My Age of Investment

A few days later, the Stanford University Auditorium.

Xia Jingxing sat on the stage and shared his way of starting a business with thousands of teachers and students.

“…It’s a high-level project that didn’t come up. When Facebook was first established, it never thought that one day it would serve hundreds of millions of users around the world. At that time, my team and I thought that it would be good to go out of Stanford University and cover campuses across the United States.

But with development and development, Facebook has covered high schools and universities in the five countries of Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Internet users outside the school have protested more than once. Why is such a good website only for students? Too narrow! There is no pattern!

I remember one day when I turned on the computer, there was a line written on the screen: Dude, stop flirting with girls in college, everyone is waiting, open up now! "

Xia Jingxing shrugged, "I was shocked at the time, which bastard hacked into my computer?

I quickly checked the computer, and found that no data was lost, and the computer was not damaged, only this line of words was left.

I was so depressed at the time, Facebook is not open, did the hackers get angry?

Then I have to open up quickly, or they may attack Facebook next time. "

There was a burst of laughter from the audience, and there were envy, admiration, admiration, and fanaticism in the thousands of eyes looking at the figure on the stage...

"Leo, I heard that you and Darren are fellow villagers? Do you know each other?"

Among the two students sitting in the audience, a man with a crew cut about 30 years old asked another boy who was five or six years younger and handsome with an airplane head.

"I don't know, it's a city away!" The boy at the head of the plane replied casually.

"It's a pity! If only you knew Darren, if he waved his hand and invested us eight million dollars, our project would take off immediately."

The flat-headed man's tone was rather regretful, and he kept sighing.

The boy at the head of the plane glanced at his companion and said with a smile: "Don't say 10 million dollars, if you can invest 1 million dollars in us, then there is hope for the project."

"I have to find a chance to get to know Daelen!" the crew cut man said firmly.

The boy at the head of the plane sneered, "How do you find an opportunity? He is not from the same world as us. Didn't you see so many bodyguards guarding him when he walked in? Rush forward recklessly, maybe a gun will hit you in the forehead."

"That's true! You must not be too rash!"

The flat-headed man nodded sharply, and then said, "Hey, by the way, didn't the school issue an announcement? It said it could help outstanding entrepreneurs connect with Envision Capital."

The boy at the head of the plane waved his hand, "I've seen it before. The request is for a local American project or a campus project. Where is our project?"

The flat-headed man sighed, and soon he had to make another plan, "Isn't your father an official? I heard that Dai Lun's father is also a civil servant. Can you let your hometown think of a way?"

Airplane held his chin, thought for a long time, shook his head and said, "No way! This kind of contact is not very good, and it will easily arouse people's resentment."

The flat-headed man let out a long breath, "Then there is no other way!"

The boy at the head of the plane fell silent.

On the stage, Xia Jingxing's sharing also came to an end.

"If you want to start a business on campus, I suggest that you start with small and simple projects, and accumulate a certain amount of funds while training the team.

For example, Facebook’s open platform requires many small games and interesting applications, and Android companies are currently recruiting a large number of development teams. "

Near the end, Xia Jingxing did not forget to advertise, but it did not arouse any disgust from the students, instead the audience erupted into warm applause.

Different from the general chicken soup lectures, Xia Jingxing still shared a lot of entrepreneurial dry goods with the students today, and finally pointed out a clear way for everyone.

Many Stanford students make up their minds, and then form a team to develop products, and then put them on the Facebook platform or Android to try.

Especially Facebook, I heard that many small teams have received a lot of advertising revenue and paid item recharge revenue, making a lot of money, which makes the students envious.

The development of Facebook's open platform is a step behind the open platform of Hainei.

However, due to the large size of Facebook, it has become a trend of catching up from behind. The developer team on the platform has also benefited, and many of them have received venture capital.

Therefore, in the eyes of many people, this is also a good entrepreneurial track.

Accompanied by Principal John, Xia Jingxing left through the back door surrounded by several security personnel.

The boy at the head of the plane was heartbroken, and chased after Xia Jingxing in the direction he left.

