King of Capital

Chapter 52 Good Things Don’t Do Finance

"You are committing a crime!"

In the hotel parking lot in Menlo Park, Su He stated with a serious expression.

Xie Jing Xing looked at her calmly: "I just want to drink some wine."

"You are committing a crime!" Su He repeated word by word.

"You can choose to stay in Menlo Park. We will meet at San Francisco Airport tomorrow." Xie Jingxing paused for a moment, "Or you can come back to San Francisco with me now and become an accomplice."

Su He put his hands in his hair and said numbly, "We haven't checked out yet."

"Checking out doesn't work anymore." Xie Jingxing smiled with relief.

There are many cities in the San Francisco Bay Area, and looking around, the permanent population of each city is less than 100,000. However, the cafeteria at Apple’s headquarters is surprisingly ranked in the top three on the food rankings of review websites.

They couldn't find a place to drink, so Xie Jingxing took the trouble to pack Su He's luggage and drove back to downtown San Francisco. They found a hotel, parked the eye-catching Bugatti Veyron, rented a car from the hotel, and went to a bar near the hotel.

"any drinks?"

The two found a seat at the bar counter and were greeted by the bartender with a rough beard and sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

"A cup of Genting and a cup of coffee."

"Two bottles of Roosevelt No. 10."

Xie Jingxing and Su He said at the same time, and the bearded bartender shrugged: "I only have Irish coffee here."

"Okay, six bottles of Roosevelt No. 10." Xie Jingxing made a gesture of invitation. Whoever pays has the final say.

Su He paid the bill and gave a tip: "Add ice cubes."

Xie Jingxing frowned in disdain. Roosevelt No. 10 was a craft beer with a sweet aroma of fruit and caramel. Because the alcohol content was a little higher than Deadly Wusuli, the aftertaste was slightly bitter, but the overall taste was quite interesting.

But adding ice won't work. Beer hides all its flaws once it's iced. Water beer and craft beer all taste the same when you drink them. You can only get a little tipsy or drunk.

The two men held their glasses and drank silently, neither paying attention to the other, until around nine o'clock in the evening, when they had finished two bottles of beer and three drinkers appeared at the seat next to the bar.

There were two men and one woman, a middle-aged white man with a standard figure and a hooked nose, a young Indian man with glasses who looked like a programmer, and a white-skinned blonde beauty with a hot figure, cool clothes and an Asian aesthetic.

Su He concentrated and listened attentively. The Indian man with glasses was an employee of WhatsApp, and the blonde beauty was Feng Shuo, a schoolmate and a sophomore at UCLA.

The middle-aged white man was a typical elite middle-class person. He held a Porsche key in his hand, fiddling with his phone and busy with trillions of dollars worth of business every minute. He ignored the Indian man with glasses.

The blonde beauty affectionately called the elite man "darling" and helped pour wine with a smile to liven up the atmosphere.

"Honey, Anil is a very good person. The day before yesterday, I was in a hurry to go to class and accidentally hit his car. He just left my phone number and let me go. We should thank him." She expressed her gratitude.

The elite man drank Johnnie Walker Blue Label and raised his glass without even looking up, saying, "Thank you for your understanding. May I ask if your car has been repaired? I'll pay for all the expenses. It's okay. It's just a small matter."

Su He couldn't help but retract his gaze and carefully looked at Xie Jingxing who was nonchalantly tasting the alcohol beside him.

She felt a sense of absurdity for no reason. What kind of monster was this? The person who smiled and said he wanted to go out for a walk that night in Pengcheng was the same person in front of her now?
How could one person combine two completely opposite ideas so logically and self-consistently? She suspected that the other person was a schizophrenic, who could be sober-minded and use such cruel and despicable means to achieve his idealistic and aspirational goals.

"How did you come up with the idea of ​​using the domestic market to convince Jim Gotz?" Su He suddenly became curious.

"My university professor taught me that if both parties in an M&A transaction believe that they have the initiative, the transaction will be easier to reach."

Xie Jing Xing complained as a matter of course: "Only unprofessional matchmakers would be so foolish as to say: Ni, Tie Zhu next door has taken a fancy to you, and will come to your house tomorrow with some money to propose marriage."

"...Our university teachers never taught these things." Su He sneered.

Xie Jingxing took a sip of wine: "We didn't go to the same university. Didn't you study at Nanjing University for your undergraduate degree?"

"I think it's boring to still care about the superiority of academic qualifications after entering the society." Su He's fragile little heart was hurt.

She was not like this originally, but she didn't know what happened recently. She was always easily provoked by Xie Jingxing, and she was so angry that her period was delayed this month.

Of course, her university teachers taught that they should analyze people's hearts and let both parties of the transaction take the initiative, but which teacher would specifically teach students to turn the tables and teach the buyer to wave his handkerchief and shout "Come and play, uncle" to the seller like a brothel owner?

It's really weird. How could he learn so many weird things at such a young age?

Su He was drinking with disgust, and at the same time, he heard a quarrel and noise nearby.

The blonde beauty felt that the elite man didn't respect her friends and ran away crying. The Indian man with glasses was so angry that he danced with joy, rapped a piece of hip-hop on the spot, and then chased the blonde beauty out of the bar.

