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The next day, Zhou Buqi wanted to chat with Lao Ma to change his mind.

Unexpectedly, he actually returned to China!

Depend on!

Zhou Buqi was so angry that he wanted to curse. No matter what major events were happening in China, could it be more important than seizing the opportunity to push Alibaba to buy back shares from Yahoo?

Judging from his attitude and the efficiency of the operations of various capital institutions, it is unlikely that this matter will be finalized this year.

Very annoyed!

However, Zhou Buqi quickly calmed down on the way to the company.

Um!

If you think about it differently, it’s probably a good thing!

Who is most annoyed that the Yahoo case cannot be finalized before the end of the year? Of course it was Yahoo's management representatives, and Yang Zhiyuan's interference caused them to lose their year-end dividends.

It is conceivable that Yahoo's board of directors will inevitably be in disarray, and even those capital shareholders will unite to expel Yang Zhiyuan from the board of directors!

In the past few years, Yahoo has long become the laughing stock of Silicon Valley, and is known as the "least united board of directors" in Silicon Valley. It is normal to have conflicts in the boards of directors of other companies, but everyone quarrels behind closed doors and has a consistent external attitude to show the positive side of the company and thereby maintain the stability of the stock price.

That's not the case at Yahoo, where boardroom infighting has become public over the years.

In particular, the capital shareholders, who are increasingly dissatisfied with Yang Zhiyuan, have no choice but to make internal conflicts public and use the influence of external public opinion and media to sway him in order to counter the founder's strong influence on the Yahoo board of directors.

So much so that Yang Zhiyuan has become notorious in the industry in recent years.

If Yahoo cannot give an answer within this month, Yang Zhiyuan will completely arouse the anger of the board of directors and shareholders.

Zhou Buqi went to the company and met Lu Qi.

He was previously a core executive of Yahoo and was once considered a candidate to become Yahoo's CEO. However, he is also Chinese and has a very close relationship with Yang Zhiyuan. Even Yang Zhiyuan has been dismissed as CEO and chairman of the board. How can Lu Qi's situation at Yahoo be better?

After Shen Xiangyang's recommendation, he joined Ziweixing International.

The two met and chatted about Yahoo.

Lu Qi is very unimpressive, "Based on Yahoo's current business, there is no hope. There is almost no change from five or eight years ago. Yahoo has also spent a lot of money in the past few years, either on acquisitions or on establishing New teams went looking for new good projects, and without exception they all failed.”

"What about search?" Zhou Buqi was more concerned about Ziweixing's missing overseas business. "How is Yahoo's search business?"

Lu Qi said: "It's a complete mess. Yahoo now relies on advertising revenue from the portal, such as page ads, video ads, pop-up ads, soft article ads, etc. In addition, Yahoo Mail is very well-known and has a relatively large user base, second only to For Google Mail, it even has a wider audience than Microsoft Mail. But Mailbox is at most a traffic-draining tool, and it really doesn’t make much money.”

"Search." Zhou Buqi waved his hand, "Search, how about search?"

Ziweixing has a search business called "Weidian" in China, which is very powerful and is second only to Baidu on the PC side. It's even more powerful on the mobile side. Taking advantage of Baidu's slow development on the mobile side, coupled with the dominating role of UC Browser and Wedian Browser on mobile phones, Wedian's search share on the mobile side is now close to 70%.

But overseas markets are different.

Because there is a giant like Google in foreign countries, as well as search giants like Microsoft and Yahoo, it is difficult for outsiders to open the market.

Throwing money into the search industry is like beating a dog with a meat bun.

Baidu was once very ambitious and wanted to do search business in overseas markets. Now it is in dire straits and has to reduce its scale if it cannot continue.

From the beginning, Zhou Buqi never considered searching.

Times have changed.

The situation is different now.

For Ziweixing International, if it can have a search business, it can play a vital role at the group strategic level and even at the grand strategic level of "Ziweixing Galaxy".

Because of Astar!

Search is Google's home base, a position that Google cannot afford to lose. They always have to protect this position at all costs.

Search is Google’s strongest area…and at the same time, search is also Google’s biggest sensitivity.

Anyone who can create pressure on Google at the search level will make Google very nervous.

For example, Apple mobile phones and Samsung mobile phones in previous lives.

Not counting the domestic market, these two phones cover almost 70% of smartphone users around the world. The mobile phone becomes a platform, and the platform can provide priority.

In order to get this priority, Google has to pay tens of billions of dollars to Apple and Samsung every year to ensure that the default search engine on their mobile phones is Google and not other competitors.

If Ziweixing International has a relatively powerful search team and a well-known search brand... then for Google, it will be the Sword of Damocles hanging over its head!

Ziweixing International actually does not need to rely on search business to make money.

Burning money every year, it doesn't matter if you lose money or make money.

