Top of the Great Era

Chapter 3218 Capture
Zhou Buqi originally thought that the other party was quite tough.

Everyone is ready to let Meng Houkun come out to solve the problem.

Unexpectedly, as soon as we made the announcement, the other side gave in.

The next day, Banmi publicly apologized, posted on Weibo, WeChat Moments, official accounts, Facebook and other platforms, and wrote an "Apology Letter to Banmi".

The content is very sincere.

It's like kneeling down in surrender.

They said they had removed the company's tour items and would rectify their business. At the same time, they apologized for the CEO's previous inappropriate remarks and answered some of the more popular questions, such as Banmi's fees and how to deal with employees who were disciplined or even fired by Silicon Valley companies.

Banmi said it would provide necessary assistance to those Silicon Valley employees who were blamed for participating in the company's travel programs.

Zhou Buqi saw the letter.

It's funny.

help?

Can you help?
There is only over one million in the account. What can this amount of money do? Because of this incident, hundreds of Chinese employees in Silicon Valley may be fired.

However, it is always a good thing to give in.

Made the attitude clear.

The tense atmosphere in Silicon Valley can also be eased.

Zhou Buqi then sent a group email in his personal name to Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Google and other Silicon Valley giants, giving them some simple explanations, and that was about it. Don't make a big deal out of it, and don't destroy the employment environment for Chinese employees in Silicon Valley because of a small matter.

Because this is a project that Boss Zhou personally pays attention to, Liu Qing dare not slack off.

At the same time that Banmi issued the apology letter, Liu Qing also flew back to the capital from Shanghai to make a face-to-face report on the matter.

Zhou Buqi was very happy and brought her some coffee. He smiled and said, "This is going better than I thought. I thought it was going to be a bit tougher!"

"Who would dare?" Liu Qing said easily, "Let alone a startup company, even Baidu and Alibaba wouldn't dare to confront you head-on, right? Besides, what they did was wrong in the first place."

Zhou Buqi asked: "There are many domestic travel companies that offer similar corporate tours, right?"

Liu Qing nodded slightly, "Yes, it has caused a lot of trouble to the industry."

“Isn’t this banned?”

“There is no forced ban, but those start-up travel apps basically cannot get any financing now, and it is difficult for them to survive. Baidu is doing this, and it is doing a good job.”

"Baidu?" Zhou Buqi was quite surprised. "Baidu is rectifying this market?"

Liu Qing smiled and said, "Yes, we are doing it. Mr. Li is quite responsible. It's just that his methods are different from yours. He is a very personable person. He didn't use force. He just followed the market rules."

Zhou Buqi said, "Oh!" "You are talking about the merger of Ctrip and Qunar!"

Liu Qing said: "Yes, this is just the first step, and now there is movement again."

"What's the noise?"

"Baidu is now the largest shareholder of Ctrip, and has initiated a merger and acquisition of another travel company, eLong."

"Oh my god!" Zhou Buqi couldn't help but laugh. "Baidu is trying to dominate the domestic Internet tourism industry by integrating the three largest companies together."

Liu Qing smiled and said, "Because Baidu Nuomi only has a food delivery business, it is different from Fantuan. Fantuan provides local life services, and food delivery is just one of its businesses. It has already entered many areas of local life and has a great impact on the market."

Zhou Buqi didn't care and said, "Ziweixing just needs to do its own thing. No matter how others develop, it will be difficult to catch up."

Liu Qing said: "There is an industry right now, maybe there is an opportunity."

"Which industry?" "Short videos."

"Ah."

Zhou Buqi nodded.

Indeed, the overall environment has changed.

Since last year, China has had 4G, which has greatly improved the speed of the Internet. This year, the policy of "increasing speed and reducing fees" has been further proposed, which has greatly reduced the mobile data charges, which can greatly stimulate the development of mobile apps.

Especially those apps that consume a lot of traffic.

This is the short video field that Zhou Buqi has been paying close attention to for a long time.

Zhou Buqi said: "The policy of increasing speed and reducing fees is a huge boon to high-bandwidth applications on mobile phones. However, it may take until next year for it to be fully implemented."

In fact it is.

Tik Tok was born in 2016.

6◇9◇Book◇Bar

It is the improvement of policies and infrastructure that has created the trend of short videos.

In the past few years, many short video products have appeared in China.

But without exception, they all failed.

Because the policy has not been implemented and the infrastructure is not sound, the prerequisites for the industry do not exist. Even Kuaishou only started to fully promote its short video business after the 4G network was fully rolled out this year and the "increase speed and reduce fees" policy was proposed.

Even if Zhou Buqi had foresight, it would be impossible for him to create TikTok in advance.

Even if you figure it out, you'll definitely die.

Liu Qing smiled and said, "That's true. In the past few years, many short video startups have emerged in China, but none of them have ended well. In the past few years, the domestic entrepreneurial boom has been so fierce that it's even more enthusiastic than Silicon Valley."

Zhou Buqi said: "The competition is too fierce."

"Yes, so many startups have also discovered that the competition in China is too fierce and the probability of survival is too low. Many startup teams have set their sights on overseas. They would rather put their startup projects in overseas markets." As the chief investment officer of Ziweixing, Liu Qing is very familiar with market trends. "Banmi is a typical example. It is a red ocean for tourism projects in China, but going to the United States to develop has opened up a new world."

Zhou Buqi nodded and said, "This should be a major trend. Domestic mobile Internet products are very competitive and better than those made by Silicon Valley giants. Many projects that cannot survive in China will be very competitive if they can change their mindset and develop overseas."

Liu Qing agreed. "That's true. In the past few years, many domestic startup teams have given up the local market and landed in the United States. Many projects have done very well, including in the field of short videos."

"Hmm? Short video?"

"The Internet infrastructure in the United States is much stronger than in China. It is not convenient to do short video business in China for the time being, but the United States has such infrastructure. Many short video businesses in China have basically died. Going to the United States to develop can help them stand out."

"Really?" Zhou Buqi was particularly concerned about this. "Who is it? Has it been done?"

Liu Qing said, "Well, it's doing pretty well. There's a short video app called Musical.ly that's very popular among young people in the U.S. market. It started last year and already has millions of users, and the market response is very good. This is a product made by a domestic team."

“Musical.ly…”

Zhou Buqi took a deep breath.

Knew it!
In the past, TikTok was actually created by imitating Musical.ly, and later lost a lawsuit for copyright infringement. Fortunately, ByteDance had already successfully started a business and was very rich, so it directly spent $10 billion to buy Musical.ly.

Taking over Musical.ly means helping TikTok expand into overseas markets.

From then on, Tik Tok became popular both at home and abroad and it became unstoppable.

Liu Qing said: "I have received the application. Musical.ly is seeking Series A financing, mainly targeting domestic investment institutions. The entrepreneurial team is all domestic, and they don't seem to have any connections with US dollar institutions."

Zhou Buqi said without hesitation, "Get him!"