Top of the big era

There has been a boom in the development of the sharing economy. The most popular project in this field right now is the housing-sharing start-up company "Airbnb". This company is in the process of raising Series B financing, and its valuation has reached a terrifying US$1 billion.

Entering the market at this time is somewhat too late.

Airbnb started its business in 2008, and the opportunity at that time was the subprime mortgage crisis.

At that time, the real estate market in the United States suffered a huge blow. Many houses could no longer pay their mortgages, and many houses could not be rented out.

At this time, some companies appeared to use Internet platforms to help rent houses.

Hundreds of similar startups have emerged.

Zhou Buqi did not focus too much on investment in the U.S. entrepreneurial market. Alex Jones, chief investment officer of Ziweixing International, was mainly responsible.

Without foresight, it would be difficult for Jones to accurately identify the best choice among hundreds of startups.

Another point is that Ziweixing International has been under great financial pressure in the past few years. It has been relying on bond issuance to survive and is very cautious when investing.

The concept of the sharing economy is very popular, but this direction is too risky, the competition is too fierce, and it burns too much money.

If you enter the market, be cautious!

Therefore, in the investment strategy set by Lu Qi and Jones, they temporarily gave up the sharing economy market and saved money for more urgently needed areas, unless the decision was made by Boss Zhou himself.

This time, it was Zhou Buqi who came forward in person.

Better late than missed.

Compared with other sharing economy projects, Airbnb can be regarded as the bigger one.

However, Ziweixing International is currently focusing on the New York market and intends to single-handedly drive the development of New York's technology industry. In this process, it is indispensable to invest in entrepreneurial projects in New York.

Coincidentally, a sharing economy startup that has attracted much attention has emerged in New York, namely WeWork, a shared office company.

The logic of its birth is similar to that of Airbnb.

After the economic crisis in 2008, everything was in ruins and it was difficult to rent large offices and office buildings. This was also the period when Internet entrepreneurship was about to start, causing the demand for office space to rebound from the bottom.

Even Sun Zhengyi paid attention to this small project and invited Zhou Buqi to his home for tea.

Zhou Buqi likes to be a guest at Sun Zhengyi's house, because he has several Japanese maids in his house, all of them are pretty girls in their twenties, which makes him very envious.

Boss Zhou has even made a plan to not renew the contracts of the maids from South America next year when their contracts expire, and to choose a group of Japanese maids, or even Filipino maids.

Those kind of foreign beauties are okay if you look at them with a curious eye, they are quite stunning and pretty, but after a long time, they lose their freshness and become boring.

Asian beauties are more eye-catching and have long-term value-preserving properties.

The only drawback is that the Japanese-style tea feels very ordinary. After Wei took a sip, Zhou Buqi felt that it would be better to drink some iced Coke in the summer. "WeWork was founded in Manhattan?"

"Yes, this direction is pretty good."

Son Zhengyi smiled and lowered his head to drink tea.

Zhou Buqi said: "Ziweixing wanted to build its second headquarters in New York, so it chose Manhattan. I know that market very well, and demand is definitely in short supply. The past few years were an economic crisis, and it was a special period. If it was normal. During this period, for places like Manhattan where land is at a premium, office buildings and office buildings will never have to worry about customers.”

Son Zhengyi said "hmm".

Zhou Buqi continued: "The logic of shared housing is feasible, because many people have many apartments at home and cannot live in them. There is an obvious loophole in the logic of shared office, that is, the more developed the economy, the more Don’t worry about customer sources, the less you need to adopt this sharing model. When the economy is bad, it’s okay, there are enough redundant office buildings for rent. But when the economy improves, there will definitely be a large number of such shared office business plans The land will lose its core housing stock.”

In this regard, Boss Zhou is definitely a good person with a kind heart. During most business discussions, he will not be self-conscious and will sincerely impart his experience to his peers and express his business understanding.

If the other party listens and gets benefits, he will be grateful to him;

If the other person doesn't listen and gets into trouble, he will regret it and worship him even more.

In front of Sun Zhengyi, Zhou Buqi was not ambiguous.

WeWork is really not a good project.

Because of his limited cognition, Zhou Buqi's scope of foresight is actually not that wide. Even many of his corporate strategies are planned by him based on his personal business cognition rather than guided by foresight.

