Rebirth 98, the rise started from ripping off Microsoft

Chapter 518 paypal
San jose.

Confinity corporate headquarters.

Confinity, which was founded in [-], is no different from other start-ups in Silicon Valley, with only a simple idea and a small amount of capital.

Stanford graduate Peter Thiel and Max Lefkin of the University of Illinois at Greater Champaign, seeing the growth in users of the PalmPilot and other handheld computers, wanted to offer users a service to store encrypted information on PDAs.

But they soon realized that the idea had limited commercial value, and they discontinued the project.

At the same time, they found a gap in effective user-to-user payments.The previous method was to write a check, but it took a long time to clear it, and the check might be bounced.

They founded Confinity, allowing people to use PDAs to transfer small sums of money to each other, and then quickly transferred to the Internet platform, so that all network users can transfer expenses to each other.

The two geniuses got together, and they quickly got a start-up capital of 300 million US dollars from Nokia, and then found four like-minded partners. Together, the six of them forged ahead towards their dreams and future.

Now they don't know that the cause they are fighting for will be worth 20 billion US dollars in 100 years.

It was almost noon, and Peter Thiel, who had just typed the code all morning, glanced at a hamburger restaurant opposite the office, and said to Pan Yu beside him, "What do you want for lunch today?"

Pan Yu followed Peter Thiel's gaze, looked at the burger shop outside, and said with a smile: "Are you thinking about that super burger again? Let me tell you, it's not a problem to think about it all the time. If you want to eat it once ! Isn’t that $160?”

Peter Thiel said: "Isn't it $160? Pan, you know? The average burger in there only costs four to five dollars!"

Pan Yu smiled and said, "You want to eat it, don't you? Besides, if you buy this hamburger set meal, the store will give you a bottle of red wine."

Bit Thiel couldn't help swallowing, then looked away with difficulty, and said with ambition: "If one day, our company's IPO succeeds, I must buy the most expensive one and try it, right? Most delicious."

Pan Yu from Xiaguogui Province, one of the six founders of Confinity, laughed out loud after hearing this: "At that time, you should communicate with the store and change the name of that burger to IPO Burger."

Peter Thiel said with a headache expression: "It's difficult. Our company wants to do an IPO, but we don't know when it will go. The stock market has fallen like this, and our financing has been hindered. It's good to survive. gone."

Hearing what Peter Thiel said, Pan Yu couldn't help but sigh: "Hey, yes, the competitors are not stopping, and the pressure on us from the investors is getting bigger and bigger."

Although he is mainly in charge of technical work, Pan Yu is no longer the novice who stayed in the ivory tower after starting his business for more than a year. He is naturally worried about some situations in the capital market.

Although Confinity's current development momentum is good, it is not without rivals in the market.

One of the biggest peers is Elon Musk's X.com.

"Or, Peter, let's discuss with Musk, and the two companies will merge."

When Peter Thiel heard this, his protruding eyes widened even further, as if they were about to fall out of their sockets at any moment, and his voice raised an octave: "What did you say?"

Pan Yu was taken aback, thinking that Peter Thiel was angry, so he quickly smiled and said, "Haha, it's nothing, I'm just joking, don't take it seriously."

But Peter Thiel stretched out both hands, grabbed Pan Yu's shoulders, and said in an excited tone: "Your suggestion is very good! If it succeeds, it can solve most of our company's problems!"

Pan Yu: "???"

He just mentioned it casually, but he didn't expect Peter Thiel to be so excited.

He was about to speak, but an employee came into the office and reported, "Boss, a young man with an oriental face has come to visit our company."

Peter Thiel heard that it was an oriental face, so he said to Pan Yu, "Let's find you."

A puzzled expression appeared on Pan Yu's face: "No friend told me to come and find me today."

at this time.

Outside the gate of Confinity Company.

Lu Yiming was on the phone with Bill Gates.

"Your news is really well-informed, I just left the front foot..."

"Don't worry, I came to California to invest in an interesting Internet company, and I didn't plan to run away, and I didn't break the law. If I really wanted to run away, wouldn't that be considered absconding?"

Hearing that Lu Yiming didn't plan to run away, Bill Gates breathed a sigh of relief. After all, he had just helped Lu Yiming as a surety for bail. If Lu Yiming ran away, his old face would be humiliated.

"Which company are you looking at? You even went to California. Now that technology stocks have fallen so badly, aren't you afraid of losing money by buying them?"

The old god Lu Yiming said on the ground: "Technology stocks plummeted because there were too many bubbles, but although most of the companies are garbage, there is still a lot of gold in this huge garbage mountain. What I am interested in is a company A company that specializes in online payment services.”

For this, he does not intend to hide Bill Gates.

If you want to get along in the United States, it is very important to have a good relationship with Bill Gates. After all, many things need "locals" like them to be able to handle them.

"Online Payment?"

Bill Gates was a little surprised and didn't know why Lu Yiming was suddenly interested in this kind of thing.

