Reinventing the Millennium

Fang Zhuo concluded his friendly visit to Dangdang as soon as he arrived in the capital.

After arriving in the capital, we gathered a table at night.

Wang Yan from Sina, Lao Xiong from IDG, Wang Xing from the school, and Qingzi from Dangdang all sent text messages.

It's a pity that Qingzi doesn't want to come.

Xiong Xiaoge only found out the purpose of Mr. Fang’s trip to Beijing after chatting for a while about short selling Lehman. When he heard that he had the nerve to send a text message to Li Guoqing, he felt ashamed and said: “You are really good at it, Mr. Li. You must be furious about the shares, you can really send text messages..."

"Public is public, private is private. I don't hold grudges. It's just a meal." Fang Zhuo said nonchalantly, "If he is willing to come, it will be a good time to finalize the day's affairs. Oh, Qingzi may not want to come out, but His face was scratched by his wife, so he must know that there are many people here."

Xiong Xiaoge: "..."

Wang Yan: "..."

Wang Xing: "..."

Originally, Mr. Fang only described in two sentences a straightforward description of a share buyback that fulfilled a bet, but with the short words "He was scratched on the face by his wife", the flavor of grudges and hatred came out a little bit.

Xiong Xiaoge has always understood Mr. Fang’s style of doing things, but he was obsessed with the Lehman scandal. He reacted to this and sighed without even asking: "Co-authoring is not a serious discussion. Is this coming to collect debts? The couple are together." It’s not easy to run a business, so don’t mix up couples..."

Fang Zhuo was about to speak, but suddenly fell silent. The direction of the relationship between the couple cannot be decided by themselves.

He took a sip of wine, shook his head and said: "I'm not good at door-to-door things. I've always been door-kicked before. If Dangdang hadn't suddenly chosen the right opportunity to grab the land that Tesco had negotiated with, I would have been a little angry. I'm too lazy to look for Qingzi. This time I came to the capital mainly to check out the situation on Sina and the school."

Xiong Xiaoge didn't mind being led by Mr. Fang, she smiled and raised her glass: "Come, let's drink to Mr. Fang's dragon slayer who finally became a dragon, oh, no, let's drink to Mr. Fang's becoming a more ferocious dragon. "

He drank a glass of wine jokingly.

Wang Xing poured wine for everyone and refilled it. After sitting down, he was thinking about things in his own school.

Wang Yan asked at this time: "Can the couple buy it back at a premium? The premium is quite a lot."

To be fair, considering the current situation of Dangdang and the development prospects of e-commerce, it should be reliable to sell 18% of the shares from the initial US$11 million to the current US$30 million+.

A slight premium, maybe US$40 million would be fine.

But at $66 million, the premium is a bit serious.

Fang Zhuo took a bite of the food, looked at Xiong Xiaoge, and asked, "Old Xiong, what do you think?"

Xiong Xiaoge said without hesitation: "I will definitely buy it."

He explained the reason in the questioning eyes of the other two: "Although Dangdang is a mom-and-pop shop, although Mr. Li is... constrained by Mr. Yu from time to time, it may not be appropriate to say this, but that's what I mean, but in general, Among the two, Mr. Li is still the one who decides on Dangdang’s development strategy.”

"Mr. Li, or rather, the two of them, do great things without sacrificing their own lives. When Mr. Fang wanted to push them to move forward quickly, they were suspicious and unwilling."

"Now that I see that Tesco can really develop rapidly in B2C, it has quickly accelerated its pace. Not to mention Tongzhou, I heard that Wuxi is also spending huge sums of money to build a logistics base. It is hard to explain in words."

IDG is also a shareholder of Dangdang, earlier than Yike Investment, but it does not hold a lot of shares.

Wang Xing asked: "Mr. Xiong, won't IDG's shares be sold?"

"Even if there are many problems, I think Dangdang can still go public. I just regret that Dangdang could have gone to two levels." Xiong Xiaoge said regretfully, "Dangdang initially wanted to compete with Amazon. Later, I I found out that he was only targeting Amazon China.”

