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In the past few years, Zhou Buqi was not as good as Lao Ma, so he was relatively restrained in dating. It's different now, his level has faintly surpassed Lao Ma's.

Especially recently, he has stirred up troubles in the United States, raised two private equity funds, and stirred up European football. This has greatly increased his popularity and influence overseas.

In front of Lao Ma, Zhou Buqi became more and more calm and forceful, "Lao Ma, let's stop hiding it. I have thought it through now. I was deceived by you!"

Boss Ma was confused, "What are you talking about?"

"The competition between Baidu and Taobao." Zhou Buqi pouted, "In the beginning, peers in the industry...including me, also believed that in the competition between Baidu and Taobao, Taobao is at a disadvantage and is the passive party. Baidu wants to Baidu already has it, so Taobao had to break up with Baidu."

Boss Ma looked serious, "This is indeed a fact."

Zhou Buqi said: "Yes, this is your brilliance, using facts to conceal the deeper purpose. In the matter of Baidu and Taobao, Taobao has never been a passive party. On the contrary, Taobao takes the initiative , it is Taobao that is actively blocking Baidu!”

"Where did you listen to the rumors?" Boss Ma was a little amused and shook his head, "Blocking Baidu and losing the traffic acquisition channel, what good will it do to Taobao? They are doing C2C, and I can't help it. .”

Zhou Buqi said: "In terms of advertising bidding, Baidu and Taobao are in a strong competitive relationship. Once netizens form the habit of 'searching on Baidu first', Baidu will control the entrance to shopping. At the same time, merchants will They will go to Baidu to place bidding ads, and Taobao will become a transaction center. This matter is essentially a dispute between Baidu and Taobao over the pricing power of traffic. Taobao needs a smaller share of traffic and mind share in Baidu. In this case, we will nip it in the bud and enjoy all the profits from shopping bidding ads.”

Of course, Boss Ma refused to admit it. He blinked and said with a smile: "Listening to what you said, it seems to make some sense."

Zhou Buqi said calmly: "General e-commerce platforms, such as eBay, Amazon, JD.com, Paipai, etc., do need traffic. But the difference with Taobao is that your ambition is too big, and what you need is not traffic. It’s about controllable traffic. Once Taobao’s business relationship turns into a search relationship between merchants and consumers on Baidu, Taobao will lose control of traffic and business relationships, which is a huge hidden risk.”

"interesting."

Boss Ma smiled and neither refuted nor admitted.

Other colleagues may not feel it, but Zhou Buqi, as a member of the Taishan Society, knows the logic of this all too well. In the Taishan Club, everyone basically revolves around Mr. Liu and learns his corporate philosophy. In fact, it’s not just Taishan Club. Entrepreneurs across the country are learning from it.

But there's a problem.

If you learn from Lenovo, you may encounter the dilemma encountered by Lenovo's business model - no core technology.

On this point, Mr. Liu often complained in private, saying that the US emperor was not trustworthy, and the prices of various chips, hard drives, and memories fluctuated greatly, resulting in great cost pressure on Lenovo computers.

This is uncontrollable.

The lifeblood is controlled by others.

Some entrepreneurs who are better than Mr. Liu will learn from this and be sufficiently independent and controllable in the design of the business model to avoid being choked by others when they become bigger and stronger in the future, and their profits will be compromised by uncontrollable factors. Grabbed.

For example, recently, Mr. Liu is about to come out again and take charge of Lenovo for the second time. Amid the economic crisis, Lenovo suffered its first loss in more than a decade this year, losing hundreds of millions of dollars.

But data shows that Lenovo’s global computer sales have not declined. Why are they losing money? Because the profits have been taken away.

During the economic crisis, technology giants in the United States who master core technologies are raising prices in order to stabilize their stock prices, which has led to a significant increase in the cost of Lenovo computers. But the sales model of computers is to sign a sales order first, and then purchase components and re-produce after receiving payment and loans. This leads to the fact that the real market price of the computer may be lower than the cost price.

This is a huge hidden danger.

From Lenovo's perspective, this is a lack of core technology. But from a higher level, this is a lack of business model. A great company must be independent and controllable in its core business.

For example, Netflix, a video streaming platform, produces self-produced dramas, produces and sells them on its own, is independent and controllable, and has unlimited potential. However, the music streaming platform Spotify is deeply dependent on the three major music groups and is controlled by others. It will definitely have problems in its future operations and will encounter Lenovo-like difficulties.

Another example is Lao Ma.

It turns out that he has already learned from experience and taken action to eliminate unstable factors and build an independent and controllable Taobao.

Zhou Buqi said: "Traffic is not important, controllable traffic is important. But I am a little strange, what is the difference between Baidu and Weidian? Do you believe in Weidian's traffic?"

Boss Ma smiled and said: "Didn't you say that you want to build Ziweixing into a fair, just, open and transparent Internet platform?"

Zhou Buqi nodded, "You sure have studied me a lot."

