My Age of Investment

After nearly two hours of cold wind blowing in the wilderness, Xia Jingxing said goodbye to Tong Shijie and took a car to return to the city.

The car was driving halfway down the road when he suddenly received a call from an old friend.

"Daerun, I'm in the capital these days. How about we sit down and talk sometime?"

Xia Jingxing held the phone in his hand and raised the corners of his mouth slightly, "Okay! You can do it tonight. I'm a guest from afar. I'll treat you to dinner."

There was a burst of laughter from the other end of the phone, "Okay, I will go to the banquet on time. Can I bring a friend over?"

"No problem, your friends are my friends."

…

After Xia Jingxing hung up the phone, the smile on his face gradually disappeared and his expression returned to calm.

Looking at the scenery passing by outside the window, some memory images in his mind kept spinning like a marquee.

Alas, I "hang up" with an old friend again, and I miss him a bit. .

…………

…………

night.

A luxurious black Audi A8 slowly parked at the entrance of Xicheng Hutong.

After the car parked, a middle-aged yellow man in his forties and a bald white man in his fifties or sixties walked out of the car.

"Neal, this should be your traditional Chinese building, right? Darren likes this kind of environment very much?"

"Yes, this alley has a history of hundreds of years! It's older than the history of the United States! As for whether Darren likes it or not, I'm not sure."

Speaking of this, the yellow man named "Neal" spread his hands and said, "As you know, China Fund has been having some unpleasant troubles with him since its establishment more than three years ago."

The old bald white man said calmly: "So, the first phase of the China Fund failed.

Arrogance destroyed two of my most promising partners and brought shame to Sequoia’s brand! "

Neil Shen remained silent. Although Michael Moritz's words were somewhat hurtful, they were true.

Sequoia, which was a powerful figure in the United States, suffered defeats one after another after coming to China.

Now, all the US$200 million of the first phase of the fund has been used up, and a bunch of bankrupt companies, loss-making companies, financial fraud companies, and serious exit cases have been harvested, not a single one!

At this point, what qualifications and confidence does he have to refute Moritz.

Seeing that Shen Beipeng seemed a little frustrated and lost, Moritz comforted him: "As long as you are willing to start over, you still have a chance to get a new life! Let's go and meet Darren together."

Shen Beipeng followed Moritz into Chengfuyan, a private restaurant in the alley, and was taken to a private room by the waiter.

As soon as they entered the room, they saw Xia Jingxing sitting on a chair holding his mobile phone and playing a masturbation game with both hands.

"Mr. Moritz, Mr. Shen, welcome!"

After seeing the person clearly, Xia Jingxing put down his cell phone, stood up and shook hands with Moritz and Shen Beipeng one by one.

After shaking hands, Moritz glanced at the Fuxing FX2 mobile phone placed on the table and said in a joking tone: "This mobile phone you developed is really excellent. I saw many friends around me using it to play." Game, Facebook, Tweet.

I would like to ask quietly, do you have any idea of ​​opening up financing?

You can make any price you want, I will never counter-offer! "

Xia Jingxing and Moritz looked at each other to confirm that they were not joking.

However, Fuxing Mobile does not need financing for the time being, so Xia Jingxing responded with a smile: "You are exaggerating. Smartphone can reduce us to nothing."

Moritz heard the implication and didn't pay attention. Instead, he laughed and said: "Darren, when we do venture capital, making money is the first priority.

Investing in wisdom fruit is already a thing of the last century, and stocks have been cleared long ago.

If you have the opportunity to become a shareholder of Fuxing Mobile, we will definitely try our best to help you achieve long-term development in the United States.

You can rest assured that Sequoia has more than just dollars in the United States! "

Shen Beipeng silently watched the conversation between Moritz and Xia Jingxing, feeling a little disappointed and frustrated.

Vision Capital China was established almost at the same time as Sequoia China, and the two sides have been fighting each other for more than three years.

Nowadays, Sequoia China is almost in ruins, but Vision Capital is capturing outstanding startups one after another like cheating.

Judging from the momentum gained, Vision Capital has already surpassed them in eight ways.

As for Xia Jingxing personally, it completely crushed him and a group of domestic investors.

Even the founders of the entire industry are worth less than a fraction of Xia Jingxing.

The two sides are no longer opponents at the same level.

Even their major financier and boss, Sequoia America, had to treat the young financial tycoon politely.

After a while of greetings, Xia Jingxing greeted the two of them to take a seat.

After chatting for a while, Moritz took the initiative to talk about the topic.

“Darren, we have known each other for many years, and I have always regretted missing the opportunity to invest in Facebook.

Fortunately, you later entered the venture capital industry and founded the Vision Capital VC Fund in Silicon Valley. Sequoia then had the opportunity to cooperate with you, which made up for some of the regrets of the year.

