The Millennium Semiconductor Survival Guide

"Newman, how do you see the future development of the Internet?

So far, the Nasdaq index has fallen by more than 20%, and countless investors are facing huge losses.

What do you think about the growing perception that the Internet is a scam that delivers no real value? "

When Zhou Xin returned to San Francisco from Shen Hai, there were already a large group of reporters waiting for him at San Francisco International Airport.

The decline of the Nasdaq index is far from stopping. In just five trading days, it fell another 10 points.

The index fell by 10 points, and the individual stocks in it can be imagined.

More and more people think that Internet companies are a bubble, which has become the consensus of Wall Street.

Even established computer companies like Microsoft, Cisco, and Oracle have begun to lose their stock prices, let alone other Internet companies.

Before Bill Gates, Yang Zhiyuan and others participated in the Internet Conference in China, they returned to Press America and were chased by reporters.

Now it's Zhou Xin's turn.

As a representative of Silicon Valley, everyone from the industry to the financial circle wants to hear his voice.

"I think the Internet is still the future, and the 21st century will be the age of the Internet.

Things are developing in a spiral, and it is not that the development of the Internet is hindered, but that Internet companies have encountered a small setback in the financial market.

This will not affect the development of the Internet industry. "As a player with a future vision, Zhou Xin has infinite confidence in the Internet.

"Newman, when do you think the Nasdaq's decline will end?

Is it true that what you said at the Internet conference in Huaguo will continue until the end of the first quarter? "

"What I said at the Huaguo Internet Conference was just my own speculation.

In my opinion, after the annual reports of major Internet companies are released one after another, Internet companies with good performance will stop the decline. After the first quarter financial report is released, the market value of Internet companies that can still maintain a high growth trend will return to on track.

As before, as long as companies related to Internet concepts can obtain billions or even tens of billions of valuations, such a Nasdaq market will no longer appear.

Enterprises in the Internet field will still enjoy higher valuations than traditional industries. Enjoying higher valuations is based on the premise of maintaining high growth.

For Internet companies that cannot maintain high growth, their valuations will gradually be consistent with those of traditional industry companies, which is also a kind of valuation regression. "

After briefly answering some reporters' questions at the airport, Zhou Xin returned to his mansion in San Francisco.

His trip to China this time can be said to be fruitful.

It has won the unanimous support of Huaguo from the state to the local government level.

Before leaving Huaguo, Zhou Xin met Zhang Rujing in Shenhai and had a brief chat about the cooperation between Xinxin lithography machine and SMIC.

He mentioned cryptically that Zhang Rujing should be careful not to be caught by TSMC.

Because SMIC wants to develop, it is bound to compete with TSMC for orders.

The current global chip foundry market is not enough to support two TSMCs.

In addition to chip foundry, each production line needs to invest a huge amount of money, so the competition in the field of chip foundry can be said to be a zero-sum game.

The company's orders are limited. If it gives the order to SMIC, then TSMC will have fewer orders.

Coupled with the mainland's advantages in labor costs, water and electricity taxes, etc., SMIC can reduce costs to a much lower level than TSMC, and can use cost advantages to compete for the market.

If it weren't for TSMC and ASML to jointly achieve a breakthrough in lithography machines, and then achieve a breakthrough in chip manufacturing technology, SMIC may not be able to occupy a place in the high-end market.

The comprehensive advantages brought about by technological breakthroughs have helped TSMC evolve from a star in the Hsinchu Park to a sacred mountain in the entire Wanwan area.

After SMIC has developed to a certain scale and its market share has been seized, TSMC will naturally attack from the perspective of patents.

This is the tactic of semiconductor companies.

Zhang Rujing understood Zhou Xin's hint at that time, but he was very confident and said that he would not be caught by TSMC.

Zhou Xin didn't say anything more. In this regard, it is very taboo to make shallow remarks. Zhou Xin intends to talk more specifically after the cooperation between Xinxin Lithography Machine and SMIC deepens.

Tell Zhang Rujing how TSMC seized SMIC's handle later as a case.

As for Li Jingyi, she still has half a year to graduate, and she will not come to San Francisco until after graduation.

