Top of the Great Era

Chapter 2949 Rebuilding the search?

Generally speaking, the property rights of all work output of an employee who has signed a labor contract during his working period do not belong to him personally, but to the company.

This is not only a professional ethics, but also a legal requirement.

For example, a scientist invented an important patent on Ziweixing, but the copyright of the patent has nothing to do with him and belongs entirely to the company; for example, a teacher teaches in an educational institution like New Oriental, and all the content of his class, including video materials and audio materials, has nothing to do with him personally, but belongs to the company; for example, an investor has invested in dozens of successful cases for Sequoia Capital and created tens of billions or even hundreds of billions of wealth, but all this wealth has nothing to do with him and belongs to the company.

During her time working at Ziweixing International, Zheng Xiaoli realized the product logic from destination traffic to unexpected traffic... This is of course also the company's property rights, and Zhou Buqi can openly claim such property rights for himself.

Many large companies do this.

Many big bosses have a brilliant image in the outside world, as if they can do everything. In fact, most of their achievements are attributed to the company behind them.

The team he spent money to build should serve him.

As it should.

It’s just that some people are very shameless in this process, the most typical example being Steve Jobs.

After creating the iPhone, Jobs was deified.

But in fact, this is the joint result of a large team at Apple.

Jobs would always cruelly take back the credit of his subordinates and turn it into his own achievement.

For example, Apple's Home button.

Apple's products are mainly designed by chief designer Jonathan Ive. According to Jobs's request, when designing the Home button, Ive came up with seven or eight plans and explained the design reasons for each plan, allowing him to choose.

Some are circular, some are square, some are oval, some are semi-circular and semi-square, some are black, some are white...

After reading it, Jobs scolded Ive.

Saying that the things he designed are rubbish.

Let him go back and revise it!

Jonathan Ive had long been accustomed to this cruel and ruthless working environment and could only go back to work with his team to design more plans.

Unexpectedly, two days later, Jobs excitedly called Ive over and said that he had come up with a brilliant idea that could be used on the Home button and it would definitely work! Jonathan Ive was of course very happy and went to see the idea proposed by Jobs.

After seeing it, I almost vomited blood in anger.

  This brilliant idea that Jobs came up with was exactly the circular design plan that Jobs had submitted to him two days ago. Even the design reasons were exactly the same!

At that time, Jobs scolded me severely.

And then in retrospect, it became his own creativity, his own brilliant idea.

Jobs always liked to boast that he was the best designer and the most outstanding product manager. If he wanted to prove this to his team, he always had to come up with some of his own designs and clever ideas, and he did this kind of cunning and predatory things a lot.

The reason why Jonathan Ive became Jobs' most trusted right-hand man was often because he had strong endurance and was able to accept such unfair treatment and persist in such a working environment.

Zhou Buqi simply could not do such a thing.

I also don’t like the leadership style that is cold and brutal towards subordinates.

After asking Zheng Xiaoli for her opinion, she of course agreed unconditionally.

Zheng Xiaoli was still worried about the video streaming business, so she tentatively said, "Yahoo Video... Then I'll go back and plan and prepare to launch such a new product?"

Zhou Buqi said, "Okay."

Zheng Xiaoli said: "I heard that in China, Alibaba is interested in acquiring Youku."

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "That's true. Alibaba is planning to build a so-called large entertainment business. Boss Ma has artistic talent."

"But Ziweixing didn't participate."

Although Zheng Xiaoli works in the United States, the key to her success actually lies in the combination of China and the United States.

This requires her to understand not only the US market but also domestic business.

She also has certain privileges and can read Ziweixing's internal documents. Zhou Buqi said: "Well, we are early investors in Youku. I have helped Youku achieve its current success. To some extent, this is the right of first refusal. If Alibaba wants to acquire Youku, Youku must communicate with us first."

“So we’re just going to watch Alibaba swallow up Youku?”

Zheng Xiaoli actually does not quite agree with this decision.

Zhou Buqi said, "Lao Ma saw it first, and it would be a bit hurtful for me to compete with him for it. It's better to let them have it! Advertising fees in the United States are really high, and many video websites can be supported by advertising income. It's not so good in China, where advertising fees are too low and it's hard to support heavy assets like video websites."

Zheng Xiaoli said: "Ziweixing has already gone public and is already very rich. Even if the video website does not make money in the short term, it can still improve its product matrix strategically. Video content will be more attractive than text content, which is a major trend."

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "You are right, but it is too expensive to acquire Youku. Billions of dollars is not worth it. In two or three years, when the time is right, Ziweixing can launch its own video streaming platform. With the promotion of platforms such as Toutiao, Weibo, and WeChat, it will be able to take off soon. Corporate integration is too complicated, so it is better to start from scratch. As you said, the domestic culture and soil have determined that revolution is easier than reform."

In corporate mergers and acquisitions, the acquisition process is easy, but the difficult part is the integration after the acquisition.

Different companies have different corporate cultures.

Even if Ziweixing acquires Youku now, it will probably take two years to fully integrate Youku into Ziweixing's system. With this time, Ziweixing can launch a new streaming platform on its own.

The reason why Zheng Xiaoli was able to achieve success so quickly after taking over Yahoo's business was that she had just opened a new mobile business and there was no integration process.

She is now a senior vice president at Yahoo.

Because Yahoo's CEO Scott Thompson is still pushing forward the reform of Yahoo's internal business and promoting Yahoo's integration with Ziweixing International.

Yahoo's recovery is only on the mobile side.

Traditional PC business is still the same as in the past.

Zheng Xiaoli nodded. "Well, I heard Scott say before that he was interested in acquiring a search company."

"what?"

Zhou Buqi had not heard such news.

Zheng Xiaoli said: "The contract between Yahoo and Microsoft in the search field will expire next year. It was you who said that Yahoo should have its own search business and not outsource it anymore."

"Correct!"

Zhou Buqi nodded.

Once upon a time, Yahoo was the number one search giant.

Later, Yahoo gradually fell into decline.

In 09, in order to maintain a good balance sheet during the financial crisis, Yahoo even laid off its search department. Then it cooperated with Microsoft and outsourced Yahoo Search to Microsoft. The current Yahoo Search is actually Bing Search.

Next year is 2014 and the contract will expire.

  What should Yahoo do?

There are actually three options.

  1. Renew the contract with Microsoft and continue to outsource Yahoo search to Microsoft;

Second, Yahoo will not renew its contract with Microsoft and will restart its own search business;

3. Give up the search.

Giving up is impossible. Even if we outsource it to Microsoft, we can still earn more than $1 million in share income a year.

But now that Yahoo has "risen", it would be a bit embarrassing to outsource with such a big backer as Ziweixing International. The solution chosen by Yahoo CEO Thompson is to acquire a small local search company and then transform it into Yahoo Search, so that the search business can be rebuilt quickly.

Zheng Xiaoli said: "This seems to be quite troublesome. Yahoo's share of the search market is too small. If the share is too small, the marginal cost will be too high. Outsourcing to Microsoft, relying on Yahoo's brand and market share, can still earn 1.2 million to 1.5 million US dollars a year. If we do it ourselves, the advertising revenue from Yahoo Search may not be able to cover the daily expenses of the search team."

"What about you? What do you think?"

Zhou Buqi asked her what she meant.

Zheng Xiaoli smiled and said, "From my point of view, it is better to do it by ourselves. We can make Yahoo's product matrix more complete and richer. Our own search business can search for our own content first."

Zhou Buqi thought for a moment and decided not to make a hasty decision. "Let's have a meeting later and discuss it."