Top of the Great Era

Chapter 1925 The Great Logic of the Platform Economy
There is a boom in the development of the sharing economy. The most popular project in this field at the moment is the shared housing start-up company "Airbnb".

Entering the arena at this time is somewhat late.

Airbnb started its business in 2008, when the opportunity was the subprime mortgage crisis.

At that time, the real estate market in the United States was hit hard. Many houses could not pay their mortgages, and many houses could not be rented out.

At this time, some companies appeared to use the Internet platform to help rent houses.

Hundreds of similar startups popped up.

Zhou Buqi did not put too much energy on the investment in the US start-up market, and the chief investment officer of Ziweixing International, Alex Jones, was mainly in charge.

Without Jones' foresight, it was difficult to accurately identify the best choice from hundreds of startups.

Another point is that in the past few years, Ziwei Star International has been under great financial pressure. It has been relying on bond issuance to make a living, and is very cautious when investing.

The concept of sharing economy is very popular, but this direction is too risky, the competition is too fierce, and it can burn too much money.

If you enter the market, you must be cautious!

Therefore, in the investment strategy set by Lu Qi and Jones, the sharing economy market is temporarily abandoned, and the money is saved and put in areas that are more urgently needed, unless Boss Zhou personally decides to make the decision.

This time, it was Zhou Buqi who came forward in person.

Better late than missed.

Compared with other sharing economy projects, Airbnb can be regarded as a big one.

However, Ziweixing International is currently focusing on the New York market, intending to promote the development of New York's technology industry with its own efforts.In this process, it is indispensable to invest in those entrepreneurial projects in New York.

Coincidentally, a shared economy start-up company that has attracted much attention has also emerged in New York, which is WeWork, which is a shared office.

The logic of birth is similar to that of Airbnb.

After the economic crisis in 2008, there was a lot of waste to be done, and it was difficult to rent large offices and office buildings. It was also a period when Internet entrepreneurship was about to start, and the demand for office space would rebound from the bottom.

Even Sun Zhengyi paid attention to this small project and invited Zhou Buqi to his house for tea.

Zhou Buqi likes to be a guest at Sun Zhengyi's house, because there are several Japanese maids in his house, all of whom are young girls in their twenties, which makes him very envious.

Boss Zhou even has a plan. When the contracts of the beauty maids from South America expire next year, they will not renew their contracts. They will choose a group of Japanese or Filipino maids.

Those kind of beauties from foreigners are okay if you look at them with a curious eye. They are all amazing and beautiful. After a long time, the freshness will pass, and it will be boring.

Or Asian beauties are more eye-catching and have long-term value preservation attributes.

The only downside is that the Japanese-style tea feels so-so. Wei Wei took a sip, and Zhou Buqi felt that it would be better to drink some iced Coke in the summer. "WeWork started in Manhattan?"

"Yes, this direction is very good."

Sun Zhengyi smiled and lowered his head to drink tea.

Zhou Buqi said: "Ziweixing chose Manhattan to build its second headquarters in New York. I know that market very well, and the supply is definitely in short supply. The economic crisis a few years ago was a special period. If it is normal At that time, for a place like Manhattan where every inch of land was very expensive, office buildings and office buildings would never worry about customers.”

Sun Zhengyi gave a "hmm".

Zhou Buqi went on to say: "The logic of shared housing is feasible, because many people have many houses at home, and they simply cannot live in them. There is an obvious loophole in the logic of shared office, that is, the more developed the economy, the more Don’t worry about the source of customers, the more you don’t need to adopt this kind of sharing model. It’s okay when the economy is bad, and there are enough redundant office buildings for rent. But when the economy improves, this kind of business planning of shared office will definitely be a large number. lost the core real estate.”

In this regard, Boss Zhou is definitely a good person with a kind heart. In most business discussions, he will not cherish himself, and will sincerely pass on his experience and express his business understanding to colleagues.

The other party will be grateful to him after hearing the benefit;
If the other party doesn't listen and gets into trouble, he will regret it too much, and then worship him even more.

In front of Sun Zhengyi, Zhou Buqi was not ambiguous.

The WeWork project is really not working.

Because of limited cognition, Zhou Buqi's foresight scope is actually not that wide. Even many of the company's strategies under his hands are planned by him based on his personal business cognition, rather than guided by foresight.

