Rebirth of the Internet Overlord

{Time: July 7-July 12, 2004}

{Location: United States-California Flower Planting-Qiantang Peiping}

When we returned to our residence in Mountain View City on this day, it was already 18:00 in the evening. As soon as we entered the door, everyone was hungry and walked to the living room. There was a mess there that had not been cleaned up before leaving, and everyone could review the information.

Today's unexpected harvest.

Before everyone could sit down, Li Ying spoke first, "We will pay 600 million in the first installment to purchase 50% of the equity of Yahoo Flowers, and the second and third installments will be divided into two installments to purchase 25% of the remaining shares. In the long run, Yahoo!

The total investment in this acquisition of Zhonghua will exceed our current estimate of US$1.5 billion."

"This is not a problem," Ning Zi looked at Li Ying silently and shook his head. "Although in the long run, we will pay more to repurchase the shares of Yahoo Flowers in the next few years, the value in my heart is

The value of the traffic we can get now is greater than the extra money we need to pay in the future.”

"Are you considering Bing's recent development?" Li Ying tilted her head slightly.

Ning Zimo nodded again, "Yes, the cost of acquiring traffic was relatively low in the early days of the Internet. We are committed to investing 200 million in acquiring traffic through Bing and Google. It is definitely worth the money."

During the negotiations with Yahoo, Ning Zimo promptly noticed the "hatred" of Yahoo! towards Google and promptly adjusted the negotiation strategy. This resulted in the original estimate of 1.5 billion to acquire Yahoo Planting Flowers, which was temporarily changed to 600 million to acquire 50% and deliver

Decision-making rights, the remaining 50% can be purchased within four years.

As a result, the initial value paid for the acquisition of Yahoo Flowers is much less, but after Yahoo Flowers is transferred to Emperor Penguin, it is bound to become profitable under the leadership of Ning Zimo. Then in the next four years, the remaining 50% of the value will definitely

More than 600 million, even higher than 900 million or more.

But when Ning Zimo decided on the strategy on the spot, he felt that this excess support was not a problem, because the Internet's early traffic pool cannot be measured by the extra money that needs to be paid later.

In the previous life, when BAT dominated the world, it was difficult for other companies to create new traffic pools. This was the main reason why it was difficult to change the pattern after the traffic pool was occupied by BAT in the early days.

If the emergence of mobile Internet had not redefined the definition of traffic pool, BAT would have been almost insurmountable in the Internet era. This is also the main reason why the four major portals started so early, but were unable to change the Internet pattern before the mobile Internet era.

Therefore, the same logic can be applied to bing.

Originally, as early as February this year, Bing spent 100 million US dollars to purchase part of Yahoo's traffic during the blank period of search technology. However, at that time, the right to use this part of the traffic could only guarantee Bing's use until September 2004.

However, after Yahoo's acquisition method was changed to segmented purchases, Ning Zimo promised to invest an additional US$200 million in Bing's traffic. This operation allowed Yahoo to support more traffic to Bing and import this traffic into

The time was extended to February 2005.

It seems that the investment in 5 months was more than double that of the original 7 months, but Jerry Yang also promised that Yahoo would invest more traffic into Bing to continue importing it. Since then, Bing will start from the day it lands in the United States.

Get a full year of traffic injection time.

In the remaining time, Ning Zimo and Lu Qi can plan carefully how to digest the traffic that Yahoo imports from Bing. No matter what, Bing can increase its advertising revenue from 80 million US dollars per month within this year.

Let’s make $200 million a month!

It has to be said that compared to investing a lot of money in the future to jointly seize the market with Yahoo and Google, Ning Zimo is more optimistic about taking advantage of Yahoo to face Google directly.

Besides, the method of using funds to get up early in exchange for traffic has been used by Ning Zimo as early as the Skype era. Bandwidth, which competed with Skype at that time, was due to Skype's behavior of purchasing large amounts of traffic in the early days, resulting in it even occupying the second place.

The dilemma of reaching 10% share of the voip market.

Gmail, LinkedIn, myspace, these email, professional social and personal social platforms actually all use the same promotion strategy. The growth of the Internet user base has only been so much in recent years. Whoever faces customers earlier will invest more.

Whoever attracts new users will establish user habits and customer stickiness earlier!

"...After analyzing this with you, do you think the same method used on Skype, Gmail, LinkedIn and MySpace is worth Bing's investment in replicating again?" Ning Zimo said with a smile.

???

Dong Qianqian looked at the people around her dullly, and found that the strategy of "seizing market opportunities and buying traffic as early as possible" explained by the first boss just now seemed to be understood only on the face of the second boss.

"With your explanation, I can now understand why you changed your acquisition strategy this afternoon." Li Ying thought for a while and nodded slowly, "I know you must have specific ideas, but I don't know your logic.

It’s such a system.”

After a pause, Li Ying added, "It's just that there is a competitive relationship between Bing and Yahoo search engines. Even if Bing can get support from Yahoo in February next year, it will be limited support. After February next year, Bing will face

To the more powerful Yahoo. After all, you have to open Bing’s leading search engine technology to Yahoo.”

"The key technology of a search engine is not the search itself, but the application of the database." Ning Zimo shook his head nonchalantly and said, "Yahoo will not let Bing lose any leading edge just because it has learned Bing's search technology.