"Let's go."

Xie Jingxing said hello, pulled the dazed Su He out of the bar, walked to the parking lot and got into the car.

In the pitch-black car, a figure hidden in the darkness sat in the back seat and asked in Mandarin: "Mr. Yan, friend?"

"Did you see the money?" Xie Jing Xing asked back in Latin, flicking his tongue.

"...Brother, this is just a small matter, don't make it like James Bond."

The figure was speechless and raised a brown paper bag on the back seat to indicate: "No need for money, just say hello to Mr. Yan for me. We haven't seen each other for several years and our relationship has faded."

"You have to write me a receipt." Xie Jingxing said softly.

The figure fell silent again: "What, are you going to take this money?" "It's only natural to get paid for work, I can reimburse you." Xie Jingxing explained.

"...Don't worry about me. I will find out everything for you in three days."

The figure was dissatisfied with being questioned about his ability, so he picked up the phone and dialed a number. Ten minutes later, the white-skinned blonde beauty in the bar appeared in his sight, standing under the street light and looking around anxiously.

He said in a cocky and confident tone: "You can check the goods yourself tonight. They are imported."

"Next time, let's ask her to help keep an eye on all the companies that have expressed acquisition intentions for WhatsApp in the next three months. Can you do it?" Xie Jingxing emphasized.

The figure threw down the money and pushed the door open and got out of the car: "I'll keep it for you. Next time you come, she'll still be in her original outfit."

Xie Jingxing sighed helplessly. If he was not a Juntai employee working for Tencent, he would be very reluctant to deal with such people in person and dirty his hands for nothing.

Ma Hei took out his cigarette box, tried to grab the lighter several times but failed, so he bit the cigarette butt to calm down and said:

"That Indian man with glasses is a core technical employee responsible for building the voice call function of WhatsApp. His position allows him to know a lot of important information in advance. Are you relieved now?"

"Who is he?"

"Hua Qing."

"What is Huaqing?"

"In the late 19th century, it was called a tongkou, and now it is called a society."

The car drove out of the parking lot and the blonde beauty was still standing under the street light, waiting for orders like a frightened little white rabbit.

"Yan Wenhua is not a good person, and neither are you."

“Good things don’t go into finance.”

"thorn"

The dim blue light of the fire dispelled the darkness. A fair and delicate hand holding a lighter approached, and the faint smell of tobacco mixed with alcohol permeated the nose.

…………

On Sunday, Xie Jingxing and Su He boarded the flight back to Shanghai as planned.

Meanwhile, Mountain View.

Jim Goetz stood at the door of WhatsApp, looking at a Ferrari parked downstairs. He hesitated for a moment and finally walked in with determination.

The owner of this luxury car is Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

"Get together?"

This is what Zuckerberg said in his first email to Koum last year, which was very brief but exciting.

Goetz still remembers that Koum declined the meeting invitation on the grounds of being on a business trip, and forwarded the email to him and another co-founder Brian Acton, telling them to hold on and not be easily tempted by industry giants, as WhatsApp has broad prospects.

Now, a year later, Zuckerberg and Koum have become good friends who can talk about anything. They have lunch together, drive sports cars, and play golf together.

"Jim, you'd better come to me for something important. I have an appointment with Mark to see a musical."

In the office, Jan Koum stood by the window and looked at Zuckerberg who was temporarily "asked to leave", and complained jokingly.

"Have you completely accepted him?"

Goetz smiled politely and nodded to Zuckerberg who was standing downstairs and waving goodbye.

Kum retracted his gaze: "Of course not, but Mark is indeed a good partner. He respects us very much and shows the greatest sincerity and patience."

"Then I have to tell you some unfortunate news. His biggest competitor has emerged - the Tencent Group from China." Godzilla pulled up the blinds and replied.

Koum raised his eyebrows in surprise. He knew very well what kind of behemoth Tencent was, without his only investor saying much.

If this were an American company, Facebook's market value would probably be half of what it is now, or even lower.

When Goz repeated the entire conversation yesterday afternoon, Koum frowned and commented in a deep voice: "You have been bought by the huge market of 14 billion people. There is too much transaction risk in this, which will affect our development."

“Yang, as an excellent founder, it is not enough to just focus on the development of the company itself.”

Goetz explained: "Last year, a company called CNOOC acquired the Canadian energy company Nexen for $151 billion, and another shipping company called COSCO Shipping leased the 46-year concession rights to operate the Long Beach terminal for $40 billion."

"This is not their first time coming to the West, but it is their first time to achieve success."

"We must see the direction of the wind. The West has not yet emerged from the shadow of the financial crisis. We need large sums of money from the East. Mr. Hussein has publicly praised the friendship between the two countries more than once in the past two years."

Goz laughed sarcastically and said, "I am almost fifty years old this year. The last time I saw such friendly relations was when the two countries just established diplomatic relations in our teens. I personally experienced the whole process from honeymoon to coldness."

"When our country emerges from the crisis, we will not hesitate to take the initiative to switch to a cold relationship again. The current window of opportunity is hard-won, and it is worth it for you and Tencent to sit down and talk anyway."

　Since I started writing, I have no time to drink. I can only take a break while writing and drinking.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)