Top of the big era

When Dan Schulman saw that the big boss recognized his point of view, he breathed a long sigh of relief and said with a smile: "Yes, the most important thing in making financial products is to comply with the laws of each country."

Zhou Buqi shook his head, "It's not just the law, but also the general social environment."

"General environment?"

Dan Schulman wanted to ask Boss Zhou for advice on what kind of thinking angle this is.

Many things cannot be understood without personal experience and only through imagination. Even if others tell the truth of the matter, they will be ridiculed and said that they are talking nonsense.

This is the case with PayPal. Internet entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley started building financial products based on their beautiful imagination. Dan Schulman is a financier from Wall Street. He is very familiar with financial operations, but he is an American and is used to it. The free convertibility of currencies and the lack of accurate understanding of the situation in some countries with currency restrictions.

Zhou Buqi is different.

He has a deeper understanding.

Countries like Russia, for example, have currency restrictions. However, many wealthy people have connections and connections, and they can find ways to transfer their wealth out and exchange it into US dollars, Japanese yen, euros or pounds sterling with high value retention rate to ensure that their personal wealth will not be affected by their own countries. Monetary policy to plunder.

Many ordinary people in Russia completely lack this understanding. They don't even understand the principles of monetary policy, and they have no idea that their wealth is stored in banks. In fact, they are experiencing an invisible wealth cleansing.

They never think of ways to protect their wealth. On the contrary, when they see that some wealthy people use some means to transfer their wealth overseas to avoid the risk of the devaluation of their own currencies, they not only do not learn, but they think that these people are heinous capitalists. .

It is shameful to protect one's private wealth from being plundered; watching one's wealth be plundered by hidden means is a patriotic way they recognize.

This is not a legal restriction, but a common understanding of society.

If PayPal provides such services to such countries, the poor who have been helped to protect their wealth like the rich will not only not be grateful to PayPal, but will denounce and boycott PayPal, thinking that this is a conspiracy of capitalists. , is a financial tool to plunder their wealth.

Just like when the train was first invented and promoted to Japan, the ignorant Japanese people thought it was a man-eating monster; just like when the camera was first introduced, the Japanese did not dare to take pictures at all, thinking that it was Westerners harming the Yamato nation. The conspiracy will absorb their souls during the photo taking process.

This is very troublesome.

There are countless geniuses here in Silicon Valley who can come up with many ways to circumvent currency controls at the legal level and open a channel for the people at the bottom to protect and transfer wealth. It is also impossible to bypass this social understanding. Widespread obstruction.

Compared with legal restrictions, this factor is the biggest problem for PayPal to promote similar businesses to change the world.

It's simply impossible to do.

Zhou Buqi said: "In the past few years, the Internet has made subversive changes to many industries. The most important reason why there have been so many great achievements is that traditional industries are ignorant of the Internet. This is the information gap. Advantages. Because they don’t understand, this gives the Internet a chance.”

Dan Schulman is not from the Internet. He has a rich resume and has been engaged in the communications and telecommunications industry, as well as banking and finance. Although he often cooperates with the Internet at work, he has always worked on the East Coast and lacks sufficient understanding of the logic of Silicon Valley on the West Coast.

Zhou Buqi had the responsibility to give him some guidance and said: "Just like the film industry, Hollywood is so powerful. It monopolizes the American film industry and dominates the world. In the past 100 years, Hollywood has changed and led the world. , much larger than Wall Street and Silicon Valley. However, you have also seen in recent years that Hollywood has declined."

Dan Schulman said with a smile: "ZMSI Global has always been very strong."

Zhou Buqi waved his hand, "That's not it."

“Because of internet streaming.”

"Yes, it is streaming media. The emergence of Netflix has pushed Hollywood into a desperate situation. You said that Ziweixing Universal is very strong, but if Ziweixing Universal wants to continue to be strong, it must move closer to Netflix and also do streaming. The business of media.”

"So..." Dan Schulman mused, "The reason why Netflix has a chance is because Hollywood lacks an accurate understanding of the Internet. Hollywood has the most film resources and a rich film and television library. If they If we had reacted earlier, Netflix would never have had a chance.”

Zhou Buqi nodded, "That's what I mean. The reason why Netflix can do so in vain is because of Hollywood's ignorance of the Internet. They don't know the future of the Internet, and they don't understand the business logic of the streaming media business. This is why Netflix Fei has obtained many high-quality film and television rights at very low prices, which has promoted Netflix's huge success."

Dan Schulman mused: "For the Internet, it was more like a surprise attack."