However, he didn't take this matter to heart.

These days, the prospect of online payment is very uncertain, but there are countless companies engaged in this stuff.

The financial industry in the United States is very developed, and various services provided by banking institutions are very complete, so many people do not actually have a strong demand for online payment.

What's more, in the eyes of most investors, banks are the main force in this payment-related business.

How can a group of pheasant Internet companies with no background and no support compete with banks?

Lu Yiming smiled and said, "Yes, how is it? Are you interested?"

Bill Gates said bluntly: "I'm not interested, you can play slowly, I still have something to do here, hang up."

He called just to make sure that Lu Yiming didn't run away directly and that he wouldn't embarrass him in the Ministry of Justice.Now that it was confirmed that Lu Yiming hadn't run away, then naturally Lu Yiming was allowed to go.

After finishing the phone call with Bill Gates, Lu Yiming briefly told Li Yiwen about their conversation.

Li Yiwen said: "I think it makes sense for Bill Gates not to play. Investing in Confinity is too risky, and there is really no need for it."

Lu Yiming raised the folder in his hand and said, "Before I came here, I also thought this company was very ordinary, but after reading the materials in my hand, my thoughts have completely changed."

When Linus Benedict Torvalds and Lu Yiming mentioned Confinity, Lu Yiming didn't have much impression, but after seeing the founders of Confinity, Lu Yiming finally realized that this company is actually famous in the future PayPal!

With a market capitalization of 100 billion US dollars, it has nearly 3.25 million users around the world. It integrates internationally popular payment methods such as credit cards, debit cards, and electronic checks. It serves more than 200 markets and supports more than 100 currencies.

In cross-border transactions, nearly 70% of online cross-border buyers use PayPal to pay for overseas shopping.

There is no doubt that this is an Internet company with great potential!
Even if Lu Yiming is a native of the Xia Kingdom, he is destined to be unable to hold shares in PayPal for a long time, but it is also good to make a short-term investment. In October 15, PayPal will be acquired by eBay, the world's largest online business company, for [-] billion. US dollar price wholly owned acquisition.

Invest a little money now, and then you can earn it back with interest!
After waiting at the entrance of the company for a while, Lu Yiming and Li Yiwen were invited into the company, and soon met Peter Thiel and Pan Yu.

As soon as they saw Lu Yiming, they recognized him immediately.

After all, the news is on the air every day, and if you knock Silicon Valley into dust by yourself, you don't even know him.

"You are, Mr. Lu?"

Peter Thiel was a little flustered. After all, Lu Yiming was now considered to have a "bad reputation". He didn't know what was the purpose of Lu Yiming's sudden visit to his company.

Lu Yiming nodded slightly, and said kindly, "Yes, I am."

Pan Yu shook hands with Lu Yiming with a smile, and said, "I didn't expect Mr. Lu to come to our company as a guest. I'm sorry."

Lu Yiming said straight to the point: "I won't talk nonsense, so let's get straight to the point, okay. I'm very optimistic about Confinity, and I want to invest."

Peter Thiel and Pan Yu looked at each other, but neither of them spoke.

Lu Yiming knew what they were worried about. After all, because of the shorting of US stocks, he is now famous, especially in Silicon Valley, which can be called a ghost.

But Lu Yiming is not without advantages - he has money.

Since the two did not speak, Lu Yiming went on to say: "Internet companies have obvious head effects, and winners take all. Therefore, if Confinity wants to survive the fierce market competition, it must seize market share as soon as possible. And this requires constant Burning money, it just so happens that you are short of money, but I have money."

Peter Thiel fell silent when he heard the words, obviously thinking about whether to agree to Lu Yiming's investment.

While taking advantage of this time, Lu Yiming looked curiously at Pan Yu, who was also from Xia Guo.

Pan Yu joined Confinity in [-] and became one of the six founders. Despite his appearance as an otaku college student, he is now a senior software engineer and is responsible for compiling and implementing Paypal's first-generation flagship product.

And he has also made breakthroughs in using innovative network technology and superb computer programming skills, and continues to find new ways to revolutionize the drive traffic of the World Wide Web, allowing Confinity users to safely and easily send and receive payments and transfer money online.

what is this?
This is a master of technology!

The more Lu Yiming looked at it, the more his eyes became hotter. A marketing genius like Peter Thiel, on the contrary, paid more attention to a technical genius like Pan Yu.

After all, he comes from the future, and he is the best product manager in the world. He knows what can be made to be popular, but what is lacking is people who can make products.

Seeing that the two hadn't spoken yet, Lu Yiming asked Pan Yu in Chinese, "I remember you seem to be from Xia, right? Where is your hometown?"

Pan Yu said: "I am from Guizhou Province. I immigrated to the United States with my family. After graduating from university, I started a business with a few classmates."

Lu Yiming asked, "Are you interested in going back to China?"

Pan Ning hesitated and said, "If there is a chance, of course I want to go back."