I think that Vision Capital America and Sequoia America maintain a very friendly and close cooperation, creating huge value and wealth for LPs.

Why not copy this successful experience to China?

As long as the two of us join forces, most of the outstanding technology companies in China and the United States can be firmly grasped in our hands..."

Moritz was like a passionate speaker, working hard on his speech.

Xia Jingxing was a quiet listener, smiling on the surface, but actually he was complaining in his heart.

Sequoia America and Envision Capital America almost came to war over projects.

Later, because Moritz took the initiative to seek peace and re-released several stolen projects, and because they were worried that the U.S. market would not be too aggressive, they reconciled with Sequoia America.

Subsequently, the two companies also conducted some cooperation, but it was not close to each other. They just took what they needed.

Moritz kept talking while observing Xia Jingxing's face.

He suddenly said: "Darren, now Sequoia China Fund I has invested all its funds, and Zhang Fan, who has always been at odds with you, has also been kicked out of Sequoia by us.

All the cooperation obstacles in front of us have been removed, and it is time to join forces to do something big. "

Moritz had discussed Sequoia China with Xia Jingxing before.

However, Xia Jingxing did not express his position directly, saying that he would let Moritz deal with the Chinese team first.

Now Zhang Fan has resigned, and another founder Shen Beipeng also came to the banquet today.

Xia Jingxing thought to himself, looks like this, does Moritz really seem to have settled everything?

"Zhang Fan has really resigned? He is our number one VC investor in China. Are you willing to drive him away?"

Moritz felt that Xia Jingxing was deliberately pretending to be confused, so he did not try to expose it, but asked calmly: "Darren, you should have heard about the Asia Media incident, right?"

"Well, I heard that the accounting firm refused to issue an audit opinion for its 2007 annual report, and was therefore ordered to delist by the Tokyo Stock Exchange?"

Moritz nodded and then gave Shen Beipeng a look. The latter understood and explained aloud: "This is only the superficial reason. The deeper reason is that Cui Jianping, CEO, founder and largest shareholder of Asia Media, misappropriated funds of listed companies.

Without the consent of the company's board of directors, he set a time deposit of 106.9 million yuan in its wholly-owned subsidiary Kuanshi Network as a guarantee for the debt of the third-party company Dolphin Technology.

Dolphin Technology borrowed a total of 103 million yuan from banks, all of which was used to repay Cui Jianping's personal debts. "

Although he had already heard these things from Tong Shijie and knew a few things in his previous life, Xia Jingxing still felt quite fresh when he heard them again.

Cui Jianping, a real-life CEO, is just as awesome as many CEOs on the Internet. Without the approval of the board of directors, he used the deposits of a company in which a group of shareholders jointly participated to provide guaranteed loans for his privately owned company.

This kind of frivolous operation, if it is not a listed company, may still be conducted privately among shareholders.

Asia Media, as the "first Chinese stock" listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, has attracted media attention. As soon as the incident was exposed, it immediately spread throughout China and Japan.

Cui Jianping, the client, has been prosecuted by Japan and his criminal responsibility is to be investigated.

The Japanese media jumped out to criticize Chinese companies and entrepreneurs as useless, saying that these people don't even know what listing a company means.

There are also many Chinese and overseas Chinese in Japan who heard that Chinese companies were listed in Tokyo and came to join in the fun and buy stocks.

The issue price of Asia Media's stock was 640 yen, and the peak stock price reached 2,055 yen. When it was delisted, the stock price was only 5 yen, and there was no leek root left.

In addition, more than a dozen institutional shareholders also lay down neatly.

Among them, the largest institutional shareholder is Sequoia.

The impact of this delisting incident is quite widespread and severe at the moment, and its shock to the venture capital circle is no less than that of the Luckin fraud incident in the future.

Shen Beipeng said with a dark face: "Based on the peak stock price, Sequoia's investment would have yielded an investment return of more than 20 times.

But as the stock was delisted, all investment principal and income were lost. "

Xia Jingxing asked deliberately: "I heard that you cashed out a little more than 1% of your stocks before the incident was exposed. Overall, the loss should not be big, right?"

Shen Beipeng glanced at Xia Jingxing. What do you mean by cashing out before the incident was exposed?

Well, he admitted that the media and the industry are now very suspicious that Sequoia knew in advance about the misappropriation of funds by listed companies, and then immediately ran away. However, before the cash was completed, the listed company was delisted.

This incident caused great damage to Sequoia's reputation.

In addition to questioning Sequoia’s advance knowledge of the founder’s misappropriation of funds, the media also questioned Sequoia’s professionalism.

As Sequoia's director assigned to Asia Media, Zhang Fan has almost become a decoration.

Moreover, as soon as something happened to the company, he immediately resigned from his position as director, looking like he was passing the blame and showing no responsibility at all.

