Wind Rises 2005

Chapter 450 Backstab
California, San Francisco, No. 795 Folsom Street, is the headquarters of Twitter.

A black stretched Cadillac slowly parked downstairs of the office building.

Ma Liang and Jennifer got out of the car one after another and walked towards the third floor together. Jack Dorsey had urged them several times.

The two took the elevator to the third floor, and saw the CEO of Twitter waiting at the door.

"Marlon, Jenny, you are here." Jack Dorsey said anxiously, "Come with me, those investors are waiting anxiously."

Ma Liang said nonchalantly, "Don't panic, it's only a few seconds away."

He and Jennifer had traveled all the way from Stanford University, and stopped for lunch in San Francisco.

Anyway, time is delayed, so why rush for a while.

Let the Big Three of Twitter and a group of investors talk about it for a while, Ma Liang doesn't want to come to negotiate hungry.

Following Jack Dorsey into the conference room, I saw that it was already full of people.

After all, to be honest, Twitter didn’t raise much money from him before. With such a small amount of funds, it is impossible to rent a large office.

So this small meeting room is also very shabby, and it can't accommodate many people in this small area.

A few investors and the Big Three of Twitter had already filled the conference room, and it became even more crowded when Ma Liang and Jennifer arrived.

This alone has strengthened his determination to raise more money for Twitter.

If you don't have money, you can still play wool, and you can't even guarantee basic office needs, let alone burn money crazily for user growth.

As soon as Ma Liang and Jennifer entered the meeting room, Ivan Williams began to introduce.

"Marlon, Jenny, you are finally here, let me introduce you first.

This is Mr. Mark Anderson, co-founder of Netscape, and these two are Mr. Ron Conway and Mr. Naval Ravikent, angel investors.

There are also Mr. Gene Sabet, a partner of Spark Capital, and Mr. Fred Wilson, a partner of Union Square Investment.

And lastly, my good friend, Feedburne co-founder Dick Costolo, whose company was just acquired by Google for $[-] million, is cash-strapped. "

When he was introduced to his good friend, Evan Williams couldn't help but beam with excitement.

Both of them are veteran entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, and the companies they founded were also acquired by Google.

The most important thing is that Blogger, founded by Ivan Williams, and FeedBurner, founded by Dick Costolo, had in-depth cooperation in business.

After all, one of FeedBurner's main functions is to help bloggers integrate their blogs, and the two became good friends.

Dick Costoro had just cashed out a bunch of money and was trying to invest in a better project.

In fact, Dick Costolo was in Ma Liang's previous life. This boss was the fourth core manager of Twitter, second only to the Big Three of Twitter.

When Jack Dorsey and Ewan Williams fought back and forth in the previous life, Dick Costolo took advantage of it once.

Costolo was not only introduced to Twitter as COO by Ivan as one of his own, but was later appointed as Twitter's CEO by the board of directors at the height of the fight between the two.

It was also the appointment of Costoro that allowed Twitter to enter a stable period and also solved the problem of Twitter's frequent crashes.

Moreover, it allowed Twitter to start commercial exploration, which enabled the company to grow from almost zero revenue in 2009 to 2014 billion US dollars in revenue in 14, and led the company to successfully complete the listing.

It has to be said that Dick Costoro is the best manager compared to the Big Three on Twitter.

Ivan Williams is very embarrassing at the moment, at least his friend agreed to invest a sum of money to Twitter, on the condition that he recommend the other party as the company's COO position.

This condition is harmless, and Ivan also wants to arrange an executive in the company to stand by him.

After all, Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone usually advance and retreat together, and he also needs to arrange an offensive and defensive alliance partner in the company.

Ivan felt secretly proud when he thought of this, so he happily continued the introduction.

"Everyone, this is Mr. Marlon, the founder of Gale Capital, and Ms. Jennifer, the beautiful CEO.

It may be the first time for everyone to meet Marlon, but I don’t need to introduce you to the millionaire girl who has recently become famous in the Silicon Valley venture capital circle, hahahaha..."

