The Millennium Semiconductor Survival Guide.

Chapter 109 Quora's Valuation

Bill Gates stunned by Zhou Xin's ambition: 'Why?
You have achieved so much success in the Internet field, why do you want to enter the field of consumer electronics, which is completely unfamiliar to you personally?
If the world of the Internet is an empty space that can occupy an entire market by discovering new needs, then the world of consumer electronics is full of knights.

They have planted their own flags on every piece of land, and if they want to gain something in this land, they need to confront these knights head-on.

To put it simply, I think there are more difficulties. This is a very mature market, and it is difficult for you to achieve breakthroughs through product innovation.

This is not conducive to playing to your strengths. "

As soon as Bill Gates finished speaking, Zhou Xin realized the other party's double standard: "Microsoft is also very successful in the operating system.

You're still in portal territory, you're in email territory.

At the same time, Microsoft is also making its own video game console, entering the hardware field.The field of video game consoles is also filled with companies large and small.

Compared with Sega, Nintendo, Sony, etc., Microsoft's advantages and experience in the field of operating systems are of no help to video game consoles.

Gamers don't buy Microsoft's video game consoles because your operating system is smooth.

But Microsoft still wants to enter this field. "

Bill Gates: "Well, that's definitely not the right way to say it.

What you want to do is too big, and the field of game consoles that Microsoft has entered is a very segmented field.

The type of business we want to do is relatively certain. Unlike the popular handheld consoles at Neon, what Microsoft wants to do is home video game consoles.

The main feature is that it can be used together as a family unit, and it pays more attention to the social attributes of the game itself. "

Bill Gates is not afraid of Zhou Xin copying their ideas.

This is because different countries lead to different positioning of enterprises, and the high price of neon house prices is comparable to that of Huaguo in later generations.

As a result, the living room of most Neon families is very small, and the launch of the handheld is also for office workers, who can take it out to play on the way to catch the subway.

As for the American people, except for big cities like New York and Los Angeles, few people take the subway, and their homes have a lot of space, so living room games are more in line with their needs.

Zhou Xin: "It is indeed a good idea, and it has achieved a certain degree of differentiation from Neon's game manufacturers."

Sega, Nintendo, and Sony have also made changes for the American market, but the changes they made have limited adaptation.

It's hard to compete directly in this segment with the Xbox, which is built for the living room.

Bill Gates: "Okay, back to Quora, what's your psychological price?"

Zhou Xin seemed particularly confident: "The price is not up to me, I will contact Yahoo and Microsoft at the same time, whoever offers the highest price, I will sell Quora to whoever.

Given the same price, I would give priority to Microsoft. "

Bill Gates: "Newman, you're so crafty.

This is forcing us to bid with Yahoo, forcing us to compete with Yahoo. "

"This is forcing us to compete with Microsoft to the death!" The same conversation took place in the Yahoo office building.

Kevin seemed particularly angry because he was in charge of Yahoo Q&A, and once Quora was acquired, Yahoo Q&A would be worthless.

Jerry Yang said: "I think we must, and it is necessary to acquire Quora.

Quora is the second most visited website in the United States and the top ten websites in the world.

More importantly, Quora is full of high-quality content and excellent users, which is unmatched by other online communities.

After Microsoft acquires Quora, MSN can form a direct threat to Yahoo, which is absolutely unacceptable to us. "

Jerry Yang is the co-founder of Yahoo, but he is not responsible for the specific operations of the company, he is a member of the board of directors.

After Zhou Xin informed Bill Gates and Yang Zhiyuan of Quora's plan to sell, Yang Zhiyuan quickly held a meeting of all executives within Yahoo.

Zhou Xin's sale of Quora is a complete sale, and he intends to sell nearly 90.00% of his shares.

Yahoo also felt suspicious after learning about it, but from their internal investigation and external inquiries, Quora did not have any problems.

In Silicon Valley, in American, and in the world, it is still in full swing.

Kevin said: "I agree with you that we should and can buy Quora, but it shouldn't be completely led by Newman.

We can't do what he says. "

Tim Brady, the vice president of Yahoo, the second-ranked executive after Kevin's defeat, interrupted: "No, Quora is unique.

We have done a lot of internal research reports, and our product manager team has done three rounds of Quora's successful analysis.

The executive team present here participated in the presentation of the final conclusion, and we all know that the success of Quora is almost impossible to replicate.

The difficulty of duplicating and success of Quora is Newman's biggest reliance. "

After Quora was born, Yahoo conducted an internal analysis, and Yahoo did another round of more detailed analysis before doing Yahoo Q&A.

