The Millennium Semiconductor Survival Guide.

Chapter 315 Advantages
When smartphone manufacturers develop software, they can sometimes exert unexpected advantages.

MiLiao is the best example. This instant messaging software launched by Xiaomi was born one month earlier than Tencent's WeChat. After its birth, the number of users using Xiaomi mobile phones expanded rapidly, and it gained 100 million users in one month.

One more thing, some people say that WeChat plagiarizes MiLiao, while others say that both MiLiao and WeChat are borrowed from Kik. Kik is an instant messaging software developed by Maple Leaf people for BlackBerry phones.

WeChat definitely borrowed from MiLiao, but the source of inspiration for MiLiao is definitely not Kik, but Fetion, launched by China Mobile, and FaceTime, launched by Apple in 2010.

As for why NetEase attaches so much importance to the Super Bubble project, it is because the overseas version of WeChat has become a highly imaginative and profitable application after being combined with official accounts, Moments and WeChat Pay.

In addition, WeChat is a built-in application of Mphone. You must know that the only built-in applications of Mphone that take advantage of its own hardware are WeChat, Weibo and NewPay.

The combination of the two makes NetEase internally believe that mobile instant messaging software can be developed, and if it is completed, it will become a new profit growth point for NetEase.

I originally thought that there was a gap between itself and the previous manufacturers, but the gap was not big. After the penetration rate of smartphones in China increased, NetEase would be able to compete with the help of marketing promotion and accumulation of users of other products.

As a result, WeChat used Xiaomi to pull away from other competitors by ten positions. This is like a 20-meter race. Originally you were one meter behind, but you thought you could catch up in the second half, but in the blink of an eye your opponent was [-] meters ahead.

"Mr. Ding, I think NetEase Paopao still has a chance.

There are 13 billion people in China. Even after Xiaomi launched its smartphones, users began to expand rapidly for the first time. But where are they now? Are there 500 million users?
Based on the scale of traditional mobile phone users in China, if we follow the development speed of the Americen smartphone market, smartphone users will account for half of the traditional mobile phone users, which is also [-] million.

With [-] million users, WeChat’s advantages are nothing now.

The only question we have to think about is how WeChat can use its ecological advantages to play a role in the subsequent smartphone battlefield. ” said the project leader of Super Bubble.

For him, what he has to do now is to win Ding Lei's support and let Ding Lei allocate internal resources to him.

When the Super Bubble project was born, it was only used as a built-in communication software for Fantasy Westward Journey. Later, QQ made a lot of money with the help of QQ show, and then it launched enterprise QQ to enter the B-side field.

NetEase has just begun to think about making NetEase Paopao independent and promoting it on a large scale.

As for the effect, it has been unsatisfactory over the years. It has a group of loyal fans. The only shortcoming is that the overlap between these loyal fans and the loyal players of Fantasy Westward Journey is too high.

Another executive present said: "In the first quarter, Xinxin held a product launch conference. The mobile phone chips they produced are the same as the mobile phone chips they made before, allowing companies to build their own smartphones with a low threshold.

Is it possible for us to build our own smartphones too?Trying to transition to hardware? "

Ding Lei didn't say anything. He thought to himself, isn't this just making dumplings for a dish of vinegar?

But what he needs to do now is not to express his own opinions, but to listen to the opinions of his subordinates.

"I don't agree. The cost is too high. Even if Xinxin helps us integrate various chips, if we want to enter smartphones, we still need to develop upstream and downstream supply chains and develop mobile operating systems.

Unless we even use Android as the operating system.

This is equivalent to moving from light-asset operations to heavy-asset operations for an application like Super Bubble.I don't think this is necessary at all. "Apparently there are executives who disagree.

“I know that once we make smartphones, our logic will completely change, but the problem now is that once we compete head-on with Tencent, they can easily use their hardware advantages to widen the gap with us.

They will always have millions, and in the future they will accumulate tens of millions of original users.

Unless we don’t make smartphone applications and don’t enter this field, we will always face this problem. "

For Internet companies like NetEase, it is indeed difficult to make smartphones now. Although at the peak of the mobile Internet, Alibaba, Tencent, and 360 were all making mobile phones.

