Rebirth 98, the rise started from ripping off Microsoft

At the headquarters of Ebexia, Meg Whitman sat on the boss's seat with a dark face, looking at the group of executives in front of her.

Her eyes were so sharp that no one dared to look at her. They all lowered their heads and looked at the notebook in front of them, muttering to themselves, wondering who the big boss was stepping on again.

Meg Whitman spoke slowly, and said: "Ali Group broke through our blockade and advertised aggressively on Qiandu and Sanqi 21. You should have heard about it, right?"

This is also the news she just got, and it is also the reason why she is so angry now.

Yibei is an elephant. The elephant pissed and surrounded Ali, a little ant.Logically speaking, as long as the ants don't want to die, they can only surrender.But now, this ant wants to take the initiative to break through!
In Meg Whitman's view, this is the challenge of ants to elephants!

It's the other way around!

No one dared to speak at this time.

Meg Whitman went on to say: "According to the company's investigation, the two companies that cooperate with Taobao have Future Capital in their shareholder composition, and Future Capital is Lu Yiming's company. Ali also owns Lu Yiming's shares. Taobao does this. This must be Lu Yiming's idea. He deliberately touched our eBay, so he deserves to be compared with our eBay in terms of Taobao? It seems that we have to speed up our actions."

An executive of Xia Guo Company sitting below said: "Now, people say that Lu Yiming is the most successful investment businessman in Xia Guo. Many companies he invested in ended up making a lot of money. But this time, he is even more prominent. On the side of Taobao, cheer for it. I think this may hinder our previous plan.”

Meg Whitman is naturally not a fuel-efficient lamp. She planned to establish an invincible image of eBay. At this time, she naturally showed her contemptuous attitude towards Taobao, and said: "We just came to Xiaguo, I bought eBay for US$2.25 million. Now Taobao’s market share is about one-tenth of eBay’s, but for the face of the richest man in Asia, I’m willing to bid US$3000 million, which can be regarded as barely protecting his capital. .”

This matter was soon publicized by eBay.I heard that Meg Whitman invested 3000 million US dollars to acquire the Ali Group for the face of the richest man in Asia, and the people who eat melons are all boiling.

There is no doubt that this is going to compete with Lu's richest man!Moreover, investing 3000 million yuan to acquire Ali, this price is simply an insult to Lu's richest man.

Who doesn't know that he needs 6000 million US dollars to buy a plane, and the 3000 million is not enough to buy the plane.

While the outside world was discussing about this matter, Lu Yiming was at Ali's headquarters, discussing where to go with Jack Ma.

Jack Ma recommended West Lake.

As a well-known business card in the domestic tourism circle, Lu Yiming has heard of the West Lake scenic spot many times, but he has never been there.

As a result, as soon as he went out, he was blocked outside the gate by swarms of reporters.

Lu Yiming turned his head to look at Jack Ma next to him, and said, "Are your reporters in Hangzhou also so enthusiastic?"

Jack Ma said helplessly: "You are the richest man in Asia, just like a firefly in the dark night, or a beetle in a rice field. No matter where you go, you are so dazzling, and it is normal to be sought after."

Reporters don't care so much, they work hard for the headlines.A reporter struggled to put his microphone in front of Lu Yiming, and asked, "Meg Whitman of eBay is planning to buy Taobao for 3000 million US dollars, and she said it was for your face, Mr. Lu. High price, what do you think, Mr. Lu? Would you choose to sell Taobao?"

Lu Yiming smiled and put his arms around Jack Ma's shoulders, and said, "Ms. Whitman is overthinking, Ma is my dear friend? How could I agree to sell Taobao? Impossible!"

The reporter asked, "Isn't it okay to add money?"

Lu Yiming waved his hand, with an expression of treating money like dirt: "It's not about money!"

Jack Ma said unhappily: "Taobao is my brainchild, it is not for sale!"

Ma Jack, who has always wanted to do a big business, will not be bought by the mere 3000 million US dollars in front of him. For him, he must either succeed or die suddenly. There is no option to surrender and lose half. .

However, among the reporters present, none of them were optimistic about Taobao.

Seeing that Lu Yiming didn't say anything coquettish, he was even more disappointed, and he wanted to continue to make big news.

"Mr. Lu, who do you think is the final winner in the e-commerce field, eBay or Taobao?"

Lu Yiming smiled and said: "What you said, my Luming Mall is also engaged in e-commerce, right? There are several types of e-commerce. Ebay and Taobao are C2C, while my Luming Mall is in B2C, if anyone can have the last laugh, it must be me.”

The reporters were of course very dissatisfied with this ambiguous answer. The reporter corrected him and said, "Mr. Lu, I mean who do you prefer, eBay or Taobao?"

Of course, Lu Yiming knew what the reporters wanted to ask. After all, this kind of person came to provoke trouble, but Lu Yiming didn't care at all, and immediately said: "Of course I am optimistic about Taobao, otherwise why should I vote for them? Although I also invested in Yi Bei, but the eBay stock in my hand has been thrown away. Ebay is a job, and Taobao is a life.”

