Reborn: Billionaire in College

It was January of 12, just after New Year's Day, and Chen Pingjiang discovered that his mother was absent-minded all day long, muttering about the end of the world.

"Don't listen to what your neighbors are saying. It's totally impossible."

Xu Fangjuan rolled her eyes: "Of course I know it's impossible, but I feel uncomfortable. What do you think I should do if it's true?"

"What else can I do? Just sit at home and wait to die." Chen Pingjiang said with a grin.

This rumor was very detailed and no one knew where it came from. It just happened to be the movie "2012", so it caused panic among the people.

More importantly, this rumor has spread widely, not only in China but also abroad. As December 12st approaches, many people become more nervous. Only after that day has passed do people realize, "Oh, I was deceived."

"Pingjiang, what are you going to do for the New Year this year? We haven't been back for two years, and the elders at home want to see you." Chen Guangming had been hesitant about this matter for a while, and only today did he dare to discuss it with Chen Pingjiang.

He also knew that the Chen family was now wealthy and powerful, and going back would be a waste of time and effort and would not be a good thing.

During the Chinese New Year, some relatives come to pay New Year's greetings, but usually they are the same generation or younger generations. How can the elders come? If you don't go back to visit the elders for many years, your family will gossip.

Chen Pingjiang's grandparents passed away when he was in elementary and junior high school. Now his grandparents are old and don't have many years left.

Considering this question, after hesitating for a while, Chen Pingjiang nodded and said, "Let's go back this year, but don't notify anyone in advance, just go there directly."

Xu Fangjuan also glanced at her husband and son: "What about Xiao Ge and Yan Yan? Will they have any objections if I don't spend the New Year with them? And knowing that we are going back to our hometown, it will be a problem as to who to take with us."

When it comes to this issue, Chen Pingjiang feels overwhelmed.

Fortunately, Yan Yan is a person with a rather cool personality and not very clingy. If she were an ordinary girl nowadays, Chen Pingjiang would have exploded into a Shura field long ago.

Besides, Yan Yan is now his real fiancée and they are engaged. He didn't invite his old family members to come when he got engaged. Now it's the New Year, if he doesn't bring Yan Yan back, not only will his old family members have objections, but even Yan's family members may have doubts in their hearts.

Ge Mengshi's side is easier to deal with.

Maybe she herself doesn't want to follow Chen Pingjiang. It would be meaningless to go back and be exposed in front of everyone without any status.

Chen Guangming said quietly: "Just to remind you, be careful about how you spend New Year's Eve, don't make others feel unhappy."

"We will spend New Year's Eve with the Ge family, and then we will rush back to our hometown on New Year's Day to take care of everything. Then we can just wait for my father-in-law and his family to get off the highway."

After thinking for a long time, Chen Pingjiang came up with a proper solution.

Fortunately, Zhang Xinyue and Cong Nini are easy to deal with, otherwise Chen Pingjiang would have to be split into four.

Every year, it was a big problem to decide where to celebrate the New Year, which made Empress Dowager Xu unhappy again: "Now you actually want us to accompany you to perform? Will it be like this every New Year in the future?"

Chen Pingjiang listened to the scolding with ashamed eyes and dared not say a word. If he talked back at this time, he would be criticized again.

Chen Pingjiang didn't feel much pressure, but the two elders were under a lot of pressure.

As it gets closer to the end of the year, the various groups under Chen Pingjiang become busier and he himself cannot sit idle.

He has to attend and follow up on every company's three year-end meetings.

Strategic meetings, talent review meetings, and financial budget meetings.

Determine each group's development direction, goals and plans for the coming year.

Based on next year's goals and combined with this year's employees' performance, those who deserve rewards will be rewarded and those who deserve interviews will be interviewed, and a recruitment plan for next year will be formulated.

Prepare the financial statements for 2011 and the financial budget for 2012.

Looking back, has this year's budget been exceeded? What is the reason? How should the company determine the budget for each department next year?
The finance and HR departments of each group are extremely busy.

HRs need to make human resources work plans for the next year, organize annual summaries and performance reports at all levels, conduct annual performance appraisals, annual excellence evaluations, calculate and declare year-end bonuses, etc.

Finance staff also have to do a year-end inventory.

After this year's annual meeting, some employees will take holidays where they are, while others will not have an easy Spring Festival.

In addition to each group having to keep people on duty, Renren's WeChat red envelope project team also had to stay in front of their computers to work overtime on the evening of the 30th.

January 1nd is New Year’s Eve.

Chen Pingjiang and his family of three moved to Ge Mengshi's villa.

…………

Hangzhou, Alibaba headquarters.

An internal board meeting of Alipay was held here today, and all the well-known partners were present.

There was only one topic of discussion, and that was WeChat red envelopes.

“There’s just a picture that’s been circulating online recently, which is suspected to be a new feature that WeChat is about to launch, red envelopes. I called everyone here today to discuss how to deal with it and whether it needs to be taken seriously.” Jack Ma spoke first and raised the question.

