Top of the big era

Official business does not affect personal relationships.

Zhou Buqi has a good personal relationship with Mark Zuckerberg. Xiao Ma’s wife is of Chinese descent. Although she doesn’t speak Chinese very well, Senior Sister Zhen Yu’s English is very good.

Mrs. Zhou and Mrs. Ma often have some exchanges.

Mrs. Ma is a doctor who wanted to do a charity project about childhood diseases, so the two parties collaborated and participated, raising US$4 million in donations.

Of course, the big heads are produced by their respective men.

Zuckerberg contributed $2 million and Zhou Buqi contributed $1 million.

This time, Zhou Buqi also went to Zuckerberg's house as a guest with Senior Sister Zhen Yu, bringing two bottles of red wine as a gift.

The Zhou family has too much red wine.

There are tens of thousands of bottles at least.

Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Sydney, London, Paris, Tokyo, Madrid, Seoul... and several other destinations in China, each home has hundreds or thousands of bottles of red wine.

It was all done by senior Wu Yu.

She was obsessed with this thing for a while, and even went to France to buy a winery... However, the winery was sold to her at the end of last year, saying that she felt that the quality of the red wine produced by the winery was too low, and she would have to buy it in the future. Buy a winery like Chateau Lafite. It is said that she made more than 3 million US dollars between buying and selling, which was very impressive.

This time when I came to Zuckerberg's house, the main discussion was about Facebook's repurchase of the soon-to-be-unlocked stock from Ziweixing International.

It looks like the ban will be lifted in less than two months.

You can't just watch Zhou Buqi sell these stocks in the secondary market.

This time, Zuckerberg didn’t dare to be too big.

Very friendly attitude.

The overcooked pizza was cooked by him himself to entertain distinguished guests. It was as unpalatable as it was delicious, but Zuckerberg and his wife ate it with gusto.

In terms of enjoyment of life, Zuckerberg is like a beggar compared to Big Boss Zhou.

If nothing else, during the Spring Festival, Baoshan wanted to eat sushi.

Instead of arranging for someone to buy sushi from a sushi restaurant on the street, Boss Zhou sent a plane to Tokyo and invited one of their old men, known as the "God of Sushi", over for a family dinner.

The young people enjoyed their meal very happily.

This extravagant behavior really made grandpa angry.

All in all, it was a great family dinner.

Zhou Buqi also said simply that Ziweixing International can withdraw from Facebook with only US$6.5 billion. I’m not bullying anyone, I’m completely following Facebook’s current stock price.

Zuckerberg also readily agreed.

Both parties will be more happy.

After dinner, Zuckerberg invited Zhou Buqi to take a walk in the garden of his home. He naturally talked about the company's business and said with a smile: "The OTT phone service is quite popular now."

Zhou Buqi nodded, "The general trend is the general trend."

Zuckerberg glanced at him and said, "Are you doing anything over there?"

Zhou Buqi said: "Yes, but this seems to involve complicated operator relationships... You know, I am not an American, so I have some disadvantages in this regard."

Zuckerberg didn't take it seriously, "This has nothing to do with nationality. In the business market, it's all about profit trade-offs."

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "Apple has a lot of money, and the FaceTime they created is really impressive. It has a dedicated network and a dedicated line. How much money will it have to pay to the operators this year? Even 1 billion US dollars is not enough, right?"

Zuckerberg said: "In a systemic sense, this is strategic defense, and it is appropriate to spend more money, just like Microsoft spent so much money to acquire Skype."

Skype is to Microsoft what FaceTime is to Apple.

The existence of Skype has caused certain obstacles for Microsoft to develop instant voice communication software in Windows systems. In this case, it might as well buy Skype.

Apple saved an acquisition fee and developed FaceTime independently, and the money can be spent on the quality of its products and services.

From a product perspective, FaceTime does not pose a threat to Helo.

FaceTime is just an auxiliary product under Apple's operating system.

It is a function provided to users.

Helo is a core product for Ziweixing International, providing a social platform.

"Skype?" Zhou Buqi shook his head, "I'm not optimistic about this product."

Zuckerberg smiled and said: "I have heard that Skype will be revamped next to provide users with high-definition video phone services."

Zhou Buqi said: "The better Skype does, the harder it will be for Microsoft."

"Oh? What does this mean?"

“Free but no value-added business model.”

"It really is."

Zuckerberg laughed.

We all do Internet social networking and we all know what this means.

Skype's current profit model is very single.

If the call is between Skype users and Skype users, it is free. There is no argument that paid value-added users can enjoy better call quality.

