King of Capital

Chapter 39: Wall and Monkey
In private, Xiao Ma Ge seems very introverted, low-key and even a little shy. He has no bodyguards, assistants or any entourage around him. He only communicates with a few words on WeChat. He walks to the arrival gate of the domestic terminal alone, carrying a backpack commonly used by programmers.

Xie Jingxing didn't expect him to be so strong and simple. He didn't know what to say for a moment. The two of them stared at each other for a while. In the end, Su He broke the silence and exchanged a few words.

"Can we find a store nearby and sit down and chat for half an hour?" Xiao Ma Ge suggested, changing his mind at the last minute.

He also didn't expect that there would be three people, so the company only arranged a regular business car to pick them up. He had a backache recently and was afraid of the crowd.

Xie Jingxing had no objection. It was around 10 o'clock on a working day on Monday evening. There were not many people at the exit of the domestic terminal. A few people found a place to sit in the corner of an empty beef noodle restaurant.

The unexpected simplicity of the first meeting made the atmosphere a little awkward. He started the conversation dryly: "Speaking of which, I used to do outsourcing for Tencent."

"Do you know computer programming?" Xiao Ma asked curiously.

Xie Jingxing explained: "In order to raise funds for student union activities in high school, I organized my classmates to do campus promotion for Tencent, and I could earn 120 Q coins every day."

“It seems that Tencent still has positive value among young people.” Pony Ma smiled.

"Yes, during my middle school years, Q coins were widely used. My classmates almost always used Q coins to buy and sell toys and game props. The public's recognition of Q coins was very high."

Xie Jingxing said sincerely: "In my opinion, Q Coins should be regarded as the most mature product among the first generation of virtual currencies. Relying on QQ's hundreds of millions of active users, its potential is far higher than the existing virtual currencies on the market. It's a pity that the entire virtual currency market is still immature."

“In fact, as an Internet company, Tencent has never paid much attention to finance. We prefer to be down-to-earth and make achievements in existing fields.” Pony Ma downplayed the topic.

Xie Jingxing did not comment. A few years ago, the debate about Q coins reached the head office, and Tencent castrated itself and restricted the usage scenarios of Q coins.

In Tencent's financial statements, Q coins are listed as "deferred income" like a ghost, so there is no need to say that they are not highly concerned about finance.

He was very interested in finance, but compared with another Mr. Ma, he was more flexible. He quietly tested the bottom line and stopped and knelt when he saw the situation was not good. When the limelight passed, he continued to crawl forward and quietly entered the village without firing a shot.

Both sides fell into silence again. Seeing this, Su He tried to say something to ease the atmosphere.

Xie Jingxing spoke first: "Zuckerberg offered Snap a $30 billion full acquisition offer, but Snap's founder Spiegel rejected it at the same time as your round of financing."

"So if Tencent wants to acquire Snap in full before the next round of financing, it will have to pay more than $30 billion, maybe $40 billion or $50 billion."

Hearing about the business secrets that could be brought to court, Su He's face changed slightly. She didn't expect Xie Jingxing to have such accurate and important information.

Shen Xin couldn't sit still anymore, he stood up and said he was going to buy a few bottles of water, then slowly left the corner and observed the surrounding environment alertly and quietly.

Pony Ma, on the other hand, sat on the mountain with confidence and commented thoughtfully: "Snap has a huge impact on Instagram, and instant messaging products are what Facebook has always dreamed of. The $30 billion valuation is very reasonable."

"Facebook lacks too many things and may collapse at any time. Zuckerberg has a strong sense of crisis about this," Xie Jingxing agreed.

Pony Ma then changed the subject and said, "From a technical perspective, Snap's business model is very new. It positions itself as a photo-taking social platform, which coincides with the dividends of mobile smartphones. Its innovative features, such as self-destructing messages, are worth learning from for Tencent."

Surprisingly, Tencent is not particularly interested in Snap.

"As a financial practitioner, I prefer to analyze from a macro perspective. I believe that the core value of Snap is a unique product of the European and American social environment, and white leftists have given Snap strong vitality." Xie Jingxing holds a different view.

Snap's main feature of "disappearing after reading" needs no further explanation as the name suggests. This group of snaps attracts the vast majority of young users aged 16 to 22.

While the mainstream picture and text communities such as Instagram and Xiaohongshu are racking their brains to study the beauty function, the young people on Snap are focusing on the rebellious spirit and paying tribute to the white left predecessors who opposed punk and anti-war rock in the 1970s and 1980s.