But WeWork is different. This is such a famous case, and it happens to be in the category of his foresight.

SoftBank, managed by Masayoshi Son, is very successful and has invested in too many unimaginable classic projects. However, one project really caused SoftBank to almost go bankrupt.

This is WeWork.

I was really screwed.

Zhou Buqi said: "I have been operating the concept of the sharing economy many years ago, and I have a deep understanding of this model. Whether it is shared housing, shared offices, or shared bicycles, the basic logic is the platform attribute, which is a Fang hangs the product source on the platform, and then connects with the users on the platform through the sharing platform. The platform is equivalent to a middleman. But the middleman’s model is very un-Internet, which is a big logic. Middlemen can have channel attributes, but We must transform from a channel provider to a content provider.”

Son Zhengyi raised his eyebrows, "Content business?"

Zhou Buqi said: "Yes, content providers. For shared housing, content is the listings. For the platform, putting all hopes on third-party listings is a strategic risk. Want to avoid this If there is such a risk, the housing sharing company must spend its own money to purchase a large number of housing units and serve as its own housing source."

Masayoshi Son also heard about this Airbnb project, but he has not participated in it for the time being, and this is also the reason.

Airbnb is valued at $1 billion because they've already taken action.

They are working hard to find high-quality properties at low prices in the market, then buy them and share them on their own platform with platform users.

This is the self-operated mode that has been started.

Son Zhengyi took a deep breath, "So if WeWork really grows, it will develop in this direction next. It needs to buy enough office buildings and office buildings to add enough reliable resources to its own platform." Property.”

Zhou Buqi said succinctly: "Yes, this is the general logic of the Internet platform economy. It must transform from a channel provider to a content provider. No matter what platform you build in any field, you must follow this direction. Just like Nai Just like Fei, it is not enough to only sell third-party film and television content on the platform. The company has strategic risks and must start a self-produced drama model and transform into a content provider."

Son Zhengyi smiled and said, "So absolute?"

Zhou Buqi said frankly: "I'm not completely sure, but I believe that 99% of platform projects will follow this idea. Anyway, this is my investment philosophy. All entrepreneurial projects in the platform economy, if they only focus on channels, Then there is no doubt that it will die. If there is a strategic combination of 'channel + content', this is the right direction. Ziweixing is participating in Airbnb's B round of financing. The reason why it did not participate in the A round is because during the A round, love B\u0026B is still a pure platform channel model and does not yet have self-operated attributes.”

Masayoshi Son shook his head, "We can't all look at it this way. Isn't Taobao the most innovative and high-quality e-commerce platform in the world? Isn't this the purest channel platform?"

In the early days, Taobao imitated eBay.

However, blindly imitating can only keep looking up, and it is impossible to surpass.

A very important reason why the domestic Internet industry is so strong is innovation after imitation. Imitation is imitation, but subsequent innovation can allow imitations that follow suit to quickly defeat the original version.

Taobao has long since surpassed eBay, and is different from any other e-commerce platform in the world. It is at the forefront of innovation in terms of its operating model.

Zhou Buqi said: "Taobao is a special case because our country has relaxed supervision on counterfeit and shoddy goods."

"These are all objective factors."

"Of course, this is an objective factor, so Taobao's model will definitely change. Well... to be precise, it should be Alibaba's C-side e-commerce business. More products will definitely appear to make up for channel platforms like Taobao. Disadvantages. Just like Taobao Mall, and more products that may come out in the future, there will definitely be more and more self-operated attributes."

This is prophetic.

For Zhou Buqi, making such a judgment does not require foresight at all. This is the experience he has gained from working on the Internet for so many years.

As Liu Qiangdong summed up: "Alibaba will become more and more like JD.com, that's for sure!"

Because this is the general logic of the platform economy.

Pure channel platforms carry huge strategic risks and are unreliable and unstable. A powerful platform or an ecological combination of platforms must have self-operated "content" in its own hands.

Self-operated stores on JD.com, self-operated stores on Amazon, Netflix’s self-produced dramas, Airbnb’s acquisition of its own properties, Toutiao wants to win over college students to publish original articles...

In fact, they are all the same choices that exist in different platform projects. Platform channels are inseparable from "self-operated content".

