Chapter 10 Who is Tencent and the growth atmosphere

The reason why "Penguin" is strong is divided into internal and external factors.In this subsection, we focus on the external forces of penguin growth. In Shenzhen in October 1998, there was no cold shadow in the air. The 27-year-old Ma Huateng and his college classmate Zhang Zhidong met in a coffee shop. They decided to start a business. a name.A name murdered two brain cells with a lot of technical talents.The time became long and trivial in their non-stop discussions, but both of them were very excited.The good mood comes from a great confidence in the future of the new company, even if the future of this new company is still vague, only known to be related to the Internet.

Ma Huateng and Zhang Zhidong's ambiguous confidence in the future is more derived from the dazzling light of the Internet in the United States and the fortune stars of Nasdaq. On August 9, 1995, Netscape was listed on NASDAQ in the United States, with an issue price of $28 per share. The market opened at 9:30 U.S. time, and the price per share became $71 at 11:00. A company that has been around for two years, it has not yet made a profit on the day of listing.Nevertheless, the entire Nasdaq is boiling over it, and the Internet economy has since become a reality.The founder of Netscape, Mark Anderson, was born in a small town of 1,500 people in Wisconsin, USA. At that time, he was the most popular person in the computer industry except Gates, and he appeared in the "Times" at the age of 24. "The cover of the weekly magazine.The listing of Netscape is recognized as a turning point in the global network economy. From this day on, the whole world has entered an unprecedented madness and persistence.

In less than a year, on April 12, 1996, Yahoo (YAHOO), a website dedicated to search services that Jerry Yang cooperated with his friend David Filo, had 50 million users as soon as it was launched. Annual advertising revenue alone exceeds $400 million.On the day of Yahoo's listing in New York, the stock issue price was 13 US dollars, but it opened at 24.5 US dollars.On the day of listing, the stock price quadrupled, and Yahoo's market value reached $850 million. At the beginning of 1998, Yahoo's stock price exceeded US$110, and its market value reached US$4 billion, making it one of the world's top 500 companies.

In China, the myths of the American Internet have just sprouted, and this group of intellectual heroes such as Ma Huateng, Ding Lei, and Ma Yun have just embarked on their journey.Undoubtedly, they are lucky. This feeling comes from a martyr in the early days of China's Internet development. The early history of China's Internet can be traced back to April 20, 1994. At that time, the State Planning Commission used the 64K international dedicated line of the NCFC (National Computing and Networking Facility of China), a key discipline project financed by the World Bank, to open a connection to the Internet. Entered the access period of China's Internet. ISP (Internet Access Service Provider) became the dominant term from 1994 to 1996.China has also entered the era of Internet commercialization.Gao Hongbing, the former head of the policy and regulation group of the Information Office of the State Council, recalled to a reporter from Southern Weekend that long-distance calls were required for the exchange of Internet visits between Beijing and Guangzhou. "For ordinary consumers, this is a very luxury." According to incomplete statistics, the number of people "touching the Internet" at that time was less than 100,000.The early development of China's Internet tried to popularize it through ISP.Gao Hongbing recalled, "Practice has proved that under the situation of China Telecom's complete monopoly, this approach has brought the Internet into a dead end." Ying Haiwei is a very famous case, he died in the dark night before dawn.

In May 1995, Zhang Shuxin, who was born as a science and technology journalist, founded China's first Internet service company - Yinghaiwei.During the heyday of Yinghaiwei, Baiyi Road, Zhongguancun, Beijing made a classic testimony. A huge sign stood majesticly and proudly at the intersection, which read: "How far are the Chinese from the information superhighway? To the north 1,500 meters.”——1,500 meters to the north ahead is Yinghaiwei’s Internet Science and Education Museum.This billboard may be one of the most effective advertisements for Internet companies so far. Zhang Shuxin's Ying Haiwei became well known in the Zhongguancun area overnight.At that time, the information superhighway and the Internet were brand new terms for most people, but Ying Haiwei could already provide Internet services.This huge billboard has become a classic memory for many people of the early days of the Internet in China.

Life is as gorgeous as summer flowers, and death is as quiet as autumn leaves. This is the fate of Ying Haiwei. In 1996, Yinghaiwei was acquired, in 1997, it suffered a big loss, and in 1998, Zhang Shuxin resigned. Now it seems that these have become fragments of China's Internet history. Why did pioneers become martyrs? The analysis of Southern Weekend is: In 1997, "China Telecom entered the Internet access market. It did not provide any content and did not intend to cultivate the market, but the low price of Internet access was enough to make Ying Haiwei Moreover, China Telecom is the leader in the domestic telecommunications industry, and it is responsible for the formulation of the entire pricing system. Ying Haiwei not only needs to rent its lines, but also competes with it. Like most ISPs in China in the early days, Ying Haiwei chose the wrong Under the squeeze of China Telecom, by the end of the year, Ying Haiwei had suffered huge losses."

Internet expert Jiang Qiping believes that it is difficult to explain the problem simply by looking for the reasons for Ying Haiwei's failure from within the enterprise.The fate of Ying Haiwei reflects the conflict of interests between private enterprises and state-owned enterprises (telecom operators) in the general context.Competing for resources with state-owned enterprises that monopolize resources, private enterprises are at an absolute disadvantage.Internet access services, like urban tap water, have a natural soil for monopoly growth.Monopoly in such fields means efficiency instead.Ying Haiwei enlightened this market, and China Telecom will realize the value of Internet access sooner or later, Zhang Shuxin should plan transformation as soon as possible.To compete with China Telecom, Ying Haiwei will not be able to be a hundred times stronger!