What we are playing with is reality. Don’t define height, weight, or body shape as anything. A 200-pound authentic fat pig can also be beautiful!
He nodded slightly in approval and said, "It's a very novel angle."

The soil is different and Tencent cannot understand snap, so the conversation has come to a dead end here.

Should Tencent compete fiercely with Facebook in bidding war, or should it make big moves to clear obstacles for WeChat’s overseas expansion?
He wanted to hear what the young man in front of him had to say. This rich second-generation who had great powers and connections and was assigned to him was not a fool but had something.

"My supervisor when I was interning at Temasek's New York office proposed a very simple and crude valuation strategy for social Internet companies: each registered user of Facebook is $6 and each registered user of WeChat is RMB 1."

Xie Jingxing paused for a moment: "To some extent, this is a calculation of the value of users, but I don't think the gap between WeChat and Facebook is that big. WeChat has a way to monetize user value, but Facebook can't."

Pony Ma raised his hand to adjust the temple of his glasses and emphasized: "This is a common problem for many social Internet products. WeChat itself is also trying various business models for the time being."

“Maybe you are right. Tencent pays too little attention to finance. Alipay can do mobile payments, so why can’t WeChat?” Xie Jingxing said with a sense of evil humor.

Su He, who was sitting at the side and could not get a word in, was suddenly shocked. Tencent was actually plotting to enter the mobile payment field and challenge Alipay? !

You should know that after years of accumulation, Alipay now has over 100 million users. Based on the current number of mobile smartphones in China, Alipay occupies a monopoly-level market share.

Ma's face turned gloomy, and he asked in a deep voice: "How do you know the valuation Zuckerberg gave to Snap?"

"Last year, Zuckerberg spent $10 billion to acquire Instagram. This year, the number of Snap downloads in the Apple Store is second only to Instagram. A valuation of billion is reasonable." Xie Jingxing did not give a direct answer.

The CEO of Sony Entertainment is a member of the Snap board of directors. At the end of next year, Sony Entertainment will be hacked, resulting in information leaks, including emails between this board member and other shareholders.

Tencent, which was wronged for this, never followed up on Snap's financing. Alibaba, whose business was stolen by Tencent, immediately led the investment in Snap and invested $200 million, which really disgusted Tencent.

This was also the first time that Tencent and Alibaba jointly made venture capital in a company. Thanks to the fact that this matter caused a sensation in the circle at the time, Xie Jingxing remembered all the details.

Pony Ma was quite angry. The WeChat mobile payment project was kept secret and was expected to be officially launched in August. It was revealed two months in advance by a guy who appeared out of nowhere. It was hard not to be furious.

Xie Jingxing revealed that Zuckerberg valued Snap at 3 billion. He thought that this possibility did exist, even by guessing, and it sounded reasonable. When Xie Jingxing said that WeChat could be used for mobile payments, he thought it was fucking unreasonable... This person is an intelligence dealer and commercial spy, he must be arrested and shot!
"Spielger is a greedy guy. He dared to ask for a valuation higher than $30 billion with user traffic that has no profit model in sight. I heard that in this round of financing, he sold original shares worth $2000 million through the secondary market for personal consumption."

Xie Jingxing said to himself: "That is to say, this round of financing is 6000 million US dollars + 2000 million US dollars. This founder who challenges the bottom line of investors is very damnable. If it were me, I would never let him make a penny if I had the choice."

"What do you mean by right of choice?" Xiao Ma Ge unknowingly lost the initiative in the rhythm of the conversation and passively followed the change of subject.

If the above is true, he really hates Spiegel, and there is no way Tencent will give a valuation higher than 30 billion US dollars. This loser should forget about taking a penny from Tencent!
Xie Jingxing smiled and made a gesture of invitation: "Please let my colleague Su He introduce this part to you."

"WhatsApp, as an instant messaging product with 2.5 million daily active users worldwide, there is no better acquisition target for Tencent and WeChat!" Su He said excitedly and firmly.

After chatting for a long time, even a pig could vaguely find out Xiao Ma Ge's psychological defense line, and mergers and acquisitions happen to be an industry that can manipulate people's hearts.

Xiao Ma couldn't help but frown: "This is too expensive."

Tencent is a large company with huge expenses. Even if it acquires Snap, which is valued at $20 billion or $30 billion, it may not be a one-time full acquisition, not to mention WhatsApp.

