King of Capital

Chapter 92 Capitalists and the Dark

"One company went bankrupt in seven days. The efficiency is still a bit slow. Tencent estimates that the fight will be over by the end of the year."

At the Beijing Airport, Xie Jingxing was talking as he walked outside, with Song Anli carrying a suitcase beside him, followed by Cheng Wei, Tang Man and others.

Just one week after the start of the online car-hailing war, there was movement in all directions. Cheng Weila and Liu Qing joined Didi to strengthen the management's voice, Baidu joined the war to steal the company, and AutoNavi and Alibaba were in a stalemate.

The city of Suzhou issued an urgent document to ban taxi drivers from using online ride-hailing platforms. Kuaidi's chief operating officer Zhao Dong publicly claimed that a round of C financing was in the works, with one round of financing per month to deal with all dissatisfaction.

Today, Didi’s Series C financing has reached the final moment, and everyone came to Didi’s Beijing headquarters to sign a formal investment agreement.

I received a message just after getting off the plane that the founder of an online ride-hailing platform with less than 3% of the market share announced the closure and liquidation of the platform in an interview with reporters, and the news report that he angrily scolded the industry giants for monopoly and malicious competition became a hot search.

Cheng Wei was in a good mood and pretended to be sentimental. He said, "There are about 30 to 40 competitors in the market now. I don't know how many of them will survive this year with the current strategy. The competition is fierce and everyone is trembling with fear."

"Teacher Ma just posted on Weibo last night: Today is cruel, tomorrow is cruel, and the day after tomorrow is beautiful. But many people died tomorrow night."

Xie Jing Xing couldn't help but laugh and said, "We have to learn a lot from Teacher Ma in this regard and try to make our competitors die tomorrow night."

Mr. Ma was probably in a bad mood recently. He posted a Weibo at around 1 a.m. the night before yesterday, responding to his previous words "See you tomorrow" at Didi's pre-war mobilization meeting, and attached a photo of himself eating a midnight snack alone in a hotel suite.

Yan Wenhua, a knowledgeable brother, guessed based on the background picture of the hotel suite that the location should be the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Beijing, which indirectly proves that there is still suspense as to who will be the winner of Gaode.

"To be honest, I don't care much about my competitors. Didi's only competitor is Didi itself." Cheng Wei strode forward with high spirits.

In fact, when Xie Jingxing returned to Shanghai from Yunnan a few days ago and said that he was burning 10 million every day, he didn't have much confidence. He thought that he should try to spend 20 million for two weeks. With the two lines of traffic from App Store and WeChat, it would be good if the order volume could increase by %-% in two weeks.

After all, the bilateral subsidies for passengers and drivers in a single area of ​​the Shanghai market previously totaled 30 yuan, which cost millions of yuan a day.

The actual situation far exceeded expectations. This week, the nationwide campaign burned six million on the first day of its launch. Even in markets such as Beijing where Didi has an absolute dominant position, where subsidies were not increased much, the number of users doubled on the same day.

On the second day, 9 million was burned through, and the number of users nearly doubled. So far, 80 million has been burned through in one week, and the number of users has increased tenfold, adding 2 million card-bound users to WeChat Pay.

If we evenly distribute the subsidy funds among WeChat Pay, App Store, and Didi, the cost of WeChat Pay is roughly RMB 20 per card-bound user.

It doesn't matter if ordinary people don't trust third-party software to bind bank cards. Now your trust and privacy can be sold for 20 yuan. Taking a taxi is cheaper than taking a bus, and you can get phone credit. Where can you find such a good thing in the world? Hurry up and get on the bus...

But Cheng Wei thought the price was too expensive and Tencent would definitely have to find a way to lower it to the ten yuan range, but this guy in front of him actually wanted to increase the price even more.

There are often jokes in the venture capital circle about investors' strong and bloody styles that make founders love and hate them. He used to disagree with it, but now he has seen it through. It's too bloody.

"In fact, the subsidy strategy can be more flexible. This round of financing will wait for Liu Qing..."

