Top of the Great Era

Chapter 1608
When I came to the UK, it was inevitable to go to the home court to watch the football.

However, there are no recent home games.

On March 3th, Manchester United played away against Bolton. This was a relatively easy game. If there is no accident, Ferguson will try his best to come off the bench to prepare for the Champions League in the middle of the week.

On March 3, the highlight will come. Manchester United will challenge Bayern Munich away.

To say that Manchester United's signing luck this year is a little bit bad. The quarter-finals faced the Serie A giants AC Milan, and the quarter-finals collided with Bayern Munich.

In April, Zhou Buqi must go to Old Trafford to watch the game.

On April 4, Manchester United played against Chelsea at home.If this game can be won, then Manchester United can almost lock in the league title this season in advance.

On April 4, Manchester United returned to their home court to play the second round against Bayern Munich.

Zhou Buqi was not in a hurry to go to Manchester, but stayed in London. Ning Yaxian arranged three things for him.

First, go to the artificial intelligence laboratory that Ziweixing cooperates with the University of Cambridge, showing that the big boss cares about innovation and technology;
Second, participate in a summit forum organized by the Financial Times and the British Digital Economy Council. Many well-known British and American venture capital institutions and entrepreneurs will be present;
Third, visit the high-tech industrial park in East London, which has just been built.

This is the new technology strategic plan of the UK, known as "mini Silicon Valley", which has high hopes. Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Cisco, Qualcomm and other technology giants have responded and will establish branches here.

Zhou Buqi should go and have a look, learn about the preferential investment policies, and show a friendly gesture of cooperating with the industrial policies of the British authorities.

First go to Cambridge University. There are many Chinese students in the tour guide team arranged by the school. They circle around and walk along the famous Kang River, deeply experiencing the atmosphere of Xu Zhimo's famous poem "Farewell to Cambridge"—

So much so that Zhou Buqi sang subconsciously: "The golden willow by the river is the bride in the sunset; the beautiful shadow in the waves is rippling in my heart..."

Some international students joked: "Mr. Zhou's demeanor is exactly the same as Xu Zhimo back then!"

Zhou Buqi was quite happy at first, but then he reacted and quickly explained, "That's different, Xu Zhimo is a scumbag, I'm not."

Everyone laughed together.

School activities are about 3 hours long.

For one hour, Zhou Buqi was going to participate in a simple small forum and had a small speech.The speeches are all ready, mainly around the topic of "innovation".

Then do a simple interaction with the students.

But the interaction is really not nutritious, and many of them are problems of finding a job.

However, after the forum, I had a more speculative chat with Dean Mibach of the School of Economics and Management. This man is in his 60s this year. He was the minister of commerce in the cabinet in the 90s, and he is a proper official.Later, when I stopped being an official, I went back to school to do academic work.

Dean Mibach listed a set of data, saying that in the past five years, the total investment in the field of venture capital financing in the world ranked.The first place is undoubtedly the United States, the second is China, and the third is the United Kingdom.

India ranks fourth.

The reason why India ranks fourth is that the past few years have not been very good. Since the year before last, India has gradually entered a new global perspective, and major capitals have entered the market one after another and began to invest in India.

Looking at this trend, I am afraid that within a few years, Britain will not even be able to keep its third position, and it may be overtaken by India.

But even so, the amount of venture capital financing that the UK has received is more than twice that of Germany, the largest country in Europe.

Sure enough, he is the dean, and his level is high.

Capital seeks profit, and where the most profitable, it will go there.Where there is more money, the economy will be more active and develop better.

Only one set of data expresses the trend of global economic development.

The United States is really a giant. The scale of venture capital financing that the United States has received is greater than that of all countries in the world combined. This is a vampire country that constantly attracts funds and elite talents from all over the world.

Then, there are China and India in Asia, with strong stamina and rapid development.

Zhou Buqi complained to some extent, "This is normal, and the main reason is because of Europe... On the one hand, the labor is too high, and on the other hand, the tax is too high. Well, I am mainly talking about other countries in the European Union. Well, Britain is actually okay, many of its policies are very similar to those of the United States, and Europa is a bit too..."

This is the truth, otherwise Ziweixing Digital Media Headquarters and Ziweixing International's European headquarters could not both be located in London.Recently, the European debt crisis is breaking out in the European Union. The countries in the euro zone basically have to stop eating. They can only rely on the continuous blood transfusion of Germany and France to borrow hundreds of billions and tens of billions of euros from other countries.But it didn't work, and the Greek government soon went bankrupt.

This is the inevitable result of the high welfare policy of the democratically elected government.

In order to attract votes, we can only continue to give high benefits to the common people.If the common people are raised with high welfare, no one will be willing to work. Even if the salary requirements for work are extremely high, capital will not be willing to come and invest, and a series of vicious circles will be formed.

Dean Mibach said with a smile: "The reform policy in the UK has been advancing, and the rotation of political parties has not changed the inherent general direction."

"What general direction?"

"Develop the financial industry and digital industry."

"Oh."

"Your speech just now is very good. Innovation is the only way out for global competition in the future. In fact, in this regard, the UK has also gone through many detours."

"is it?"

