Media Tycoon since 1999

Chapter 417 Twitter Major Shareholders

At 9:21 AM on September 9, Western time, in San Francisco, a small company called Obvious sat in the office of the three co-founders of Twitter.

Evan Williams, 34, Jack Dorsey, 30, and Biz Stone, 26.

Holding a cup of coffee in their hands, the three of them waited excitedly for the guests to come.

Half a year ago, Jack Dorsey, who was born as a geek and was a hippie youth in his early years, had a sudden inspiration. After some discussions with the three friends, Twitter was a very characteristic instant messaging tool.

They imitated the sound of a bird, named it Twitter, and designed a bird-style icon, which feels cool.

Now, Twitter has been online for half a year, and the number of users has grown to less than 5. On the day of its launch, only 100 users of this software were laid off.

Obvious, a company with less than 20 employees, is still unknown in the Silicon Valley area, half a year after its start-up, and has not achieved the brilliance it imagined.

Ewan Williams and Biz Stone were once disheartened, but Jack Dorsey insisted on his belief that Twitter would definitely have a day when it would shine.

Now, this day seems to have come. There is actually a Silicon Valley company called android who contacted the door. It is said that it is interested in Twitter and may invest.

At 9:[-], the guests arrived. To the surprise of the three friends, except for one man who was a bit bald, the other four guests, one man and three women, all had oriental faces.

Two of them are quite beautiful, especially a young girl with a smiling face, elegant temperament, and a pair of big dark eyes full of confidence.

Another young girl, staring straight ahead, seemed to have no expression on her face.

Tech nerd Jack Dorsey, his eyes stopped on Wu Ruohan's pretty face, and he felt a sudden jump in his chest.

What a beautiful oriental girl, this temperament is really rare.

Wu Ruohan and his party of five are none other than Andy Rubin, the CEO of the Android company.

There were also Wu Fei and Chen Lan, as well as Zhang Ling, the security guard who accompanied Wu Ruohan.

"Gentlemen, I'm Andy Rubin, CEO of android.

These two are Dr. Wu Fei and Ms. Chen Lan, they are a Chinese-American couple, the founder of a private hedge fund, and Ms. Chen Lan is also the CFO of the Android company.

This beautiful Miss Wu Ruohan is from China Internet company 51 Group..."

Andy Rubin introduced to everyone, and the three founders of Twitter also introduced themselves.

Biz Stone served instant coffee to the five guests, and the two parties sat down for a formal talk.

Jack Dorsey spent half an hour speaking on PPT, introducing the birth of Twitter and its development in the past six months.

Then, Andy Rubin introduced the Android company and his own experience in a very proud tone.

The three friends of Twitter suddenly felt awe-inspiring. He was a senior geek in the industry. He had worked in Apple and Microsoft for ten years. Not too small, there are 200 people.

Andy Rubin said with a smile: "Gentlemen, Mr. Gao Yang, the personal major shareholder of the Android company and the founder of Huaxia 51 Group, is interested in the Twitter you developed.

Mr. Gao arranged for the android company to invest in Twitter, so your luck has arrived and you should celebrate with champagne. "

The three Twitter friends suddenly looked surprised.

Jack Dorsey wondered: "Mr. Rubin, does anyone in Huaxia know about Twitter?"

Andy Rubin said: "Mr. Dorsey, I checked the information on Twitter. Although I personally think this project is very ordinary, I believe in Mr. Gao's professional vision.

Mr. Gao is a far-sighted entrepreneur with a keen eye, a deep understanding of social networking applications, and super insight.

Mr. Gao is interested in Twitter and is willing to invest, so here we are..."

Ivan Williams asked: "How does the android company invest in Twitter? Are you planning to acquire Obvious?"

Chen Lan smiled slightly: "Mr. Williams, we hope to invest in Twitter in the form of VC, and will not directly intervene in the daily management and operation of Obvious.

According to Mr. Gao's wish, we want to invest in Twitter, the condition is to hold a majority stake, which requires 65% of the equity, and Twitter needs to operate independently.

51 Group and Android Company will support Twitter and help it grow until it becomes very good in the future, widely welcomed by users, and can successfully go to IPO. "

The three friends of Twitter looked at each other, and finally Jack Dorsey, the backbone, said: "Thank you very much for your recognition of the value of Twitter, but I am very sorry, we will not sell it."

Andy Rubin was a little upset: "My God, Mr. Dorsey, this is just a VC investment, not an acquisition. Are you going to reject VC?"