According to Xie Jingxing's illogical and abnormal valuation method, it would be 150 billion US dollars. If it were calculated using a reasonable and conventional valuation method, it would be at least 80 to 100 billion US dollars.

"Mr. Ma, what you said is wrong. Living within one's means is not very applicable in the field of commercial investment. We should take a long-term view." Su He said with a smile.

Then he organized his words and attacked Pony Ma's weak spot: "WhatsApp has international strategic value. It has a large user base in North America, South America, Europe and even Asia. In comparison, Tencent's investment in instant messaging products limited to Asia, such as South Korea's KaKaoTalk, in recent years has been very weak."

"Due to the differences in cultural and folk backgrounds in various regions around the world, it is not an exaggeration to describe the road for domestic Internet products to go overseas as a difficult one. In my opinion, the most promising domestic Internet product to go overseas is only WeChat. The process of expanding its overseas market is destined to be lonely and difficult, and it needs strong support..."

The human heart is difficult to analyze.

Su He couldn't guess 100% what Pony Ma was thinking. Pony Ma kept publicly expressing the importance of WeChat to Tencent and the bright prospects of WeChat going global.

So what she has to do is to make Pony Ma believe that as long as it acquires WhatsApp, WeChat will be able to ride the wind and waves and sail across the vast ocean...

Compared with hope, tens of billions of dollars are extremely cheap.

Su He used what Xie Jingxing said and the information he collected during the day to describe in great detail how important WhatsApp will be in Tencent's strategic map. Pony Ma's phone rang and was hung up again and again.

Until the driver anxiously stood outside the restaurant and raised his wrist to indicate the time through the glass window, he said goodbye despite the pain in his waist: "Sorry, I have to go back to the company for a meeting. Let's stop here today."

"We have just mentioned Facebook several times, so in the end I think it is necessary to remind you that Facebook is also interested in WhatsApp and may express its acquisition intention tomorrow," Xie Jingxing added.

Ma replied without hesitation: "As you said, Zuckerberg has a strong sense of crisis. It will not surprise people if he is interested in any company."

"200 billion US dollars is probably his bottom line."

Xie Jingxing sighed, such a big deal was really outrageous.

Xiao Ma Ge stopped moving, looking suspicious and silent.

"It's still like I said, Facebook is indeed missing too many things, such as the most important profit model." Xie Jingxing explained playfully.

Facebook is like a large Sina Weibo. It has no future except advertising revenue. Zuckerberg must wave a check to buy all products that may threaten Facebook. This is both defensive and offensive. While defusing the threat, it increases Facebook's valuation and then seeks profit potential.

Kill three birds with one stone, or lose everything!
"Excuse me, Mr. Ma, but has Tencent ever considered Facebook as a competitor?"

Xie Jingxing's tone was filled with a little excitement for no reason. He stood up and raised his palm to indicate, "Finance, the Internet, we are all separated by a wall."

"Unable to bear the loneliness, the captive monkeys would jump out of the wall and would be hunted and bitten by wild beasts outside the wall. Then they would flee back into the wall covered in blood to lick their wounds, and would never dare to step out of the wall again in their lives."

"Juntai doesn't want to be the king of a mountain without tigers. If Tencent thinks the same way, we can go over the wall together and take a look."

He pulled his phone out of his pocket, found Zhihu, opened it, and said to Xiao Ma Ge: "Of course, we should take our swords and go out to fight."

That was the answer he wrote in an hour - the future of mobile payments.

In his eyes, Tencent can go global not only through WeChat but also through finance.

In Xiao Ma Ge's pupils was reflected a young figure with a red face due to excitement, like a fanatical madman described in epic myths...

"I'm sorry, but we really can't chat any further."

He slowly opened his arms, put on his backpack and said seriously, "I will read your article."

A long silence and a conversation that exhausted everyone physically and mentally.

No one had the energy to say anything, and Xie Jingxing just watched his restrained figure with a backpack gradually disappear from his sight.

"Do you want to book a flight back tonight?" Shen Xin said softly.

Su He asked: "Where are you going back to?"

"Let's go back to the Magic City." Xie Jingxing said calmly.

Su He crossed his arms and shook his head. "I still have to say that your understanding of mergers and acquisitions is very naive. We should continue to visit the person in charge of Tencent's strategic investment. We haven't got the final result yet."

"That's fine." Xie Jingxing pursed his cracked lips and nodded with a relaxed smile.

Tencent had the opportunity to acquire WhatsApp, and they did so in the original timeline, but they were unsuccessful.

(End of this chapter)