.

Besides, there is an entire ecosystem behind Bing search. After I put all other layouts in place this year, and when we fully launch the Bing ecosystem in 2006, you will see what dimensionality reduction is called."

Li Ying looked at him with an indifferent expression. This emotionless expression made Ning Zimo feel bored.

Shrugging, Ning Zimo said indifferently, "That's the tone. I'll ask Jerry for some benefits tomorrow. After all, we are serving as a vanguard for Yahoo. What if there are no benefits?"

The first boss and the second boss decided the tone with just a word in front of the three of them. Luo Shuohan and Zhang Miaoying didn't say much but felt a lot more relaxed. But when Dong Qianqian saw the scene in front of her, she felt that she was worthy of being a secretary.

Too incompetent.

Although she had gradually found her own value when she was at Emperor Penguin, when she actually participated in high-end meetings, she realized that there was still so much to learn!

Otherwise, when she faces a scene like today in the future, she will definitely be like today, with Monk Zhang Er scratching his head.

***+***

On the morning of July 12, when Ma Yun walked into Ali Baba Company but had not yet reached her office, she saw Cai Chongxin, who was usually extremely calm, walking towards him in high spirits.

Seeing the smile on his lips, Ma Yun simply stopped and stood there waiting for him.

There was a distance of about ten meters, and Cai Chongxin only took 10 steps to get closer.

When he was one step away, Ma Yun smiled and said, "I heard magpies chirping when I went out today. Now I see you walking in the wind. This must be some happy event."

"Magpie? There are only a few trees in the community where you live. How can there be magpies?" Cai Chongxin curled his lips and said, "I believed you, you idiot."

"Hey, why did you learn all of Ning Zimo's tricks?" Ma Yun shook her head helplessly, "Zimo's influence is too great. You just met him a few times and you imitated him. But why?

I didn’t learn anything good.”

"You can pull it off, this sentence is not something you have often used on us since you learned it from him." Cai Chongxin chuckled, turned serious and asked, "Did you read the news before going out today?"

"I left in a hurry today and didn't have time to see it."

"Haha...you talk about that internet rookie every now and then, but you don't even pay attention to his latest news?"

"What's wrong?"

While talking, Cai Chongxin followed Ma Yun into the office. Before Ma Yun could sit down, Cai Chongxin helped him turn on the computer. The first thing he did after entering the Windows interface was to directly open the American Yahoo website.

Then he pointed to the news item highlighted in red and bold, "Here, you can read it yourself."

Ma Yun curiously followed Cai Chongxin's finger, and when his fingertips settled on it, Ma Yun saw an amazing piece of news!

"For US$1.2 billion, Yahoo's investment changed hands."

Seeing the words "Yahoo Planting Flowers", Ma Yun felt her heart beat faster. Only then did he realize why he was so excited when he met Cai Chongxin. It turned out that he had known the good news early!

Ma Yun quickly picked up the mouse and clicked in. Although it was in English, the amount of vocabulary was not a small case for a professional English teacher like him!

"At 11 a.m. on July 12, Yahoo America officially announced that Yahoo America and Emperor Penguin from Flower Planting have officially reached an acquisition agreement. Emperor Penguin Company of Flower Planting will invest US$1.2 billion to fully acquire all shares of Yahoo Flower Planting, a subsidiary of Yahoo America.

The final result of this acquisition will be reached within 2 weeks. After 2 weeks, Emperor Penguin will complete 50% of the transaction. The decision-making power corresponding to the remaining 50% equity will be handed over to Yahoo USA after the first payment of funds is received.

To Emperor Penguin…”

Seeing this, Ma Yun turned to look at Cai Chongxin.

After looking at his smiling face for a long time, Ma Yun murmured, "He really bought Yahoo Flowers."

"Yeah, I didn't expect him to realize it so soon." Cai Chongxin shook his head, then smiled and said, "Didn't you agree to help Sun Tongyu solve the search technology problem? Didn't Zimo say that he would be there?

Will Ali invest in both capital and technology within next year? No, the search technology is available now."

"But I didn't expect him to realize it so quickly."

"I didn't expect that either."

Ma Yun looked at Cai Chongxin shrugging his shoulders and spreading his hands, and suddenly remembered the person who had done this action in front of him before.

Now that man is far away on the other side of the ocean, and he has fulfilled the promise he made to him early.

Thinking of this, Ma Yun took out her phone from her bag and was about to dial, but was stopped by Cai Chongxin.

"Our morning, it's still early morning in the United States."

"Oh... yes." Ma Yun dropped her arms in a daze.

"Just feel relieved after hearing this news. Let him arrange the rest." Cai Chongxin looked at Ma Yun and smiled, "Anyway, you also know that he is a person with plans."

…

Outside the office of the CEO of Yahoo Flower Planting in Peking, the secretary heard a series of sounds that seemed like glass breaking in the room early in the morning.

She didn't know what happened inside, and she didn't dare to ask. But she knew that after Yahoo Flower changed hands, it seemed to have the greatest impact on the person in the room.

But after thinking for a long time, she felt that the question of where to go from now on is not just something that the person inside has to face, right?