Reboot 2003

Chapter 186 094: Prospect (Three in One)

Google came here with sincerity, of course, not just to buy a video website that doesn’t seem to be high or low, in fact, Google has also opened its own video channel now, all in all, it’s almost the same whether you buy it or not...at least on the surface. .

The reason why I say 'interested' is of course to show that everyone is really on the same boat before discussing the most important issue, which can be regarded as a sincere display of the bottom line.

However, the two people in Santiago didn't seem to understand what they meant—Mr. Xu was a standard oriental man, elegant and calm, with a steady demeanor. Today was the same as usual. When he heard that they had something to do, he organized the meeting urgently. 10 Ready in minutes, it's a squeaky clean starter.

But Chen Aotian, who has never dealt with each other before and only met in the public opinion scolding war last year, seemed not very polite.

He asked repeatedly: "Do you want to buy it? How many hundred million? How much?"

Google has always been proud of their engineer culture. They admire technology, and of course they don't like this kind of vulgar old man who talks about money. Considering that the two sides are now comrades in the same camp, Schmidt didn't speak ill of him. , responded: "There is room for us to cooperate in various fields, after all, we are fighting against similar enemies, aren't we?"

After a pause, he said, "Of course, we can also cooperate on the capital level. Google has also recently established a new online video department. We are walking on the same road, and we can join hands."

His words were neither humble nor overbearing, which not only showed that he was sincere, but also implied that they were not taken advantage of by shopping, and his answer was watertight.

Xu Tao didn’t answer, but the one surnamed Chen replied: “This is your freedom, but I think I need to remind you that although your Google Video has excellent technology and services, it is not a very good video website. , if you don’t want to fall behind in the next competition, I suggest you make an offer to us immediately.”

"Aotian..."

Old Xu has been working in Meilijian for a year, and he has a little understanding of the world here. Although he knows that these people don't understand the true status of his mysterious partner in the group, but the opposite is Google, after all, it is the world today. The world's most successful Internet company.

Well, since the other party has good intentions, maybe there is no need to take advantage of the other party's words of goodwill. The acquisition is a matter of your choice.

Unexpectedly, however, Schmidt fell silent, and Sandberg did not speak until Sergey Brin picked up the topic, with a distressed voice: "Okay, but we don't understand, we are Make the best video technology, but in the end, only those marketers will upload commercials to us, users did not choose us, not to mention that the bear has been awakened by you, and we are also being constrained everywhere.”

"We are all the same." Chen Aotian patiently explained in his broken English, "A relatively large goal will cause greater vigilance, because we have achieved success in the Tianchao digital music market, so our getai en is in After entering the Meijian market, many potential competitors have been shocked, and you are more conspicuous than us, so I suggest you directly buy a UGC platform that has formed a community...Do you know what UGC is?"

"Of course we understand that the manager of the Chinese dynasty proposed this concept..." Sergey Brin sounded a little annoyed, "But that's not what we mean, please put it aside for the acquisition or something Now! Now that you understand our common predicament, I think there should be a better solution, I mean..."

He sounded a bit out of line, and Sandberg summed it up accurately: "We want to ask, why don't you continue to make your digital music? You have already succeeded in China, and the speed of success is faster than the same pioneering digital music. Apple in the market is faster. If you could make Getaien into a digital music platform like China, then you shouldn’t have been subject to so many intellectual property criticisms.”

Chen Aotian replied: "But you also know that there is already iTunes here. They established a digital music store in 03, and they already had the function of grabbing genuine CD resources in 01. They have already established an online store here. Our own digital music system, we are already late.”

Sandberg said: "We also understand your plight, but iTunes was just a cover, wasn't it? Steve Jobs used it to mix into the genuine camp, but he didn't want to use iTunes to make money at all, at least not at first. , most of the iTunes profits go to the credit card companies and the record labels, the ipod is what they want to put out... wait for it."

She paused, hesitated and said, "Are none of you recording?"

"No, don't worry." Old Xu promised briefly, "Anderson, you can quit first."

All members of Getai.com who were listening in had withdrawn, leaving only three people from Google and two people from Getaien. This conversation seemed to have finally reached the core of the problem. Schmidt concluded: "We are the same, We like online video, it has a bright future and has a bigger market than music, but why can't we use the model of China's Getaiwang to build an online music platform that can reach the mainstream of public opinion? This is what we want to ask The problem."

