Chapter 519 You know technology

Author: Linjiangxian

Chapter 519 You know technology

In the conference room of Confinity's headquarters, Lu Yiming saw all the founding team members of Confinity.

"Mr. Lu Yiming, after careful consideration, we have decided to cooperate with you." Peter Thiel said to Lu Yiming.

Lu Yiming smiled and said: "I believe this is the most correct decision you have made. I can let you defeat all competitors. I have said before that I am optimistic about your future. So, let's make a price.

.”

Several other shareholders of Confinity Company who had never met Lu Yiming were all curious about Lu Yiming. This Xia national who had been causing trouble in the US stock market recently was really too young and did not fit in with their perception.

Pan Yu asked: "Mr. Lu, I actually have another question. You know, what we do is a payment channel and we need to cooperate with content providers. If we accept your capital injection, it is very possible for someone like eBay to

They will refuse to cooperate with us and choose other payment solutions. How do you solve this problem?”

Accepting Lu Yiming's investment is now the consensus of Confinity. After all, the company can no longer attract investment. If there is no money to continue burning, it will be a matter of time before it disappears. But accepting Lu Yiming's investment will bring another problem - PayPal

What should I do if no one uses it? At that time, the company will have no choice but to close down - after all, Lu Yiming has offended too many companies in the US stock market. In the past half month, many companies have almost lost their pants because of Lu Yiming.

Lu Yiming said confidently: "Didn't I just say that? I can let you defeat all competitors. As long as you are the only option, who can they find to cooperate if they don't cooperate with you?"

What Lu Yiming said was so reasonable that everyone present was speechless and didn't know how to refute.

Ross Simmons said: "Mr. Lu, you are just talking nonsense. Why do you think you can help us do all this?"

Lu Yiming asked back: "If I can't do it, why should I spend money to buy your company's shares? If I have too much money, I will burn it?"

Ross Simmons: “…”

What you said makes so much sense, I'm speechless.

Peter Thiel said: "Mr. Lu, according to the results of our discussion, we are willing to give 20% of the company's shares for a price of 30 million US dollars. I wonder if you can accept this price?"

Lu Yiming didn't think twice and said immediately: "No problem."

When everyone heard this, they couldn't help but look at each other, and they all had a common idea in their hearts.

Isn't it because it is sold cheaply?

In fact, this price is already the price they raised after negotiation. After all, given Confinity's current situation, it's hard to say whether the company's total price will be able to reach 30 million US dollars in a while.

Unexpectedly, Lu Yiming agreed so simply.

This makes them somewhat doubtful about life.

Did you agree to pay the exorbitant price on the spot?

You don't play your cards according to the routine.

Lu Yiming saw everyone's expressions and couldn't help but laugh: "What? Are you reluctant to sell it again?"

The words that were spoken out were spilled. Although I muttered in my heart, I had already said it. It would be a taboo to regret it on the spot. Besides, 30 million would definitely not be a loss. If the price was raised, Lu Yiming would not buy it. These 3,000

If Wan Du can't get anything out of it, that would be a huge loss - after all, everything depends on Lu Yiming's face now, and you absolutely dare not offend Lu Yiming.

"Sell it, of course."

"Then what are you waiting for? Let's sign the contract now."

One shouted a high price, the other did not counter-offer, and the transaction went smoothly.

The reason why Lu Yiming is so straightforward is because he knows very well that this price is definitely a steal!

Although he didn’t know how Confinity Company survived the difficulties in the original history, he knew that in the era he lived in, the PayPal software was almost the Alipay of the Western world. After two years, the 20% stake

, estimated to be worth 200 million US dollars.

From a purely profit rate perspective, a tenfold premium is nothing to Lu Yiming, but the greatest value of Confinity is not the payment software itself, but the group of geniuses in front of him.

After PayPal was acquired by eBay for US$1.5 billion, Confinity's core members quickly left and scattered.

They received very generous returns, but they did not spend the rest of their lives on a Pacific island with big checks. On the contrary, they devoted themselves more actively to new careers, and they achieved results that shocked the world.

Elon Musk founded SpaceX and Tesla. SpaceX is a space exploration technology company. It has successfully launched a rocket and successfully recovered a first-stage rocket, creating a first in human space history and greatly reducing the cost of human beings entering space; Tesla,

It became the most popular electric vehicle in the first two decades of the 21st century, and gradually expanded into clean energy businesses such as Powerwall energy walls and solar roofs.

Reed Hoffman founded LinkedIn, the world's largest professional social network and a social network for business customers.

Shijun Chen, Chad Hurley, and Wade Karim co-founded the YouTube video website, the world's largest video website with more than 1.5 billion users.

Jeremy Stoppelman and Russell Simmons founded the Yelp review website, the largest review website in the United States.

David Sachs founded Yammer, an enterprise social networking service.

Max Lufchin created Slide, which was later acquired by Google for $200 million.

Prema Shake promotes a non-profit P2P lending company that mainly lends money to companies with very low incomes in developing countries.