Ebay’s stock price has skyrocketed recently, and its market value is about to break through the 300 billion US dollar mark. At its peak, Ebay was only 737.2 billion US dollars, and it will have to wait until around 2013, and then it will quickly plummet to 260.66 billion US dollars The US dollar is only 9.56% of Alibaba, so it has no value to continue to hold.

To Lu Yiming, selling eBay's shares was an investment decision based on maximizing profits.

But in the eyes of others, this is clearly a dead end.

"Mr. Lu, did you sell eBay's stock just to support Taobao?"

Lu Yiming said without hesitation: "Of course! I stand firmly with our own company."

Jack Ma was immediately moved by these words. In order to help Taobao, Lu Yiming actually sold all the shares of eBay directly. This support is simply too convincing.Moreover, this move undoubtedly offended Yibei, and the two sides were destined to stand on opposite sides.

He clenched his fists and said to Lu Yiming with firm eyes: "Mr. Lu, I will do my best in this battle, and I will never let Mr. Lu down."

Lu Yiming: "???"

The attitude of Lu Yiming and Jack Ma immediately spread to Yibei.

Knowing that Lu Yiming and Jack Ma were unwilling to sell Taobao, and said they would fight against eBay to the end, Meg Whitman was still quite disdainful despite being angry.

She felt that from a business point of view, the choice of Lu Yiming and Jack Ma was unwise.Ebay will be Taobao's invincible opponent, and she will be able to end this e-commerce war in Xia Kingdom in a short time.

At this time, Meg Whitman was very confident, even a little arrogant.

But this is also normal. The strength gap between eBay and Taobao is indeed so large that it is hard to see that Lu Yiming and Ma Jieke have any chance of winning.

Meg Whitman immediately approached Shao Yibo, the founder of eBay.

Although she doesn't look down on competitors like Taobao, Meg Whitman is a qualified CEO. She knows the truth that the lion fights the rabbit with all her strength. She despises the opponent strategically, but pays attention to it tactically. opponent.

Obviously, Shao Yibo is the one who understands the market in Xiaguo.

In the eyes of ordinary people, a person like Shao Yibo is undoubtedly a genius.

When he was 4 years old, his father taught him math by adding playing cards.And through daily continuous training, he can add 12 playing cards in 52 seconds.

In middle school, Shao Yibo won more than ten first prizes in national mathematics competitions.When he was a sophomore in high school, he received a full scholarship from Harvard University and skipped a grade to go to college in the United States.

When he was 25 years old and graduated from university, ordinary college students were still worried about internships and job hunting. Shao Yibo had already returned to China and founded eBay. Starting from two companies, he built eBay into the largest e-commerce company in Xiaguo within a year. commerce site, then sold the company to eBay in 2003 for $2.25 million.

Now he is less than 30 years old and looks like a big boy full of sunshine and vigor.

If Lu Yiming hadn't appeared, maybe he was the young business genius that everyone was looking forward to.

In the office, Meg Whitman asked Shao Yibo seriously: "If eBay wants to occupy the Xiaguo market, what should it do now?"

eBay originally started by imitating eBay. Compared with Meg Whitman, Shao Yibo is more familiar with Xia Guo's market environment. In terms of general policies and strategies, he can't explain why, he can only say A little bit about his views on Taobao: "I heard a piece of news that Taobao, in order to promote their C2C business, has put out the slogan of free entry for individual sellers."

Meg Whitman frowned: "Free?"

Regarding whether to charge sellers a service fee, eBay has actually discussed it internally a long time ago.

The final choice, of course, must be accepted.

After all, if a platform wants to survive, it must be rich, and if it does not charge money, it will starve to death.

They are capitalists, not philanthropists, so it is naturally impossible to engage in any free strategy.

After all, Shao Yibo is a native of Zhonghai who was born and raised in Xia Kingdom. He is also more familiar with the economic situation of Xia Kingdom. He knows how lethal the three words "no money" are, so he suggested to Meg Whitman: "Yes. , just don’t charge merchants for opening a store. This strategy is very useful in Xiaguo. If eBay wants to become bigger and stronger in Xiaguo, I think it is necessary to follow this strategy. Anyway, the handling fee can’t be collected A few dollars."

When he first founded eBay, he copied eBay's business model—every time a product is launched, the seller has to pay a registration fee ranging from 1 to 8 yuan to the platform.

And when the transaction is completed, each transaction has to pay a service fee of up to 2%.

To be honest, with this method, Shao Yibo himself didn't earn much money at all. After all, maintaining the website and platform also requires cost.

After several years of busy work, his biggest income came from selling the company to eBay.

In Shao Yibo's view, Yibei is rich and powerful, and there is no need to care about Xia Guo's three melons and two dates. It is free to do it directly, just go shopping with Taobao.

EBay is definitely more affordable than Taobao.

However, Shao Yibo's time as a capitalist is still too short. He miscalculated how much capitalists hate the word "free".

After Meg Whitman listened to his suggestion, she rejected the proposal on the spot: "Free is absolutely impossible, and the board of directors is absolutely impossible to pass such a proposal."

Shao Yibo found it difficult to understand: "With Xia Guo's current transaction volume, even if the handling fee is waived, we can't lose much money?"