But WeWork is different. This is really a famous case, which happens to be in the category of his foresight.

Softbank managed by Masayoshi Son has been very successful and has invested in too many unimaginable classic projects, but there is one project that really caused Softbank to almost go bankrupt.

This is WeWork.

I was really screwed.

Zhou Buqi said: "I have been operating the concept of the sharing economy for many years, and I have a deep understanding of this model. Whether it is shared housing, shared office, or shared bicycles, the basic logic is the platform attribute. Fang hangs the commodity source on the platform, and then connects with the users in the platform through the sharing platform. The platform is equivalent to a middleman. But the middleman’s model is too un-Internet, which is a big logic. Middlemen can have channel attributes, but We must transform from a channel provider to a content provider.”

Sun Zhengyi raised his eyebrows, "Content provider?"

Zhou Buqi said: "Yes, the content provider. For shared housing, the content is the listing. For the platform, it is a strategic risk to put all hopes on the third-party listing. If you want to avoid this If there is such a risk, the housing-sharing companies must pay to buy a large number of houses by themselves, and use them as houses.”

Sun Zhengyi has also heard about this project of Airbnb, but he has not participated in it for the time being, which is also the reason.

Airbnb is valued at $10 billion because they've hit the ground running.

They are working hard to find low-priced high-quality houses in the market, then buy them, and share them with users on their own platform.

This is the self-operated mode that has been turned on.

Sun Zhengyi took a deep breath, "So if WeWork really grows up, it will develop in this direction in the future. It needs to buy enough office buildings and office buildings to add enough reliable services to its platform. Listing."

Zhou Buqi said bluntly: "Yes, this is the general logic of the Internet platform economy. It must transform from a channel provider to a content provider. No matter what platform you are in, you must follow this direction. Just like Nai Just like Fei, it is far from enough to only sell third-party film and television content on the platform, the company has strategic risks, and must start the model of self-produced dramas and transform into a content provider."

Sun Zhengyi smiled, "So absolutely?"

Zhou Buqi said frankly: "I am not completely sure, but I believe that 99% of platform projects should follow this idea. Anyway, this is my investment philosophy. Any entrepreneurial project in the platform economy, if it only focuses on channels, If you have a strategic combination of 'channel + content', this is the right direction. Ziweixing is participating in the B round of financing of Airbnb. The reason why it did not participate in the A round is because during the A round, love B&B is still a pure platform channel model, without self-operated attributes.”

Sun Zhengyi shook his head, "You can't look at it that way. Isn't Taobao the most innovative and high-quality e-commerce platform in the world? Isn't this the purest channel platform?"

Taobao imitated Ebay in the early days.

However, blindly imitating can only keep looking up, and it is impossible to overtake.

The important reason why the domestic Internet industry is so powerful is the innovation after imitation.Imitation is imitation, but subsequent innovations can quickly defeat the original imitation.

Taobao has already come from behind and surpassed eBay, and is different from any e-commerce platform in the world. It is at the forefront of innovation in terms of operating model.

Zhou Buqi said: "Taobao is a special case because our country has relaxed the supervision of counterfeit and shoddy goods."

"It's all objective factors."

"Of course, this is an objective factor, so Taobao's model will definitely change. Well... To be precise, it should be Ali's e-commerce business on the C side, and more products will definitely appear to make up for Taobao's channel platform. The disadvantages. Just like Taobao Mall, and more products that may come out in the future, there will definitely be more and more self-operated attributes.”

This is foresight.

For Zhou Buqi, there is no need for foresight to make such a judgment. This is already the experience he has summed up in so many years of working on the Internet.

As Liu Qiangdong concluded: "Alibaba will become more and more like JD.com, that's for sure!"

Because this is the big logic of the platform economy.

A pure channel platform has huge strategic risks, is unreliable and unstable.A powerful platform or an ecological combination of platforms must have self-operated "content" in its own hands.

Self-operated stores on JD.com, self-operated stores on Amazon, Netflix’s self-produced dramas, Airbnb’s own property acquisitions, Toutiao is trying to attract college students to publish original articles...

In fact, they are all the same choices that exist in different platform projects, and the channels of the platform are inseparable from "self-operated content".