The flat-headed man was stunned for a moment, then shouted, "Leo, are you really going?"

The boy at the head of the plane didn't reply, and his steps became faster.

The flat-headed man did not stay out of the matter, and chased after him while shouting.

"Daren, your speech was very good. Old Joe's speech at school was not as popular as yours."

Principal John walked side by side with Xia Jingxing, turned his head to look at the latter, and did not hide the appreciation and love in his eyes.

The student who broke into his office and fooled himself with angel investment has grown into an upstart in Silicon Valley, the richest man in China, and a Wall Street predator...

As an angel investor and director of Facebook, he has also received a lot of praise from the media, such as "legendary investor", "most discerning principal", "Godfather of Silicon Valley" and many other titles.

In fact, John’s so many honors are not all due to investing in Facebook. He is also an early investor and director of Google.

However, as the two companies continued to fight against each other, Principal John has resigned as a director of Google.

Whether it is from the heart or the behavior shown, he is more inclined to support Facebook.

Without him, I would have earned too much!

Xia Jingxing was chatting with Principal John when suddenly the bodyguard next to him moved and surrounded them with their backs turned.

Before the boy at the head of the plane could get close to Xia Jingxing, he was stopped by a bodyguard a few meters away.

"Dude, I mean no harm, I'm a student at Stanford Business School, here's my student ID, look...

I am also the CEO of a game company. I want to introduce my project to Darren. Can you pass me a message? Don't worry, I won't go there, I'll just wait here. "

Both Xia Jingxing and Principal John noticed this young student who rushed over recklessly.

Principal John looked displeased. He had already issued repeated orders not to allow any students to entangle the guests who came to the school to speak, and this kind of thing still happened! And it happened right under his nose, nothing to say, it will be punished severely!

"Daren, let's go, I made you laugh!"

Principal John patted Xia Jingxing on the shoulder, which was embarrassing enough, and he wanted to call Xia Jingxing away as soon as possible.

At this time Xia Jingxing had already recognized the boy at the head of the plane, his fellow from Sichuan and Shu, the one who fed his bag of salt.

He didn't expect to meet Chen Ou here. After a little recollection, he remembered that the other party should be studying for MBA from Singapore.

In his previous life, when he was studying for a master's degree in financial engineering, he met Chen Ou at a school party, and they knew each other.

Later, after Chen Ou's "endorsement for himself" advertisement became popular, he really envied him, who is also an alumnus, a fellow villager, and an entrepreneur.

Although Jumei Huang became popular, the shared power bank project was profitable later on, which made the son of the richest man dare not mention the bet he made a few years ago.

Chen Ou can be regarded as a serial successful entrepreneur.

Xia Jingxing was about to step forward when Chen Ou caught up with a man with a round face and short hair.

Seeing Principal John with unkind eyes and several bodyguards waiting in full force, the man with short hair said anxiously: "It's over, it's over! Leo, you got into trouble this time!"

At this moment, Xia Jingxing approached the two of them with a smile on his face, and asked, "What do you two want from me?"

Then he asked another sentence in Chinese: "Chinese?"

Chen Ou nodded excitedly, and replied in Chinese: "Yes, Mr. Xia, we are Stanford students, and we founded a game battle platform called GGgame, which is the largest game battle platform in Singapore. We hope to get your investment."

"The Haofang online one?"

Chen Ou didn't expect Xia Jingxing to be so approachable, so he gained a lot of confidence and began to explain: "Yes, Haofang Online only serves domestic users. Our goal is to become the largest game company in Southeast Asia."

Regardless of whether it is possible or not, Chen Ou knew that at this time, he had to blow out the cowhide first to attract Xia Jingxing's interest.

"The largest game company in Southeast Asia?"

Xia Jingxing looked at Chen Ou, and then at his companion beside him, feeling quite interesting.

Principal John came up at this time, his serious expression put a lot of pressure on Chen Ou and his companions.

After seeing the battle here, more and more students gathered around.

