Top of the big era

The cooperation between Weidian and Soso is a matter of course.

Very smooth.

When Wang Xiaozhou came back from Pengcheng, he came to the headquarters to meet Boss Zhou, not because of such a trivial matter, and asked, "I heard about Ziweixing Engineering Institute. One of our distributed projects has a good start?"

Zhou Buqi laughed and said, "Why do you care about this? Yes, distributed page loading has nothing to do with your department."

"It's epochal."

"oh?"

"The concept of distributed has been around for a long time, but most of the time it is theoretical, and it is difficult to show it at the application level. Well, I am talking about China. The Academy of Engineering has made a good start in this field."

Zhou Buqi glanced at him, "Xiao Chuan, just speak up if you have something to say."

Wang Xiaozhou scratched his head, and then sighed, "The share of Weidian has been between 33% and 35% in the past few months, I am ashamed. The share of Weidian browser is so high, but the share of search cannot go up. , I am responsible."

Zhou Buqi smiled and said: "The opponent is Baidu, how can it be so easy? Didn't the advertising density be adjusted up last month? I read the financial report, and the revenue exceeded 60 million."

"If you compare it with Baidu, with such a share, the monthly income is at least 100 million."

"Well, take your time and accumulate first."

"I think Weidian's technical direction in the past is wrong, and its ambition is too great. Xu Ming is leading a team to do personalized search. This is of course a good direction, but it is too far away, and this should not be a short-term goal. Search results The personalized push of advertisements is much more complicated than the personalized push of advertisements, and the technical difficulty is too great.”

"What's the meaning?"

Wang Xiaochuan said: "Xu Ming's direction is very right. According to different users, different search results are given. Low-end users try to provide simple content that is easy to understand, thereby improving the search experience. High-end users push more complex content. , can give them a sense of satisfaction. This idea is great. But from a technical point of view, it is difficult to achieve in the short term. It is not simply a matter of changing the personalized advertising recommendation algorithm. This requires deeper artificial intelligence research and deep learning of computers."

Zhou Buqi raised his eyebrows, "Artificial intelligence?"

Wang Xiaozhou said seriously: "Didn't we say that we will establish Ziweixing Research Institute, artificial intelligence will be a very important research field. I think Xu Ming's project team can be transferred to the research institute."

Zhou Buqi instantly understood what he meant.

Business management is very complicated!

Because Ziweixing has completed the A round of financing, there is no need to make internal accounts, and various departments do not need to allocate expenses for the search business. This leads to a problem - the loss of the search business.

In the past few months, in order to grab the market, Micropoint has kept the advertising density very low. Since June, the advertising density has returned to normal, and formal operations have begun.

Micropoint's income is also very good, exceeding 60 million yuan.

But even so, it is still beyond our means!

Lost 14 million last month!

This is the only loss-making business group of Ziwei Star.

The reason for this is that the search business group will involve complex technologies, and a total of six research and development project teams have been raised, which costs a lot.

To solve this problem, of course, clear out Xu Ming's team, which is irrelevant in a short period of time.

Without this project, Weidian will work harder to increase its revenue, and maybe by September, it will be able to truly generate profits.

Zhou Buqi didn't care about it.

Search is an asset-heavy and technology-heavy Internet industry, and the investment is very large. Because too much data is involved, a large-scale server cluster and continuous improvement of technology research and development are required.

So there is no rush to make a profit.

However, Zhou Buqi can also understand each other.

All businesses in the company are making money, and only the search business is losing money, so some people will definitely make irresponsible remarks. Even if Wang Xiaozhou can withstand the pressure, his team may not be able to withstand such accusations, and it will affect morale.

Just like Wang Jian in his previous life as Alibaba Cloud, he was able to withstand the pressure, but the technical elites he had worked so hard to find couldn't bear the pressure, and went on and on.

This is a management issue of Boss Ma. If he failed to deal with internal conflicts in a timely manner, he may be full of doubts about Alibaba Cloud in his heart.

To do high-end technology research and development, you need to relax, be quiet and calm. To provide the best and most elegant working environment, the most beautiful and mellow food coffee is the most likely to inspire engineers to come up with a few good ideas and break through technical difficulties.

The so-called office area is like an entertainment area, which refers to this kind of team.

And the various incentive methods of shouting slogans, playing chicken blood, and turning pressure into motivation, other businesses are okay, and they are definitely not suitable for high-end technology research and development.

Zhou Buqi has been a leader for so many years and has experience. As a leader, you should focus on people, not things; you should focus on results, not processes.

As the boss, Zhou Buqi has a very gentle style and is willing to understand the difficulties of his subordinates. He nodded and said: "Well, I agree. Old Xu said that he will try to recruit Shen Xiangyang this month. Not this month, but next month." Sure. Just hold on for a while, and arrange it when Dean Shen digs it up."

Wang Xiaochuan was very happy, "There is one more thing, we want to rent a data center."

"ah?"

"The amount of data is getting bigger and bigger. We only need to keep purchasing servers by ourselves. The cost is too high. Last month, I ordered 500 servers and spent another 40 million."