Don’t look at Taobao’s current model of pure channel platform, but with the development of the times, Taobao’s current disadvantages will become more and more obvious, and Ali will inevitably launch more products, such as Tmall, Tmall New products with self-operated attributes such as self-operated stores and Hema make up for the shortcomings of the Taobao model.

In this regard, Liu Qiangdong obviously has a very deep understanding of the e-commerce industry.

Zhou Buqi is even more powerful.

He sees all directions and listens to all directions. He focuses on the entire Internet industry.

Sun Zhengyi is not considered an Internet person. He has invested in too many fields. He obviously does not have such a decisive and sharp industry understanding as Boss Zhou. He waved his hand and said with a smile: "The concept of sharing economy is still too cutting-edge. Bian won’t enter the arena in a hurry, you can wait and see.”

"Well, it's indeed too risky."

"By the way, I heard that the yacht you ordered has been launched?"

"how?"

Zhou Buqi looked alert.

Sun Zhengyi coughed lightly, "Your yacht has been launched, so can I return my yacht? I lent it to you..."

"What?" Zhou Buqi opened his eyes wide, "Isn't it all agreed... No, I told you such a big understanding about the sharing economy to help Softbank make the most correct investment choices. What I shared Is the value recognized by the industry less than that of a yacht?"

Sun Zhengyi saw that he wanted to completely occupy it, so he gave up on it, and said with a smile: "I'm just joking with you, that yacht was originally... a gift for us to cooperate to form Ziweixing Global Group."

Only then did Zhou Buqi nodded in satisfaction, "Well, the several important mergers and acquisitions of Ziwei Star Global have been completed, and the listing plan has been launched. If there is no accident, the listing will be completed next year."

Sun Zhengyi felt relieved and said happily: "Good thing! As long as Ziwei Star Universal goes public, it will surpass Time Warner, CBS and Disney and become the world's largest entertainment giant."

"Well, the expected market value will not be less than 1000 billion U.S. dollars." Zhou Buqi gave him a meaningful look, "Softbank will make a lot of money from this deal!"

Sun Zhengyi said with a smile: "If the market value of Ziwei Star Global really exceeds 1000 billion U.S. dollars, then...Softbank will send a bigger gift to express your gratitude to you."

This is what it should be, but Zhou Buqi is disrespectful.

Ziwei Star Global Group is an entertainment group jointly established by Sun Zhengyi and Zhou Buqi. The main mode of cooperation is that Softbank contributes a lot of money, and Zhou Buqi contributes a small amount of money to operate at the same time.

Worked very well!

Successively won MGM, Marvel, Summit Entertainment, "Spider-Man" copyright, Lucasfilm, EMI Records and other heavy-weight core assets. In this process, it was mainly Boss Zhou who made suggestions.

Once Ziweixing Global Group is successfully listed, Softbank, as the largest investor, must give such an excellent trader a big gift.

"By the way, how about the plan for Ziweixing's second headquarters in New York?"

"It's in operation, it's basically almost there, and it's chosen at the headquarters of the Post and Telecommunications Bureau."

"The headquarters of the Post Office?" Sun Zhengyi was stunned. "The Farley Building? A national-level cultural relic building?"

This building is so famous that it is a must-visit attraction when traveling to New York.

Zhou Buqi laughed and said, "Yes, that's the one. The New York authorities may need to spend a lot of money to carry out internal renovations, and at the same time unblock the surrounding traffic and housing. It is estimated that the entire renovation plan may require an investment of more than 30 billion US dollars. "

Sun Zhengyi said: "If the plan can really be implemented, then the sincerity of the New York authorities is really great. But... Well, I heard that the mayor of Michael Bloomberg has great authority in New York City, even party differences If it is suppressed, it is basically a word of speech. I guess he wants to make friends with you through his last term as mayor."

Collusion between officials and businessmen is doomed.

Even for a super-rich man like Michael Bloomberg, if he has the opportunity to use his power to make "friends", of course it is useless.

In a sense, the introduction of technology companies such as Ziweixing International, Changyou, and Spotify is also for the development and transformation of the economic structure of New York City.

Public and private are not wrong, why not do it?
Zhou Buqi said cautiously: "I have no personal relationship with him."

(End of this chapter)