Old Xu fell silent again, and the same Chen Aotian replied: "As you know, Getai.com comes from the Celestial Dynasty, and it lacks understanding of the Meilijian market..."

This time he didn't seem to have the aggressive temperament at the beginning, and his voice was low. After hearing this, Sandberg immediately pointed out sharply: "I don't think so, you can even understand what young people like today, and our Google The videos are only promotional videos released by companies and institutions, you can obviously do better..."

"I mean, in terms of the company's operating model, Meilijian's environment is incompatible with us." The person surnamed Chen seemed to be complaining, "Our getai en needs some excellent first-party content to open the way to do it. Let’s get up, but we don’t have this kind of advantage in Meijian, and as soon as we entered the Meijian market, we immediately suffered a lot of blows from copyright. Those traditional digital music companies are our competitors here, and they are trying to obstruct it. We copied a Meijian version of getai en..."

Schmidt pointed out: "That's because you are not low-key enough. Apple launched iTunes at the beginning, and the obvious reason was that their new version of the iMac did not have a CD burner, and their iTunes could only be connected to the iMac at first, and then they bought it. It took a group of content providers to promote iTunes to all channels, so he has not awakened the black bear. Why don’t you do this? You can at least change the domain name, expand your business first, and attract communication providers to your side. Instead of making a name first, attracting the attention of potential competitors, making it difficult to move at the end..."

Chen Aotian replied: "I know, but we are not Apple after all. Although Apple is in a downturn, its scale is still many times larger than ours. Although Jobs has just returned to Apple, he has quite extensive contacts in the entertainment field. But we have nothing."

"But first launch a business model, even if it's just an empty shell, isn't it okay?"

"I mean you guys don't understand what our business model looks like, first we need to go the celebrity route, but this route has been preempted by iTunes, and now all the stars in showbiz are walking around wearing white headphones Go, oprah winfrey doesn't even know how the ipod works and promotes it as her favorite product, the celebrity strategy is a cheap and affordable option for apple, but we don't have the connections that jobs did, and Meilijian has not yet launched the ring back tone service, and the carrier seems to have no interest in it..."

"The news said that the carrier seems to be happy to cooperate with you, Sequoia intends to help you match, but you rejected them..."

"That's because of Facebook!" Chen Aotian sounded a little exasperated, "Their co-founder Sean Parker was once kicked out by Sequoia, and those boys said that if we cooperate with Sequoia, they will break up with us!"

"Then why don't you go directly to the communication provider?"

"Of course it's because their CRBT technology is immature. We have described to them the great prospects of this technology, but it will take time for them to make a CRBT solution..."

"But as far as I know, the business model of your Getai.com does not rely on CRBT..."

"Okay! Enough!"

In the tense negotiations, Sergey Brin interrupted the escalating row.

Maybe it was the sound-only talking partner that made them a little annoyed, or maybe it was Chen Aotian's strange accent that made them very uncomfortable, in short, they couldn't stand it anymore.

Of course, the problems in front of everyone still exist, and the problems have not been resolved, but Sergey Brin seems to have no desire to talk to these Chinese people anymore.

So he said bluntly: "In this case, how much do you need? We can buy Getaien and all its related intellectual property rights in the Meijian area."

"Okay, I'm just waiting for you to say so. We are exhausted now, I think you will achieve more brilliant results than us with Getai en..."

Chen Aotian, who was in a hurry, said good things, although the three people from Google were in a bad mood, they still asked: "Okay then, you can make an offer."

"I think its prospects are obvious to all. Maybe we can quote $16 billion..."

"Are you crazy?" Schmidt exclaimed, "If you are willing to join us with China's business, we can consider granting you equity at this price..."

"Okay, I just don't know much about the consumption level of your Meilijian, please don't care, how about [-] million?"

Schmidt tentatively suggested: "That won't work, unless you are willing to sell the software department of Tianchao to us. Of course, I mean continue to cooperate. We can contract the business of Tianchao District to you like Yahoo... ..."

"The four hundred million?"

Sandberg continued to haggle over the price: "It will take the entire Getai network to do this."

"Two hundred million? It's low enough!"

