Top of the big era

When you come to New York, of course you have to meet Dan Schulman.

At American Express, he was senior vice president.

Even if he is considered a key training target and is likely to become the president or CEO of American Express in the future, American Express has been a company for hundreds of years. It is very large and powerful, but it has lost its imagination.

It's different when you go to PayPal.

Directly from the CEO.

Moreover, this company is about to be spun off and listed. In the unpredictable Internet era, PayPal's future will have unlimited possibilities. In American Express, it is to defend the city, but in PayPal, it is to create a career.

Especially with a legendary Internet entrepreneur like Zhou Buqi leading the way, this gives people full confidence in future development.

After several phone calls and emails, this time Boss Zhou came to New York again, and Dan Schulman could no longer find an excuse to refuse.

The two parties met at Tiffany's Café on Fifth Avenue.

Schulman said with a smile: "Many media have been reporting recently, saying that Zuckerberg set you up and secretly poached David Marcus just to create trouble for PayPal's listing. "

Zhou Buqi didn't take it seriously and said calmly: "It's not a big deal. Let alone David Marcus. Even if PayPal loses 70 to 80% of its employees, it won't affect the overall situation."

"Well……"

Shulman thought this was an exaggeration.

Zhou Buqi said: "Now PayPal has 15,000 employees, which is ridiculous. With PayPal's current business scale, 5,000 employees are considered too many."

Schulman took a deep breath and asked, "So we need to adjust PayPal's organizational structure?"

Zhou Buqi said: "We must adjust. There are too many idle people in PayPal, especially the department that serves eBay's e-commerce business. There are more than 6,000 employees. There is no need to stay."

Shulman looked surprised, "What department is this?"

Zhou Buqi said: "The e-commerce department is the e-commerce section under the PayPal platform. The e-commerce services in this section are all from eBay. They use PayPal's resources to promote eBay and make a little profit. Get a pitiful commission.”

"This..." Schulman hesitated, "Can we really not retain it? What I mean is that such a large-scale layoff may not be too simple. It must be stable before the IPO and cannot be laid off easily; after the IPO, the impact must be considered. There may be greater resistance to large-scale layoffs.”

Zhou Buqi said: "It must be cut!"

Schulman suggested: "Can't PayPal have its own e-commerce business?"

"Um?"

"What I mean is... PayPal used to exclusively serve eBay. After being separated independently, it can serve more e-commerce companies. Amazon's products can also be sold through PayPal's channels. To improve PayPal through competition end sales commission.”

"This is an idea." Zhou Buqi smiled. This is similar to the "preferred channel" run by Friends.com and Toutiao. They select high-quality products from all over the Internet and help others sell goods to earn commissions. "But I want to It won’t be easy to do this, as PayPal’s core business is mobile payments.”

Schulman nodded and said slowly: "I also think PayPal should pay more attention to the direction of mobile payments, but it has laid off thousands of people at once, and the layoff ratio has reached more than 40%. This is almost impossible for a listed company." possible."

Zhou Buqi is also a little annoyed, "In the past few years, eBay has exerted too much negative influence on PayPal. Only by cleaning up all the remaining poison of eBay can PayPal really hope to spread its wings."

Shulman thought about it and said: "I think...if possible, we can spin off this business and set up a separate company. If we do it poorly, we can get rid of the burden; if we do it well, maybe we will be the leader of PayPal in the future." It’s stronger now and can be bought back again.”

Zhou Buqi was very happy.

Obviously, this Dan Schulman has been studying PayPal's business a lot during this time, and even proposed solutions.

Although PayPal was separated from eBay, it has been a subsidiary of eBay for many years, and its business is too closely related.

If you want to completely get rid of the influence of eBay, PayPal must have drastic reforms.

Zhou Buqi said with a smile: "It may be a direction, and it will be discussed by the board of directors. PayPal's board of directors should bear more responsibilities and functions, not just the supervisory role of independent directors."

In the design of corporate structure, it is the shareholders' meeting that elects the board of directors, who is responsible for the interests of shareholders.

However, what if the board of directors colludes with the management and go to the shareholders' meeting together?

Two solutions arise.

The German solution is a supervisory board.

That is, in addition to the board of directors, a board of supervisors is established, and the board of supervisors supervises the board of directors.

The United States has an independent director system, which involves introducing some outsiders to the board of directors who have no shares or business dealings with the company and do not work in the company to serve as independent directors.

Supervision is provided by independent directors.

The boards of directors of many large American companies are even composed of independent directors. This has a disadvantage, because they are all independent directors and they do not understand the company's business at all, so they cannot formulate strategies for the company's development.

Therefore, corporate strategies are formulated by the CEO leading the management. For example, at Apple, Cook is responsible for all strategies and operations. The role of the board of directors is only to supervise management and formulate incentive plans for management.

This model will be more friendly to the board of directors.

Because there is no need to take responsibility.

Apple's stock price has plummeted. It has nothing to do with the chairman or the directors. Just fire Cook and hire a new CEO.

Zhou Buqi dislikes this kind of board of directors that is completely controlled by independent directors.

The most important point is that he must grasp the company's strategic direction.

If all the power is delegated to the CEO, doesn’t the chairman really become a mascot?

Not only PayPal, but also Ziweixing Digital Media, Changyou, Ziweixing Global and other companies have this operating mechanism. The chairman guides the direction and the CEO is responsible for execution.

Of course Schulman would accept such an arrangement. In front of Boss Zhou, it would be embarrassing for him to fight for it. When it comes to understanding and controlling the direction of the Internet, no one is better than the young man sitting opposite.

After accepting the plan calmly, Schulman smiled and said: "It's really hard to imagine that David Marcus would leave PayPal and join Facebook."

It was not convenient for Zhou Buqi to go into too many details, so he talked about some business choices, "Marcus has more than 20 years of experience in Internet telephony platforms. He founded a telecommunications company called GTNTelecom when he was 23 years old. Operator, providing local local calls, long-distance calls and Internet access. Later he founded the mobile payment tool Zong. He has experience in VOIP and mobile payment fields, which is in line with the product needs of Facebook's Messenger."

VOIP technology is Internet telephone communication, and it is also proficient in mobile payments... It is not surprising that Marcus was selected by Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg spent a lot of money to make Facebook Messenger a product.

As early as two years ago, he spent US$40 million to recruit three engineers from a group messaging product group, and this time he spent US$60 million to take away David Marcus...

Judging from the determination and attitude shown by Zuckerberg, it is not surprising that Marcus turned to him.