"I see. Come and find me at the Silicon Valley office of Vision Capital tomorrow, and let's talk."

Xia Jingxing's light words made Chen Ou's brows brighten.

He just wanted to say a few more words with Xia Jingxing, but he turned around and left.

"Leo, are you too courageous? Awesome!" The companion gave Chen Ou a thumbs up, admiring him from the bottom of his heart.

Chen Ou smiled, "Forrest, isn't this your idea? It doesn't matter if it doesn't work.

In school, it's impossible to actually shoot me down with a gun, right? There is a high probability that they will be stopped and not allowed to approach. If it is too great, they will be punished one by one. "

Speaking of this, Chen Ou clenched his fist and waved it, "But as long as there is such a chance, you must hold it tightly and never let it go!"

The crew-cut man with the same name as A-Gump nodded: "Yes! Who knew it was so easy to succeed, Mr. Xia really has no airs at all."

"Wrong! We haven't succeeded yet. Let's hurry up and prepare. We will visit Mr. Xia tomorrow and try to win in one fell swoop."

On the other side, Principal John was asking Xia Jingxing why he was so optimistic about that Chinese student, but Xia Jingxing prevaricated him by saying that he planned to develop overseas games in the Southeast Asian market.

Principal John didn't ask much, and started asking about Enoch's situation.

The child was born at the Stanford Medical Center, and the old man knew very well that Christina had given birth to a son for Xia Jingxing, and even visited her at home.

"It's good that the child is healthy! But are you going to keep hiding it like this? Sooner or later, you won't be able to hide it."

Principal John sighed, "If you had listened to my advice, you wouldn't have had so many troubles at all."

Xia Jingxing smiled and said nothing. At that time, Principal John entrusted his relationship to apply for green cards and naturalization for him and Xiaogou, and he took the trouble to analyze the pros and cons of naturalization and non-naturalization for them.

After he got his green card, the old man urged him to naturalize every three days.

He had no choice but to keep prevaricating the old man until he couldn't go any further and he also returned to the country, and the matter was left alone.

After complaining a few words, Principal John didn't bother to talk any more. He brought Xia Jingxing to his office and chatted about the development of Facebook and YouTube and some problems they faced.

"I'm not worried about Facebook at all, and the countdown to listing has also entered."

Principal John is an expert in the computer industry who underestimated the financial crisis or didn't know much about finance. He didn't notice that the listing plan had almost disappeared.

"What I'm really worried about is the oil pipeline, the loss is too exaggerated!"

Speaking of this, Principal John seemed worried: "The more than 600 million US dollars invested by Microsoft last year has already been burned. Even if it survives this year, it will have to raise a round of financing next year. Advertising alone Points of income simply can not fill the horror of bandwidth consumption.

Taking into account the growth rate of users and the increase in the number and duration of videos, the scale of financing next year must be more than one billion US dollars.

A video website that has lost nearly one billion US dollars, the profit is nowhere in sight, and the loss is getting bigger and bigger. Who is willing to invest more than one billion US dollars? "

"Microsoft!"

Xia Jingxing said with a smile, "They have the priority to invest in the B round of financing."

Principal John shook his head: "I think most of them will give up their investment rights. Don't expect them to come to fight the fire, or they may take advantage of the fire to rob."

Xia Jingxing nodded slightly, looking thoughtful.

Principal John sighed, "You have a lot of ideas, so hurry up and find a way to increase the attractiveness of the oil pipeline to capital, otherwise this capital game will not be able to continue."

Xia Jingxing murmured in his heart, I have a hammer method, a video website with 500 million registered users, has as many as 300 to 400 million monthly active users, and every day users watch a total of more than 100 million hours of video content.

Hearing these data, the minds of people in the industry immediately became big.

To put it simply, video websites cannot be played by start-up companies. They can only become vassals of giants, or better known as one of the ecology.

"Youtube has made a prediction that it will be able to run past the break-even line in two or three years."

Principal John shook his head and laughed, "You'd better tell the capital. I don't believe it anyway. The growth rate of advertising business can't keep up with the growth rate of users and bandwidth."