The two were chatting side by side when several elite men and women in suits and ties came over from the other side of the airport arrival passage. Xie Jingxing stopped and nodded to the visitors.

Teacher Ma smiled and came closer: "Mr. Xie, I called you specifically but couldn't arrange a meeting. We met by chance at the airport. I think this is fate."

"I've been wanting to meet Mr. Ma for a long time, but the timing has never been right. Nice to meet you."

Xie Jingxing took the initiative to stretch out his hand and leaned forward slightly. He was 1.8 meters tall barefoot, and not bending down seemed a bit disrespectful.

Teacher Ma held my hand and shook his arm vigorously twice: "I'm here to talk about Gaode. I've been going to Beijing every few days recently. Let's have tea together when we have time."

"No problem. Didi's C round of financing has been signed. We can make an appointment next time when we have time." Xie Jingxing said politely.

Mr. Ma let go of my hand and asked as if he were an old friend: "I heard that you led the investment in this round?"

"Yes, I joined the game late, so I had to fight for a chance." Xie Jingxing didn't act too arrogant.

"Young people have ideas. The promotion plans you made for Didi in Shanghai made both Didi and Kuaidi very uncomfortable."

Mr. Ma beckoned his assistant to come over to his personal phone: "Add me as a friend, we'll keep in touch in the future. It's a good opportunity for you to help me test the new social product developed by Alibaba."

"'Laiwang', this name is good." Xie Jingxing took the phone from Song Anli and added the friend.

Teacher Ma explained sincerely: "It will be officially launched in a few days. The Internet field has broad prospects. There are always opportunities for cooperation. We must visit each other frequently in the future."

"Okay, let's stop here for today. I'll be leaving first."

Xie Jingxing asked to leave, and Teacher Ma made a please gesture and stepped aside to make way. The two sides met briefly and then said goodbye, with the figures of many entourages interweaving behind them.

Teacher Ma's assistant took the opportunity to stop Song Anli and exchanged wild glances with her. Song Anli was stunned for several seconds before her brain waves met his. She left the crowd and walked aside with him, took out the two bosses' cell phones, and muttered something secretly.

"I added a private WeChat and mobile phone number."

Song Anli caught up with the crowd and whispered to Tang Man, who was looking at her with curiosity. The latter almost couldn't help laughing out loud. Thinking carefully, the series of situations that Teacher Ma had encountered recently were somewhat humorous.

First, it was attacked by Tencent in the field of mobile payment, and then it was invaded by Baidu, and it has been fighting defensively ever since.

Now that she was forced into a corner, she began to take the initiative to attack Tencent's social empire to make a strategic change, but even her personal assistant had no confidence in this and had to secretly add WeChat, which was aggrieved. Xie Jingxing didn't notice that the two of them were whispering, and thought of something else in his mind and asked, "Are you and Chen Hang the same age?"

"Chen Hang, do you mean 'no tricks'? He joined Alibaba a few years earlier than me, so if I had to say it, it would barely be considered as such."

Cheng Wei, who had just been ignored by Mr. Ma, had a calm expression. He paused and continued, "This guy is working on Taobao's search engine. I'm in the B2C department of Alipay. I don't have much contact with him, but I heard that he has a pretty crazy personality."

"He is in charge of the 'Laiwang' project." Xie Jingxing explained.

Alibaba spent a lot of resources on Laiwang, spending a lot of money and hiring Zhao Wei and Jet Li to boost its popularity, but in the end it failed miserably and died peacefully.

Chen Hang, whose nickname is taken from the saying "No tricks are better than tricks", is really out of tricks now. He takes a few people back to the entrepreneurial holy land of Lakeside Home Community where Mr. Ma started his business, to start his own business called "DingTalk".

I don't know if this guy is incompetent or just born unlucky, but he worked hard for many years and finally hit the right time node to develop DingTalk, but Alibaba Cloud also did it.

