Top of the big era

In fact, as early as two years ago, Baidu had plans to develop its European business.

At that time, Baidu's position in the country was at its peak and its competitiveness seemed to be stronger than Google's. Boss Li himself was also favored by various official media.

Under this general trend, Baidu launched its "going out" strategy and chose two directions, one was Japan and the other was Europe.

At that time, the person in charge of the main research, inspection, and preparation of the European business was the then Chief Financial Officer Wang Zhansheng. Unexpectedly, an accident suddenly occurred.

During a vacation, Wang Zhansheng took his wife and daughter to the beach for swimming. Unexpectedly, a big wave hit them. In order to save his wife and daughter, he rushed over and drowned.

The European business plan was shelved, and it began to focus on the Japanese market.

For Baidu, it can be regarded as a blessing in disguise.

If they really come to Europe, it will be a bit overwhelming!

The working atmosphere here in Europe is really terrible. There is no need to work overtime like in China. At least the eight hours of work per day stipulated by law must be met, right?

People here are so lazy. If they can have 4-5 hours of serious working time a day, I would be very grateful.

Not to mention compared with the overtime culture in China, South Korea and Japan, it is far inferior to Silicon Valley. Large companies in Silicon Valley also often work overtime, and the working hours per week can be maintained at 50-60 hours for a long time.

Li Yanhong has been in the UK for three days. She has inspected several British technology companies and said she accepted the invitation from former British Prime Minister Blair.

The British side hopes to introduce Baidu to the UK to compete with Google.

After looking around, he had no such idea at all.

You can’t even get around in Japan, why come to the UK?

Don’t waste money like this!

However, he still kindly gave Zhou Buqi some advice, "If you want to develop business in Europe, it will require huge investment and huge costs. You have to be mentally prepared."

Zhou Buqi nodded, "I know, I have been mentally prepared for a long time. Europe has all kinds of disadvantages, but one advantage is that it has money. As long as the business is developed, even if these employees are messing around every day Even if you don’t work hard, you can still make a lot of money by relying on this huge market.”

Li Yanhong said: "Yesterday I met with several British officials. They hope that Baidu will come to the UK to do business, and the conditions they gave are very sincere. I can feel that they do not want to see Google dominate."

Zhou Buqi said amusedly: "Do you want to enter?"

"No."

Li Yanhong shook his head.

Zhou Buqi said: "It's okay not to enter the market. Ziweixing still has Weidian, and it has no international business at all. Look at how much money Microsoft has spent on search, and you can't even see a splash. This is still the PC Internet In this era, once we enter the mobile Internet, it will be even more impossible to shake Google. Don’t have any illusions.”

"How can the search business be better transferred from PC to mobile?"

"Can't do it!"

"ah?"

Li Yanhong was stunned for a moment.

Zhou Buqi said: "The core business of search is the address distribution of various websites. Smartphones are all directly operated apps, and the search logic is not as strong as before."

Li Yanhong nodded gently, "It is indeed very difficult."

This is Old Trafford, and Zhou Buqi is the owner. Friends coming from China must always be warmly entertained.

There were no extra women at home in Manchester, which was more convenient, so Zhou Buqi invited them to his home for dinner. There will be another Manchester United Women's Premier League match later. You can also go and take a look. Chinese player Han Duan is the main forward and has contributed 3 goals and 2 assists in 3 games. His performance is eye-catching!

After dinner, on the way to the reserve team stadium, Li Yanhong shared some of her views from a technical perspective, "In the design, operation and promotion of Internet products, different countries have different cultural characteristics and must adapt to local conditions. However, technology is What is common is that there are no regional differences in the objectivity of technology.”

"oh?"

"This is the experience I summed up from Baidu Japan. This is true in Japan, and it is definitely more serious in Europe."

Li Yanhong's meaning is very clear.

Technology is objective.

For example, if Helo wants to operate in Spain, it is necessary to open a branch in Madrid or Barcelona and form a local operation and promotion team.

Only Spaniards understand Spaniards best.

However, there is no need for the technical team to source materials locally.

People here are so lazy.

If you hire a Spanish programmer, you can hire three domestic programmers for the same money, and these three people can do the work of 10 Spaniards.

From the perspective of the company's management costs, it is of course better to hire domestic programmers.

If we deal with technical problems in other places, there will be a lot of communication inconveniences. In the worst case, a technical team from China will be sent to Spain for business trips all year round, with food and accommodation included.

It’s also better than hiring local technicians.

The average age of Internet companies in Silicon Valley is around 30 years old. It is similar in China. If you cannot be promoted to expert level or management position at the age of 35, you are basically at risk of being laid off.