The board of directors of Alipay are all Jack Ma’s direct subordinates, and people from Yahoo and Softbank have been kicked out.

This is about a major event that happened within Alipay in 2011.

The dispute over Alipay’s equity.

Perhaps it is due to considerations of national security, or perhaps it is due to a conflict of interests.

Jack Ma unilaterally terminated the "agreement control" with the group's two major shareholders, Yahoo and Softbank, and transferred "Alipay", one of the group's core assets jointly owned with foreign shareholders, to a private enterprise under his control, changing it from a "Sino-foreign joint venture" to "domestic capital".

The equity transfer was not made public until May 2011, when it was disclosed by Yahoo. As a result, this "maneuver" directed by Jack Ma triggered a war of words between Alibaba and Yahoo.

Yahoo was also furious and filed a lawsuit against Alibaba with the SEC.

Of course, the three parties sat down and talked afterwards.

It was finally decided that when Alipay goes public, 37.5% of the total market value would be compensated to Alibaba Group.

However, this incident caused damage to the credit of Alibaba and Jack Ma himself, and actually indirectly led to US short-selling institutions targeting domestic companies.

Sitting in front of Ma Yun are Peng Lei, Jing Xiandong, Ni Xingjun, and several other senior vice presidents. Jing Xiandong is currently the chief CFO of Alipay.

Ni Xingjun has a long history of experience. He joined Alibaba in 03 and is a core member of the founding team of Alipay. He is also the developer of the early version of Alipay. He wrote the first line of code for Alipay. Currently, Ni Xingjun is the executive deputy squad leader of Alipay, mainly responsible for product development.

There is no doubt that among all the people present, Ni Xingjun has the most say: "This function is not difficult, and the development cost is also very low. It is a public account developed based on WeChat's API, and the biggest cost is the server. From the perspective of ROI, this product is still worth following up."

At this point, Ni Xingjun changed the subject: "However, in essence, WeChat red envelopes are developed based on social premises, and are not financial in nature. However, our Alipay is a financial tool, unless we also want to make Alipay social."

This sentence hit the nail on the head for Jack Ma. What he cares about most is that Alipay lacks social attributes, and he also envies the social attributes of WeChat Pay the most.

"Personally, I think that following is just following, but there is no need to compete with WeChat in this regard. The best response is to play to one's strengths and avoid weaknesses. Alipay needs to explore financial functions in breadth and depth. I think the most urgent thing at present is to get a banking license as soon as possible. Many things in the social field are just short-lived and disappear after the limelight passes. They only attract attention. Real money and real gold are king. We should focus on further expanding the financial sector."

Jing Xiandong also nodded and said, "I think it's just a cover for WeChat transfers. Generally speaking, it's more meaningful for elders to give lucky money to younger generations in person, which is more in line with tradition. Moreover, WeChat red envelopes are spread virally through "friend relationship chains and groups" with the purpose of encouraging more WeChat users to bind their bank cards. But this promotion only attracts a lot of new users, and the retention rate is another issue. At present, the comprehensiveness and ease of use of WeChat's financial services are far inferior to our Alipay, and WeChat's relationship chain is not the key to determining the success or failure of financial products. So if we import the same number of new users, our Alipay retention rate is much higher than that of WeChat."

“The problem we face at Alipay is how to attract new users and improve retention rate!”

Ma Yun pondered for a while and asked Jing Xiandong: "You said that the problem Alipay faces is new users, so wouldn't a method like red envelopes, which can achieve great results with little effort, be more suitable?"

Jing Xiandong shook his head: "Our Alipay has no social attributes and no relationship chain. The same investment is far from achieving the effect of WeChat red envelopes, so our current promotion is still hard push and cooperation with offline entities. Moreover, Internet financial services themselves are like running a marathon. In the end, it is the basic value that is compared. This is very similar to e-commerce. 'Electricity' is not the key, but 'commerce' is. Even if WeChat Pay takes over this wave, the depth and breadth of their products are far inferior to ours. What can they use to compete with us? Personally, I think there is no need for us to be led astray by WeChat. WeChat Pay will not have stickiness for a while, and we haven't even formed a habit. What Alipay needs to do now is to seize the online and offline linkage. This opportunity will not wait for us."

Peng Lei also looked at the problem from a very tricky angle: "Mr. Ma, what Xingjun and Xiandong said just now are both good. I want to add one thing. WeChat red envelopes are just a small function for WeChat. Why do you say that? Because users themselves cannot do without WeChat. As long as the WeChat payment function is there, sooner or later they will slowly accept WeChat payment. Their introduction of red envelopes is just to cultivate user habits, but this is not something we at Alipay need to consider."

"How many people just received the red envelopes but didn't bind their bank cards? How many people were willing to bind their bank cards to withdraw cash? How many people were thinking about how to use the money in the red envelopes without binding their bank cards? And how many people didn't even know what to do with the money in the red envelopes? WeChat was short of a breath - it didn't promptly form a behavior to guide users to quickly consume or withdraw cash, and it didn't quickly let these users follow the enthusiasm of opening red envelopes and go through the process of using and spending the red envelopes."