Alibaba makes Alibaba Cloud mobile phones, Tencent makes QQ mobile phones, and NetEase also makes mobile phones, from the earliest NetEase Yixin mobile phone to the later acquisition of Gionee.

But now, in 2005, it is difficult for NetEase to make such a decision. Internet companies can achieve flat management because they are asset-light and work on a project basis.

Employees, project leaders, and executives, to put it bluntly, there are three levels.

But once you engage in smartphones or manufacturing, your organization will inevitably not be flat, and management will become more difficult.

"Tencent's advantage in this area does not mean that we need to make mobile phones. We can definitely find a strong enough mobile phone manufacturer to cooperate."

"I have searched for the Super Bubble project and found that almost no mobile phone manufacturers are willing to cooperate for free. Those who are willing to cooperate need to charge fees according to the number of pre-installed machines." The person in charge of Super Bubble added.

"The idea that Mr. Zhao just mentioned, I think this is not an issue we have to worry about now. Tencent is not our main competitor.

Tencent has always developed around instant messaging software, which is their traditional scope. They have not expanded in all fields like Sohu and Shanda. The competitive relationship between us is actually relatively weak.

At least for the foreseeable future, our direct competitive relationship with Tencent will only remain in the field of instant messaging software.

And even if Tencent, like Sohu and us, gradually enters other Internet fields, we don't have to worry about this problem now. When that day comes, the entire industry will be wary of the threats posed by Tencent. "

At present, both Tencent and Alibaba are companies that stick to their own one-third acre of land. On the contrary, NetEase, Sohu and Shanda are attacking across the board in all fields.

"It will be too late until that day. Tencent can catch us off guard just like WeChat's rapid growth."

"No, no, no, this is a completely different logic. You have to understand one problem, that is, the number of applications pre-installed by Xiaomi is limited.

If you pre-install three apps, consumers will support it. If you pre-install 30 apps, consumers will want to delete them as soon as they see it.

It's not realistic. "

Xiaomi's sudden release means that mobile Internet has officially kicked off in China. The explosive growth of WeChat users has made the entire Internet industry notice the power of this gameplay.

Previously, both Zhou Xin and Tencent had been active overseas all year round. Domestic Internet companies had heard of some concepts through various channels, but had never had direct knowledge of them.Like the ecosystem construction and ecosystem operations mentioned countless times by Zhou Xin in interviews in Silicon Valley, a single Internet model is vulnerable to the ecosystem.

The cooperation between Xiaomi and Tencent is a small attempt to operate the ecosystem, and it has left a deep impression on Chinese Internet companies. Almost everyone is thinking about the same problem as NetEase. Once Tencent uses similar means to compete with itself, can it survive? ?
"There have been many more mobile Internet projects during this period, and the proportion of computer application entrepreneurs has dropped significantly." Li Jingyi said in a cheerful tone.

As the first investor in Face Chat, Face Chat’s valuation has increased dozens of times, and there are a large number of institutions willing to pay for this high valuation. Li Jingyi has fully proved her vision.

Of course, there are voices within Goldman Sachs saying that Zhou Xin helped her check the Face Chat project.At first, when Li Jingyi heard similar rumors, she wanted to defend herself, but after thinking about it carefully, she felt that it was not necessary, because the workplace is not a school, and no one cares about how you do it. Everyone only cares about the results.

As a result, with the help of this face-to-face chat project, she became the person with the highest income in the entire VC department of Goldman Sachs.

Originally, she wanted to flex her muscles at Goldman Sachs and use this start to make a career.

But with Zhou Xin's return to China, Li Jingyi also parachuted in from the Goldman Sachs headquarters to work in Goldman Sachs Shenhai's office, serving as the person in charge of Goldman Sachs' venture capital in the entire China region.

"How are you getting used to it after changing to a different working environment?" Zhou Xin asked. He knew very well that the mobile Internet was changing too fast for venture capital, and it was necessary to completely restructure the investment logic.

Everyone's work overlaps, so Li Jingyi often regards Zhou Xin as a learning object. The perspective and perspective on the Internet industry learned from Zhou Xin can really help her a lot.

But China’s investment ecology has completely different rules of the game.

“I don’t feel comfortable with it. How should I put it? I’ve always known that Goldman Sachs has a lot of gray businesses. For Goldman Sachs, these gray businesses can bring benefits to everyone in the chain.

