Wall Street Legend

Chapter 160 $62 million (33)

It wasn't until Facebook had a bit of a user base that Ye Dongqing came up with the idea of ​​contacting celebrities, politicians, singers, models, etc., and asking them to register as certified users for free.

This is a win-win situation. They can gain higher attention and interact directly with many people, skipping the media, and Facebook can use their star power to attract more new users and retain them.

It's a good idea, isn't it? Currently, a team dedicated to this aspect has been formed, and more than ten large brokerage companies have been contacted. The first batch of famous users are gradually appearing, which is a little different from ordinary accounts. From Ye Dongqing's perspective, Young people will like these in the future, just like bringing real social gossip into the digital network.

This is the benefit of rebirth. It allows him to know what he wants to do from the beginning and which direction is most beneficial to him. At present, making money is only secondary. He is still in the initial stage of frantically attracting new users, let alone the Eurasian region. Even the North American continent has not yet fully expanded, and it is still very early for us to relax our vigilance.

According to the information Ye Dongqing has, many large companies are already eyeing the new social model of Facebook, such as one of the founders of Google, and OICQ, a subsidiary of AOL. There are many companies following the trend in development, mainly on To gather in the Silicon Valley area, you must first seize most of the market.

In his eyes, the market here refers to nearly two to three billion people in ten countries. The reason why Ye Dongqing has been thinking about Google so early is because he hopes to use this platform to achieve a certain degree of bundled sales in the future. After having antitrust experience with Microsoft, I believe that we can find ways to avoid monopoly accusations, such as developing a software sales platform to put our products in a front-facing position.

At the moment, he is just busy accumulating capital, which is a small effort in the initial stage. The era that truly belongs to him will not be realized until the future. He has ambitions and abilities, and it all depends on his luck.

Not surprisingly, after Richard Rockefeller proposed the idea of ​​financing, Ye Dongqing also declined it on the grounds that he had no financing plan for the time being. The two had just met and there were not many topics to talk about. After talking for a while, they left each other's phone numbers. The numbers then left separately...

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An offer of US$60 million was given, and then there was no news again from Mike Howell, the real estate agent. He could not make the decision, only the seller could make the decision.

Six days had passed when Ye Dongqing received his call again. During these six days, he went to Silicon Valley and was busy with the placement of the new company. In fact, there was not much work for him to deal with, mainly in front of the new employees. Everyone looks familiar. The employees here in New York will soon move to the new headquarters to work. The Santa Clara area has developed well in recent years. Many apartments are vacant, so there is no need to worry about having no place to live.

In order to avoid impulsive spending, Ye Dongqing once again landed on the small island in the Changdao area. After visiting it, he decided to buy it in the name of Tamsui Investment Group. The specific matters were left to a lawyer to help handle it. The seller was cooperative enough and only spent Most of the procedures were completed in just one day. The total price was US$62 million. The seller was responsible for all taxes and fees. The total down payment was US$12 million, and the remaining balance was paid over three years.

It's hard to make money, but it's so easy to spend money. It's so easy to buy a small island with a total area of ​​just over 48 acres. It's about an hour's drive from Manhattan. Ye Dongqing feels that it seems necessary to check the prices of helicopters or speedboats in the near future.

The performance of Tamsui Investment Group has not fluctuated much, while the valuation of Facebook has been rising again and again, mainly because new users have continuously joined in, and the number of registrations has exceeded 20 million at an almost terrifying speed. The last time I met Ye Dongqing Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son, who is a little bit festive, just made an offer of 100 million US dollars, just to occupy 25% of the shares. Combined with the Skype calling program that has not yet been put into the market and is being optimized, the famous The Japanese rich man has guessed what Ye Dongqing wants to do and is quite optimistic about it.

The user growth rate is too fast, which directly leads to the continuous upgrade of the plan to recruit new employees, from 300 to 800 people. Otherwise, it will be difficult to keep busy, because in addition to Facebook, Skype is short of manpower, and other video sharing platforms There is also a shortage of people for new ideas. I thought that renting two floors of office buildings would be enough. Now I have rented two more floors to prevent it from being insufficient in the future and causing the embarrassing situation of being divided by other companies.

Facebook has become so popular recently that it is worth Ye Dongqing’s expense to raise a group of people. It’s only April. Some media even asserted that it will be the most successful Internet company in 2003. After sweeping through a bunch of colleges and universities, many people in their 20s and 30s Adults aged 10 to 10 are also trying to use it. Japanese, Spanish, French, etc. versions will soon be put on the market. As for specific optimization for different regions, it will take a while before we can get around to it.

To be honest, even Ye Dongqing himself never thought that it would succeed so quickly. There is no competitive product of the same type on the market yet. It has only been more than five months since it was launched before Christmas last year. He feels that Even if an offer of one billion dollars is made, there are still people who dare to take the money and take a gamble.

Look at Google. In 1999, its founders tried to sell Google for US$750,000. But now, Google has not yet gone public, and its valuation has reached nearly ten billion US dollars. Last year, when Ye Dongqing first paid attention to it, its valuation was only About half a billion dollars.

This shows that investors have not really lost confidence in the Internet industry, but they no longer believe in lies and know how to distinguish which companies are high-quality companies worthy of investment. Judging from Facebook's current performance, it has recently won nearly 3,000 The advertising promotion contract worth 10,000 US dollars seems to be in line with their appetite.

It is impossible to sell. Last year, Google founder Larry Page said that he would not sell for less than 5 billion US dollars. Ye Dongqing has a better vision. He does not plan to accept financing for less than 10 billion US dollars unless there is no need to raise funds. The reason is that the capital chain is about to break. Considering the enthusiasm of potential advertisers, it is estimated that there is no need to raise funds. All in all, this trip to Silicon Valley made him feel much better.

At this moment, Ye Dongqing took several employees from a famous architectural design firm to visit around the island.

The apron and pier needed to be renovated, and the main building where the Morgan family lived also needed to be renovated. In fact, it would be fine to live here directly, but he didn't want to make do with this kind of thing. More than 60 million US dollars had been spent, so what was missing? Renovation money.

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