Therefore, in the first half of the year, Zhou Xin was still alone in San Francisco.

There just happens to be a lot to deal with.

"Newman, we have already made the first version of the enterprise QQ. This is the installation package. Take a look. Feel free to give me feedback if you have any comments."

After investing in Tencent and exchanging mailboxes, Pony Ma sent an email to Zhou Xin almost every day, from the functional details of enterprise QQ to the charging model and target audience of QQ Show.

After the problems with the Pony horse have accumulated to a certain extent, an email will be sent to Zhou Xin.

Tencent also gave Zhou Xin the position of chief operating officer, a free position with salary and options.

But the pony horse had so many questions that Zhou Xin would only answer selectively after seeing it.

"Pony, I think you should be more flexible when creating groups.

A large enterprise will have many departments. These departments should be grouped one by one, and then there is an address book in the enterprise QQ. The address book stores the information of each employee in categories according to the organizational structure of the enterprise.

These employee information include name, mobile phone number, enterprise QQ number, etc., and then set up permission isolation. For example, employees can only see information within the department, and department leaders can only see information at their level.

In the process of building a group, you can select the address book and pull in the department as a unit, and then all the employees in the department will also be pulled in.

Simply put, everyone and every group can be an element in the process of building a group. "

After Zhou Xin answered Pony's email, he started a meeting. He plans to spend a lot of time on matrix this year.

Originally in his plan, matrix would release its first product this fall.

But now judging from the progress, it may not be possible to do it this fall.

Because not long ago, Matrix acquired Handspring and successfully recruited Jeff Hawking.

"MOS must be an operating system based on the Linux kernel, Jeff, your thinking needs to change.

What we want to do is not a handheld computer, but a mobile phone. I hope that matrix, as a mobile phone, can function as closely as possible to a handheld computer.

Wish it had more features, but it's not going to be a handheld, it's a long way from a handheld. "

Yes, after the acquisition of Handspring, Zhou Xin intends to develop an open source mobile operating system.

Originally, he didn't plan to build a too complicated operating system on the matrix, and just use a mature embedded operating system solution.

Because the mobile phone market is developing rapidly, there are many companies on the market that can provide mature embedded operating system solutions.

Matrix only needs to carry out personalized transformation on these mature solutions.

But Zhou Xin hopes to make Matrix's first product a transitional product between traditional feature phones and smartphones.

A semi-smartphone, to be precise.

In addition to still relying on traditional buttons for control, the system application is as close as possible to the form of a smartphone application.

To achieve this goal, it is necessary to redevelop the operating system from the bottom layer.

So they bought Handspring, a handheld computer company whose founder Jeff Hawking was one of the explorers in the field of handheld computers.

The company he founded before was called Palm, arguably the earliest manufacturer of handheld computers.

Handwriting input method developed by Jeff Hawking, which is very popular among Apple Newton users. Apple Newton is a handheld computer launched by Apple.

After Jeff Hawking joined, he was solely responsible for the research and development of the mobile phone operating system. This mobile phone operating system named MOS was placed high hopes by Zhou Xin.

"Newman, I know what you mean, we are also working in this direction, but unlike embedded operating systems, Linux kernel mobile operating systems have many real problems to overcome.

I am worried that it will affect the goal of releasing the first mobile phone of matrix this year.

We need to develop MOS, at least the kernel, so that applications based on it can start.

Moreover, with the gradual improvement of system development, the application needs to be adjusted in turn according to the changes of the operating system.

This takes a lot of time. "

"We can delay, good products are not afraid of late, I don't mind launching matrix next year.

Matrix is ​​my own company, we don't have to face the pressure of investors.

From a product point of view, I am a perfectionist, we can take our time.

Also, if you want to add someone, please feel free to tell me. "

According to Zhou Xin's understanding, the crisis of Nasdaq is just the beginning now, and the 50% decline has not even reached, and it is far from the end.

In the process, countless Internet companies will go bankrupt, and a large number of talents will be released into the market.

Part of the development progress can be solved by recruiting people.