Ma Yun smiled and said, "Peng Lei, it's too early for you to say that. The function hasn't been officially launched yet. These are just your guesses based on your personal judgment. Aren't they a bit arbitrary?"

Peng Lei smiled and shook her head: "It's the same problem. WeChat payment lacks depth and breadth. Users have not yet developed the habit of paying through WeChat. They need a lot of time. Of course, if WeChat red envelopes are properly followed up, it will indeed have an impact on Alipay. But who impacted Alipay? WeChat or the mobile version of Fortune Link? Well, this question is actually very interesting."

If Chen Pingjiang were present, he would probably applaud these wonderful speeches.

It is true that the person who understands you is often your opponent.

These three have the same meaning overall.

Alipay can issue red envelopes, but there is no need to compete with WeChat on this small function.

WeChat’s advantage lies in social networking, but its disadvantages are that it has a small number of users, a small market share, and its product depth and breadth cannot compare with Alipay.

Therefore, instead of competing with others on its own weaknesses, Alipay should work hard on its internal strengths and play to its strengths while avoiding its weaknesses.

And they are well aware that Alipay and WeChat have different attributes, which will eventually lead to differentiation.

There is another very important issue that no one has mentioned clearly, which is that person-to-person transfers do not make money!

Is it underestimating the enemy? Not necessarily!

At this point in 2011, if people want to make a payment, the first thing they think of is Alipay, and WeChat Pay takes a back seat.

Whether in terms of reputation or the depth and breadth of products, WeChat really cannot compare with Alipay.

This is not only a consensus within Alipay, but also a consensus among the majority of users.

There are actually differences between WeChat Pay and Alipay. If we have to compare them, we should use the mobile version of Fortune Link to compare with Alipay. However, at the moment, Chen Pingjiang himself is embarrassed to show off the mobile version of Fortune Link.

Although Peng Lei and the other two gave reliable opinions, they also pointed out the pain point of Alipay - the lack of sociality.

And this is exactly what Jack Ma cares about most!
So in fact, he didn't listen to the opinions of Peng Lei and others at all.

My mind is full of social networking, social networking!
You can't say Jack Ma is wrong.

Because even a fool can guess that based on the social attributes of WeChat Pay, a large number of users will inevitably develop usage habits within three, five, or eight years.

By then, players will use WeChat to recharge their games and make ordinary purchases in stores. That would be the most terrifying thing.

If Alipay becomes social, it can strangle WeChat Pay from the root and make WeChat Pay become boundless water.

Therefore, from the very beginning, Jack Ma wanted to destroy WeChat, while Peng Lei and the other two wanted to coexist with it to some extent.

It can only be said that Peng Lei and others did not grasp Jack Ma’s point.

After a brief silence in the conference room, Jack Ma coughed and said, "I still want to do social networking, and Alipay must also have social networking. After all, social networking is a core human need, and an APP can solve it, but this is not the case with Alipay."

As we all know, Lao Ma is really obsessed with socializing.

From Aliwangwang to Laiwang, to DingTalk, and then to Alipay Friends, I also worked on Circles and Ruwo.

Whether it is Alibaba or Jack Ma, they have always been obsessed with the dream of social networking.

And this idea has now extended to Alipay.

Because socializing is so great.

As a smart man, Jack Ma cannot be unaware that future consumption will be dominated by sharing and recommendations.

If Alipay is just a financial payment tool, then over time, the number of registered users of Alipay will slowly approach the ceiling, the activity level will continue to decline, and the user retention time will become shorter and shorter.

And the situation did develop in this way. More than ten years later, Alipay had the shortest user retention time among all apps!
Therefore, Jack Ma has never been satisfied with being just a low-frequency and low-activity payment tool. He has tried to retain users, increase user stickiness and usage frequency by enhancing social attributes.

The reality is that even as a payment tool, fewer and fewer users choose Alipay when making payments, so Jack Ma is also anxious.

In terms of vision, Jack Ma is still very sharp, but because social networking is too difficult, he cannot do it. However, Ma does not want to accept his fate.

Historically, after Alipay failed to build a social circle, Ant Financial held a group-level strategic meeting, summoned all global business line leaders and core management, and determined the "no social" strategy. After that, Alipay gave up its efforts in social networking and claimed to return to its commercial and financial attributes.

Jing Xiandong once said in an internal sharing session, "Alipay does not need to pursue user time. Users can spend time on social networking, games, and videos. For Alipay, as long as users can think of us at the critical moment of solving urgent needs, that is enough."

But after a few years, Alipay became increasingly anxious about its low user retention rate and wanted to go back to social networking, because without the retention rate, users might not even download Alipay on their phones.

"Let's leave it at that for now. The Chinese New Year is coming soon anyway. Let's see how WeChat's red envelope function performs during this Spring Festival holiday and then decide what to do next."

PS: Today's three chapters will not be less, the remaining two chapters will be after 2 o'clock. (End of this chapter)