Reborn: Billionaire in College

Liang Rubo was somewhat flattered by Chen Pingjiang's first move.

The legendary No. 1 Internet figure in China actually stood up, walked around the large office desk, and shook hands with him enthusiastically. For a moment, Liang Rubo was a little confused but also extremely moved.

Look at this richest man, he’s not arrogant at all.

We little Karamis are all warmly received.

It would be a lie for Liang Rubo to say that he was not grateful, especially because the feeling of being valued was so great.

Zhang Yiming, who was standing by, was beaming with joy, thinking that Mr. Chen was giving him face.

"I heard Yiming mention you last time, Liang Ruobo, right? Welcome, welcome!" Chen Pingjiang gave him enough face. These little tricks to win people's hearts are very useful.

"Yes, Mr. Chen, my name is Liang Rubo. From now on, I will be a soldier under your command. I will fight wherever you point me." Liang Rubo patted his chest and promised.

Chen Pingjiang laughed, put his left arm around Zhang Yiming's shoulder and his right arm around Liang Rubo's shoulder, and led them both to sit on the sofa.

"I never thought of the distinction between soldiers and generals. We came together for both life and dreams. The division of responsibilities and the division of superiors and subordinates at work are to effectively promote the progress of various tasks and make unified deployments. But privately, we are all of similar age and are all friends..."

Gah!
Chen Pingjiang was about to continue speaking when he suddenly heard the sound of a door opening, and then Wan Yuqian's pretty face appeared from the crack of the door.

Wan Yuqian watched Chen Pingjiang affectionately hugging the two men's arms and saying some cheesy words. She smiled strangely, then stepped back and closed the door again.

Chen Pingjiang smiled awkwardly at first, then continued without changing his expression: "Today, the founding team of ByteDance has finally gathered together. Shall we discuss our ideas together?"

Outside.

Xu Rui didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but looked at Wan Yuqian who was leaving with a worried look on his face. He had a premonition that he would be scolded soon.

But this ancestor couldn't be persuaded.

It's not like he hasn't seen the close relationship between Chen Pingjiang and Wan Yuqian before.

Wan Yuqian sneered after closing the door and complained, "Chen the liar is trying to trick people into working for him again. He used this trick on Li Xi and Gao Songbin before, and it seems he used it on me too. Who is the little fat guy next to Zhang Yiming? Why have I never seen him before?"

Xu Rui was so frightened by the previous words that he quickly covered his ears, muttering in his heart: "I didn't hear it, I didn't hear it."

In response to Wan Yuqian's question in the second half, Xu Rui quickly shook his head: "I... I don't know either."

Wan Yuqian rolled her eyes. Seeing that she couldn't get any information out of him, she simply said, "After Mr. Chen finishes his business, tell him that I'll be waiting in Li Xi's office."

After saying that, Wan Yuqian left in her high heels.

Looking at Wan Yuqian's back, Xu Rui was amazed.

"This CEO Wan is really a man of temperament. He doesn't care about workplace rules at all. Everything is in his nature. This is rarely seen in other large companies. It must be that all of them know each other, otherwise..."

Chen Pingjiang was not surprised by Wan Yuqian's appearance and departure.

There are only a limited number of people in his office who can come in directly without notifying, and Wan Yuqian is one of them.

The senior student didn't have any bad intentions and was a very nice person, she just tended to be a little temperamental and everyone was used to it.

Zhang Yiming wanted Liang Rubo to show off himself in front of Mr. Chen, so he pursed his lips to signal him to speak.

Liang Ruobo nodded and said, "Mr. Chen, Yiming and I have discussed that short videos will be the next hot topic. The long videos that major groups have worked hard to develop will be vulnerable in the face of short video projects."

Chen Pingjiang pretended to listen, and was very interested in this conclusion. He smiled and asked, "What is the basis for your judgment? What is the underlying business logic?"

"Because the core of business upgrading is sales! Cars replaced rickshaw pullers for efficiency, and mobile phones replaced correspondence for efficiency. Almost all industries, as long as they are upgraded, must have improved efficiency, either less time, lower costs, or faster speed." Liang Ruobo said: "Short videos surpass long videos, which is essentially a victory of efficiency. The victory lies in information cost!"

