Top of the big era

When he comes to New York, Zhou Buqi always has to meet Carl Icahn.

The spin-off of PayPal is already underway.

For every share of eBay you hold, you will receive one share of PayPal when the company splits in the future. This is too tempting for the market. Coupled with the recent in-depth strategic cooperation between eBay and Ziweixing, eBay's stock price continues to rise, with an increase of more than 45% in one month.

Of this 45% increase, 30% is attributed to the spin-off of PayPal, and 15% is attributed to Ziweixing.

After all, the stock has risen sharply.

This makes eBay's shareholders very satisfied with the operation of Zhou Buqi and Carl Icahn, and even the outside media also gave high praise.

Carl Icahn, the notorious wolf of Wall Street, has also received rare praise from some markets.

He wanted to further cooperate with Boss Zhou to run Dell's privatization project together.

Zhou Buqi didn't agree to him.

Carl Icahn is a 76-year-old man, older than Zhou Buqi's grandfather. Out of respect for his age, he paid a courtesy visit.

Let’s forget about further cooperation.

There are so many opportunities to make money.

Especially after becoming the world's richest man, Zhou Buqi really felt that the richer he got, the richer he would be. Many high-quality projects that could make a lot of money flew to his desk like snowflakes.

Just like SoftBank.

Sun Zhengyi contacted him and said that he wanted to take advantage of the listing of Ziweixing Global to conduct a relatively large-scale cash out. After receiving the money, the purpose was to privatize the British semiconductor company ARM.

Zhou Buqi was very interested in this case.

If you have the chance, you can really participate.

Zhang Yiming, Guo Pengfei, Ji Zian, and Meng Houkun came to the United States this time. In addition to participating in YY's listing activities, they were also invited by Haier Group.

Next stop is Indiana.

Now that they were all in New York, Zhou Buqi went with them to Haier's refrigerator research and development base in the United States.

Haier started out as a state-owned factory and did very poorly.

After Mr. Zhang became the factory director, he began to carry out a series of transformations on Haier.

The most important transformation is the power structure.

The most fundamental reason for the failure of state-owned enterprises is that they are blindly directed by many people who do not understand business. To do a good job in the restructuring of state-owned enterprises, the most important thing is to keep the power of the enterprise in the hands of people who understand business and the market, and to avoid the random hands of some people.

Some people with strong connections and courage simply changed the nature of state-owned enterprises from 100% state-owned enterprises to 100% private enterprises, thus solving this problem once and for all. In the 1980s, there were no private enterprises in China, and all enterprises were state-owned enterprises. All enterprises that were founded in the 1980s but are now private enterprises, without exception, all came from this way.

It is good to leave no assets to the country at all. In the future, the life and death of the company will be the business of the private owner, which saves some people from thinking about it, and saves a lot of trouble in the future.

But there are some people who are sentimental and unwilling to turn all the national assets into their own... so they only take part, 30% or 50%, and the rest belongs to the state.

This caused great sequelae.

As long as the thoughts are still there, many people will not give up. Once the goal is not achieved, they will become emotional and criticize these people as corporate bugs, saying that they have stolen the 30% or 50% of the shares that belong to the country.

This is ridiculous.

Those who take away 100% of the equity will not be criticized similarly, but those who only take away 30% or 50% of the equity and retain part of the nature of state-owned enterprises will be criticized.

Haier once fell into this whirlpool of public opinion. Mr. Zhang is an entrepreneur who is unwilling to take away all the country's equity. But he also wanted to maintain absolute control over the company, adopting a cross-shareholding, layer-by-layer ownership structure somewhat similar to that of a Korean chaebol, and firmly controlling the Haier empire.

This makes many people dissatisfied.

I obviously hold so many shares in Haier, but I can't put my hand in... If nothing else, you can appoint me as the chairman of a subsidiary and the general manager of the branch, right? Or maybe you can wholesale a batch of Haier products to me at a super low price and let me make a little money, but you won’t cooperate at all?

Fortunately, the overseas business has been getting better and better in recent years, and it can be said to be one of the companies with the best domestic and overseas market development. Some young people can no longer control it.

Zhou Buqi stopped by Indiana to visit this time, which was actually a sign of respect for Haier.

Come and learn.

When domestic companies go overseas, Lenovo has taken the first step, but its stamina is obviously insufficient. Haier is different. Its overseas business is really getting better and better, and its market share is getting higher and higher.

Haier refrigerators are now the third largest refrigerator brand in North America, and their market share is increasing year by year. In a few years, it is easy to surpass GM and Whirlpool and become the number one in the industry.

This is much more powerful than Lenovo computers, Asda mobile phones, Gree air conditioners and so on.