Xia Jingxing thought for a while and said, "I noticed a trend in the data transmission mode of the global Internet.

The traditional model is a pyramid structure, with small ISP service providers at the bottom connecting up step by step, and transcontinental telecom operators at the top.

In the future, the world's top dozens of websites may account for 30% of the entire Internet traffic, each using their own data centers and transmission pipelines.

As far as I know, Google is investing heavily in "dark fiber". "

"Dark fiber?"

Old man John murmured, he was no stranger to this thing, referring to the idle optical cables that had been laid but not yet put into use.

In many cases, communication companies will lay more optical fibers than they need to meet future needs, and at the same time avoid the high cost of repeated optical fiber laying.

Dark optical fibers can be rented or sold to individuals or other companies to build edge computer rooms, and to use edge computing and deployment of some of their own servers.

In this case, for example, the user is a user of a broadband operator, and the broadband operator has signed a peering agreement with YouTube, which is also called bandwidth exchange.

Then the user's access request to YouTube will be routed to the edge computer room deployed in City A, and then transmitted on the intranet of YouTube, which greatly saves the number of network routing times and improves the access speed.

However, Youtube will not pay the bandwidth fee to the operator in City A for this purpose-even though it should have paid, and it will be mutually exempted after signing the peer-to-peer agreement.

Principal John understood Xia Jingxing's method after a little thought, and said with a frown, "You want the oil pipe to invest in dark optical fibers, and then use these optical fiber resources to sign bandwidth exchange agreements with other ISP service providers, and other access providers can use the oil pipe for free. fiber optic network, Youtube can also use other people’s fiber optic network for free.

In this way, there is almost no broadband cost for YouTube, and all costs are only the depreciation of optical fibers and routers. "

Xia Jingxing smiled, as expected of someone who will win the Turing Award in the future, he figured it out so quickly.

"Yes, we invest in the network infrastructure ourselves. In the long run, it will definitely make a profit."

Principal John said: "You have to spend a lot of money at one time, and you don't have that much money in your account, unless there is another round of financing."

Xia Jingxing nodded lightly, "I know that, Facebook can also join this plan and share the cost of network infrastructure construction with YouTube."

Principal John nodded, "This is also a way. There is no ISP middleman to make the difference, and it will definitely save a lot of bandwidth consumption costs."

Xia Jingxing smiled, Google isn't stupid, it would do business at a loss?

In fact, this is also the password for Youtube to achieve profitability. The bandwidth cost is really controlled. Otherwise, can it be so generous that the majority of advertisements are given to video bloggers?

Because Google has invested so much in dark fiber, some media have even begun to question whether Google wants to hijack the Internet on public rights grounds.

In fact, Google has not threatened operators with this stuff.

In France, there has been a problem that broadband users across the country have slowed down when accessing YouTube, because all operators in France have not signed a bandwidth exchange agreement with Google.

French telecommunications operators believe that if French users want to access Youtube faster, then Google has to rent French broadband from them.

To put it bluntly, the French couldn't understand Google's prostitution and bullying attitude, and they joined forces to give Google a little color.

As a result, Google did not bow its head at all, and launched a tool to rate ISP services, which is to "test how the user's home network accesses the oil pipe."

If the test results are not good, Youtube will explain to the user in detail that this is mainly the fault of the operator, and suggest that the user change to an operator that supports Google's bandwidth exchange protocol.

Therefore, the European Union fined Google really did not wrong this man. This is not an abuse of market dominance, what is it?

He remembered that in his previous life, after the business of Google became bigger, he directly launched a Google Fiber plan, which provided ultra-high-speed broadband up to 1Gbps per second. Later, he also launched TV and Internet service packages for individual users in the community, and cooperated with major telecom operators. Merchants grab business with great vigor.

Principal John pondered for a moment, then raised his head and said, "Investigate first, and then come up with a plan to discuss and verify. What do you think?"

Xia Jingxing nodded, "Okay, let's do this!"