Rebirth of the Internet Overlord

0067. Thunder rolling

January 1, 2002, was the day that eBay had defined before Christmas last year to launch a major counterattack against PayPal.

But the scene of unity that was supposed to appear on eBay was unexpectedly shrouded in dark clouds.

Every manager walking towards the large conference room had a sad look on his face. Even two people walking side by side had nothing to talk about. Each one of them was like a walking zombie, and deathly silence spread around them.

Sitting in the office area near the conference room, a beautiful woman who had just joined the job was quite confused when she saw this scene. She turned to another colleague who was leading her and asked in a low voice, "The last meeting before Christmas last year.

Aren’t the bosses arrogant? What happened today?”

What surprised her was that her colleague who had been kind to her recently just stared at her without saying a word. So she could only return to her seat with a smile and return to her work state. She was just curious like a cat's paw.

In general, it kept tugging at her heartstrings.

Such sentiments are constantly being conveyed in various work areas of eBay. Perhaps, changes can only be made after the results of the senior executives' meeting emerge.

…

When the first executive who opened the door unexpectedly discovered that the big boss, who would usually step in through the door, was already sitting in the top position, he was stunned for a moment, and then hurriedly walked towards his seat.

This is true for the second and third people.

The last person who came in felt his scalp numb even more when he saw all the eyes looking at him.

what happened,

How could it be so depressing?

With such doubts, the man sat down in his seat, looked at his nose and heart, and waited for the situation to develop.

After the clock on the wall finally reached the scheduled time of the meeting, I finally heard a voice from the top of the conference room.

"Our eBay is a place where many elites from Wall Street and Silicon Valley have gathered together. In the category department alone, we have 27 department managers. Together with various other middle-level managers, there are more than 60 people here."

As Meg Whitman spoke, her gaze swept across every face present. Everywhere she glanced with her burning eyes, the heads that were not as high as usual were lowered a bit.

Whitman shook his head helplessly and motioned for the screen to be replaced with a new piece of content. There was a big blue logo there.

Pointing to the logo, Whitman said, "Paypal, this company has only grown to more than 400 employees this year. The middle management and senior management have less than 10 people in total. We are a company with five times the number of employees."

Its company has 8 times the number of managers.

But why didn’t we defeat it last year? We couldn’t even defeat its [Trading Assistant], which was launched quietly? Even last year, our [Store Plan] only appeared for one day and was lost to the public.”

Whitman paused, before she finished speaking, "At the end of last year, the [checkout] that we united before Christmas was not even available. It was still in our computers, so we had to give them an upgraded version.

The [Trading Assistant] was defeated.

I would like to ask, so many of us, have we ever thought about why we, eBay, are repeatedly placed in this small company with less than 1/5 of our employees and less than 1/8 of our management?"

Whitman glanced around again and found that the people sitting on both sides of the conference table were frozen and motionless. Seeing this lifeless scene that was completely opposite to that before Christmas, Whitman could only sigh in his heart.

She also knew that she couldn't blame them entirely. She still had to make the final decision on the company's important decisions.

But Whitman really couldn’t figure out how Paypal, which had less than 200 people at the beginning of the year, had the energy to develop the [Transaction Assistant] software. They hid it for almost half a year until they updated it with new content this Christmas.

, only then did eBay realize that it was actually a software owned by Paypal.

Look at what [Transaction Assistant] has done, it actually allows its eBay sellers to publish products to the Amazon website through simple functions set up by [Transaction Assistant].

You must know that Amazon is a B2C platform that PayPal once disdained. Amazon started selling books and did not have much ability to integrate the product supply chain. But as long as the [Transaction Assistant] helped it open this gap, Amazon almost created more and more out of thin air.

Same product supply chain as eBay.

Even if it is not an absolute advantage in B2B supply, as long as it persists in this way, all of eBay's original advantages over Amazon will soon be wiped out with the development of [Transaction Assistant].