Jack Dorsey's eyes were firm: "Mr. Rubin, I used to be a geek. Twitter came from our own thoughts. For our team, it is like our own child.

We firmly believe that Twitter will eventually be welcomed by users. Twitter is an innovative Internet social application. Now there is no other social product as simple and easy to use as Twitter in the world.

We welcome VC investment, however, we don't want to lose our majority ownership..."

Wu Ruohan suddenly chuckled, which immediately attracted everyone's attention.

Jack Dorsey instantly felt offended.

Wu Ruohan spoke fluent English: "Sorry, Mr. Dorsey, I was very rude just now, but because of Mr. Dorsey's blind self-confidence, I really couldn't hold back."

Jack Dorsey looked at Wu Ruohan's smiling face, and his chest thumped again, then he smiled and said, "It's okay, Miss Wu, I don't quite understand what you said, why do you say that I am blindly confident?"

"Please wait……"

Wu Ruohan took out her laptop with a smile, turned it on, plugged in the internet cable, and said with a smile, "Mr. Dorsey, is there a projector?"

Jack Dorsey nodded with a smile, and quickly found a projector to connect Wu Ruohan to the computer.

Wu Ruohan clicked on 51 Weibo, entered his account, and then smiled slightly:
"Mr. Dorsey, and Mr. Williams, Mr. Stone.

What I want to tell you is that Twitter is not the world's first social product developed by borrowing SMS technology.

这是我们51集团开发的51微博，51微博在今年3月11日正式上线，比Twitter早了10天时间。

In terms of product technical architecture design, Twitter is similar to 51 Weibo. The difference between the two is that 51 Weibo not only has the characteristics of social products, but also emphasizes its media characteristics in terms of operation and promotion.

These two products have just been released for half a year, and 51 Weibo is only [-] days ahead of Twitter. The development situation of the two products is completely incomparable with the current situation.

As of today, 51 Weibo has more than 6500 million registered users and 1800 million DAU.

I have the statistics of the background of the website here, please see..."

Although Jack Dorsey and the others could not read Chinese, they could understand numbers. Wu Ruohan also translated Chinese and introduced it to the three.

Wu Ruohan clicked on each of his @ friend accounts to introduce the situation.

Then, I opened the website's account fan list, starting with Liu Yifei who ranked first with more than 800 million fans, and introduced the basic situation of the top ten user accounts, user background, etc.

Finally, I opened the ranking list of official micro-accounts of the website organization and introduced the top few...

The three Twitter friends watched, listened, and slowly became embarrassed.

Whether it is the scale of users or the details of various applications, the gap is too great, as if it has suffered a crit of hundreds of millions of points...

Jack Dorsey seemed to be dumbfounded, and it took him a long time to come back to his senses. The confidence just now was gone in his eyes, and he just murmured: "I didn't expect that China's Internet development level is so high."

Andy Rubin smiled and said: "That's right, I used to think the same as you. It wasn't until I went to Huaxia and talked with Mr. Gao from 51 Group about his investment in Android that I realized that Huaxia people are very good at making Internet products." .”

Wu Ruohan said: "Mr. Dorsey, now, can we continue to discuss Twitter's majority stake investment?"

Jack Dorsey made eye contact with the two partners, then nodded: "Miss Wu, we can give up the majority stake in the company."

Next, Chen Lan began to quote: "According to Twitter's current user development, android company is willing to inject 200 million US dollars to occupy 65% ​​of the shares of Obvious company."

Jack Dorsey shook his head: "Sorry, we can't accept such a low valuation. The development of Twitter takes time, and we believe it will have a future."

Next, Chen Lan raised the price by 20 or 50 a little bit, all the way to 350 million US dollars, but the three founders of Twitter did not agree.

Wu Ruohan suddenly said: "Mr. Dorsey, we are willing to inject 400 million US dollars into Twitter, and the required equity can also be reduced to 60%. I think this should be a very friendly VC offer, and it also represents our greatest sincerity. Otherwise, we cannot continue the discussion."

Seeing Wu Ruohan's very serious attitude, Jack Dorsey signaled to wait a moment, then called the two partners to another office to discuss, and finally decided to accept Wu Ruohan's offer.

Wu Ruohan was also in a good mood, and Gao Yang instructed that it should not be higher than 500 million US dollars to take the majority stake in Twitter. Now, 400 million US dollars will be settled.

Mainly Twitter now, it’s too bad...

(End of this chapter)