"We live in an era of information explosion, with so much information that a person cannot finish reading it in a lifetime. More often than not, we finally finish reading it, only to find that it is garbage, wasting two precious hours. The information itself is not important, only valuable information is important, but the act of filtering it is extremely energy-consuming. For a long time, because there is too much content and too much information, users need to filter it and spend energy to judge which ones are useful and what they want to read. If you want to identify it, you can only check and analyze it yourself according to popularity, category, and comments, which is very brain-consuming."

"Long videos are like choosing a restaurant. They tell you how many stars the chef is, what style of dishes he makes, where the ingredients are sourced from, how many customers there are, and what the reviews are. Then you use this information to decide whether to eat there or not."

"Short videos are about tasting food directly and feeding it to your mouth. This is efficiency. Renren has a deep accumulation of big data and artificial intelligence. Through these technologies, we can directly push videos that users are interested in, and we help them identify them first. In the final analysis, users' behavior is very lazy, and they will become lazier and lazier. This is the underlying rule."

Chen Pingjiang nodded. Liang Rubo was quite capable. At least his perspective was quite novel.

People have made many explanations about why short videos have become so popular.

It's nothing more than stirring up emotions, making the audience resonate, having rich content, and having a good viewing experience, etc.

But in essence, everyone has overlooked the word "fast"!

Short videos are fast for watching dramas, reading news, and socializing. The reason why they are “fast” is that they are more convenient.

For example, in the past, text news took time to read, but now short video news can be read in just a few dozen seconds.

Zhang Yiming continued: "Nowadays, the pace of life is getting faster and faster, and personal time is getting less and less. It is very important to make use of fragmented time. Whoever can seize the fragmented time of users will occupy the entire field."

"Fragmented time includes waiting for a bus, taking the subway, going to the toilet, etc. During this time, I can't watch a TV series, but I can watch a short news video, play a fast-paced game, or read a chapter of the latest novel. Haha, Mr. Chen, to be honest, I also read novels. But if you ask me to hold a book and enjoy it slowly, I can't do it, but I can take advantage of the time when I go to the toilet to hold my mobile phone and read the latest chapter of an online novel at a glance."

Chen Pingjiang felt emotional.

It is no coincidence that Zhang Yiming and Liang Rubo achieved their later success.

Ultimately, it's about grasping the business logic behind it. Based on what the two people just said, as long as you find the right way, you can definitely soar to the sky.

And short videos are this path.

Zhang Yiming also explained why mobile games are becoming popular, because people can make use of fragmented time, because it’s “fast”!

What kind of online novels should have a fast pace?

Because everyone is becoming less and less patient!
In the past, people paid attention to the three golden chapters, but now it’s just the one golden chapter.

Short videos happen to be the best at utilizing users’ fragmented time. You can watch a video in just two or three minutes.

Zhang Yiming continued, "Mr. Chen, we plan to optimize the algorithm of Toutiao and apply it to the short video project. We will label users based on their browsing content and information, and then push news based on the labels."

After thinking for a moment, Chen Pingjiang slowly shook his head and said, "I think there is still room for improvement. Your conventional thinking is correct, but it is very easy to trap users in an information cocoon. The best way is 7 to 3 or 8 to 2, where 8 or 7 are all content that users are interested in, but you also need to push some content that they don't usually pay attention to."

"I've been taking a look at Kuaishou recently and I've discovered a problem. It started with Weibo and has been infected with Weibo's bad genes. That is, as long as you follow the blogger, they will push updates. Over time, as the number of followers increases, it's hard to keep up with the updates, so you lose the sense of freshness and lose the ability to get to know the outside world."

“This is very scary! In the end, the more popular the influencers become, the more fans the top creators will siphon away, and it will become increasingly difficult for new bloggers to stand out. The entire platform will lose fresh blood, and thus lose its possibilities.”

Zhang Yiming and Liang Rubo looked at each other and their eyes lit up at the same time.

Mr. Chen’s vision is indeed impeccable.

This can be said to be "going against the grain". Everyone is doing big data push, but excessive push makes it difficult for users to unplug.

For example, Taobao’s “Guess What You Like” feature is extremely disgusting.

As long as you browse a certain category of products, you will be pushed similar products that you may like, which can be overwhelming.

The pattern will only change if you take the trouble to browse other types of products.

Isn’t it because of the advantages of its algorithm that TIKTOK has become popular all over the world?

Without the algorithm, it is actually no different from other short video products.