He was transferred back to Alibaba headquarters to serve as Zhang Yong's assistant and was forced to hand over power. As soon as he left, Dingding was merged into Alibaba Cloud. Later, he started his own business, but it was not very successful for two or three years. Dingding was then separated from the Alibaba Cloud Business Group.

DingTalk, enterprise management, cloud services... This is a market worth hundreds of billions of dollars, but it is stagnant in China. Maybe Grapefruit Capital (USA) should make some moves...

Xie Jingxing suppressed his thoughts for the moment and said jokingly, "Ali's second-generation management is in a period of transition. If you stay at Ali, you might be able to take over from Mr. Ma in the future."

"Who knows what will happen in the future, let's just do well in the present." Cheng Wei looked relieved.

Xie Jingxing did not comment. He had had several in-depth discussions with a girl at the P9 level at Alibaba. At that time, Jiang Fan's cheating incident was making headlines. The other party said that Jiang Fan was the recognized successor within the group.

The rest are people like Zhang Hang and Wang Yulei, which shows how rotten the internal management of Alibaba is.

Cheng Wei thought for a moment and suddenly asked, "You and Teacher Ma really have no grudges against each other?"

"We have a grudge in our previous life."

"..."

"But the grudge is not deep. It's just that it stole a few projects from me and I feel disgusted with it. The main reason is that Mr. Ma wants to have the whole thing to himself..."

Xie Jingxing got into the car with an ambiguous smile on his face. The engine started to make noise, and the last half of his sentence was lost in the wind.

At present, Didi’s headquarters has not yet moved to the Digital Valley in Haidian. The car drove around the city for most of the day and drove to an office building with a slightly old facade.

Xie Jingxing seldom came to Beijing and had no idea where this place was. He looked around after getting off the car, feeling quite curious.

"The conditions are limited. Please excuse me, Mr. Xie. This way, please." Cheng Wei walked in front to lead the way.

Xie Jingxing tilted his head to look at Song Anli: "With these conditions, they still want to recruit you. President Cheng and President Liu want to lead you into a trap. Don't listen to their tricks."

"Okay, I'll wait until Mr. Cheng moves to a new office and then I'll change jobs. I think I can do it next year."

Song Anli cooperated by saying auspicious words, and everyone walked into the office building lobby chatting and laughing. Suddenly, there was a sound of breaking wind, and an open mineral water bottle filled with black liquid flew towards them.

Bodyguard Li Yan reacted quickly and blocked the bottle with his body. His two companions rushed forward and held down the young man who threw the bottle.

"Clap."

The mineral water bottle collided with the body and splashed black liquid. Song Anli subconsciously raised the commuter bag in her hand to block it. Xie Jingxing pulled her to avoid the large amount of black liquid.

"Cheng Wei, you are a fucking dog, a dog that kneels down to lick the shoes of capital!"

The young man was probably only in his twenties, his eyes were bloodshot and he looked haggard. He was pinned to the ground and cursed at the top of his lungs.

The people coming in and out of the office building were all attracted by this scene. They stood far away and watched, talking about it.

Song Anli hurriedly took out a tissue from her bag: "Here, wipe your face quickly, your left cheek is stuck."

"It's okay, it's ink."

Xie Jingxing raised his hand and wiped some black liquid from his face, which exuded a faint scent of ink. He continued to walk into the office building: "Li Yan, you stay and deal with it. We will leave first."

“He is the founder of the online ride-hailing platform that went bankrupt on the trending search.”

Song Anli leaned close to his ear and said, accidentally getting ink on her cheek.

Xie Jingxing shook his head: "Let him go."

"Xie Jingxing, I know you, don't pretend to be a good person, you capitalists are too evil, why do you do this to us small entrepreneurs, aren't we human beings... Don't block my mouth, Xie Jingxing, you will die a horrible death..."

There were sobbing curses coming from behind, but Xie Jingxing kept walking and spoke in a relaxed tone: "What were we talking about before? Yes, the subsidy strategy can be more flexible. Have you played Tencent's lottery game? Add some probability."

(End of this chapter)