This time it was Sergey Brin: "If you want to continue working together, you can..."

"Then..." Chen Aotian seemed to want to cut another [-] million, and almost didn't realize it, "What conditions? I mean [-] million in cash, is it okay?"

"Okay." Sergey Brin said, "Of course we will merge all Google's employees in Lijian, and they will join Google."

"That's right."

"Relevant patents should also be licensed to us, and you should also assist us in building a digital music platform. Of course, we can directly buy these patents."

"You can also talk, is there anything else?"

"Also... I hope to be your only search engine partner in Tianchao District."

"Is there any more? Are you sure you can buy it? I think we can sign a contract of intent."

"Google is willing to pay the money, but you have to ensure that this merger can be successfully completed..."

……

Half an hour later, the negotiations were over.

Of course, or just the beginning - this is just a conference call to confirm the intention, and then Lao Xu will participate in the specific acquisition negotiations with people from the investment department, special auditors, and lawyers, and in order to prevent the other party from going back on their word, first sign a contract of intent.

However, the general amount has been fixed—Google has a lot of money, and they are planning to acquire 100% of the equity. The current price is 2 million US dollars, because the additional conditions are set by Google, and it seems that there is still room for this number to rise.

It's just that after the negotiation, the two people who participated in the negotiation seemed a little confused.

"Did I drive too low just now? The consumption level of these foreigners is really high..."

After the negotiation, the people from Google left, and Boss Chen himself was a little confused - he really wanted to cut to 1 million just now...

After all, if you want to sell a company, the valuation is not obtained by extortionate prices. YouTube has sold 16 billion in history, which is the reason why he reached this price in the first place.

But on the in-situ plane, that transaction can’t be regarded as a cash-out acquisition. To be precise, it should be a company merger——

After the acquisition, YouTube acquired shares in Google, which were only worth 16 billion at the time of the merger. The founder Chen Shijun, as the veteran of PayPal and the head of China PayPal, held Google shares worth about 3 million U.S. dollars after the merger; When he cashed out, these shares, together with the subsequent changes, had appreciated to 130 billion.

Now the Santiago Group behind Getai en is of course very powerful, but once only Getai en is sold, the situation will be different-the core development team of the platform is not in the shell, and the mature business has not yet moved in, and the rest will be completely It's an empty shell.

And he can't tell Google that you will buy YouTube for 16 billion in the future. According to the relative valuation method, in today's social network market, a more accurate example is myspace, which was acquired by Murdoch for 6 million. Considering the popularity of both parties There is a gap with the prospect, and it would be about the same if it was sold for 1 million.

But think about it.

Although hundreds of millions of assets are involved, of course we can't settle it just by arguing at the wine table, but when there is a bubble in the market, it may be normal to have a premium, and this situation should be very common in today's Internet industry. Generally speaking—Yahoo spent 50 billion to acquire the Dallas Mavericks. Although things like this will not happen again now, some concepts in the Internet industry should indeed have a premium.

"Actually, I don't understand either. What are they talking about piracy?"

Old Xu didn't understand from the beginning, Chen Qin explained to him: "It's easy to say, have you heard the principles of precedent?"

This old Xu still knows:
"I know that Meilijian is a case law country. If our Getai.com loses in one lawsuit, all subsequent lawsuits will suffer, and it may even lead to a direct subversion of a business model...Is this it? "

"That's right, although it hasn't started yet, those who want to deal with us are looking for opportunities. They are the active party. Once they find an opportunity, they will attack from their own advantageous areas and erode our living space little by little. Until the market for online video, or even online streaming, is completely wiped out."

Old Xu asked suspiciously: "Will it be so serious? I mean no matter what, the industry will not allow them to completely wipe out this market..."

"So we need to actively prepare for the battle. We are in the same camp as Google, and those content parties are on the other side. In the future, we will fight hand-to-hand, and we will definitely fight an evenly matched front in the middle. Now we are the leader in this camp. Our performance is very important for the future. The outcome of the stalemate has a lot to do with it.”

Old Xu understood: "So in order to occupy more space when fighting hand to hand, they need us..."

"Actually, they think we are too good at it, and it may be bad luck sooner or later if we take the lead, so they want us to do something."