Even though Taobao is currently doing well relying on its pure channel platform model, with the development of the times, Taobao's current shortcomings will become more and more obvious, and Alibaba will inevitably launch more products, such as Tmall and Tmall. Self-operated stores, Hema and other new products with self-operated attributes can make up for the shortcomings of the Taobao model.

In this regard, Liu Qiangdong obviously has a very deep understanding of the e-commerce industry.

Zhou Buqi is even more powerful here.

He has eyes and ears in all directions, and his focus is on the entire Internet industry.

Masayoshi Son is not an Internet person. He invests in too many fields. He obviously does not have the decisive and sharp industry understanding of Boss Zhou. He waved his hand and said with a smile: "The concept of the sharing economy is still too cutting-edge. SoftBank's I won’t be in a hurry to enter the market, you can wait and see.”

"Well, it's indeed too risky."

"By the way, I heard that the yacht you ordered has been launched?"

"how?"

Zhou Buqi looked alert.

Son Zhengyi coughed lightly, "Your yacht has been launched into the water, so can you return my yacht to me? I lent it to you..."

"What?" Zhou Buqi opened his eyes wide, "Isn't it all agreed... No, I told you a lot about the understanding of the sharing economy to help SoftBank make the most correct investment choice. What I shared Isn’t the value of industry recognition less than that of a yacht?”

Seeing that he wanted to completely occupy it, Sun Zhengyi gave up his intention and said with a smile: "I'm just kidding you. That yacht was originally a... gift for us to jointly form Ziweixing Global Group."

Zhou Buqi nodded with satisfaction, "Well, several important mergers and acquisitions on Ziweixing Global's side have been completed, and the listing plan has been launched. If nothing else, the listing will be completed next year."

Masayoshi Son was relieved and said happily: "Good thing! As soon as it goes public, MSI Universal can surpass Time Warner, CBS and Disney and become the world's largest entertainment giant."

"Well, the expected market value will not be less than US$100 billion." Zhou Buqi gave him a meaningful look, "SoftBank has made a lot of money from this business!"

Son Zhengyi laughed and said: "If the market value of MSI Global really exceeds 100 billion US dollars, then... SoftBank will send you a bigger gift to express its gratitude."

This is as it should be, but Zhou Buqi did it disrespectfully.

Ziweixing Global Group is an entertainment group jointly established by Masayoshi Son and Buqi Zhou. The main mode of cooperation is that SoftBank contributes large sums of money and Zhou Buqi contributes small sums, and at the same time handles operations.

Very well done!

It has successively acquired major core assets such as MGM, Marvel, Summit Entertainment, "Spider-Man" copyrights, Lucasfilm, and EMI Records. In this process, it was mainly Boss Zhou who was making suggestions.

Once MSI Global Group is successfully listed, SoftBank, as the largest investor, will definitely give such an outstanding trader a big gift.

"By the way, how's the plan for Ziweixing's second headquarters in New York going?"

"It's in operation. It's basically ready. We chose the headquarters of the Post and Telecommunications Bureau."

"Headquarters of the Post and Telecommunications Bureau?" Sun Zhengyi was stunned. "The Farley Building? A national cultural relic building?"

This building is so famous that it is a must-visit attraction when traveling to New York.

Zhou Buqi smiled and said: "Yes, that's it. The New York authorities may have to spend a lot of money to carry out internal renovations, and at the same time clear up the surrounding traffic and housing. It is estimated that the entire renovation plan may require an investment of more than 3 billion US dollars. "

Son Zhengyi said: "If the plan can really be implemented, the sincerity of the New York authorities is really great. But...well, I heard that Mayor Michael Bloomberg has great authority in New York City, even partisan differences After the suppression, it was basically just one word. I guess he wanted to use his last term as mayor to get to know you."

Collusion between government and business is doomed.

Even if a super rich man like Michael Bloomberg has the opportunity to use his power to make "friends", of course he will not use it in vain.

In a broader sense, the introduction of technology companies such as Ziweixing International, Changyou, and Spotify is also for the development and transformation of New York City's economic structure.

If there is no difference between public and private affairs, why not do it?

Zhou Buqi said cautiously: "I have no personal relationship with him."