With the support of Ma Liang, [Gale Capital] has invested in several projects some time ago.

And Jennifer's every shot ranged from 100 to 200 million US dollars, so her name as "Million Girl" slowly spread.

After Ivan's introduction, everyone hurriedly greeted each other politely.

"Nice to meet you!"

"Long time, long time!"

"I didn't expect Mr. Marlon to be so young and promising. It's amazing."

After a while of greetings and politeness, everyone sat down again.

Evan Williams continued to host: "Now that everyone is here, let's continue talking!"

In fact, the situation was almost explained before Ma Liang and Jennifer arrived.

But the valuation and financing period of this round of Twitter are a bit unacceptable to the investors here.

"Ivan, don't you give us time for due diligence?" Gene Sabet, a partner of Spark Capital, raised another objection to the financing window.

Ewan Williams responded with a bitter face: "Jin, the reason I have explained before.

The situation is different now. If you are really optimistic about the future of Twitter, you should support it even more at this time. After all, time waits for no one. "

He was also right. With the subprime mortgage crisis and a lot of negative news in the past few days, investors did not sell so happily as Ma Liang predicted.

In particular, the Bank of England suffered a cash run two days ago, which caused an uproar.

For this reason, the Bank for International Settlements and Standard & Poor's disagreed on the severity of the subprime debt crisis, and even did not hesitate to confront each other across the air.

The financial circle is so lively, how can the venture capital circle not be affected.

Those investors who had agreed to Ivan began to make all kinds of weird requests.

Either underestimate the valuation, or try to conduct more detailed due diligence, and even one or two investors have proposed that they must sign a gambling agreement.

Ivan Williams was so angry that he just wanted to curse, and he had a new understanding of the capriciousness of capital.

You must know that Twitter is currently the hottest star entrepreneurial project in the United States. Just a few months ago, it was sought after by countless capitals, and suddenly the situation took a turn for the worse.

Twitter's financing is so difficult, one can imagine how much better other entrepreneurial projects can be.

Ivan spent a lot of effort to gather all the most interested investors here today.

He just wanted to finalize the A round of financing as soon as possible. After all, he had boasted in front of Ma Liang before.

But things did not develop as he expected. The more difficult it was, the harder it was for investors to get together with entrepreneurs.

No, the investors here have been arguing for most of the day over the financing period.

But according to Ma Liang's plan, the three giants of Twitter are so busy with the development of the website that they can't wait to break it in half a day, so there is no time to cooperate with them to make due diligence one by one.

As for the financial situation, let alone, how could it be known to the outside world.

Once an investor finds out that Twitter is now a sham, it could spread throughout Silicon Valley the next day.

If that's the case, wouldn't it be cool to raise money in the future?

Time waits for no one. If they want to hit the [-] million US dollars in financing next year, they must devote themselves to the operation and expansion of the Twitter website.

Evan Williams really lost all confidence at this time, and he couldn't be tough at all.

"Mr. Ivan, that's not what you said!

While we are optimistic about the future of Twitter, the current situation is different from the conditions we previously agreed on.

Not only did you increase the valuation of Twitter, but you also demanded payment within a month.

They didn't even give us a chance to do the due diligence. How could we agree so easily? "The old God Fred Wilson, a partner of United Broad Investment, responded on the ground.

You have food in your hands, don't panic.

Anyway, the most anxious thing now is not their powerful investors, why not take advantage of this opportunity to get more benefits.

Capital seeks profit, and no one thinks that money is short.

Taking advantage of the economic crisis, press Twitter's valuation a little more before investing, so that you can earn higher returns when you exit in the future.

As soon as Fred said this, other investors responded one after another.

Ivan Williams was stunned when he heard it, his face was stinky on the spot,
It’s okay for other investors to say so, and even his old friend Dick Costoro, who originally supported him the most, actually turned his back on the battle.

Not only did he not speak up to stand up for him, but he also vaguely meant to unite with other investors.

The sudden stabbing of a good friend in the back was the most difficult thing for Big Ivan to accept.

(End of this chapter)