There is no need to go into detail about what Amazon China is like, it is completely incomparable to Amazon.

Xiong Xiaoge clinked the cup with Wang Xing and said with a smile: "66 million US dollars, more or less, only 500 million Huaxia coins, whether they are looking for other investment institutions or using their own equity to bank If you pledge money, you can get the money, but you may be a little nervous."

"With the prospect of going public, I'm afraid Mr. Li and Mr. Yu have long been annoyed by the other's shareholding. In addition, there is a substantial failure of the bet. This premium can be eaten or not. Gotta eat.”

Fang Zhuo listened to Lao Xiong's eloquent talk and praised: "Look, with just a few words, he is indeed the best investor in the country. His agility is unmatched by many people. Investing In the end, it’s about investing in people, and people who don’t understand how to invest.”

Xiong Xiaoge said modestly: "It's all hard work. It's not easy to make a little money."

The two clinked their glasses. Excellent investors and excellent entrepreneurs sharpen each other.

Wang Yan put down the cell phone on which he had just replied to a text message and said with a smile: "If this matter is spread today, I don't know how it will be gossiped about again in the future."

"The office door was closed when I came. Mr. Lei from Jinshan was also there. He probably wouldn't spread the rumors." Fang Zhuo shook his head slightly and looked at the people at the table. "I think Mr. Wang is depressed." He didn't say anything, and Brother Wang was only thinking about Sina."

When he saw Old Bear, he was suddenly startled: "Old Bear, huh? Old Bear, what's in your eyes?"

Xiong Xiaoge put away her eyes. When it comes to being smart, who can be smarter than Mr. Fang? I just thought about whether there could be any questions about Dangdang betting on Zhihu.

"Don't be a big talker. The relationship between Qingzi and I is just business, there is no personal grudge." Fang Zhuo emphasized.

Xiong Xiaoge nodded. If relevant questions appear on Zhihu, then who is not on official business?

It's not about gossip, it's just about shareholdings between competitors.

A few people had another round of drinks and chatted about Lehman and Tesco.

The final topic finally turned to the school network.

Wang Yan took Sina's senior management and Mr. Fang for a tour of Silicon Valley before. After looking at the user ecology of American social networks, he then looked back at the situation in China and realized something, and vaguely unified his understanding.

The real-name system is very important for acquaintance social ecology such as Xiaonei.com, and is the basis for the latter to maintain vitality and development.

However, the real-name system may not be suitable for the current development of the Internet in China. It can become a clean stream, but it is difficult to become a torrent sweeping the Internet.

This judgment was discussed several times after Sina's senior executives returned to China, and they increasingly felt that social networks should develop along the way.

If the potential of socializing with acquaintances is 40 points, then the potential of socializing with strangers is 80 points. Of course, the former can also create products based on the Internet, but the latter can break into a new world.

Especially when there is a traffic giant nearby who is eyeing him.

However, the considerations of Sina's top management have not yet been shared with Wang Xing. Judgment is judgment and reality is reality. We can still see how the battle is going and learn more from it.

When Wang Xing talked about the competition between the school network and QQ alumni, he no longer remained silent, but became talkative.

He talked about the changes from Penguin that everyone is paying close attention to. That is, when Lehman announced its short position on Yike a few days ago, QQ alumni began to import Penguin traffic.

"QQ alumni import traffic and weaken the real-name verification level, which actually affects the atmosphere of the website."

"Whether QQ alumni or campus network, the future development must be a larger pool, not just limited to the campus."

"Since QQ alumni have chosen to import Penguin's huge traffic, they are still swimming in the small pool on campus. I think they may also be observing, not only to observe the adaptation of QQ alumni, but also to see what our next step will be."

Fang Zhuo drank wine and heard what Wang Xing meant, and smiled: "Penguin is not sure, so even if there is a big traffic killer, he would rather wander around the campus ecology, and then see how the competitors move forward, and finally follow MicroPort new?"

Wang Xing mused: "Maybe my villain's heart has judged the gentleman's heart."