"The annual reports of Nasdaq Internet companies are intensively released, and more than 80% of the companies have net operating losses.

Recently, the annual reports of major Internet companies have been released one after another, and the focus of investors has shifted from user growth and clicks to operating income, total profit and profit growth rate.

The 1999 annual reports of most Internet companies did not satisfy investors. The Nasdaq Composite stock market index fell by 25% after the market opened today. A large number of investors were forced to sell their stocks before tax day, and a large number of Internet companies were forced to reopen Assess its spending on advertising campaigns. "

"Yesterday Pets.com, a company backed by Amazon to much fanfare, collapsed just nine months after completing its IPO."

"Internet companies' mentality of 'growth is greater than profit' and the invincible halo of the 'new economy' are beginning to shatter"

"As of March 2000, the value of most Internet stocks had fallen more than 50% from their highs."

"The growth of Quora has not been as expected, and the market value of Time Warner has shrunk by more than 40%. In order to maintain the high growth of profits, Quora began to try to place advertisements, which was criticized by a large number of Quora users.

Loyal Quora users unfurled banners in front of the Time Warner headquarters to protest, among which the banner "Bring Newman back" was particularly conspicuous. "

"The news that Neon has fallen into recession again triggered a global sell-off of technology stocks. Yahoo stopped the merger negotiations with Ebay on the day after the news came out, and the Nasdaq index continued to fall"

"Newman's fist game fell by only 20%, making it the Internet company with the smallest decline in the entire Nasdaq market."

Throughout the first quarter of 2000, global attention was focused on the bursting of the Nasdaq bubble.

The Nasdaq index didn't stop at 20%, it fell 70%, and a large number of Internet companies went bankrupt.

Among them, the Standard \u0026 Poor's strategy designated for emerging investments rose by more than 50 percent in the first quarter.

The S\u0026P index rose by 42% in the first quarter, and a large amount of funds rushed from technology stocks to high-yield companies in traditional industries.

The investment income of emerging investment in the first quarter was US$6.7 billion.

That's because you can't eat a full wave of earnings. Emerging investments are also selling related stocks as the market value of companies related to the S\u0026P Index continues to rise.

After the end of the first quarter, Warren Johnson took the lead and started intensive negotiations with major investment banks and other types of investment institutions.

Acquisition of companies in the computer field in large numbers at extremely low prices.

The Nasdaq bubble burst, affecting far more than Internet companies, such as Cisco and IBM doing hardware, or the valuation of enterprise-side hardware companies have suffered a severe blow.

Cisco's valuation has fallen by 80%.

Under the leadership of Warren Jensen, emerging investment has successively realized the actual holding of Nvidia and ARM.

Unlike Intel and AMD, Nvidia focused on graphics processing at this time. In 1999, its annual revenue was 160 million US dollars, and it just won a big order from Microsoft xbox.

Even the cold winter of the Internet has limited impact on Nvidia.

But after all, it has an impact. Under the premise of a relatively high premium, Xinxing Investment successfully acquired over 60% of Nvidia's shares from the investors behind Nvidia.

Nvidia's market capitalization is around $600 million, while emerging investments value it at $1 billion.

As for ARM, it only cost $200 million.

Everyone can understand the value of Nvidia, and it has revenue. With the development of the Internet, the image processing field will become more and more important.

Although Nvidia may not win in the competition with ATI, the business model and profit growth points are very clear.

But ARM is different. For a company specializing in chip architecture, people in the industry are not optimistic about the prospects of this field.

To put it simply, chip design companies can design the architecture themselves. No one can predict that the future technology will develop so fast, the chip industry will be subdivided, and even the chip architecture is enough to support a company to do this.

Apple previously invested $3 million for a 43% stake in ARM. After ARM went public, Apple sold these shares one after another, and then hoped to acquire ARM for $8.5 billion in 2010.

Even a professional company like Apple couldn't see the value of ARM in 2000, let alone investors on Wall Street and London Financial Street.

What other companies could be acquired?

Advice to Raven, a company in the tech space.

My own thinking is definitely not as complete as everyone's thinking. This time point is a rare opportunity in twenty years.