Why can't Reels launched by Facebook and Shorts, the short video project of YouTube, compete with TIKTOK?

Because it is easy for newcomers to stand out on TIKTOK, a video or a scenery you casually took might be exposed when you wake up the next day, and the voices of the grassroots people can be heard.

But this kind of thing will never happen on Reels, Facebook, or even Weibo.

Because the top creators, or the top internet celebrities and bloggers, have already relied on their fan attention to make it impossible for newcomers to emerge.

Thinking of this, Chen Pingjiang chuckled and said, "There are currently no similar products abroad. I think we can use our first-mover advantage to enter overseas markets, localize them, and export our culture. We either don't do it or we should do it to the best of our ability."

This was something that Zhang Yiming and Liang Rubo had not expected.

These two people are always thinking about how to make a splash in the domestic market, and have not thought about the overseas market at all.

But I didn't expect that Mr. Chen would do something big right from the start.

From three o'clock in the afternoon to six o'clock in the evening, for a full three hours, Chen Pingjiang and Zhang Yiming were chatting about the short video project.

The name of the project was also given by Chen Pingjiang. The domestic version is called Douyin and the foreign version is called TIKTOK.

Zhang Yiming and Liang Rubo were both very satisfied with these two names. They are fashionable, catchy and easy to remember.

"I will transfer 10 million yuan as initial start-up capital, and you can add more at any time. Funds are not a problem, and resources are not a problem. The stage is already set, and the rest is up to you." Chen Pingjiang said, "You can bring some people with you in the early stage, and I will also have someone recruit people for ByteDance in the name of Renren. We can communicate with you about the rest at any time. Aren't you working in this building for the time being?"

Zhang Yiming nodded: "Yes, Mr. Chen."

"Well, when you go back, make a business plan first, and slowly withdraw from the Toutiao project and cooperate with CEO Li to complete the handover. I only have one request, that you do not delay the operation of Toutiao."

Zhang Yiming smiled and said, "Of course not. I built Toutiao myself, and I definitely don't want to see it go downhill and be affected."

At this moment, Chen Pingjiang finally stood up and ended the conversation.

"That's it for today. I won't keep you for dinner. Lao Liang just arrived today, and his accommodation may not be ready yet. Wait for you to get familiar with the place for a few days, then we can have a meal together to welcome you back." Chen Pingjiang said this, guessing that Wan Yuqian must be getting impatient.

"Okay, Mr. Chen, let's withdraw first."

After walking out of Chen Pingjiang's office, Zhang Yiming and Liang Rubo both breathed a sigh of relief at the same time, then looked at each other and laughed out loud.

My chest is filled with passion and I want to scream to the sky.

"Come on, come on, it's time to get off work. I'll take you to eat something delicious first." Zhang Yiming smiled and patted Liang Rubo.

After seeing Zhang Yiming off, Chen Pingjiang went straight to find Wan Yuqian.

As soon as they met, Wan Yuqian smiled and said, "I eavesdropped a little bit at the door this afternoon, and it gave me goose bumps. Over the past few years, your ability to deceive people has improved."

Chen Pingjiang glared at her angrily: "Am I kidding? It's obviously encouragement, motivation, imagination and empowerment."

"Okay, okay, you are right. Let's go. It's already six o'clock. Didn't you say you would treat us to dinner? I'm starving." At the end, Wan Yuqian showed a worried look, rubbed her stomach hungrily, and spoke in a coquettish voice.

Chen Pingjiang couldn't stand it anymore and nodded quickly: "Let's go, Li Xi and the others are waiting, right?"

Tonight is the banquet we agreed on earlier.

Since the wedding was kept simple and no friends or colleagues were invited to a banquet, it was inevitable that everyone wondered if they had not entered Mr. Chen’s core circle.

So Chen Pingjiang had to apply for them one by one.

These people have to be divided into several groups.

For example, at Orange Technology, Lin Bin and Zhou Guangping are both quite old, and they can’t get along with Chen Pingjiang’s direct subordinates, so they were invited to a separate banquet two days ago.

Today we are hosting a banquet for those people who were in the University of Finance and Economics back then.

We are all young people who have been working together with Chen Pingjiang for many years. It would be good to meet the boss lady and at the same time clear Yan Yan's name.

Since we are all from different places, it is difficult to get together. We just have time today. (End of this chapter)