"Baidu must not cooperate." Boss Ma sighed and said firmly, "In the past few years, most of Taobao's traffic came from Baidu. This is nothing, and I didn't pay much attention to it. I believe that the traffic on the school network was at the beginning It’s also from Baidu.”

Zhou Buqi admitted, "Almost."

In the Baidu search box, search for "Taobao" or "Xiaonei.net" and enter the website through the pop-up search results. This is considered the traffic brought by Baidu.

Boss Ma asked: "Aren't you worried?"

Zhou Buqi already understood what he meant and said with a smile: "I'm not worried. Baidu Space is an immature product and is no match for Xiaonei.com and Friends.com."

There are really no rules in the domestic Internet industry.

This is because Baidu Space has not started to build, or it has not built a "Baidu Campus" website to compete strongly with the campus network. Xiaonei.com grew up secretly by taking advantage of Baidu's lack of knowledge in this field.

Once Baidu realizes that there are important opportunities in this field, they can use the model they used to deal with Taobao to deal with Xiaonei.com.

For example, you can create a "Baidu Campus" project yourself, and then block the campus network.

When users search for "Xiaonei.com" on Baidu, the search results given are the own products of "Baidu Xiaonei.com". Without knowing the inside information, users may be deceived into becoming Baidu campus users, which is equivalent to hijacking the traffic of the campus network.

Once Taobao doesn't block Baidu, it might end up like this in the future. Netizens are accustomed to searching on Baidu, and then Baidu lures the traffic to its own "Baidu Youa". If Taobao's traffic is robbed, there is a potential for serious hidden dangers.

Boss Ma sighed and said slowly: "The general logic you just said is correct. The business model must be independent and controllable. But the details are wrong. I never care about money. All I make are decisions related to life and death. And It’s not a small matter of making more or less. I have never thought about exclusively enjoying all the profits from shopping bidding ads. Taobao’s advertising platform is Alibaba. We only get 5% of the share, and 95% belongs to Taobao customers. Ziweixing There is also an advertising platform, how do you split it? Is it 50/50? Are you as generous as me?"

Zhou Buqi laughed and scolded: "You are so pretentious!"

Boss Ma said: "How great is it if we all make money together? The more partners we make money with, the longer-term and more stable the business will be. If Baidu doesn't build its own C2C platform, I won't care about the performance of their bidding system. No matter how much profit it takes away from us, Taobao will definitely continue to cooperate with Baidu."

"It seems to make sense."

Having said that, Zhou Buqi would not believe everything the other party said.

Boss Ma stared at the other person with deep eyes, "I think you are different from others."

Zhou Buqi raised his eyebrows and asked, "How do you say that?"

Boss Ma said: "You are more pure. You are doing business, not making money. This is a lot like me."

"Cough cough cough..." Zhou Buqi almost couldn't hold it back. He felt like he had heard a big joke and said with force, "Why is it pure? If you talk about being a human being, then I admit that I have many advantages as a human being. Integrity, responsibility, bravery, loyalty, dedication and loyalty, and charity.”

Boss Ma waved his hand and said, "I'm referring to business cognition. This is a question of ideological level."

Zhou Buqi thought deeply, "Well, you are right, my greatest advantage is my large scale."

Boss Ma said seriously: "I have been observing you for a long time, and this is what I feel. Judging from the development and industrial layout of Ziweixing, you are different from other Internet companies in that you do not have any obvious selfish attributes. It can be seen from the school website. It is not easy to be an e-commerce company, especially B2C e-commerce. From the school website and the school group buying model, I can see Ziweixing's social responsibility."

Zhou Buqi snorted: "Don't feed me stupid porridge! Anyway, I'm leaving it here today. We must formulate a charter for the cooperation between Taobao and Ziweixing. Don't let me help you by providing traffic to Taobao with good intentions. We built up the domestic e-commerce market. Then you kept doing it and blocked Ziweixing."

"impossible!"

"Nothing is impossible in the future."

"Alibaba and Baidu are in strong competition, and Penguin is also in strong competition. There is only one Ziweixing left. If we don't cooperate with Ziweixing, where will I find traffic?"

"Haha, give me some porridge again."

Zhou Buqi was foresighted, he didn't believe it at all.

There was no Ziweixing in the previous life, but Boss Ma's courage was unequivocal. First, they took the initiative and blocked Baidu. Later, WeChat started to develop, and they took the initiative to block WeChat. WeChat and Taobao are not interoperable, so it was not WeChat that made the first move, but Taobao.

Zhou Buqi said in a deep voice: "Let me tell you the truth, it is easy for you to block Baidu, because Baidu can't do anything except search. If you are more confident, you don't need to block Baidu at all. Their Baidu Yes, there is absolutely no chance. But Ziweixing is different. Especially now that the mobile Internet has taken off, you have to change your philosophy. You may hit your enemies by lifting a rock, or you may hit yourself."

This is a friendly reminder.

Taobao blocked Baidu, and the result was very successful; Taobao blocked WeChat, which was a bitter fruit, and it became the beginning of the gradual erosion of the Taobao empire.