Wall Street Legend

Chapter 172 Adjustment (13)

One east coast, one west coast, the flight time is almost the same as from New York to London, and it took more than six hours to land in San Francisco.

The company had a car, and Mr. Alfred sent someone to pick him up at the airport. He heard that the employees of the new company often worked overtime recently, from morning to night, so they waited until they arrived in the Santa Clara area to meet him.

After adjusting the management, many capable business managers and technical experts have been added. Mr. Alfred no longer has the final say, but Ye Dongqing still likes to get first-hand information by contacting him, and for this purpose, he specially Taking the position of product director, I have no intention of killing the donkey.

A total of four floors were rented, with desks and computer equipment everywhere. At around 6 p.m. West Coast time, some employees went back first, and some voluntarily chose to stay and work overtime. The company would provide them with 1.5 times hourly wages. Dinner is provided, and sandwiches, pizza, Western-style Chinese food, bread, etc. are all available for purchase, which is quite kind.

Facebook needs to seize the time to improve it, and the same goes for Skype. In addition, functions such as video communication and instant text chat need to be independently developed, which has resulted in a very busy period recently. If they leave early, it will drag down the progress of the entire team, invisibly forcing them to die. Most people work longer hours.

Ye Dongqing doesn't want this, but he must seize the opportunity. Products similar to Facebook have recently appeared, but the threat is not great yet. He hopes to continue to maintain a leading position, so the product must be more competitive.

As soon as we met, Mr. Alfred told him bad news: "Boss, I'm glad to meet you. However, I have to tell you one thing. A former employee of Google told me privately that his original company established a The department is secretly developing a photo social program, similar to Facebook, which may be open to users next month."

"Is Google also targeting it?"

"It should be true. The number of employees in their company is almost three times that of ours, and their development speed is quite fast. Moreover, they have a mature template like Facebook to follow. Considering the hundreds of millions of global users, it is very likely to have a direct impact on ours. business."

"Go check it again and find more useful information for me. Maybe it's time to start advertising again. I'll find the person in charge of the promotion planning department later."

This is the first giant company known to try to compete with itself. Ye Dongqing felt that based on the number of Google users, it might be a huge threat. After nearly half a year of smooth sailing, they finally encountered the situation they least expected to see.

Since you can't escape, you have no choice but to bite the bullet and continue rushing. After all, it is no longer a small company that can be manipulated by others. Even Google, which has a scale of more than 10 billion US dollars, can still fight.

Most search engines are not as good as Google, but when it comes to social platforms, he is confident in providing users with the most complete products, which are all good things that have been tested by time. As long as there is no problem with the capital chain, there is no reason to lose to anyone. .

I'm a little worried, but not too worried. There were no competitors before, and I slowly accumulated users out of economical considerations. I guess it won't work anymore. Ye Dongqing is ready to spend money to continue to seize the opportunity and let those who haven't used Facebook yet. Some netizens joined in.

These days, the number of Internet users in the United States has exceeded 200 million, and there is still a lot of room for development. The number of Internet users in Japan, Germany, Britain, South Korea, France and other countries is close to half of their own populations. It is not only necessary to expand in the United States, but also abroad. I will let it go. Nearly 95% of Facebook users are now from the United States, which shows that the promotion efforts are far from enough. There is still a chance to seize the market before other similar products rise.

Originally, the Freshwater Fund could bring more benefits to Ye Dongqing, but now it has been switched to Facebook. As the valuation continues to increase, in the first five months alone, the book value has increased by almost 1.6 billion US dollars.

Just last week, SoftBank Group, which is determined to pursue it, proposed to raise funds at a valuation of US$1.4 billion. This would bring the total to almost US$1.6 billion. As the number of users increases, the price will increase every day.

No wonder people often say that it is easy to make money by investing in Internet companies. For these founders, it is indeed easier. They can come up with an idea and develop it. As long as it is recognized by users, they will make a fortune inexplicably. Ye Dongqing likes this kind of thing. I guess no one would dislike the feeling of a sudden increase in worth.

There are countless examples of poor boys who develop a program and become billionaires. In the middle of 2003, the Internet industry showed strong recovery momentum, and mergers and acquisitions where the big fish ate up the small fish continued to occur. all around the world.

As one of them, Ye Dongqing clearly saw the signs of his own success and was not in the mood to talk about anything else. He first learned about the development progress of various functions of Skype through the introduction of Mr. Alfred. The instant text messaging function was born a long time ago. It is expected to be available next month. There are some problems in video communication, which may need to be solved by acquiring off-the-shelf technology.

After he came to his own office, he said to Mr. Alfred: "A guy came to me this morning and talked to me about Skype. He even threatened me a little. Don't be too excited. He "In negotiating with me on behalf of Verizon, AT\u0026T and other companies, these companies believe that I threaten their interests, which is indeed the case."

Alfred listened patiently. The market value of these two companies was close to 100 billion US dollars, and the energy behind them should not be underestimated. He asked: "Then what are you going to do?"

"The development will continue, but the previous development ideas need to be changed. In the future, Skype is very likely to be blocked by communication operators, whether it is the United States or other countries, so it is best to let it develop alone and not be involved. Go to Facebook.

What I mean is to give up adding text chat and video communication functions to Skype and promote them as independent products. If Facebook does not have a supporting text chat function in the future, it will seriously hinder its growth prospects. "

Understanding what Ye Dongqing meant, he nodded after thinking and said, "This is indeed better. You have already decided, right? Then I will hold a meeting later to talk to the programmer supervisors?"

"Yes, in the future mobile phones will definitely replace computers and become the most important product for people to communicate on the Internet. If communication operators choose not to provide services, we will be very passive and make this decision for the time being."

"Well, there are a few projects that need to be cut. I'm going to tell them now to avoid wasting my energy. Some codes can no longer be used. I have to tell them the bad news..."