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Executives of Dan Schulman's level generally sign non-compete agreements with the company and cannot move to competing peers.

If you go, you will have to pay a large amount of liquidated damages.

Many Silicon Valley giants have deep pockets. As long as they like someone and find a talent that can be used, they can directly go and poach anyone with or without a non-compete agreement.

Isn't it just compensation for liquidated damages? Millions or tens of millions of dollars in liquidated damages is nothing at all.

One advantage of trying to lure Dan Schulman from American Express to PayPal is that he doesn't have to pay liquidated damages.

American Express and PayPal are not peers.

At least for now, there is no business conflict between the two parties.

However, there are many obstacles to getting him to change jobs.

In the past few years, Schulman has worked in New York, where his family, career and social circles are also. But PayPal is headquartered in Silicon Valley. If he changes jobs, he will need to take his family to the West Coast.

His wife is a doctor, a very respectable profession; his children are in junior high school, and his friends are all in New York. When he went to California, he was completely unfamiliar with the place.

For Zhou Buqi, there are also uncontrollable factors.

It’s unclear what will happen to PayPal’s board of directors. This time when I returned to Silicon Valley from New York, I had to start dealing with this matter. If the situation is not handled well, the original CEO David Marcus will still have to stay in office.

Zhou Buqi talked with Schulman for more than four hours.

We talked until about 11 o'clock in the evening.

It was discovered that the two people's business concepts are highly similar.

According to Dan Schulman, he found the business philosophy from Chinese martial arts.

What is Wu?

Stop fighting and turn into force.

The most brilliant martial arts is not about invincible moves, but about turning enemies into friends, and about keeping a sword from its sheath.

The same is true in business.

If cooperation is possible, then we must choose a cooperative method to promote business. Making fewer enemies and cooperating more can create a better living space for the company.

Zhou Buqi felt that this idea was too to his liking.

It can't be like Alipay.

Boss Ma is just too radical.

One of the biggest mistakes Alipay made in China was that it was too aggressive and attacked everywhere, relying on its firm support for the mobile Internet and its determination to deepen reforms. It really made enemies everywhere.

The current situation faced by PayPal is even more severe. The financial industries in Europe and the United States have been established for two to three hundred years. If you want to rely on the Internet to subvert them... there is no chance in a short time.

You have to take your time.

Cooperate with them first and give them a hand.

In the process of cooperation, gradually increase the importance of PayPal in the cooperation, and make the other party gradually unable to leave you;

Third, occupying the dominant position in cooperation makes the other party's presence increasingly marginalized.

Finally, it completed complete changes and became an Internet financial giant with strong strength and industry voice.

Planning too far ahead.

In the previous life, PayPal didn’t even take the first step well.

Don't be too impatient.

PayPal wants to learn from Alipay's financial innovation, but it cannot learn from Alipay's aggressive methods. It should be softer and have a good relationship with the major traditional financial giants.

Zhou Buqi's purpose for doing all this is mainly for Helo, Ziweixing International's core product, and Yahoo's financial business.

Whether it is Helo payment or Yahoo Finance, they are both small and weak products.

We acquired PayPal and used PayPal to drive traffic to Helo for payment and Yahoo Finance, thereby driving up traffic for Helo and all Yahoo products.

…

That night, Zuckerberg brought Paypal's French CEO David Marcus to his home for dinner.

Still the same old thing.

He cooked a salmon dish himself.

However, before Marcus could move his knife and fork, Zuckerberg could not sit still and began lobbying work, describing to Marcus that social networks would become extremely important in the future, and instant messaging would play a role in this revolution. important role.

Finally, Zuckerberg stared directly at him and said, "You will be in charge of Facebook Messenger."

Marcus took a deep breath, "This is a difficult task."

Zuckerberg said sternly: "In addition to hanging out on social networks, the most important thing people do is instant messaging. Whoever controls communication can determine the way people interact, or, it is very likely to determine the entire human race. The way to do business.”

This is already the third private contact between the two parties.

We didn't talk about work in the first two times, we just talked about some topics in history, humanities, philosophy, business, climate warming, etc. It was considered that the two of us had a deep understanding.

However, the meaning is already clear.

Marcus knew what the other party meant, which was to invite him to join Facebook. He took a deep breath, "As far as I know, Facebook Messenger doesn't seem to be doing very well. Products like Helo, Snapchat, and Viber are more popular in the market. This is a true mobile communication tool. In order to compete, Apple and Google have also redesigned the text messaging tools in their mobile operating systems to make them more like Helo, Snapchat or Viber."