At the same time, a large number of VC funds such as Sequoia and SAIF failed to check the character and ethics of the founders of the invested companies, and were also questioned for their unqualified due diligence;

The failure to send a CFO to the invested company resulted in such a big omission in the financial affairs and was questioned as unprofessional.

All of the above have caused Sequoia Capital, which has been questioned for a series of failed projects such as Renren and Duoduo Dianping, to receive criticism and accusations from the industry, the media, and even some people in society.

Moritz saw that Shen Beipeng's face was very gloomy, and he seemed to have some thoughts in his heart. He was worried about a quarrel between him and Xia Jingxing, so he quickly interjected: "Darren, this is not how you settled the account.

Because of Sequoia's introduction and endorsement, many major Japanese companies, including Japan's largest advertising company Dentsu, the largest satellite communications company JSAT, Itochu Corporation, and NTT Mobile Communications, have invested in Asia Media.

As a result, this stupid thing happened, which caused a lot of trouble for Sequoia internationally. We suffered a lot of ridicule from our peers, and even Sequoia's business in the United States was affected to a certain extent.

What you lose is not money, but business reputation! "

Xia Jingxing nodded, and then added in his mind: So you let Zhang Fan take the blame?

In the previous life, many people only knew Sequoia Shen Beipeng, but not the other founder Zhang Fan.

It was because Zhang Fan was affected by this incident that he "voluntarily" resigned from Sequoia.

And this life is compounded by a series of previous failures, maybe Zhang Fan is really fired.

Xia Jingxing didn't bother to ask about Zhang Fan anymore.

To him, Zhang Fan, the once great villain, is now just an ant.

Without him taking action, Sequoia would clean up the door on its own.

Without the platform of Sequoia, investors who have invested in Baidu, Kongzong.com and many other listed companies can only be lost in the crowd.

When he returned to the mainstream attention, he had become a big boss in the currency circle.

Seeing that Xia Jingxing remained silent and seemed to be sitting firmly on the Diaoyutai, Moritz became anxious.

In his view, the reason why Sequoia China is in such a terrible state is partly because of Zhang Fan's stubbornness, and partly because of the sniper attack from Envision Capital.

Although after his investigation, Vision Capital did not deliberately target Sequoia, but it did everything in favor of the situation and pushing behind the scenes.

Now that Vision Capital is so powerful, he no longer has the intention to pursue these things.

What he most urgently wants to accomplish now is to rebuild Sequoia China.

It is impossible to withdraw from the Chinese market!

Especially this year, China ranks first in the world in terms of the number of Internet users. Although the value of a single user is still a bit low and far behind the United States, it is definitely the second most worthy country in the world for investment.

Therefore, he needed to reach some results with Xia Jingxing as soon as possible, put aside disputes, eliminate grudges, and seek common development.

"Darren, more than three years ago, Sequoia's participation in the venture capital alliance that pursued and intercepted Vision Capital was entirely Zhang Fan's idea and had little to do with Neil."

Speaking of this, Moritz glanced at Shen Beipeng, "Why are you standing there in a daze? He should apologize quickly!"

Although he felt a little aggrieved and uncomfortable, Shen Beipeng still followed the rules he had agreed with Moritz before.

He picked up the wine glass, stood up and said, "Mr. Xia, this glass of wine is my apology to you. I hope you can forgive me for what happened in the past!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Shen Beipeng raised his head and drained the entire glass of wine.

Xia Jingxing remained silent and watched everything calmly.

In fact, according to Tong Shijie's report, Shen Beipeng did not participate in the internal meetings of the venture capital alliance. Zhang Fan was always jumping up and down, making connections everywhere.

Seeing that Xia Jingxing had not expressed his position, Shen Beipeng, who was still standing, turned red in the face. He didn't know whether he felt great humiliation or the effect of alcohol.

Moritz's face gradually darkened. They were all so low-profile, so they still refused to let go?

If they insist on holding on, they can also cause trouble for Envision Capital in the United States.

It's just that everyone is open for business, and making money is the first priority. Fighting against each other makes Tiaozi look stupid, and he generally doesn't bother to do it.

As a profit-oriented person, Moritz knew what he really wanted.

Xia Jingxing finally moved.

He picked up the wine glass and said with a smile: "Mr. Shen, I'll give you a drink in return. We all don't know each other. I believe that in the future, we can all view the development of our peers with a more tolerant attitude."

After saying that, Xia Jingxing raised his head and drank the wine in one gulp.

Seeing this, Shen Beipeng squeezed out a smile on his face, and the knot in his heart also dissipated a little.

Moritz said with a smile on his face: "Great! Let's look forward together. There are still a lot of good companies in the distance waiting for us to explore. Let everything in the past go with the wind!"

Xia Jingxing and Shen Beipeng looked at each other and nodded, seemingly letting go of each other.

Since then, another general from the Venture Capital Alliance has defected.