Lu Yiming said: "In fact, Xia Kingdom has developed very fast in recent years, especially in the area of ​​computers and the Internet. The country attaches great importance to it. If you go back, you will also have the opportunity to make a big difference."

Peter Thiel, who doesn't understand Chinese, didn't realize that Lu Yiming was poaching the wall in front of him.

Otherwise, you have to jump in a hurry.

You know, Pan Yu is currently the only senior software engineer in the company, and he is the absolute core of the technical department. If he is poached, it will not be easy to find someone who can replace him!

It has to be said that in the field of Internet payment, America is once again ahead of Xia Guo.

Before the emergence of PayPal, online payment in the United States was very troublesome. First, users had to own a PAD, which is a handheld computer.

And paypal is different, the payment method has become simple and efficient, users no longer need a handheld computer to complete the operation, just send an email to transfer money to anyone, even if you don't have an account, as long as you know the other party email address, the transfer will be successful.

Although in Lu Yiming's view, it was still very troublesome, but compared to the previous tedious steps, this has been done very well.

At present, the PayPal payment system has been launched in [-], but the promotion has not been very smooth, and the growth of the number of users even shows signs of slowing down.

Because they have many competitors, such as X.com, which is only four blocks away from Confinity, and Elon Musk is very good at operations. .

Here, just after Lu Yiming finished talking with Pan Ning, Peter Thiel said, "Sorry, Mr. Lu, I'm afraid we can't accept your investment. After all, your reputation is not very good."

Lu Yiming has now been blacklisted by many Internet companies, such as Amazon and eBay, which were shorted by Saltwater Fund.

Especially eBay, now PayPal depends on eBay to survive. After all, as a payment software, you have to be used by someone, right?
EBay is currently the world's largest C2C e-commerce platform with the most potential users, and it is the basic market that Paypal must seize.

If Lu Yiming's investment is accepted, will eBay still choose to use PayPal as a payment tool?
That's something Peter Thiel had to think about.

Lu Yiming read the information just now and knew that eBay is the most important customer of PayPal, so he said with a smile: "Are you worried that eBay will dump you after I invest?"

Peter Thiel was also very straightforward, saying directly: "Yes."

Lu Yiming said: "Actually, you don't have to worry about this matter. After all, no matter whether you accept my investment or not, eBay will not tolerate your existence. In fact, eBay still has not given up on building its own payment system."

This is actually a matter of course, as if Jack Ma has set up Taobao, he will definitely set up Alipay, entrusting the lifeline of the trading system to others, for an e-commerce company, what is the difference from suicide?
Peter Thiel's expression was serious when he heard the words, and he didn't refute Lu Yiming's words, because it was the truth and could not be refuted.

Lu Yiming continued: "So what you should think about now is how to defeat eBay's exclusive payment software in its home field, and this requires money, a lot of money. As a payment software, PayPal is undoubtedly excellent. , but excellence is not enough, you also need to acquire more users. Of course, the most important point is to continue to maintain the original free strategy to ensure your competitive advantage.”

Whether it is spending money on promotional activities to attract more users to register for PayPal accounts, or maintaining a free strategy to retain these users, you need to burn money.

But at this juncture, the financing environment for Internet companies is harsh, and it is not easy to continue defrauding money from investors?
"As I said just now, you need money, and I have money. I am very optimistic about your future, but you are not doing well enough now. I have ways to make you better."

Peter Thiel was moved by Lu Yiming, he let go and said: "I may need to discuss this matter with several other co-founders."

Lu Yiming knew that he couldn't eat hot tofu in a hurry, so he took out two business cards, sent one to each of them, and said calmly, "No problem, it should be. You can contact me after you have discussed it."

Lu Yiming is not in a hurry. Although PayPal is very powerful, if they don't agree, he can go directly to Elon Musk.

After Lu Yiming left, Peter Thiel, as the CEO, quickly summoned the other five veterans of the company.

Kenny Howery as CFO, Max Levchin as CTO, Yu Pan and Ross Simmons as senior software engineers, and Luke Nosek as vice president of marketing strategy.

Peter Thiel said straight to the point: "Mr. Lu Yiming came to our company today and said he wanted to invest in us. What do you think?"

Ross Simmons said: "I don't think so. A mercenary capitalist like him must not understand and agree with our philosophy."

Pan Yu said: "He won the ACM International Academy Programming Contest, he is also a software engineer, and I heard that he has a good conversation with Torvalds. He is not a Chinatown capitalist who does not understand Internet technology."

Several people were a little dazed. They really didn't know whether Lu Yiming was a software engineer.

Peter Thiel said: "We now have only 1000 million US dollars left in the accounts, which is only enough to burn for two months, and the gap is too big."

Pan Yu also said: "EBay has never given up and wants to kick our payment system out. In order to maintain our current market position and share, we need more publicity funds."

"Yeah, actually we don't have a choice."

In the end, after some discussion, everyone still had to bow to reality and planned to accept Lu Yiming's financing.

(End of this chapter)