If a Skype user wants to call someone who is not a Skype user, it will cost a certain amount of communication fees.

This is the only revenue model for this product.

This is very dangerous.

In other words, if there are more and more Skype users, then all the calls between these users can be made using the free Internet OTT model, and the frequency of use of payphones will be greatly reduced.

The better Skype does and the more users it has, the less revenue Skype will have and the more losses it will have.

In the end, it can only become like Apple's FaceTime, becoming an auxiliary product in the ecosystem that relies on cross-subsidization to survive.

Skype and FaceTime are both communication tools, just communication tools.

Helo and Facebook Messenger are different.

This is a social platform.

Instant messaging is just a way to enter the game, it is a traffic entrance. There are many derived application functions behind it, and you can make money by relying on more services.

Losses in the instant messaging business can be subsidized through other businesses.

This kind of business idea is mainstream in China.

In the era of mobile Internet, various super apps will be derived, such as WeChat, Alipay, Taobao, QQ, Meituan, Weibo, Didi, Baidu, Douyin, Kuaishou, Pinduoduo, etc.

The so-called super App is a comprehensive App.

For example, Pinduoduo.

This is not an e-commerce product.

Instead, it is a super App that takes e-commerce services as its core and can provide many Internet services such as social networking, video, finance, and information.

But these technology giants in Silicon Valley are not very good at it. Even Microsoft and Apple are bad at playing good cards.

There is one exception.

It's Facebook.

Almost all of the world’s super apps are in China, and there is only one in the overseas market, which is Facebook. When Musk acquired Twitter, a very important idea was to learn from domestic Internet thinking and build Twitter into a super App.

From this point alone, Zhou Buqi and Zuckerberg have a lot in common.

At least it is much better than other technology giants in Silicon Valley.

Take Google CEO Larry Page, for example. He is a technical genius, and it would be an exaggeration to call him a technical scientist. However, a scientist cannot lead such a large company, and his product ideas are too old-fashioned.

He believes that Internet products should be lightweight and simple.

This idea is correct during a period when hardware equipment cannot keep up. However, as hardware performance becomes more and more powerful, and Internet technology becomes more and more powerful, even complex functions and bloated designs can make products run smoothly and freely.

Zuckerberg felt that this communication was very good, so he said sincerely: "The OTT phone service cannot be promoted as a core business after all. The first is that it is free, and it is difficult for Internet companies to make money through this business. The second is The pressure on operators is challenging traditional communication operators, but they also rely on the network traffic provided by traditional operators. This irreconcilable contradiction will inevitably restrict the development of this business."

Zhou Buqi nodded, "The relationship with the operator should not be too tense."

Zuckerberg smiled and said: "We should cooperate when we should. Many operators are very anxious now. They have felt the impact of the Internet industry and are working hard to find Internet companies to cooperate with."

"Oh, is it so?"

Zhou Buqi looked inexplicably surprised and harmless.

Zuckerberg said: "We can't push operators too hard. Cooperation is the common way out."

…

the next day.

Zuckerberg gets up early as usual.

Then run.

Eat breakfast.

I set off from home at around seven o'clock in the morning and arrived at the company before eight o'clock.

But they found that assistant Raymond showed up early with an anxious look on his face.

Facebook is a world-class company with operations all over the world. This means that this company has no distinction between day and night. At night in the United States, the European side may still be working, but in Asia it is completely daytime.

"What's up?"

Zuckerberg had reached an agreement with Zhou Buqi on the stock buyback and was in a good mood.

Raymond said in a deep voice: "The French side is in trouble."

"France?" Zuckerberg was startled for a moment, then reacted, "Telecom operator Orange?"

Raymond said: "Yes, they asked us to modify the cooperation plan, otherwise they will end their intention to cooperate with us."

"Why?" Zuckerberg was shocked. "Isn't everything agreed upon?"

Raymond sighed, "We have negotiated, and we were about to sign the contract. But didn't the operator hold back and make it public to the public?"

Zuckerberg frowned and said: "What's the point of publicity? Neither Microsoft nor Apple have their own products. At this time, who can have such great capabilities in the field of OTT services? A local European company?"

Raymond said: "European Internet companies do not have such strength."

"That is……"

Zuckerberg's expression changed slightly, and the face from last night immediately appeared in his mind.

Raymond said: "It's Ziweixing International. They got involved and offered excellent cooperation terms for operators. It is said that it is a series of terms that Orange cannot refuse."

"This liar!"