Zhou Buqi is very interested in this, because in his opinion, the biggest gap between Ziwei Star and technology giants such as Google, Microsoft, and Oracle is the lack of innovation ability in hard-core technology.

Dean Mibach said: "After the end of World War II, Britain and the United States were both victorious countries, and their economies were not destroyed by the war and developed very well. It is a pity that Prime Minister Churchill stepped down at that time, and Britain embarked on a completely different path from the United States. economic development."

"what?"

"nationalization."

"What?"

Zhou Buqi felt a little familiar.

Dean Mibach is very old, he should have come from that era, and has worked in the fields of politics, business, and academia, and he has a great say, "At that time, the British Conservative Party respected... Well, in fact, France also , also carried out the road of nationalization, and wanted to learn from the Soviet Union to quickly revitalize the national economy and get out of the shadow of war. At that time, Britain almost nationalized all large and medium-sized enterprises.”

Zhou Buqi asked: "And then? How did it change later?"

Mibach said: "Because of the rise of Japan, the touch is too great."

"what?"

Zhou Buqi didn't quite understand.

Dean Mibach said: "After the industrial revolution, the UK has always been the most innovative country in the world. Even after the rise of the US, the UK is not bad at all in the field of innovation. The Turing machine was invented by the British. Yes. However, after the British invented the Turing machine, they soon began to implement nationalization. Such a great innovative product, the British failed to make good use of it, which was learned by the Americans, and later semiconductors came into being. industry, the computer industry and the internet industry. It should all belong to the UK."

Zhou Buqi smiled politely.

The British are very arrogant and conceited. They look down on Europa, and even more on the United States. The dean's argument is obviously a bit too much.

Mibach sighed, shook his head again and again and said: "Being surpassed by the Americans is nothing more than that, but in the 30s and [-]s, Britain's innovation ability was surpassed by Japan, and Britain fell to the third place in the world, and the number of innovation patents has already fallen. Less than [-]% of the original."

Zhou Buqi said with a smile: "Yes, Japan's semiconductor industry is developing too rapidly. If it weren't for the mandatory policies of the United States, the industry structure might have changed. Japan's collapse will also benefit the interests of the United Kingdom."

Mibach even admitted, "Yes, this is the arrangement of Prime Minister Thatcher. At that time, due to the impact of decades of nationalization policy, the UK had seriously lost its ability to innovate, and it was involved in the fields of computers, semiconductors, biopharmaceuticals, energy mining, and machinery. Manufacturing has fallen behind in all aspects. After Margaret Thatcher came to power, she was determined to reform."

Zhou Buqi couldn't help but look serious, "If you want to change it back, it will be difficult. State-owned enterprises mean the wealth of the whole people. If they are sold high, no one will buy them, and if they are sold low, they will damage the national wealth. It's not a good thing to do."

Mibach said: "Yes, so she is a great prime minister with the same reputation as Churchill. She is known for her iron fist, known as the Iron Lady, withstood the pressure, and firmly reformed. It took only seven years for Britain to surpass Japan. It became the second largest innovator and continues to this day.”

"Oh." Zhou Buqiquan should listen to the story, which is not the point, "Mr. Dean, in your opinion, what is the core of innovation? Is it simply due to the difference between state-owned and private-owned?"

Mibach was silent for a while, and said slowly: "Yes, and no. Innovation comes from human inspiration, and inspiration comes from human nature. In the final analysis, innovation must conform to the most basic human nature."

"What is the most basic human nature?"

"Selfishness, egoism."

"Ah."

Zhou Buqi thinks so.

Miebach said: "If the poor want to become rich, they can stimulate their business innovation; keeping the dying alive can stimulate innovation in biomedicine; in order to defend the country, they can stimulate innovation in military combat readiness. Goals The pursuit of regional popularity can stimulate regional innovation; the goal is to pursue global popularity, influence or business capabilities, and it can stimulate world-class innovation.”

Zhou Buqi felt inspired, "So if you want to stimulate the innovation of the R&D team, you must teach students in accordance with their aptitude and treat them differently. Understand the needs of each R&D team separately, and then set a result that meets their needs."

Dean Mibach smiled, "Probably this is the logic, refined management."

In the past, scientific research teams gave money and stock options.

Simple and crude.

But the problem is that those top scientists are at least multi-millionaires, and a graduate of a semiconductor major can even find a job with an annual salary of 500 million US dollars relatively easily in Silicon Valley.

These people are not very short of money.

However, there is no shortage of money, there is always a shortage, right?
Some people may lack love, so they promise to help him solve their marriage problems; some people may admire Bill Gates, and they promise to take him to see Bill Gates after the project is successful; If you want a permanent residence in the capital, some people want to help their parents solve their pension problems...

Some people may have a lot of vanity and want a prestigious title, and want to be an academician. With Ziweixing's strength, this can also be done. If you can't be a member of the domestic academy of sciences, you can become a foreign academician of the American Academy of Sciences.

Zhou Buqi felt that it made sense, so he went back to discuss it with Shen Xiangyang and Xu Liangjie.Strong innovation ability does not necessarily mean strong technical ability, and poor technical ability does not necessarily mean poor innovation ability.

(End of this chapter)