Reborn: Billionaire in College

Chapter 154: As an intern, my immediate supervisor is actually a classmate?

At 8:30 in the morning, Li Xi had already arrived at the company.

This is a good habit he has maintained since he joined the company. Unless he is on a business trip, he always shows up at the company on time.

As for school, he basically never goes back except to take exams, and instead puts all his energy into work.

"Mr. Li? Good morning." HR specialist Song Xinyue knocked on Li Xi's office door and walked in with a smile.

Following behind her were three young men.

Li Xi, who was drinking water, put down the cup and said with a smile: "Is it the new intern?"

"Yes, please sign. I'll leave these three people to you." After saying that, Song Xinyue turned around and said to the three people behind her, "This is Mr. Li Xi, the vice president of Renren Business Group, who is in charge of the company's marketing business."

Li Xi waved his hand and said to one of them with a smile: "No need to introduce him, he is my classmate."

Under the surprised gazes of the other two interns, Mo Weidong smiled bitterly, touched his nose, and according to the workplace rules, he respectfully called out, "Mr. Li."

Li Xi laughed: "Same as always, just call me Li Xi, don't do those nonsense, go to your workstations to familiarize yourself, and then have lunch together at noon."

Today's Renren is no longer the makeshift team it once was. After the organizational structure reform and the establishment of the board of directors, and especially with so many new people joining, people no longer call each other by their full names, but more by their positions.

For example, now few people in the company dare to call Chen Pingjiang by his full name, and most people call him Mr. Chen.

This is not so-called bureaucracy, but a way of expressing respect while simplifying the address and emphasizing status.

It’s not that Chen Pingjiang has never thought about using a nickname. After all, this thing is very popular among Internet companies nowadays, as if a company is not an Internet company without a nickname or an English name.

Of course, the two places most famous for flower names are Ali and the bath center.

In theory, flower names can promote flat management, eliminate bureaucracy, create an open atmosphere, and prevent poaching by competitors.

But in fact, flower names cannot prevent bureaucracy. On the contrary, it is ridiculous to use flower names to pretend to be equal rights. Feng Qingyang, the sweeping monk, itself has a strong name suggestion. In addition, it will cause confusion to partners. Should I call you "Mr. Ma" or "Mr. Feng", which will cause artificial division.

In the end, Chen Pingjiang gave up using flower names and decided to unify the Chinese names.

After leaving Li Xi's office, Mo Weidong sighed in his heart. It was hard to associate Li Xi with the dull Li Xi who worked odd jobs everywhere. In just one year, he became more cheerful and had the aura of a superior.

Kong Yanze, an intern from the University of Science and Technology who was walking beside Mo Weidong, nudged Mo Weidong with his arm and said, "Brother, I'll be relying on you from now on. Damn, the head of the department is your classmate, so your promotion is almost certain."

Another intern also joined the conversation: "By the way, why didn't you apply for Renren with your classmates? Otherwise, you would be a 'CEO' now, right?"

Mo Weidong smiled bitterly, "At that time, Mr. Li and I did make an appointment to come to Renren for an interview together, but there were a lot of things to do in the student union, so we didn't make the trip. By the time I had completely given up my work in the student union, Renren had almost stopped recruiting college students and was mostly recruiting people from the society."

Kong Yanze and the others were dumbfounded when they heard this. They thought to themselves, is this guy mentally ill? How could he give up such a bright future for such a trivial matter of the Student Union?

In fact, the moment Mo Weidong saw Li Xi, he regretted it to the core.

All I can say is that choice is more important than effort, and choice determines your life.

"This is Gao Ting, your future supervisor." After arriving at the department, Song Xinyue began to hand over: "Then, Manager Gao, they will be handed over to you."

Supervisor Gao Ting smiled and sent Song Xinyue away, then turned around and started chatting with the three interns.

"Would you like to introduce yourself?"

"Kong Yanze, Dongjiang University of Science and Technology."

"Yu Feng, Dongjiang University."

"Mo Weidong, Dongjiang University of Finance and Economics."

As the only one among the three who graduated from a 985 university, Yu Feng was about to accept some kind of compliment from Gao Ting.

Unexpectedly, Gao Ting took a closer look at Mo Weidong beside him, and greeted him enthusiastically with an admiring look: "Oh? I didn't expect you to be from Dongcai?"

Kong Yanze, who was also at the University of Science and Technology in Xianlin University Town, knew why his supervisor admired Mo Weidong as soon as he saw his supervisor's expression. Yu Feng next to him was still a little confused. This painting style was a little wrong.

But the next second brought him even more shock.

It seemed as if the two words "Dongcai" opened a mechanism, and old employees kept trying to get close to Mo Weidong, either directly or implicitly.

As if seeing the confusion in Yu Feng's heart, Kong Yan came over with a chuckle and said, "Are you curious about why you, a 985 student, are not taken seriously, while Mo Weidong is more popular?"

Yu Feng nodded curiously.

"The boss of this company is from Dongcai, right? Chen Pingjiang."

"Of course I know." Yu Feng felt that if it was just because of Chen Pingjiang and Li Xi, everyone wouldn't be so enthusiastic about Mo Weidong, right?

