1980 My literary era

May 2, 2000, Yanjing International Conference Center.

Because the Internet conference was to be held, the place was under control two days ago. In front of the conference center building, conference staff and volunteers came and went in an orderly manner.

It is now seven o'clock in the morning, two hours before the opening of the conference, but conference staff and volunteers have been busy for an hour.

Whether outside the conference center, in the courtyard, or inside the conference center, all you can see are promotional materials about the Internet Conference, and the atmosphere of the conference is very grand.

Around eight o'clock, guests attending the Internet Conference arrived at the conference center by bus.

Ma Yun got out of the car and had a lively chat with Li Guoqing, who was in the same car. After getting out of the car, the two still didn't stop.

Li Guoqing runs an e-commerce website Dangdang.com, following the path of Jeff Bezos and selling books. Last month, Dangdang successfully completed its first round of financing after its establishment, receiving US$8 million in venture capital from IDG, SoftBank and other investment companies.

So today Li Guoqing can be said to be in the limelight. Of course, Jack Ma is not bad at this time. Both of them are entering the field of e-commerce and have obtained financing from foreign venture capital. If 8848 is also included, these three companies should be It can be regarded as the three e-commerce heroes in China's Internet industry in the early 2000s.

However, among these three companies there is also the eldest brother Huicong.com.

Huicong.com is a very magical website. When it was founded in 1992, Jack Ma was still working as an English teacher, Li Guoqing was still dumping books in Zhongguancun, and Liu Qiangdong had not yet gone to college.

But the difference between Huicong.com and today's three e-commerce giants is that it moved from offline to online. After all, in 1992, there was still the Internet in China, and too much emphasis was placed on offline. This difference is probably why Huicong.com will be lonely in future generations. s reason.

Jack Ma and Li Guoqing walked into the conference center chatting hotly. As soon as they entered, they were stopped by capable security personnel at the door for security inspection.

The two were slightly surprised. After the inspection, Li Guoqing muttered to Ma Yun: "This formation is a bit big!"

Ma Yun had a look of wisdom on his face, "If you don't believe me, we'll wait and see."

Li Guoqing cursed in his heart, you are really good at showing off.

Although he found it pleasant to chat with Ma Yun, he was still dissatisfied with Ma Yun's habit of showing off. Compared with Ma Yun, he seemed much simpler.

Another more important reason why he is willing to chat with Ma Yun is that both of them run e-commerce websites. Ma Yun to B and he to C can learn from each other's strengths and weaknesses and exchange experiences!

Yanjing International Conference Center is one of the places where Yanjing City hosts important conference activities. The atmosphere at today's venue was particularly grand.

Not only are the security measures at the venue extremely strict, but a quick inspection will reveal many differences in today's conference.

After Li Guoqing and Ma Yun entered the venue, their seats were separated. After taking their seats, Li Guoqing looked around.

The venue was grandly decorated, but the style was still business-like, which was very different from a government conference.

Next to him was a young man wearing glasses who looked gentle and harmless, but Li Guoqing knew that those who could enter today's venue were definitely not ordinary people.

He started chatting with the guy with glasses in a low voice, "Brother, what's your surname? What field are you engaged in?"

The guy with glasses was a little shy and had dimples on his face when he smiled, "My surname is Ma, and I work in instant messaging software."

"Instant messaging software? ICQ kind?" Li Guoqing asked, patting his head, "I remembered, there is a company in Pengcheng, QICQ, right?"

Ma Huateng was even more embarrassed and said: "We have changed our name to QQ now."

"Yes, yes, look at my memory. Your software is much better than ICQ. Many people in our company have used it."

Ma Huateng is helpless, can he stop mentioning ICQ?

Li Guoqing didn't realize at all that his words made Xiao Ma feel unhappy. Even if he did, he wouldn't care. He, a CEO with a company valuation of tens of millions of dollars, was chatting with the person in charge of a chat software with tens of thousands of users. Do you need to pay attention to these things?

While Li Guoqing and Ma Huateng were having an unpleasant chat, Ma Yun was also bragging to the people around him.

"E-commerce will definitely be the fastest growing and most important area of ​​China's Internet in the future. Mr. Lei has a unique vision when he enters this field."

The smile on Lei Jun's face was a bit perfunctory. He led Kingsoft into the e-commerce field and knew a lot about industry news. Alibaba, which was just established at the end of last year, received an investment of US$5 million from foreign investment institutions, causing a small sensation in the domestic Internet industry.

Lei Jun recalled last year's news and couldn't help but feel a little envious of Jack Ma. A newly established website can actually receive an investment of 5 million yuan, which is much higher than the valuation of Joyo.com when it was originally transformed.

Not only Alibaba, but also Dangdang and 8848 are the objects of Lei Jun's envy. Compared with these peers, Joyo's current development speed is not very fast, and he feels a bit of a sense of crisis in his heart.

Specific to the person Ma Yun who was chattering away, Lei Jun didn't have a good impression of this person. He has always been the kind of person whose actions speak louder than his words. Although he only talked to Ma Yun for a few minutes, he could tell that this person was People who conquer the world with their words are completely opposite to him.

Lei Jun only had one thought in his mind at this time: When will the conference start?

