My 1999

"Mr. Xu, where do you plan to go?"

"Stanford University."

He has long admired this world-famous school.

It's a pity that I have no luck with it in my two lifetimes.

Now that I'm in the United States, I just want to go and have a look.

"Okay, sir."

The driver started slowly and the car drove towards Silicon Valley.

The main part of Silicon Valley is located in Santa Clara County at the southern end of the San Francisco Peninsula. It mainly includes the county's valley from Palo Alto to the county capital of San Jose, a section of about 25 miles long.

Not to mention how many great inventions and technology companies were born here.

Apple, Google, and Intel are among the leaders.

After leaving downtown San Francisco, the car quickly arrived at Xu Liang's destination along the highway.

After getting off the car, Xu Liang looked at the surrounding scenery that was very different from that in China, curiosity flashed in his eyes.

My eyes caught sight of the sign next to it.

"Dune Road?"

Looking at this road that stretches into the distance, with lush vegetation on both sides and pleasant scenery, the memory of the sand dune road comes to mind.

There are two special places in the United States, one is Palo Alto Sand Dunes Road in Silicon Valley, and the other is Greenwich on the East Coast.

The former is a gathering place for venture capital, densely populated with more than 300 venture capital institutions, controlling a market power of US$230 billion, and the amount of venture capital accounts for one-third of the United States.

It is rumored that this building alone at 3000 Sand Hill Road houses more than 20 private equity investment institutions.

Famous investment institutions such as Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield \u0026 Byers, NEI Capital, and Mayfield are all concentrated here.

It is said that if you throw a brick casually on the sand dune road, you can hit several venture capital investors.

Greenwich, by contrast, is a hub for hedge funds.

After September 11, hedge funds moved their companies to Greenwich, a suburb of New York, where operating costs are lower.

Later, more and more people gathered together, and gradually it became something like a sand dune road.

"Mr. Xu?!"

The sudden sound interrupted Xu Liang's thoughts.

Turning around subconsciously.

A young man wearing a black coat and black-rimmed glasses came into view.

"you know me?"

The man nodded quickly and walked over with excitement in his eyes.

Seeing the guarded bodyguards around him, he wisely did not get too close and introduced them quickly.

"Mr. Xu, I was Hongmeng's intern last year. After I was admitted to Stanford, I resigned and came to the United States."

Xu Liang suddenly realized.

As an old capitalist, he would never let go of any opportunity for free prostitution, especially for interns, who have low wages, good obedience, and most of them are talented.

Therefore, after Hongmeng developed, it began to cooperate with surrounding universities.

Because there are not many Internet technology companies in Beijing, even those 985 universities will not refuse.

"May I have your name?"

"Li Jiawei."

After signaling to the people around him to relax their vigilance, Xu Liang walked over with a smile.

"Since you are a student at Stanford, how about taking me around here?"

"no problem."

Li Jiawei patted his chest.

Although he came to Stanford to study for a master's degree and gave up the opportunity to work at Hongmeng, he was still very concerned about the domestic situation. He also knew that Hongmeng was valued at US$2.8 billion and had raised US$560 million.

To be honest, I still regret it a bit. If you were an employee of Hongmeng, you would definitely be assigned option indicators this time.

After working for three years, you will definitely have a chance to get it.

"Mr. Xu, can I still join Hongmeng after graduation?"

"Of course. We welcome talents from all over the world to join Hongmeng anytime, anywhere, especially top students like you from Stanford." Xu Liang said with a smile.

Li Jiawei looked excited and nodded vigorously.

"Mr. Xu, many domestic media are now saying that your acquisition of Sina was a bad move. It not only failed to advance Hongmeng's business, but also consumed more funds.

Moreover, Sina is now attacking everywhere, with an unfocused development strategy. It is more like seeking new business, obtaining revenue balance, and seeking medical treatment in a hurry. "

Li Jiawei has not been in the workplace for too long, and he is still young. He still retains the simplicity of a college student, and he does not feel offended when asking questions.

Xu Liang smiled and said, "Outsiders are looking at things in the fog and can't understand it at all. The reason why they criticize wantonly is just to attract attention, so don't take it to heart.

As for Sina's current business, it has just begun. I am not in a hurry, so who should worry about it? "

Feeling the strong confidence radiating from him, Li Jiawei nodded unconsciously.

Just then, the cell phone on his body rang.

After Li Jiawei picked up the call, he quickly hung up.

"Mr. Xu, the school has invited the founder of an Internet company to give a speech. Do you want to listen?"