At that time, Amazon still had its original advantage in the book category, so could eBay still dominate the e-commerce leader's position?

Meg Whitman knew it better than anyone.

It can’t!

eBay cannot continue to maintain its advantage under such circumstances!

Therefore, today's meeting was originally just a routine launch and follow-up of the [Payment Desk] product, but now it has to be disrupted by the [Transaction Assistant] operation. This must be said to be because of Paypal's less than 10 senior executives.

The team is indeed talented, and they have gained enough space by winning more and less.

[Transaction Assistant] disrupts eBay's existing layout, and [Paypal International Payment Station] puts aside its dependence on eBay to tap more market space.

Whitman is now very sure that if eBay does not face up to the power of PayPal and continues to go down the road, PayPal will develop to an unpredictably powerful level!

At that time, even the size of eBay could not compare with it!

Taking a long breath, Whitman smoothed out the breath that had just been confused by his thoughts and continued:

"We have to make changes, and we cannot let this situation continue to be passive. We will completely cancel all plans for the [Payment Desk], and then adjust the internal rating of Paypal. At the beginning of the year, all our plans will need to be adjusted, and the most important task is

Just buy PayPal!”

Whitman's last words were like a bomb dropped in a pond, almost causing a stir in the conference room.

But within three seconds of this commotion, it quieted down again under Whitman's glance.

Looking at the stares from everyone, Whitman's eyebrows twitched. She knew what those guys were thinking. But did they know how cunning and dangerous the opponents they faced were?

"Throw away our proud assumptions. We think we are the proud sons of Wall Street or Silicon Valley. Little do we know that our opponents after surviving the Internet bubble are all stronger. If we had not taken off our suits and fought with our opponents in the mud

If we have the courage to fight hand-to-hand, sooner or later we will be defeated by our pride!"

Whitman held his head high, staring at the imaginary opponent in front of him, and said excitedly, "This time we can't defeat the opponent with our strength, but we still have some advantages. We will switch the battlefield and use money to defeat the opponent."

them!

So, I declare.

First, withdraw the team that negotiated with Wells Fargo to repurchase [Billpoint], and incorporate all the funds originally planned to repurchase [Billpoint] into the plan to acquire Paypal.

Second, form a team to negotiate the acquisition with Paypal and go all out to win Paypal. I will personally lead this acquisition team.

Third, at all costs, contact the website owner who changed his name from ebayswindler to ebaysecurity."

Whitman paused and continued amidst everyone's surprise, "Last time, we missed it at a price of 1 million. But from the [Transaction Assistant] I saw more possibilities for ebaysecurity. You all have to start from [Transaction Assistant]

We see the value of professional traffic from non-e-commerce platforms in the evolution of Transaction Assistant.

We cannot let potential dangers like [Trading Assistant] happen again.

So, take down ebaysecurity at all costs!”

Whitman's powerful voice was like thunder that struck everyone's heart, making many eBay executives finally come to their senses.

Seeing everyone nodding involuntarily, Whitman nodded silently and raised his voice again:

"Gentlemen, I believe we can win another battlefield through capital operation.

But please remember, today we have indeed lost on the frontal battlefield to Paypal, a company that has taken a different approach.

I want you, us, all of us to remember this failure, and from today on, get rid of the burden of the so-called high-end, the so-called proud man of heaven! Next time, when such an opponent appears.

Even if we jump into the mud, we must be able to use our fists and kicks to fight back and defeat them!"

In the manner of a strong woman, Whitman waved her fist.

This unnatural picture shocked the visual nerves of eBay senior officials.

They always felt a little aggrieved in their hearts, but just the discomfort in their aura made a fire ignite in their chests.

Sooner or later, that fire must find a place to vent.

I just don’t know,

when will it be,

Who will it be directed at?

…

Ning Zimo stood up and felt that the environment and equipment of this new office were quite good.

The fanatics pouring into Chen Shijun's Zerg base on the screen flooded him like a tide.

He glanced at the defeated generals sitting on the other side with their heads down.