It is to create pressure on Google and act as a bargaining chip.

As long as this is done, Ziweixing International can strategically suppress Google, so that Google will not dare to go too far during the confrontation.

"Search?" Lu Qi didn't quite understand and said bluntly, "In this current environment, it's useless for anyone to do search. Microsoft has been doing it for so many years and the team has changed several times, but it can't do it at all. Other companies It’s even more impossible. This must be a loss-making business. This has nothing to do with PC Internet or mobile Internet. Search is Google, and Google is search. This has formed market perception.”

Zhou Buqi said: "A loss is a loss, maybe it can have very important strategic value."

Lu Qi was slightly startled, "Huh?"

Zhou Buqi waved his hand, "It's okay, tell me first, what's going on here?"

Lu Qi took a deep look at the big boss.

Somewhat worried.

Last night, the big boss called him and inexplicably put forward a shocking idea - will Yahoo's business complement Ziweixing International?

However, the big boss asked, and Lu Qi still answered truthfully: "Yahoo does not have a search business now."

"What?" Zhou Buqi thought he heard it wrong, "No? Yahoo isn't one of the three giants in the search industry?"

"It is one of the three giants, but its share is still too small." Lu Qi is obviously an expert in the search field. It was he who led the Yahoo search team back then. "At this stage, search is no longer a high-end With the technology, most companies can do it. But if you want to maintain a search platform, you need a relatively large technical team and a larger operational team. This will be severely affected by marginal costs."

"So what? What does Yahoo do?"

Zhou Buqi has engaged in micro-sites in China, so he also knows something about it.

Lu Qi said with a smile: "It started three years ago. When I left Yahoo to join Ziwei Star, I was affected by this incident. Originally, Microsoft wanted to acquire Yahoo with a huge sum of US$44.6 billion. Yang Zhiyuan Disagreeing, he said he had a way to save Yahoo. The board believed him."

Zhou Buqi suddenly remembered what happened back then and said with a smile: "Yes, it seems that Yang Zhiyuan has reached some advertising agreement with Google, which will make it difficult for the business you are in charge of."

Lu Qi nodded, "Yes, I was in charge of Yahoo's search business at the time. But Yang Zhiyuan reached a series of cooperation with Google around search, that is, Yahoo Search would give up its own technology, its own operations team, sales team and The advertising team only retains a small technical group to interface with Google.”

Zhou Buqi immediately understood, "This is giving up on self-employment! You are wielding your sword to commit suicide in the palace!"

Lu Qi said: "Yes, Yahoo will fully integrate Google's search on its own website. After deducting Google's operating costs, the advertising fees earned will be divided equally between the two parties."

Yahoo is now a portal, the largest portal in the world, with 150 million users in the United States alone and more than 400 million users worldwide, with huge traffic.

The most prominent location on Yahoo's homepage is a search window. In other words, all users who log in to Yahoo will use this search window when using search services.

The trick Yang Zhiyuan came up with to "save Yahoo" is to cut off Yahoo's original search business, and then use Yahoo as a traffic platform to provide traffic for Google search.

Google gets traffic from Yahoo to sell search ads, and both parties share the money they make.

All technology, operations, sales and other teams are undertaken by Google.

In this way, "Yahoo Search" can be operated at almost zero cost, using an empty shell to obtain search advertising revenue from Google.

Zhou Buqi sighed with emotion, "There are so many stupid recruits. No wonder Yahoo is what it is today. Lao Yang's level is not that good. Isn't this the same as his own palace?"

"Yes, so I must leave Yahoo." Lu Ji shook his head, a little amused, "But even so, his strategy failed. The regulatory authorities ruled that the cooperation between Yahoo and Google was risky and failed. One is the industry's first One, one is the third in the industry, and the merger will create a monopoly. This made Yahoo's board of directors completely angry with Yang Zhiyuan, and only retained his board seat, and newly recruited Carol Bartz as CEO."

"Then what?"

"This is the most ridiculous point. After Carol Bartz became CEO, he felt that Yang Zhiyuan's idea was very good, and he firmly took this route of cutting off his own search business. But he switched to Microsoft She cooperated and signed a 10-year cooperation memorandum. She transferred all Yahoo’s search technology to Microsoft, and now the search platform on Yahoo is still Microsoft’s Bing.”

"Typical professional manager behavior."

Zhou Buqi shook his head.

Lu Qi said: "Yes, that's it. Last year, Yahoo's net profit exceeded US$1.2 billion. Unexpected? How did it make money? On the one hand, it sold some valuable assets at low prices; on the other hand, it continued to lay off employees and reduce salaries. . Yahoo’s revenue has shrunk, but profits have increased. But the capital market doesn’t buy it, and the price-to-earnings ratio is only a dozen times.”