"Really? Which Internet company?" Xu Liang asked curiously.

"Netflix, an online DVD and Blu-ray rental service provider."

Xu Liang didn't think much about it. There were too many companies in the United States.

Let Li Jiawei lead the way to the school auditorium.

There were many people listening to the speech, and the auditorium, which could seat four to five hundred people, was almost full.

There were even a lot of people standing in the aisles.

Xu Liang and others arrived late, and the seats were already gone, so they could only stand in the aisle.

"It seems that the people who came today are quite important."

Xu Liang said.

Not long after, several people in suits walked in.

A fat old man walked up to the podium first and tried the painting tube, but it was OK.

"I didn't expect so many people to come today. It seems that Mr. Hastings is very popular, but it's understandable. After all, we are all customers of Netflix. The DVD rental model they pioneered is really cool."

The old man spoke very humorously, and there was good-natured laughter from the audience.

“Well, let’s welcome Netflix founder and CEO Reed Hastings to share his entrepreneurial experience with us.”

Wow….

Warm applause broke out.

Wearing a black suit underneath, a blue shirt underneath, and a neatly trimmed mustache, the handsome middle-aged man walked up to the podium with a smile.

After shaking hands with the fat old man from before, he stood in the center of the stage.

"I am very honored to be standing here today. It reminds me of my college days, when I was young, bold and full of dreams for the future.

Of course, beautiful girls are also an indispensable spice to the boring college life. Speaking of which, I envy you very much. Now you can live in the same dormitory with girls. You can easily fall in love and even live together.

This was not allowed in universities in the 1980s.

The above is the biggest emotion of a forty-year-old middle-aged man.

Next comes the part of entrepreneurship that you all love to hear about. "

Reed Hastings picked up the microphone and walked to the front of the podium.

“Like many successful entrepreneurs, I started my business by accident.

I really like the movie "Apollo 13" starring Tom Hanks. It represents our hope of humans breaking out of the earth, so I rented its CD through Blockbuster in 1997. .

The worst thing that happened to me that year was that I forgot the DVD of this movie at home and didn't return it in time.

When I saw it again and returned it, it had been more than two months.

Over the past two months, Blockbuster has charged me $40 in late payment fees.

God is my witness, even if I bought an "Apollo 13" movie disc, it would be cheaper than this.

This made me very dissatisfied, and I complained to my heart's content on the Internet.

Soon, I discovered that many people had similar experiences to mine, and I also discovered that 20% of Blockbuster’s revenue, the largest video rental company in the United States, came from customers’ liquidated damages.

This is very incredible, and it also made me subconsciously think about how to avoid this part of the liquidated damages. After all, I have to watch movies a lot, and I can't guarantee that Apollo 13 won't happen again.

After about two nights, I came up with a solution.

I bought CDs of the most popular movies of the time, posted on forums and offered my videos for rent, and soon people were contacting me.

I made an agreement with them that for $2 a month, they could rent any video from me without any late fees.

In just one week, I made three hundred dollars from this little business.

This made me realize that this model could work.

So I founded Netflix and turned this model into a real business. "

After a pause to allow everyone time to digest, Hastings continued.

“Netflix has completely abandoned Blockbuster’s ‘pay per film’ model and instead adopted a subscription model: users only need to pay a fixed fee to rent and watch movies as much as they want, eliminating the need for return dates, late fees, and shipping costs. and a series of troubles such as handling fees.

Our rates are also lower than Blockbuster, which charges $10 for five movie nights for five nights, compared to Netflix's $5 per month for up to four discs at a time.

This series of user-focused strategies allowed us to gain 240,000 users in 1999.

Although Netflix already has a complete business model, we have not stopped innovating.

Last year, we further improved our business processes, further simplified the process and provided more standardized membership services.

All members pay a monthly membership fee and select their favorite movies from Netflix's online movie library to form a personal viewing plan list.

Netflix mails DVDs according to the order listed.

This simplifies the operation process, makes resource flow more efficient, and reduces exceptions.

This model allows users to pay a fixed monthly fee to watch unlimited blockbusters in the comfort of their own home.

In addition, membership fees are paid on a monthly basis, eliminating the need to calculate each rental fee in the traditional model, making customers more sticky. "

The reason why Hastings accepted this speech was also to promote Netflix, so he made the Netflix model very clear.

For founders, any growing customer is extremely valuable.

"Thanks to the membership system, our users increased by 60% in 2000, exceeding 350,000, and our monthly revenue exceeded US$8 million."