Because the scale is relatively large, the guests all arrive in advance and are all practitioners in the same industry. When everyone sits together, it is inevitable to communicate. Although everyone's voice is not loud, there are so many people talking. The venue was filled with low-frequency humming, and there was no solemn atmosphere.

Finally, when it was approaching nine o'clock, the host's prompt sounded in the venue, and everyone fell silent. The voice sounded familiar.

When people came on stage, everyone discovered that it was Luo Jing, the announcer of CCTV's "Xinwen Lianbo". As soon as he opened his mouth, everyone immediately felt that the opening ceremony of this meeting had become more serious.

After Luo Jing opened the meeting, he invited the top leaders attending the Internet Conference today, and the audience burst into applause.

At the same time, many people below were looking forward. The conference venue covers an area of ​​1,000 square meters. Because there were so many participating guests, they were seated in nearly a dozen rows, with a distance of more than 20 meters from front to back.

When they heard the name of the leader, everyone stretched their necks and looked at the stage. Li Guoqing thought of what Ma Yun said just now. This guy can boast, but he is really well-informed about the inside information. There really is a great leader. Attend.

The hugely expensive screen on the stage displayed the words "The First China Internet Conference" in large characters, and below there were several rows of small characters referring to various organizers, organizers and co-organizers, the most inconspicuous of which was Sohu, a rice stock listed company. company.

Seeing the name "Sohu" put together with so many bright names, even if it is just a co-organizer, it makes many colleagues in the audience have red eyes with envy.

Unlike participating in political activities, the leader's speech today was full of affinity.

"Comrade Weimin insisted on inviting me to address the conference because the Internet industry is an emerging industry with huge potential. In the future, it will profoundly affect the direction of China's economic development and greatly change people's lifestyles.

I agree with his idea.

Since China's access to the Internet in 1995, our country's Internet industry has ushered in vigorous development, and hundreds of Internet companies have been born, making considerable contributions to domestic economic development.

I jokingly told him that since the Internet industry is so important, why not open it in the People's Hall?

Then he thought seriously and told me that our Internet conference should be held into an industry conference with international influence. The People's Hall is too old-fashioned and does not fit the style of the new thing called the Internet.

I said, then you should not invite an old man like me..."

The leader's speech made the audience burst into laughter. Everyone was familiar with his approachability and were also surprised that he was so familiar with Lin Weimin that he would joke on such an occasion.

Everyone knows that Guowen Group is one of the organizers of this Internet Conference, and everyone has speculated that they are the initiators of the Internet Conference. Now through Zhu Xiang’s speech, it is basically confirmed.

After the leader's speech, the organizer's representative was the leader of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Although there are rumors in China that the management rights of Internet companies will be transferred, they have not been transferred after all, so this arrangement is reasonable and reasonable.

This was followed by speeches from foreign institutions invited to the conference. Many of the foreign institutions participating in the conference were invited by the government.

When it came to the last speaker, the conference arranged for Bill Gates.

As a leader in the American technology industry and currently the world's richest man, Bill Gates' appearance on stage immediately triggered a warm response from the audience.

Just now the most powerful person in China came up on the stage, and now the richest person in the world comes up. One by one, they have established the height of this Internet conference.

Many Chinese Internet entrepreneurs who attended the conference were shocked and full of confidence in the future development of the domestic Internet industry.

The Prime Minister and the world's richest man jointly stand for the Internet Conference, which represents a kind of endorsement and represents the importance and support of the country and foreign capital for China's Internet industry.

As a part of it, everyone present felt a sense of honor.

At this point in the conference, the atmosphere reached a climax.

"Finally, I would like to thank Lin for inviting me. He is an outstanding writer and a very visionary and talented entrepreneur. When I came to China this time, I saw that this ancient country is bursting with new ideas. With its vitality, the emerging industry of the Internet will also bring a new chapter to China's development.

I sincerely wish this China Internet Conference a success. At the same time, Microsoft and I also hope to cooperate with potential Chinese Internet companies to bring new momentum to the development of the world. "

Gates' speech was just as the Romans do, without the usual passion of Lao Mi's speeches on stage, which seemed quite satisfactory.

At the end of the day, I didn’t forget to CUE Lin Weimin.

Lin Weimin was sitting in the audience. He did not go on stage to speak today, but was willing to be the hero behind the scenes. Unfortunately, both Prime Minister Zhu and Gates mentioned him in their speeches one after another, which immediately made him the most popular person at the opening ceremony. focus of attention.

In fact, even if Zhu Xiang and Gates don't mention it, he is still an unavoidable topic at this conference.

Anyone with a discerning eye can see that this Internet Conference is basically the "Huashan Sword Discussing" in martial arts novels.

Guowen Group is the organizer and initiator of the Internet Conference. It is not an exaggeration to say that it will be recorded in history.

Lin Weimin is also the helmsman of Guowen Group and has made great contributions to the convening of the Internet Conference.

Although there are several organizers of this conference, each with a higher level than the last, the role of Guowen Group is irreplaceable.

Without their contributions, there would be no grand Internet conference today. The greater the influence of the Internet Conference, the deeper the ink left by Guowen Group and Lin Weimin in the history of China’s Internet.

At this moment today, the names of the three are deeply connected, like the fetters of fate that are inseparable.