The case of Ying Haiwei is a drop in the ocean during the 30 years of reform and opening up.The key words of the 30 years of reform and opening up are two words: "liberation", which is a long and rapid process of gradually liberating the imprisoned, suppressed, and distorted.Specific to the economic field, it is a history of the game between government and business, which is a gradual change from a planned economy and official standard to a market economy and business standard.In the beginning, the official standard completely overwhelmed the business standard: the tragedies of Li Jingwei of Jianlibao, Yang Rong, the car tycoon, and Dai Guofang of Tieben... In a book, Wu Xiaobo expounded in this way: Private enterprises born in the field of market competition are in the game of politics and business. The disadvantaged position of private capital is obvious to all, and the price paid by entrepreneurs can be described as "a river of blood". Entrepreneur Feng Lun even believes that: "Facing state-owned capital, private capital must always insist on cooperation rather than competition, supplementation rather than substitution, and subsidiary rather than overreaching." Only with a strong position can we advance and retreat freely and continue to develop.”Zhang Shuxin obviously didn't grasp this speed well, but her attempt made latecomers understand that there is a minefield.

Ying Haiwei was quickly defeated in the vortex of the ISP battle.Subsequently, Netease, Sitong Lifang Forum (predecessor of Sina) and Sohu began to rise. The government's large-scale Internet infrastructure provided a platform for ICPs to display.Since then, the Chinese Internet and the business logic that has nothing to do with "original sin" in Chinese business history have grown up lushly.The reason is that the shape, texture, and size of this brand new "cake" cannot be grasped, and vested interest groups have no interest in participating. The "powerful" are first interested in steel, cement, import and export approval documents, land plots, various licenses, and shell resources of listed companies... Making a website can only make people think of "circling money and burning money".It is fair to say, however, that foreign venture capital brings not only scarce capital, but even scarcer institutions.In China, Internet entrepreneurs representing the new economy have nothing to do with the word "original sin". Their growth depends more on the "blood transfusion" of foreign venture capital, and their profit model is based on a huge user base.Ma Huateng's Tencent, Ding Lei's NetEase and Ma Yun's Alibaba are actually young companies that are fully in line with international standards from the inside out.

The early growth atmosphere of these young companies was full of accidents. In the memory of Internet veteran Xie Wen, in the early days, the telecommunications sector with a scale of hundreds of billions disdained the Internet as a small grass, and culture and news did not realize the Internet. What will happen to me, and the country's science and technology department is still focusing on 863 government projects.The emergence of the Internet in China is more due to a group of people who have seen the charm of the Internet overseas, or young people with local technology background who are interested in the Internet. Naturally, these Chinese entrepreneurs will not have any clear idea of ​​making money from this thing. However, the earliest opportunities and the highest rewards are often given to those who are willing to dedicate themselves to a new thing.

On April 22, 1998, Sohu took the lead in obtaining nearly 2 million US dollars in venture capital.Subsequently, Sina raised more than 90 million U.S. dollars in one fell swoop, and NetEase also raised 10 million U.S. dollars.China's commercial Internet has entered the portal era overnight.When the portal was listed, the contradiction between the official standard and the business standard was highlighted.Can the portal be listed? This is the first regulatory threshold encountered by Internet commercialization.According to Gao Hongbing's observation, within the government, there were heated discussions first in the field of news dissemination. "At that time, it was very difficult for the government to do some work in various ministries and commissions."After research, the government finally did not adopt the method of blocking, but determined an extremely enlightened policy: "We should promote the localization of portal websites in China." Wang Zhidong, the founder of Sina, once explained to the author: "The management's worries include how foreign capital's use of equity will affect the content of the website; the insurance of the content of the website as a new media, etc. I remember that we were also aware of this at this stage. , After a lot of communication with many senior executives, we were very lucky, the final link was approved, agreed with our point of view, and then released." Internet entrepreneurs reached an important unwritten contract at a historical juncture.At that time, the State Council Information Office expressed two points in the survey: one is that enterprises focus on business and do not care about politics (will not cause trouble); IT, entertainment, and sports can be let go. The current Wang Zhidong once said with emotion, "Actually, it's quite unexpected. In the development stage of China's Internet, many opportunities have really passed by. If this is the case, we may go back to other industries and start from the beginning again. Take China's software industry as an example. The Internet industry is driven by some international capital, including the so-called international trend of thought brought by some overseas returnees. We really jumped at the chance.” The young people who seized the opportunity gave a lot of attention to the "Forbes" rankings that were chewy. Overnight fame and wealth gave the public an opportunity to pursue wealth and talk about wealth. The case is so clear and vivid——We almost watched Looking at these rich people born in the 1970s, they went all the way from the underdogs in Zhongguancun, Beijing to Nasdaq, or from a 7-square-meter lattice room in Guangzhou to become stars on Nasdaq. The gray first pot of gold has nothing to do with the transformation period of Chinese society. There is no unspeakable behind-the-scenes story, and it just appears in the public's field of vision like sunshine. Not only Wang Zhidong but also Ma Huateng seized the opportunity.