American venture capital fund, invested US$10 million.

In the previous Series A financing, Ziweixing International invested US$10 million and held 20% of the shares. After the B round, Ziweixing International holds 26% of Spotify’s equity structure, and Fangfei Fund also entered the market to hold 10%.

The investment case on February 5th was an Internet company called Cloudera. Senior Sister Zhen Yu participated in, researched, and led the entire process. She invested US$8 million and obtained 20% of the shares.

Zhou Buqi went to the site to sign, but he really didn’t understand the project very well. Just because this is Senior Sister Zhen Yu’s strong recommendation and to express support for her.

On the way back, Zhou Buqi couldn't help but wonder, "What does this company do? I saw their poster, why is there Ziweiyun?"

Zhen Yu smiled and said, "Yes, there are purple clouds."

Zhou Buqi didn't know much about Ziweiyun's specific business, so he asked tentatively: "Is this Cloudera company Ziweiyun's partner?"

Zhen Yu nodded lightly, "Yes, partners. They are a big data service company. They mainly provide some big data processing services around the Hadoop ecosystem. This is a startup company in 2008. It has not been around for a long time, but its technology is very strong. , one of the companies with the highest barriers to entry in the entire Silicon Valley.”

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "You are on the waterfront."

Zhen Yu admitted frankly, "Well, it's the internal relationship that makes this kind of venture capital the most reliable. Even Zi Weiyun relies on important partners, which is enough to show that this company has great potential."

This is considered the norm in the industry.

There are many women behind big bosses, whether they are famous or not, certified or not, they can often do well in the investment industry.

The very important reason is the internal information provided by this internal resource.

When investing, the most important thing is the information gap.

Whoever can master more information can shine in the investment field. Zhen Yu wants to find some investment targets for the family fund, but she has no foresight and is not a professional venture capital person. The best way to ensure the success rate of investment is of course to use the relationship of Ziweixing International to find high-quality project.

Zhou Buqi felt something different from it, "In the past few years, the research of the big data industry has been the focus of cloud computing. What's going on with Ziweiyun? Kurian is not satisfied with the existing technology. Are you looking for help from outside?"

Zhen Yu thought for a moment and said, "It's possible."

Zhou Buqi frowned, a little worried, and called Lu Qi, "You know Cloudera, the external big data partner of cloud computing, right?"

"Know."

"Is everything okay here?"

"What's the matter?" Lu Qi reacted and thought it was an internal information matter. "Oh, Zhen Yu consulted with me. I highly recognize Cloudera's team capabilities and there are no problems."

Zhou Buqi said: "That's not what I'm asking. Zi Weiyun has been committed to research and development in the field of big data in the past few years and has invested a lot of effort. What's going on with Kurian?"

What worries him is workplace power struggles.

If Kurian dares to use the help of outsiders to attack his own people, then he must be ruthless regardless of whether he is a senior executive hired with a lot of money.

Lu Qi understood it immediately and said easily: "It's okay, don't worry."

Zhou Buqi was very unconvinced now, "Is Ziweiyun's big data technology so bad? Do you still have to find third-party services?"

"This..." Lu Qi hesitated and explained carefully, "Cloudera is indeed a company that started less than two years ago, but their team is very strong. The core members are all big data scientists from Sun and Yahoo. sun Things have not been going well with Yahoo in the past few years, and a lot of talents have been lost. Cloudera was founded by big data scientists from Sun and Yahoo."

Zhou Buqi was speechless, "In other words, their technology is better than ours?"

Lu Qi could only bite the bullet and tell the truth, "It's better. You can tell by checking it on LinkedIn. The entry threshold for Cloudera's big data engineers is S-level, while Ziweiyun's related positions are only A-level."

Zhou Buqi's mood was very complicated.

Damn it!

He used his foresight to put forward requirements for Ziweixing from a strategic level as early as 2004-2005, to move closer to the field of big data analysis, and organized a data processing and data analysis team early on. , no less money.

As a result, after working on it for several years, Kurian didn’t like it at all, and instead purchased the technical services of a startup company that was less than two years old.

This gap really cannot be bridged by foresight.

Fortunately, Luqi has good news again, saying: "Ziweiyun is a very huge project. We have only taken out a small part of it and handed it over to Cloudera for processing. Let's try it first. If the effect is good, all aspects will be improved." Quite satisfied, Kurian means to directly acquire it and reorganize Ziweiyun’s big data research team.”

Kurian is an expert in mergers and acquisitions. His favorite thing to do is to acquire small companies and startups. In this way, he can make up for the lack of innovation in the organizational structure of large companies.

After the call ended, Zhou Buqi felt relieved and turned to Senior Sister Zhen Yu: "Try not to do this in the future. It doesn't look good. If investors and executives see it, there will definitely be criticism."

She participated in Cloudera's Series A financing, which was an early start. When Ziweixing International acquires Cloudera, the price will be several times higher. By then, she will be able to make a fortune.

It is not difficult to invest US$8 million and get a return of US$30 million.

It's too easy to make money.

Other big bosses may allow their women to play like this, but Zhou Buqi thinks it is unnecessary and the gain outweighs the loss.

Senior Sister Zhen Yu's operation did not infringe the interests of Ziweixing International. Even if she doesn't invest in Cloudera, other venture capital companies will come in.

But this will affect people's hearts and morale.

It makes investors and informed executives feel uncomfortable, and they cannot be treated as tools.

Zhou Buqi said: "Try not to engage in internal transactions. We are not short of money. When investing... try not to be associated with your own company. Even if you don't embezzle the company's interests, it will inevitably be talked about."

Zhen Yu nodded lightly, "I understand, I won't do it again."

Zhou Buqi smiled and said: "The family fund is the pocket money of our whole family. If you ask me, it's better not to engage in venture capital, right? Not to mention the high risk of this thing, it's all dead money. Just make some living money investments." . If you need money temporarily for something, you can cash it out easily."

"Aren't you going to do venture capital anymore?"

"No more."

"But I still have several projects in hand. Recently, a new trend has appeared in Silicon Valley, and the sharing economy has become popular. Sharing cars, sharing restaurants, sharing bedrooms, etc. I think many of the ideas you proposed back then are similar. the same."

"Well……"

When Zhou Buqi first started his business, he had a few projects that were not very successful because he had little experience.

The "shared bicycle" plan is a bit better. It has not gone out of the campus or given up on expansion ideas, and it can basically maintain a balance between revenue and expenditure.

The most failed one is the "shared restaurant", that is, the school network will cooperate with some restaurants to launch "group buying coupons". After college students buy group buying coupons on the school network, they can form a group to dine and share a set meal and a restaurant. It allows college students to save money while also enjoying delicious food. But this was not only difficult to operate, but also subject to policy restrictions, and it was stopped soon after.

Unexpectedly, a few years later, the vigorous sharing economy era finally ushered in a real big trend with the explosion of mobile Internet.

Zhou Buqi waved his hand, not thinking this was a good idea, "Don't get involved. This kind of big trend is full of blood and it's almost impossible to invest successfully. If you ask me, it's better to just buy some stocks and do something simple. Investment is enough.”

"What to buy?"

"Microsoft, it's too low to fall. You can buy it now. You can make ten times the profit in ten years. It's not a big problem!" Zhou Buqi thought of something, "By the way, Pluto Capital is also planning to follow up!"

Zhen Yu was puzzled, "With what?"

Zhou Buqi said: "Someone has come to give us money again. It won't work if we don't accept it. If we don't accept it, they won't sell Lucasfilm."