Zhou Buqi smiled and said: "Yes, it is a surprise attack, which is to take advantage of the 'ignorance period' of traditional industries to quickly produce products, establish brands, form social awareness and user habits, and firmly grasp the first-mover advantage. By the time traditional industries reacted and launched similar services, it was already too late. A series of excellent Internet products such as Amazon, Yahoo, Google, iPhone, Android, Rotten Tomatoes, etc., all started like this without exception. Even Ziweixing International For the same reason, Helo, the core product of Helo, relied on the cognitive advantages of mobile Internet over PC Internet to quickly launch a surprise attack, seize the market in the new era, and stand out among the traditional Internet communication tools."

Dan Schulman asked: "PayPal also wants to take advantage of this opportunity?"

"Disaster!"

Zhou Buqi shook his head.

"ah?"

Dan Schulman was already a little out of step with his train of thought.

Zhou Buqi said: "Now the whole world has realized the power of the Internet. Apple has even surpassed Mobil Oil and became the world's largest company. The mobile Internet has also developed, and the initial dividends are decreasing. If it were anything else That’s it for industries, such as food delivery, taxi-hailing, and shared housing products, there will still be huge opportunities. But the financial industry is different, it is the lifeline of a country’s economy.”

This brings Dan Schulman to his profession, and he said with deep conviction: "It is true. Compared with other traditional industries, the Internetization of the financial industry is more difficult. Because the financial industry is too special and important. , countries around the world have realized the power of the Internet, and will pay special attention to the supervision of Internet finance."

Zhou Buqi said: "That's why I asked you to be the CEO of PayPal, instead of looking for a manager from Silicon Valley. If you can't come up, just rush to achieve a grand goal. Other industries are easy to subvert, but the financial industry is impossible!" "

Dan Schulman agrees, "Yes, many of PayPal's product ideas in the past were wrong, such as online transfer services. Once they really allow them to realize this kind of asset transfer service for ordinary people, it will really be a success." It has subverted the traditional financial industry, but this is impossible, and there are many gaps that are impossible to cross.”

Zhou Buqi nodded and said: "We cannot subvert, we must cooperate. PayPal's core strategy should be to cooperate with traditional financial institutions first and provide users with more convenient traditional financial services through the Internet, rather than creating new ones." Services replace traditional finance. Cooperate first and assist traditional financial institutions. When your own strength gradually becomes stronger and a financial platform is built, you will gradually take the initiative in cooperation. When PayPal truly becomes an industry leader, just like After Amazon establishes its position in the shopping industry, it will launch more innovative financial services."

Dan Schulman did not agree with this and hesitated, "I don't think the Internet can change the financial industry!"

"Really?" Zhou Buqi glanced at him, "That's not necessarily the case!"

"Um?"

"For example, the online transfer service you just mentioned, the idea set by PayPal's entrepreneurial team in the early days to provide wealth transfer for the bottom class around the world may not be impossible to realize!"

"Ah?" Dan Schulman was slightly startled, "Is this possible?"

Zhou Buqi said: "PayPal definitely won't do it. This is PayPal's ban. You must not do this. However, other projects may not be able to do it."

Dan Schulman humbly asked, "What about?"

Zhou Buqi said calmly: "Bitcoin."

"ah?"

Dan Schulman was shocked.

As a relatively traditional financial person, he is really not very interested in Bitcoin, an encrypted digital currency with little practical value. Just like Buffett, he doesn't think this thing has any investment value.

Zhou Buqi said: "PayPal is a centralized product, so it has great limitations. However, the decentralized logic of blockchain now provides more possibilities for the world."

"Bitcoin..." Dan Schulman frowned, obviously lacking sufficient knowledge of this thing. "It's not certain whether Bitcoin is legal."

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "It will definitely be legal. This is in the interest of the United States."

"How to say?"

"The currencies with the highest value retention in the world are the U.S. dollar, euro, pound, and yen. They are large in scale and freely convertible. Therefore, the world's wealth transfer and foreign exchange market transactions mainly revolve around these major currencies. In transactions, wealth transfers will also be exchanged in these currencies."

"Um."

"Buy Bitcoin with local currency in your country, then go abroad, sell the Bitcoin, and exchange it for the local currency. With Bitcoin as an intermediary tool, currency exchange and transfer can be completed. So, we can Imagine that the first countries that recognize Bitcoin as legal and recognize the existence of Bitcoin must be countries with strong currencies such as the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Japan. This allows them to benefit from the inflow of funds in currency exchange transactions. ."

"this……"

Dan Schulman was shocked!

As a financial expert, he suddenly found that he had become a financial idiot in front of his boss Zhou who didn't know much about finance but knew a lot about the Internet.

It turns out that this is the power of the Internet!

Zhou Buqi stretched and said: "So, the price of Bitcoin will definitely rise sharply. This is indeed not a place to create wealth, but a place to absorb wealth and transfer wealth. In this process, there must be Countless unimaginable capital carnivals will take place. Don’t underestimate the power of the Internet, it can be more powerful than Wall Street!”