But I have never touched this area before, and I am not interested in it.

Probably because I am with you, I have always been well protected and do not need to be contaminated by the gray side of society.

After returning to China and becoming the head of the venture capital department, I had to change positions and roles, and it was inevitable that I would be exposed to these things.

Since Goldman Sachs entered China, the projects that have brought huge profits to Goldman Sachs have never relied on the Internet. Even if Alibaba’s return rate exceeds [-]%, it is still only a negligible amount for Goldman Sachs in their business in China. Business.

In the past, Goldman Sachs' biggest profit in China came from promoting the merger of China National Petroleum Corporation in the first two years, and then successfully promoting the listing of China National Petroleum Corporation on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange.

This business helped Huaguo Petroleum raise US$30 billion in US stocks and HK$200 billion in Hong Kong stocks, and Goldman Sachs also made a lot of money.

Goldman Sachs was involved in subsequent listings of ICBC, China Mobile and Ping An.

Goldman Sachs has a lot of business in China, and their investment areas cover every industry. The Internet is only a small part of their business.

This is completely different from my previous job at Goldman Sachs where I was only responsible for looking at projects in a specific field, with investment logic and requirements. Since returning to China last year, I feel that my work rhythm has become very fulfilling.

I came into contact with many areas that I had never been exposed to before.

This year, Goldman Sachs' IPO department will help Huaguo Petroleum to list on the A-share market. The IPO department is Goldman Sachs Huaguo's main source of interest, and the venture capital department can only be considered as an addition. "

The IPO department of Goldman Sachs in the Asia-Pacific region maintains a group of "big men" who don't have to do much work and whose annual salary starts at one million Hong Kong dollars. These people specialize in helping Goldman Sachs find operational IPO projects and bridge the gap.

The IPO department of Goldman Sachs in China made more money than the venture capital department. It took until 18 for the IPO department to start to reverse. After 2020, IPOs began to fail.

Zhou Xin had heard a lot about this kind of thing in his previous life. When Xinxin Technology of the original time and space talked with investors, the investors would laugh at themselves for being at the bottom of the financial circle's ecological chain.

After 2023, government-led private equity funds will become the mainstream in the market, and foreign capital and private capital will begin to decline.

Zhou Xin once heard that real gods can get things done without showing up. In the early 2000s, they had to take a temporary job at Goldman Sachs. Later, they no longer even had to take a temporary job and simply disappeared.

"It's a different game, and there's a similar gray area at Amerikan.

I will be forced to sell Weibo to Microsoft. Although no one directly expressed similar intentions to me, if Weibo is still in my hands, it will definitely not escape the fate of being split up this year.

Now in the hands of Microsoft, Microsoft can still rely on its old relationship with Bush to move around.

When you return to China, you will naturally have to adapt to China's rules of the game.

Paulson, as a Hua Guotong, told me before we returned to China what exactly Goldman Sachs Hua Guo was like. The reason why I didn’t tell you was because I wanted you to experience it for yourself.

If you are not comfortable with it, you can go out and work alone, or go to emerging investments and be responsible for part of the business. "

Some people don't like to mix business and relationships and want to be as independent as possible. Li Jingyi is such a person.

Some people don’t mind handing over business to their partners, and even like to let their partners help them advise.

Zhou Xin was neither of the two. He simply thought he could get some money to practice with the opponent.

Although it was good to practice with other people's money at Goldman Sachs, at Goldman Sachs he was worried that Li Jingyi would be dug into a trap because of her lack of social experience, and then jump into it. In the future, he would be the one to help fill the hole with favors.

For example, the cooperation between Goldman Sachs and Low Taek Jho almost hollowed out Malaysia. After the scam was finally exposed, Goldman Sachs, as one of the interested parties, paid US$39 billion to reconcile with Malaysia.

Li Jingyi shook her head: "I still want to hold on, going to Xinxing is boring.

Every move I make is under your supervision. If I were to invest in emerging industries, I'm sure Lao Wu would come to you every now and then to get closer to me, under the pretext of reporting on my work.

I think we still need some personal space from each other.

Moreover, at Goldman Sachs, I only heard that they did a lot of gray area business, and I didn’t get involved. "

(End of this chapter)