The reason is that supply exceeds demand.

There are few jobs and many employed people.

Needless to say, Silicon Valley is where the world's top technological elites go. They can search for talents all over the world, and there is no employment crisis.

Domestically, it is starting to take off. The computer department is the most popular major in universities. For example, in Tsinghua University, most of the top students in various provinces and special admissions students go to the computer department.

In a few years, there will be a large number of computer engineers in China, and the supply will exceed the demand.

Many people change careers as they get older.

This is a waste of social resources.

For enterprises, the greatest social responsibility is to provide as many jobs as possible while legally paying taxes. For Ziweixing, it can not only fulfill more social responsibilities, but also effectively save management costs. Why not?

There was no need for Li Yanhong to suggest it, Zhou Buqi had already made arrangements.

The Magic City branch of Ziweixing is the International Department of Ziweixing, which mainly undertakes overseas business. For example, Japan's UC Beauty was developed by the team of the International Department, and then the product team of the Japanese branch made functional adjustments and skin design. After its launch, it became a hit product.

After the split of Ziweixing, there will be two sets of accounts at home and abroad.

Purple Star Japan has to spend money to purchase technical services from Purple Star, which is equivalent to earning foreign exchange from Internet technology for the country. Japan is like this, and Europe can be like this too.

Aren't Europeans lazy?

Aren’t they paid high wages and disobedient?

That's simple. Ziweixing Europe outsources many common technical services to Ziweixing, and the domestic team will do these things. It is equivalent to indirectly providing European jobs to the domestic market.

Not only MSI does this, but also Silicon Valley giants.

For example, Microsoft only has Microsoft Silicon Valley Research, Microsoft Asia Research, and Microsoft China Research. As for Europe... forget it!

Li Yanhong said: "The top batch of European Internet industry practitioners have either gone to work in Silicon Valley or been recruited by Silicon Valley giants. The remaining people either have insufficient skills and are looked down upon by others; or they have insufficient technical skills." The work attitude does not meet their standards. The remaining two types of people are a burden to Ziweixing."

Zhou Buqi smiled and said: "I know that Ziweixing is already doing it. Ziweixing's Magic City branch is Ziweixing International Department, which mainly undertakes Ziweixing International's outsourcing business. Zhangjiang is still building Ziweixing Shangyan Building will develop this business. The person in charge of the business is Liu Qing, an executive of M7, who is at the same level as the president of the major business group and attaches great importance to it."

Li Yanhong further said: "You know that success comes from 99% hard work and 1% inspiration, and that 1% inspiration is the most important than 99% hard work. The same is true for technology."

"You give me advice."

"In the development of a technical project, 99% of the work is relatively simple. Just leave it to the huge technical team to follow the plan and direction. The 1% is the most difficult. Simple problems can only be solved with hard work. It can be solved, but it is very difficult to solve truly world-class problems.”

Zhou Buqi was very smart and immediately realized what he meant, "So, when doing technology outsourcing business, it is best to outsource 99% of it domestically?"

Li Yanhong smiled and said: "Yes, for the 1% of inspiration, we still have to find world-class scientists from Silicon Valley. Although the price is high, it is worth it. If we do it ourselves, we may have to work hard for half a year. After thousands of experiments, The problem can only be solved through demonstration, and the total cost may be 100 million. A top scientist may come up with a solution with an idea. Even if he has an annual salary of 10 million, even if he is lazy, it is still profitable for the company. "

"Yeah, that makes sense."

"However, most Internet projects are not technical and can be solved domestically. For multinational companies, the next cutting-edge technical problem is cross-regional data synchronization. This is very important. Google has published several papers , but it is unclear. If Ziweixing can overcome this difficulty, the stability of the business will be guaranteed, and the safety of financial-level business will also be guaranteed."

"Okay, I'll talk to them later."

Zhou Buqi accepted it humbly.

He had heard the technical committee discuss the technical issues of data synchronization many times when he was in China, and they had been solved very well in China, which provided strong technical support for the gold coin wallet system.

However, the country is a continent and its area is not too big.

Europe, the United States, and Asia-Pacific are all separated by oceans, thousands of miles away, covering the whole world.

Global data synchronization is indeed a huge technical challenge for large multinational companies.

The better the synchronization is done, the higher the technical level is.

For example, when sending WeChat on an Apple mobile phone, there will be a 1-2 second delay in receiving the message. When you send a message on your Android phone, it will arrive almost instantly.

Arrive at the stadium and prepare to watch the women’s football match.

Ho!

There are a lot of people!

It was full!