Kong Yan continued, "Mr. Li Xi, whom I just met, is from the University of Finance. Besides that, 70% of the senior executives are from the University of Finance, so can you understand why students from the University of Finance are so popular in our company?"

Yu Feng finally stopped being curious: "If one person succeeds, everyone will benefit."

It has to be said that it is an objective fact that the wealthy are in power within the company and are looked up to by their colleagues wherever they go.

Even Chen Pingjiang has noticed this phenomenon, so now he basically does not recruit college students, and almost all of them are recruited from society, trying hard to downplay the identity and circle of the University of Finance and Economics.

This does not mean that Chen Pingjiang is suppressing the reputation of the University of Finance and Economics, but rather that he is trying to be fair based on objective facts.

No matter whether you are from the University of Finance and Economics or Dongda University, you are all equal when you come to Renren.com. ……………………

When various VC/PE firms were researching Renren and Chen Pingjiang.

Chen Pingjiang was also observing them.

So far, several big fish including Sequoia Capital, IDG, Softbank, Matrix Partners, and Today Capital have already taken the bait.

Since 2006, when China's Internet boom began, various international venture capitals also began to expand into the country.

In particular, the rise of Facebook and the advent of the web2.0 era have further intensified the influx of hot money into the Internet industry.

Qihoo.com received US$2006 million in venture capital in February 2.

ChinaBBS also received $3000 million in venture capital.

Chen Yizhou's Mop.com and Donews also received $2006 million in venture capital from international investment institutions such as General SAalantic, DCM, and Accel 3 Partners in March 8.

After the Internet winter, venture capital regained its tolerance and patience for startups, and user loyalty, like "eyeballs" in the past, became the yardstick for capital to measure the value of websites. Community websites happen to have such characteristics - they have a large user base, and these users are highly loyal to the community or community-related applications.

This can be seen from the fact that several types of social networking sites such as BBS, Blog, and SNS have received various investments.

The 70 venture capital firms active in the Chinese market have shown more enthusiasm for Web 2.0.

After all, in the Web 2.0 era, entrepreneurs may lose opportunities, while venture capitalists may lose wealth.

Figures show that in 2005, domestic and foreign venture capital institutions in China raised a total of US$40 billion in new funds, making it the year with the most fundraising in the history of Chinese venture capital.

SoftBank Asia raised approximately US$6.4 million for its second fund, becoming the biggest winner in venture capital fundraising.

IDG and AccelPartners, a well-known Silicon Valley VC, jointly established the IDG-Accel Growth Fund. Both parties invested $2500 million each, and the remaining $2.5 million of capital basically came from world-renowned LPs.

In addition, nearly 20 venture capital institutions including CDH Ventures, IDG, TDF, and Intel Capital have completed a new round of fund raising.

In January 2006, venture capital firm DCM announced plans to invest RMB 1 billion in China over the next 10 years.

In February 2006, Tang Yue announced his resignation as CEO of E-Long and announced that he would set up an investment fund of more than US$2 million in the next two months.

2004 is known as the year of online games in China, 2005 is known as the year of search engines, and 2006 is known as the year of web 2.0.

However, the concept of web2.0 is still too broad. Will it be BBS, BLog, or SNS that will break out?

This question finally got the correct answer in 2007 with the rise of SNS websites represented by Facebook.

When Facebook raised its Series B round of financing, its valuation had reached US$5.5 million.

What’s even more frightening is that Facebook’s Series C financing had already started not long ago, and Zuckerberg believed that the valuation was as high as 150 billion US dollars.

Yes, you heard it right. In just one year, Facebook's valuation increased 27.27 times.

值得说一声的是港岛的李嘉诚分别2007年11月和2008年3月分别投资了6000万美刀，只占区区0.4%股权。

Facebook is too expensive.

As a result, venture capital firms set their sights on China.

At this time, in addition to Xiaonei.com, there was also Renren.com which was causing a huge uproar.

Although Xiaonei.com has the first-mover advantage, it is not short of money for the time being and its customer base is single.

Renren was different. It targeted the white-collar market and developed its first social game, which became a huge hit.

In this way, it is understandable why Renren has attracted so many investment institutions to come one after another. After all, for investment institutions, Renren has not even started its A round yet, so it is still a virgin.

Of course, there is a bigger background to this.

Whether it is Myspace in the United States, Saywo in South Korea, or Mop.com founded by Chen Yizhou, they have all found a reliable profit model.

This further strengthened investor confidence and increased the valuation of social networking sites.

This round of Web 2.0 entrepreneurial boom is coming in strong. Even if Renren doesn't look like the one most likely to succeed, it is still the one with the best cards.

SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son is a big fat sheep, and this guy really has no shortage of money. He is very wealthy.

Its investment style is known for being aggressive and forward-looking.

Chen Pingjiang really wanted to take his money, but SoftBank was playing too big a game and asked for too large a stake.

To be honest, Chen Pingjiang neither needs too much money nor wants to transfer too many shares.

But we cannot shut SoftBank out.

Now that he has rejected Masayoshi Son, according to the course of history, this son will eventually invest 4.3 million US dollars directly in Chen Yizhou's campus network, accounting for 35% of the shares.

That would be tantamount to giving Chen Yizhou a bullet, a bullet specifically designed to target Renren.

(End of this chapter)