Old Xu understood: "By the way, they actually wanted to help us make digital music at the beginning. Just now they actually found out that we have no goods in our stomachs, so they proposed to buy it?"

Chen Qin said: "Yes, in fact, they should have done this long ago."

Old Xu asked: "Okay, I see, I just don't really understand why they have to buy us...I mean they have Google Video themselves, I saw that they have Google Video, since we don't do digital music , they can do it themselves, why do they have to spend so much money to acquire us?"

"Because they are a group of engineers, they don't know how to socialize at all." Chen Qin said, "Would you go to a detective agency to take a sauna? This is a reason."

Old Xu half understood: "Are you saying that Google Video is impossible to do?"

"It can be understood in this way, and considering that we are both on the same boat, so as long as we are useless, they can only choose to buy us. By the way, during the next negotiation, you can say that Murdoch is in contact with us , his Myspace is completely complementary to our video website business, you can also say that we are in contact with Yahoo, Yahoo is now the leader in the field of music videos...Is there any problem?"

"I see...but I have one last question."

"Tell me, what do you want to ask? The principle of this matter is quite complicated. Next, when you negotiate with them, you have to be clear enough to know what they are thinking..."

"I mean, what do I do?"

"what?"

Old Xu said: "Just now I said that I will buy all the people here, but am I not the CEO of Getaien? According to the conditions just now, I should follow Getai.com to join them."

"Uh."

Chen Qin was taken aback for a moment before he realized how he forgot about this matter, and quickly rubbed his hands and said nice words: "Uh...Old Xu, I think our side has a better future... Besides, although the shares have not yet been divided, But if you stay, the agreed shares this year can be redeemed to you in advance, how about giving you 500 million? After the end, I will give you another 500 million..."

Old Xu said: "I know, money doesn't matter, after all, I didn't do anything, so of course I'm willing to stay..."

Chen Aotian continued to encourage him: "Then let's put it this way, you will have no future if you go there with Getaiwang, I'm doing this for your own good."

But Lao Xu said: "You say that, then I have to ask what happened, I still think you were hiding something from me just now..."

"Hey, it's okay to tell you about this. You just wanted to ask why we made the website so bad?"

Old Xu hypothesized: "Yes, if we do a better job, or develop it a little bit more, at least we can make our Tianchao project, won't we be able to sell it for more money?"

Boss Chen said, "Actually, it won't. First of all, I told them just now that Meilijian's digital music market is close to saturation."

"Even if we can't be number one, we can always get a piece of the pie. We have the successful experience of Getaiwang. At least we should have some advantages in the field of CRBT."

"No, it's not that simple. Do you think I'm hiding something? In fact, what I didn't tell them is the prospect of CRBT. East Asia and Europe and the United States are not the same thing. Our culture is fundamentally different."

"You mean..."

"We love texting, they love phone calls, we love ringtones, but they're so into personalized ringtones now, I don't think they're going to like ringtones."

Old Xu was a little reconciled: "But how do you know if you don't try it? Anyway, there is no cost. The people from AT&T even left me a phone number, but when I talked to you last time, you didn't seem to be interested..."

Boss Chen on the other side of the Internet phone said: "In fact, there is a cost. If we have not tried, at least there is still a good prospect of success. If we fail, this prospect will disappear. You know, now our Getai en has nothing, and its prospects are worth 1.8 million."

"Okay... I see. So we started... okay!"

Old Xu understood completely now, and sighed, while Boss Chen said jokingly that you can't leave...

Of course Lao Xu didn't intend to leave, he was just curious.Now he knows the ins and outs of this negotiation, but it sounds like this old partner who seems to know everything, and even just played the three of them in Google, is sincerely trying to keep him, who is actually just an outsider Old Xu felt that the doubts in his heart had not been resolved, but had become bigger instead.

It's just that he wasn't a very ambitious person in the first place. At the beginning, he had the idea of ​​proving himself, but he didn't think of proving himself to this extent. Now, what can he do?Follow along to Google?

So in the end, Lao Xu didn't ask any more questions. Instead, he comforted his old partner a few words, and promised him to sign an internal authorization contract before he was let go. The acquisition was still busy, and it took Meilijian a day. Just at the beginning, Lao Xu finally said goodbye as usual, and went back to have a meeting with the auditor of the investment department...

(End of this chapter)