Botha joined Sequoia Capital, the top venture capital firm in Silicon Valley, as a partner.

Keith Labois served as the technical operations officer of Square, a well-known mobile payment company. He was Square's second-in-command and greatly promoted the company's development.

Peter Thiel, the leader of the PayPal gang, is in charge of a hedge fund with a total capital of 3 billion US dollars, and is an investor in hundreds of companies such as Facebook, Yelp, Linkedin, SpaceX, Airbnb, Palantir, Zynga, etc. In the early stage, he invested 500,000 US dollars.

US dollars invested in Facebook, ten years later, the value has reached about one billion US dollars.

In general, the members of the PayPal gang later left PayPal and achieved astonishing achievements in all walks of life, controlling a large part of the wealth and power in the IT and Internet fields.

For Lu Yiming, what he earned from selling PayPal from eBay was just a little pocket money at most. If he established a good relationship with this group of great guys in front of him, he would have many opportunities to make money in the future!

If you invest in any of the above-mentioned companies, you can make a lot of money.

After everyone signed various documents, Lu Yiming did not leave immediately, but took the opportunity to discuss it with everyone.

In order to get closer to each other, Lu Yiming did not even put himself in the position of investors, but talked to them like friends: "I think the Internet is the general trend of the future, and online payment software is a different A new model for bank transfers and cash transactions.”

As soon as we talked about the Internet, both parties immediately had a common topic.

Peter Thiel seemed very happy. After all, it was too difficult to find an investor who agreed with PayPal's core concept. So he couldn't help complaining and said: "Although Nokia gave us the initial investment, it recently failed because we didn't They find a profit model and refuse to continue to provide financial support. They are only thinking about how to make money."

Regarding Peter Thiel's complaints, Lu Yiming expressed his sympathy: "I have also started my own business, so I know the urine of these investors. Although making money is not a bad thing in itself, they are eager for quick success and want a company that is still in the growth stage to make profits as soon as possible. , that is tantamount to killing the goose to retrieve the eggs.”

Ross Simons immediately looked at Lu Yiming with admiration and praised him: "Mr. Lu, you understand technology."

Lu Yiming glanced at Ross Simmons, and then said: "So when PayPal will be profitable, I will not make any requirements for the time being. I only hope that you will expand as soon as possible after getting my investment. I need more registered users and active users. .”

"I thought so too."

Peter Thiel has never met an investor as easy to talk to as Lu Yiming.

Investors who don’t care about profits are good investors!

Other people in the company also began to be satisfied with this deal.

Without the pressure to make profits, they can focus more on technology.

As for attracting new users, now that the technical problem has been solved, are you still worried about not having any new users?

Lu Yiming suddenly said: "The name of the company is Confinity, but the name of the payment software is PayPal. This is too troublesome. I think it would be better to unify it. How about calling it PayPal? This name is simple to pronounce and easy to remember."

With such a simple request, and Lu Yiming's words being well-founded, Peter Thiel immediately nodded in agreement, and then continued: "I plan to use the 'burger tactic' for the subsequent development of PayPal."

"Hamburger tactics?"

Lu Yiming was a little confused.

What the hell is this?

Suddenly I hit a blind spot in knowledge.

Lu Yiming thought this was some kind of business model from the United States.

After all, the American people have a lot of fun, and it's not surprising that any weird tricks appear.

Peter Thiel explained: “The so-called burger tactic means that we plan to spend the money that can buy a hamburger to attract young users to use our payment software, as long as they introduce more family and friends to register our accounts. , you can get this reward.”

Lu Yiming finally understood it now. It was nothing more than the money-burning-for-market system used in later generations of the Internet. The rewards users received were not much, just enough to buy a chicken drumstick or a hamburger.

It's cheap.

As long as the function of the software itself is good, users attracted by a burger or a chicken drumstick will be able to retain it and continue to create value.

The benefits brought by this will definitely exceed the original cost of burgers and chicken legs.

This is how the Internet attracts newcomers in the 21st century.

I have to say that he is worthy of being the leader of PayPal. In the early days of the rise of the Internet industry, he was keenly aware of the core characteristics of this emerging market and did not hesitate to use this unethical style of play. It is no wonder that he took over

In the next two years, eBay was able to defeat eBay's own payment software on eBay's home court, so much so that eBay had to spend US$1.5 billion to "recruit" PayPal.

Lu Yiming agreed with Peter Thiel’s hamburger tactic, and also made a suggestion: “We can implement stepped rewards. For example, if we attract a new user, we will only reward two dollars, but if the other party can attract ten users,

Then we will reward you with thirty dollars, and so on. The more users you attract, the greater the reward will be."

This viral marketing strategy was learned from the later generations of Mou Xixi. In order to attract new users, Mou Xixi used many tricks to attract new users. She managed to carve out a bloody path under the noses of Alibaba and JD.com, and even came from behind.

.

After hearing Lu Yiming's suggestion, Peter Thiel's eyes shone brightly, he slapped the table and shouted: "Lu! This idea is really great."
To be continued...