Zuckerberg held up two fingers and said, "Two reasons."

"Is it convenient to reveal it?"

"First, Facebook will soon launch an acquisition invitation to Viber. This time, we will be unstoppable! In the case of Snapchat, we have already made a mistake once, and we will not miss Viber this time."

"Ah?" Marcus was quite shocked, "You want to acquire Viber? If the acquisition is launched at this time, there will be strong competition from Ziweixing International, and the price will probably be..."

Zuckerberg said: “No matter how expensive it is, it’s worth it!”

The reason why he dared to call on financial institutions to take over the Facebook stocks held by Ziweixing International in a gambling way was because he had full confidence.

This confidence comes from the acquisition of Viber!

As long as we can successfully acquire Viber, why not worry about Facebook's stock price rising?

If the stock price rises, it means the bet is successful.

So he was very anxious.

We must quickly reach an agreement with Zhou Buqi to make a definitive plan to redeem all the Facebook shares in his hands. If we wait until Facebook launches the acquisition of Viber before repurchasing it, the cost of repurchase will increase greatly as Facebook's stock price rises.

Marcus nodded, "I believe that will be a deal that will shock the whole world."

Zuckerberg smiled and continued: "You have had a successful entrepreneurial experience, and you have also achieved great results after becoming the CEO of PayPal. To be honest, this is what attracts me the most. I hope to Messenger is cultivated as an internal entrepreneurial project within Facebook, and the leader retains full control over the product. As for candidates who have entrepreneurial skills, large company technology, and payment backend experience, I don’t know who else is qualified for this job except you. ."

Marcus said: "Thank you for your evaluation."

Zuckerberg said: "Entrepreneurial projects can benefit from Facebook's scale resources - legal, infrastructure, technical framework, advertising system, spam blocking system, etc. Of course, after the acquisition of Viber is completed, Viber can also be resources are introduced into Messenger.”

Marcus hesitated, "Can I get some specific data? About Messenger."

Zuckerberg said: “Monthly active users are 150 million.”

Marcus asked: "Where are the competitors?"

"The gap is huge." Zuckerberg was a little embarrassed to say, and sighed, "Helo's monthly active users should be more than 800 million, and Snapchat's monthly active users are about 300 million. Viber's monthly active users are also about 250 million. However, Facebook’s monthly active users are 1.2 billion, which is our biggest advantage.”

This is not very honest.

Facebook has 1.2 billion monthly active users, but this is divided into two parts, one is PC and the other is mobile. Competitors such as Helo, Snapchat, and Viber are purely mobile products and have no business on the PC side.

If we look at the mobile side alone, Facebook’s monthly active users are less than 700 million, making it the second most active mobile app in the world after Helo.

Marcus was silent for a long time, "I'll think about it."

Zuckerberg nodded, "Well, it should be, but I think it should be decided as soon as possible. I heard that the PayPal board of directors is not stable, right? The power struggle between Pierre, Butch, and Carl It was intense.”

"hehe."

Marcus doesn’t have much to say.

He is now the CEO of PayPal and has not yet decided to really switch jobs to Facebook. How can he tell such company secrets casually? It's about his work ethic.

Of course, as the CEO of PayPal, he has heard some inside information.

It seems that the new board of directors has some criticisms of himself as CEO.

If it weren't for this reason, he wouldn't have accepted Zuckerberg's invitation again and again to meet with him privately.

PayPal is about to go public, and he's not stupid.

Who doesn’t want to be the CEO of a listed company?

There was something wrong within the company.

His status is not guaranteed!

Marcus also has his own selfish motives.

His first choice, of course, is to stay at PayPal. He has been working here for several years and is used to it. Moreover, the company will be listed soon. Being able to participate in such a project as CEO will definitely bring fame and fortune.

As for Zuckerberg…

Even if it is a spare tire!

If there are some force majeure factors on PayPal's side, and the new board of directors does not recognize himself as CEO... there is nothing that can be done. It is not impossible to host a major internal entrepreneurial project at Facebook.

Marcus promised Zuckerberg that he would think about it carefully.

Zuckerberg did not relax. The next day, he spent more than an hour writing a long email, explaining all his career ideals, and sent it to Marcus.

I want to impress the other person with my sincerity.

Marcus was not in the mood to read this long email at all.

He had heard it.

Boss Zhou is back.

Next, PayPal will hold a formal board meeting. If nothing else, at this board meeting, Zhou Buqi will be officially appointed as PayPal's chairman of the board of directors and determine all board members.

The most critical moment is coming.

Will this company change its CEO?