Reborn 2005: The Internet Myth

The entire American League is in the joyful atmosphere of Thanksgiving.

Wang Zheng is no exception.

Gabriel is not an inexperienced girl. In contrast, she has many more tricks than Wang Zheng.

As for feelings, status, etc., no one mentioned it, and no one wanted to mention it.

Gabriel made it very clear when he came that he was just here for a vacation.

Besides, we are still colleagues and partners, and all we pursue is physical pleasure.

We have known each other for less than two months, and we are busy with work most of the time. Wang Zheng himself doesn’t believe in love.

Not to mention the 26-year-old Gabriel.

Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is the famous "Black Friday".

Similar to Double Eleven in the future, this day is Midland’s biggest shopping day. Most shopping malls and supermarkets will offer deep discounts, so Midland people are used to making big purchases on this day.

Wang Zheng and Gabriel didn't have much time to go shopping, so they had already arrived at QuickPass, staring at the event.

In order to increase the customer base of Quick Pass, Gabriel and Dickens have spent a lot of effort during this period, especially by integrating Quick Pass payment into two heavyweight online malls, Walmart and Amazon.

Although Wal-Mart is Midland's largest offline supermarket, it also has an online business, but it has never been its focus of development.

Amazon previously only accepted PayPal for payment, but this time it can access Quick Pass. The relationship between speed and payment is on the one hand, and Quick Pass has also paid a heavy price.

A week ago, advertisements for Quick Pass discounts began to be advertised all over the place. Anyone who uses Quick Pass to make purchases at Walmart and Amazon today can get an additional 1% to 2% discount, and also have the opportunity to get free orders.

These discounts are paid for by Quick Pass, and the fundamental purpose is to expand the number of users.

Currently, there are only two Midland payment platforms, PayPal and QuickPass.

PayPal is unwilling to play this money-burning game because it is backed by eBay and has no other profitable business.

Quick Pass is different. It has financial management and insurance businesses. The more customers it has, the higher the value of Quick Pass.

Therefore, the money was not spent very much, but the effect was good enough.

I stayed in the company until four o'clock in the afternoon, and my turnover from Quick Pass alone reached 400 million US dollars.

This was only 2006, and e-commerce had not yet reached its peak.

"It's a pity that e-commerce can't be launched for the time being."

Wang Zheng felt a little regretful that things were better in China, as Taobei was not yet fully mature, and it was not too difficult to make e-commerce a reality if we put some effort into fighting price wars.

But it's different abroad. Whether it's eBay or Amazon, they are all big mountains blocking the doorstep. The model is already very mature, unless we find another way.

Moreover, offline department stores and supermarkets such as Wal-Mart and Macy's are also eyeing the online business. Without a good foundation, entering this industry rashly is simply courting death.

Gabriel is very satisfied with today's results, with more than six million newly bound credit cards.

Hearing Wang Zheng's regret, he smiled and said: "Justin, you have been successful enough in online social networking, but now doing e-commerce is not a good choice."

Wang Zheng knew very well that his main purpose in the past two years was to accumulate capital to the greatest extent in order to achieve his goals during the financial crisis.

Now when we are engaged in e-commerce, it is clear that we have to compete with established Internet e-commerce companies such as Amazon and eBay. This is not called accumulating capital, but burning money.

There is a serious conflict with his plan.

However, he still wanted to hear Gabriel's opinion, so he asked: "What do you think?"

Gabriel immediately explained: "The essence of an e-commerce platform is to provide a channel for selling products. Its lifeblood lies in the logistics system. How to safely and quickly deliver goods to customers determines its upper limit. Instead of investing a lot at this time

If we don’t have enough money to build an e-commerce platform, we might as well start developing the logistics system.”

Waving his fist, Gabriel said firmly: "Lay a solid foundation and hit the target with one blow."

It is indeed a family-style elite education that has been passed down for a long time.

Being able to see at a glance the crux behind the prosperous e-commerce industry in 2006, Gabriel was already considered a very successful business tycoon.

After all, there are very few companies in the world that can clearly see this problem and implement it.

Amazon is the fastest in the logistics industry, so it can be proud of itself.

Only by insisting on logistics can JD.com be able to compete with Taobei.

However, logistics is not something you can just do if you want to.

Smart warehousing and sorting are a huge expense, followed by expansion of transportation capacity.

While airplanes and trucks are indispensable, it is also a labor-intensive industry that requires a large amount of human resources.

Unlike Daxia, the American League's labor costs are not even a little bit high.

Fortunately, although investing in logistics also costs money, it can at least be implemented.

Investing in e-commerce platforms is simply burning the earth.

After discussing Midland's logistics industry with Gabriel for a while, Wang Zheng saw that the Quick Pass situation was stable, so he withdrew directly.

After all, Ultron has now built 18 cloud computing centers in Europe and the United States. Although the resources allocated to QuickPass are only one-fifth, it is enough to cope with the current situation.

Taking advantage of the holidays and having plenty of funds on hand, Wang Zheng originally planned to spend money.

Of the 200 million raised by WeChat, 120 million was withdrawn by the parent company Phil International.

In addition to 20 million used to establish two materials laboratories with Stanford, 30 million of it has been planned to increase capital of PA Semi. While increasing its own shares, the money will be used for the research and development and tape-out expenses of new chips.

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The remaining funds, except for a small portion as emergency funds, will all be used for his acquisition.

His target was a company based in Corning, New York, and a long-gone project.

Its name is Corning Gorilla Glass.

Corning is an old company with a long history, having been established in the mid-18th century.

If smartphones were not so popular in the future, and the Gorilla Glass covers it produces are essential for high-end mobile phones, I am afraid most people would not know the existence of this company.

Everyone knows that Edison invented the electric light, but few people know that the glass ball outside the light bulb was invented by Corning.

In the last century, televisions using picture tube technology became very popular. This picture tube was invented by Corning Company.

The broadband optical fiber now used in every household was invented by this company in the 1870s.

There is also a three-way catalytic converter that is essential for car users. Most domestically produced cars use Corning’s technology.

In addition to being widely used in televisions and communications, this company's glass products are also used in aerospace, automotive and medical fields. It can be said to be unique in this industry.

Facing such a behemoth, Wang Zheng's $80 million is undoubtedly a drop in the bucket.

Of course, he's not stupid enough to come and buy someone's entire company.

His goal is just to master the glass manufacturing process, which is the outermost piece of glass for the future iPhone 4.

According to Jobs' biography, the glass cover called "Gorilla" is based on a glass formula that Corning has kept dusty for decades.

It is precisely because of Apple's leadership and the superior performance of Gorilla Glass that it has become the best choice for future screen protection covers and has endured for more than ten years.

Now, iPhone3 has not yet been released, Corning may not have discovered the importance of this technology.

Wang Zheng planned to steal a handful of chickens and buy them in advance. Whether he would use them later or directly invest in a glass cover factory, it would be a good choice.