They may have their own strategic plans, so how could they not have the courage to take a step forward?

"If you are not a gentleman, you will know after taking a step forward on the school network." Fang Zhuo smiled slightly, "It is also time to roll out the social network to the office."

This is the originally planned step, to get out of the campus, enter the office, and then further socialize with everyone. The last step is the most difficult because there is the adaptation of the real-name system. Relatively speaking, the narrow space of the campus + office is conducive to the use of the real-name system.

Wang Xing nodded silently. He didn't know if it was his misunderstanding. He felt that Mr. Fang came to the capital this time to supervise the war.

He doesn't mind Xiaonei.com engaging in a giant agent war. If it weren't for Yike and Sina, Xiaonei.com would have been sold to Thousand Oaks Group long ago, instead of being able to sit here and think about Penguin's strategic direction.

Wang Yan said at this time: "Just in time, we at Sina have developed a small game that can be applied to social networks. You can try it after gathering campus + office on the school network."

Wang Xing asked: "What little game?"

Wang Yan poured the wine: "The food thief."

Wang Xing: "Huh?"

Wang Yan shrugged: "Experimental product, you can also blog first, it doesn't matter."

He revealed a piece of news: "We have started a new project within Sina to consider whether there can be another route for the development of social networks. Mini games are just accessories."

When Wang Xing heard this, he felt a sense of urgency in his heart, but he still smiled as usual and said: "Then give us the school network first, oh yes, the school network will expand the user base, and still emphasize that the name of the school is It’s inappropriate, Mr. Fang, Mr. Wang, Mr. Xiong, please give me a nice name.”

Xiong Xiaoge ate his food and drank his wine. Seeing that neither Mr. Fang nor Mr. Wang had the intention to speak first, he pondered for a moment: "Social networks, social networks, aren't they just for making friends? Just call them friends.com. .”

Fang Zhuo smiled: "Old Xiong is good at naming names, easy to remember and closely related to the theme."

Wang Yan also nodded.

Wang Xing chewed it in his heart several times, nodded and said: "Okay, I will discuss it with them when I get to the company tomorrow. Friends Network, Friends Network, it is really good."

The four of them had a glass of wine and continued to chat about the ecology and development of social networks.

After the wine party ended, Wang Xing was the first to leave, and Wang Yan also made sure that Mr. Fang would visit Sina tomorrow and leave by car.

Xiong Xiaoge asked two more questions in private.

Although he followed Lehman short, he was concerned about the U.S. real estate market: "Mr. Fang, is the problem with the U.S. subprime debt you are talking about so big? If Lehman has a problem, won't other companies also have problems?"

"Other companies haven't done much research. Anyway, I don't think Lehman is very good." Fang Zhuo said with a smile, "The data are all there, why are you asking me?"

Xiong Xiaoge drank a lot tonight and was a little drunk: "Just after studying some data, I feel that there are a lot of risks. But according to the regulation of the US market, can these risks be digested or not?"

Fang Zhuo spread his hands: "Do you think I am an economist?"

Xiong Xiaoge nodded, and after a while he suddenly asked: "Do you think Dangdang can be listed next year or in 2008?"

"I don't care whether he is listed on the market or not, just give me the money that should be given to me." Fang Zhuo said calmly, "From now on, it will be a purely competitive relationship."

Xiong Xiaoge did not continue to think according to his own ideas and Mr. Fang's style, but just sighed: "It doesn't matter if Yike Investment withdraws from Dangdang, no matter how many evil Mr. Li has done in his previous life, it should be over after all your troubles." ”

"I don't like hearing this. I'm going back to the hotel." Fang Zhuo opened the car door and yawned, "Penguin is not like Dangdang, it's a bit difficult to deal with. I just happen to be in the capital for a while, so you can call me while drinking."

Xiong Xiaoge nodded. Just as he watched the car start slowly, he suddenly remembered what he had received two days ago and shouted: "Mr. Fang, thank you for the shopping card."

Fang Zhuo stretched out his hand from the car window and waved: "It should, it should."

It is appropriate for friends to help each other and solve problems.