After the launch of Yahoo Answers, they did a more in-depth analysis after failing in the field of knowledge question and answer communities.

The conclusion of the analysis is that Quora is the first knowledge question-and-answer community. At the same time, it adopted a strategy of only opening to college professors and students in the early stage to accumulate original high-quality content. The subsequent opening set a high threshold to maintain the high-quality content.

The high threshold for registration and Quora's paid questions and answers further stimulated the enthusiasm of users, and the accumulation of high-quality content has formed a snowball effect.

Later, other Internet companies want to replicate the success of Quora. First, they cannot attract early users, and second, users will not accept the high threshold set by other companies.

Instead of taking your high bar exam or other qualifications, I'd rather take Quora's qualifications.

Therefore, the final conclusion of the internal report is that Quora's success cannot be replicated.

This is also the limitation of the times, and it is possible to copy it after the advent of the mobile Internet era.

Kevin fell silent for a moment, and Alexander Vik, another executive who headed product, said, "We have to buy Quora.

What Jerry said just now is quite right. Once acquired by Microsoft, MSN can really pose a threat to us.

More importantly, after we acquire Quora, we will become the well-deserved No. [-] in the field of Internet services.

There is no longer any company that can pose a threat to us in the short term. "

Timothy Cooger, the president of Yahoo, said: "Let's negotiate a price, and then Jerry, you have a good relationship with Newman, and you go talk to him."

"$150 billion, in January of this year, @Home acquired Excite for $1 billion, you must know that Excite is only the sixth-ranked portal.

We also talked with Excite at the end of last year, and we were willing to give a price of 55 billion to 60 billion US dollars.

At that time, Microsoft was also competing with us.

Quora is the second website and the only website in the top ten that is not a portal.

My valuation on Quora is $100 billion, but considering that it is competing with Microsoft, Microsoft is definitely more interested in Quora than Excite, so I give a 50% premium. "

Before the Internet bubble burst, the valuation of the entire Internet company was crazy.

Between 1998 and 1999, venture capital investment in Silicon Valley companies increased by more than 32%, from $61 billion to $90 billion.

American had 1999 IPOs in 457. The vast majority of companies that went public were high-tech start-ups, and about 100 were directly related to the Internet.

“I think the $150 billion valuation is about the same, Yahoo’s stock would go up at least 50% once the news of our merger with Quora gets out, it’s not a big deal.”

"It will be difficult to have such an opportunity in the future. For a company as successful as Quora, the founder personally sold it. This kind of thing seems to have never happened in Silicon Valley before.

Like Excite, it was sold because the development of Excite encountered a bottleneck, and their founder team could not break through this bottleneck, so they chose to sell.

Compared with Excite, Quora is much stronger in terms of potential and current strength.

If Newman was willing to wait for Quora to go public, Quora's market cap would be at least $200 billion.

We’re buying a $150 billion company for $200 billion.”

Excite is also a portal website, and the most well-known case should be that it refused to buy Google, a new search engine developed by two Stanford students, for less than $100 million.

Yang Zhiyuan got up and put his hands on the table: "150 billion is not enough, Microsoft has more money than us, they will offer a higher price.

If there is no competition from Microsoft at this price, I think there is no problem, and Quora can be acquired.

But once Microsoft competes with us, it is absolutely impossible for this price to exceed the quotation given by Microsoft. "

Zhou Xin did not only put his eggs in these two baskets, he chose to release the news through Jerry.

He believes that Microsoft and Yahoo are definitely not the only ones interested in Quora.

Jerry is the vice president of Goldman Sachs, responsible for the listing of fist games.

When the news of Quora's sale came out, almost all the bigwigs were discussing it.

The news quickly spread throughout Silicon Valley from the bigwig level.

"Why is Quora selling? Is Newman crazy?"

"Will Quora be the same without Newman?"

"I just want to know if the damn threshold exam can be canceled after Newman sells Quora."

"Guess who the buyer will be? Yahoo, Microsoft, or American Online?"

The above are discussions on this matter in various online forums, and everyone expressed their incomprehension that Zhou Xin wanted to sell Quora.

"What do you think of Newman's sale of Quora?"

"Thank you, if this is true, I predict it will be the biggest Internet acquisition of the 20s.

The valuation of Quora is at least 100 billion US dollars. Considering the direct competition between Microsoft and Yahoo, the price will only be higher.

But who are the real players at this poker table? You only need to look at the financial reports of these Internet listed companies in 1999. "

　I changed 6k today, generally hardworking.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)