Meg Whitman said dissatisfiedly: "We are doing it for free in Xiaguo, so should we also do it in the United States? At that time, there will definitely be troubles from users, which will bring unnecessary losses to the company. Another point is, I don’t agree with the feasibility of the free business model. You have also studied for an MBA at Harvard Business School, so you should still remember one of the most important business principles of the business school – there is no free lunch in the world, and users can only enjoy high-quality services by paying .”

At the end, Meg Whitman seemed confident again: "I believe that we, eBay, will be able to use the best quality service to conquer the e-commerce users in Xiaguo."

Shao Yibo was very helpless, he even had a bad premonition, thinking that Yibei would definitely stumble over this.

After all, the word "free" is very useful in Xia Guoke's wife. Who can resist the temptation of whoring for nothing?

Soon, on all issues, eBay and Taobao launched a full-scale tit-for-tat confrontation.

In the big conference room at Ali Group headquarters, facing a group of Ali executives in front of him, Lu Yiming said with a serious face: "In terms of fame and strength, we are far behind eBay, so don't think too much at this stage, let's concentrate on Just touch porcelain."

To put it bluntly, this trick is to rub the heat.

The popularity of eBay is boosted by frequent publicity. Now newspapers and media across the country are promoting the "Ant-Elephant War" between Taobao and eBay.

Although most people are not optimistic about Taobao, but because of this, the word Taobao has become familiar to everyone.

This is better than any advertisement. After all, many ordinary people will chat about Taobao and eBay after dinner. They are all waiting to see the jokes about Lu Yiming, the richest man in Asia.

After coming and going, Taobao has become a company that everyone is familiar with. At least when the word "Taobao" is mentioned, everyone can understand it instantly: "Oh, there is indeed a company called Taobao in Xiaguo."

Jack Ma felt a little sorry, and said, "Mr. Lu, you don't need to bet your reputation on us. If we really lose, how embarrassing will it be for you?"

Lu Yiming glanced at him and said, "Pah, peh, that's very unlucky, don't say it in the future."

Ma Jieke was speechless: "Mr. Lu, I said before that I should find someone to look at Feng Shui, but you still said that I am superstitious..."

Lu Yiming argued: "Can this be the same? It costs money to find someone to read Feng Shui, but it doesn't cost money to say auspicious words."

Jack Ma: "..."

Lu Yiming knocked on the multimedia screen and said, "Ahem, let's get down to business. Have you finished the front page that you asked to make? That's it, put it on."

The programmers of Taobao looked at Ma Jieke and Lu Yiming with puzzled faces.

"Mr. Ma, Mr. Lu, do we really want to use this as the homepage?"

Compared with eBay's simple, elegant, and clean page, under Lu Yiming's request, Taobao's page is directly selected to be festive, lively, and messy, which looks like a small advertisement on the street.

Lu Yiming said: "Just use this, red is so festive. This design is more in line with the shopping temperament of our Xia people, and it is to give users a feeling of celebrating the New Year."

Lu Yiming has used Taobao's shopping page for 20 years, so he is very familiar with it, so he made the decision directly.

Jack Ma gave a thumbs up and said to Lu Yiming: "Mr. Lu has a good eye. I also think that the design of the shopping page is very pleasing, and users will definitely like it. And there are advantages to being vulgar. As Mr. Lu said, The e-commerce platform should be aimed at the broadest masses of the people, so we will provide what the masses like. Only when they are satisfied can we make money.”

The eyes of several programmers looking at Jack Ma became not quite right.

This boss, for the sake of money, can say such unconscionable words, it's amazing!

As men of science and technology, they admire the simplicity of the Nordic style, and like to be clean and simple, but now the interface finalized by Taobao is against them everywhere. It can be said that it feels uncomfortable to look at it even more.

No way, who made them the boss.

Lu Yiming stopped giving people the opportunity to discuss the interface, and immediately asked, "Do you know who makes the best money in this world?"

If this issue is put in 20 years, Jack Ma can directly hold a press conference and talk for two hours, but now he doesn't know what big data statistics are, and he doesn't know what a sinking market is.

Therefore, facing Lu Yiming's question, he felt very confused.

"who?"

Lu Yiming said solemnly: "According to the ranking of spending power, the first is the girl, the second is the young woman, the third is the child, the fourth is the elderly, the fifth is the pet, and the man is the sixth."

The people present were in an uproar when they heard of this theory for the first time.But if you think about it carefully, it really makes sense.

Not to mention how extravagant the rich man is, after all, that money is not something he can earn.

Ordinary people are most willing to consume young women, followed by mothers and children.

"If Taobao wants to develop, it must precisely position itself. You have to understand which customers you must please."

This is one page of true biography, thousands of volumes of family heirlooms.

Ma Jieke, who had received Lu Yiming's "teaching of the Dharma", had a feeling of seeing the sun behind the clouds at this time, his heart suddenly became clear, and most of his confusion was gone. At the same time, he also admired Lu Yiming more and more.He said bluntly: "Mr. Lu is indeed a business genius. With such insights, how could he not make a fortune?"