Zhang Yiming and Guo Pengfei came here because they were invited by Zhou Hejie, senior vice president of Haier Group, mainly because they wanted to promote the cooperation between Haier and Ziweixing.

Zhou Buqi met Zhou Hejie and shook hands warmly.

Their surname is Zhou, and they were the same family five hundred years ago.

This cooperation between the two parties mainly revolves around a new strategy of Haier Group - Haier Smart Home.

Zhou Buqi heard this concept and immediately agreed, "Okay! This idea is great! It should be like this! I have been to Bill Gates's home several times, and that is really called wisdom. There is a control console, and through the control console, It can control all the appliances in the home, including the opening and closing of doors and windows, and the raising of curtains. Bill Gates spent hundreds of millions to build it back then. If Haier can promote this model at a cost that ordinary families can afford Only by doing so can the value of technology be reflected.”

Zhou Hejie was a little flustered, "We have just started, and we may still have a long way to go before we reach that level."

Zhou Buqi was very relaxed and said with a smile: "Yes, I believe Haier can do it. The mobile Internet is developing so well now. Adding a signal receiving module, a control chip and a WiFi module to white household appliances , that’s it. Or add a Bluetooth module. It’s not technically difficult.”

"This..." Zhou Hejie felt a little embarrassed, "Mr. Zhou, Haier is good at the home appliance business. In the fields of the Internet and the Internet of Things, it really lacks such strength."

Zhou Buqi said: "It's very simple. Isn't there also Ziweixing?"

This brings us to the important point. Zhou Hejie said with a smile: "Yes, Haier Group intends to strengthen cooperation with Ziweixing and your... Ziweiyun."

Zhou Buqi nodded, "There can be many directions for cooperation."

Zhou Hejie then invited them to visit the newly developed "super refrigerator" at the Indiana R\u0026D base. This is the first product jointly developed by Haier and Ziweixing and has added networking capabilities.

The staff demonstrated on site and installed a Haier App developed by the outsourcing team of Ziweixing Engineering Institute on their mobile phones.

You can control this refrigerator through this App.

Can be remotely controlled to adjust the temperature.

The most attractive thing is that there is a built-in camera.

You can use the built-in camera to observe whether the ingredients in the refrigerator have deteriorated or are missing. If you are short of it, you can drop by the supermarket for shopping when you get off work.

The display effect is okay.

Zhou Hejie was quite satisfied.

Zhou Buqi thinks this is a bit too monotonous, "Just one Haier refrigerator is not enough. When entering the field of the Internet of Things, there must be enough products. Hmm...have you read my book?"

Zhou Hejie smiled and complimented: "I must read your monograph. Every employee in our company has your two books in hand. One is "From Traffic to Traffic Pool" and the other is "Platform". economy"."

Zhou Buqi said: "Yes, the platform economy cannot be separated from self-operated business and the entry of third parties. If Haier Smart Home's ambition is big enough, it will become an Internet of Things platform. Since it is a platform, self-operated business must be Core. Haier's products must be rich enough and excellent enough to support Haier Smart Home's self-operated system and attract more third-party companies to join Haier Smart Home's IoT platform."

"This..." Zhou Hejie felt like he was breaking out in a cold sweat, "Mr. Zhou, currently... we haven't considered that long-term yet. The idea you mentioned... is so shocking."

"Shocked?" Zhou Buqi was speechless, "Isn't that what you think?"

Zhou Hejie said: "Our initial idea for Haier Smart Home is to allow users to control Haier's home appliances through mobile phones to keep up with the era of mobile Internet. We have not yet planned to move towards the idea of ​​​​an Internet of Things platform. This super refrigerator is just A test of the market.”

Zhou Buqi waved his hand and said decisively: Don't test the waters. By the time you succeed, your competitors will have already reacted. Since it is related to the Internet, we must act quickly. The sooner the better. Just like when the iPhone first came out, it was launched in a race against time. Rather than sacrificing some product quality, we must make quick decisions, seize the market, and grasp the trend of the times.

Zhou Hejie nodded and said seriously: "I will report President Zhou's ideas to the board of directors later." After a pause, he joked, "How about I take the liberty of representing Haier's board of directors and invite President Zhou to join?"

"I don't have that time." Zhou Buqi turned to glance at him and joked back, "I have already said what needs to be said. If Haier Smart Home wants to develop better, it must act quickly. If you act too late, and I can’t bear to see those foreign electrical appliance giants seizing the market, I have no choice but to end up on my own.”

Zhang Yiming, Guo Pengfei, Meng Houkun, Ji Zian and others are all around.

They all know Boss Zhou very well.

This doesn't sound like a joke at all.