A data center is a server cluster composed of tens of thousands of servers. There are more and more Chinese web pages, and the amount of information is getting bigger and bigger. The server clusters of hundreds or thousands of servers built by ourselves are not enough.

Zhou Buqi frowned slightly, "If we want to do cloud computing, the first step is to build a cloud computing data center. By then, all Ziwei Star's business will be connected to the cloud computing data center."

Wang Xiaochuan said: "Yes, I know. So in the short term we are only renting. If there is no cloud computing plan, I would suggest that we build our own data center."

"Is it safe to rent?"

Although Zhou Buqi is a technical layman, he usually comes into contact with technical masters such as Xu Liangjie, Wang Xiaochuan, Cheng Binghao, and Guo Pengfei. He learns quickly and knows many technical concepts, so he is not a pure novice.

Is it reliable to store data in someone else's data center?

Wang Xiaochuan said: "It's CNNIC's data center, and it's a state agency. It's not a big problem. Baidu also rented a piece of data and stored the data here."

Zhou Buqi nodded, "Is that so..."

Wang Xiaochuan said: "There are more and more data on Youyou.com and Xiaonei. It is definitely not possible to store them locally. I think this plan should be implemented as soon as possible. Go to the data center and rent 8,000 servers, which is enough for all the business of Ziwei Star. used."

Zhou Buqi twitched the corner of his mouth, "Since you have this idea, why did you spend so much money buying servers last month?"

Wang Xiaozhou explained: "After all, it is a leased data center from someone else's house. It is best to store the core data on our own server, which is controllable. After this wave of purchases, we will rent a piece of land in the data center. In the next one or two years The infrastructure is basically enough.”

Zhou Buqi smiled, "You are so optimistic!"

"Is this okay? I haven't told Xu Liangjie about it."

"Then you can mention it at the technical committee. I am a layman, and I respect everyone's opinions. In principle, I think this idea is feasible. Wait until our cloud computing data center is built in 2009, and then data transplantation will be fine. .”

"Well, the last thing is what I said at the beginning, distributed."

Zhou Buqi frowned slightly, "What happened to the distribution?"

Wang Xiaochuan said: "There are many distributed theories, but they have been researched and developed, and there is no application in China. There are very few related talents. They are basically brought out by Microsoft Research Institute and Google Research Institute..."

"Choose the point!"

"I know a person who has specialized in distributed systems for many years and is considered the top person in the country in this field."

"oh?"

"He is Zhou Feng, my college classmate, who used to be Chinaren together."

"oh……"

Zhou Buqi remained calm, saying that he had never heard of this person.

However, there is one thing he knows.

It is the computer class of Tsinghua University in 1996. A large number of top computer geniuses emerged, and they are quite famous in the industry. Among that group of people back then, Wang Xiaochuan wasn't even considered the best.

Wang Xiaochuan said: "When I was in college, I often didn't go to class, and I didn't participate in school activities very much. Zhou Feng was different. He was a standard good student, a top student, and his academic performance was always very good. He was also the chairman of the Science and Technology Association of Tsinghua University. The campus network of Tsinghua University was built by him, as well as the Sakai BBS. After the graduate school, his master's degree is in the direction of distributed computer systems."

"Oh?" Zhou Buqi's eyes lit up, "When was that?"

Wang Xiaochuan said, "2000."

Zhou Buqi applauded, "Talent!"

I have paid attention to this field so early, and have carried out research. This vision is very keen. It's a pity that you may not be able to learn anything in China.

Wang Xiaochuan continued: "Even in Tsinghua University, in this field... I finished my master's degree in less than two years, and then I went to the University of Berkeley in the United States to study for a Ph.D. with Professor Eric Brewer, specializing in distributed systems and operations. System. Oh, Professor Brewer is an academician of the American Academy of Engineering and the most powerful scientist in the world in the distributed field, and the CAP theorem is called Brewer's theorem."

Zhou Buqi was a little overwhelmed.

Fortunately, I understand it, this Zhou Feng is a top talent! Especially in the distributed field, he has learned from world-class scientists and has profound attainments in this field.

Zhou Buqi asked continuously: "Where are others? Are they in the United States? It just so happens that Wang Xing and Wang Jian have gone, so we can meet."

Wang Xing shook his head, "No, he has returned home."

"oh?"

"It's Netease."

"What?"

Wang Xing said with a wry smile: "At the beginning, he said that he would join Microsoft, continue his studies, and specialize in science and technology. Unexpectedly, Mr. Ding of Netease read the papers he published during his Ph. D., and easily solved a Netease mailbox technology. It was difficult. I was eager to love Caicai, and went to the United States several times to find him. Later, the kindness was hard to turn down, and he joined NetEase.”

Zhou Buqi twitched the corner of his mouth, "He is your classmate, can you dig him?"

"Disaster!"

"Um?"

"He is a proper president."

"There is a way..."

Zhou Buqi took a deep look at him.

This kid has something to say!