I asked you to save a bankrupt factory and you became the richest man in the world.

Chapter 462, Chapter 226-227: Zhang Yiming's despair! (4000 words)
Because the use of this algorithm not only infers your likes, but also infers your dislikes.

This is actually very difficult!
Because the things you don’t like will be crossed out quickly, but nothing too obvious will be shown.

For example, if you don’t like Odebiao delivering bananas, you may brush it off, but there may be another Odebiao delivering bananas later.

The time spent on watching short videos may be very long. If the video of Odebiao carrying bananas is pushed too many times within two hours, customers will easily feel tired.

This fatigue accumulates.

Therefore, in order to make this software popular, it is necessary to eliminate videos that customers do not want to watch and increase the videos that customers want to watch.

In general, we need to carefully build an information cocoon!

Zhang Yiming came from Toutiao. News recommendations actually follow the same algorithm rules, but are relatively simpler.

There are several major categories, and you can classify them according to the customer's preferences.

After all, if you scroll through Toutiao today, there will be about ten pieces of news.

Customers' aversion and sensitivity to news cannot be as direct as watching one video after another.

It's fine as long as it's roughly the same.

But it’s different for videos, the algorithm needs to be very detailed!

When allocating traffic, there are not only differences in quantity, but also differences in quality, which involves another term: label.

Tags, that is, the identity of the user, are specifically divided into basic tags, preference tags, potential tags, etc.

The more accurate the video labels are, the better the algorithm will know what kind of users the video needs, and will push users of the corresponding category.

Basic tags include basic information such as the user's gender, age, and region.

If you let a person from Sichuan and Chongqing read some memes that are only known in Cantonese-speaking areas, such as "膚家富贵", "想找我笨？ 吃香蕉拉你", "吃赛米", etc., he will definitely have a black question mark face.

Preference tags refer to the user's interest tendencies, that is, what categories of content they have watched, what categories of content they like to watch, and what categories of content they like to interact with.

The potential label is the user's potential behavior estimated by the algorithm based on the user's historical behavior, representing what videos the user is interested in, etc.

When all these contents are combined, there are actually thousands of labels for each person!
The more tags there are, the more precise the control over customers will be.

In the end, even you don’t know anything about you as well as big data!
Once the algorithm matures, it will be able to control people's minds to the extent that even the content shown in the beautiful movie "Inception" cannot be compared.

Zhang Yiming and Zhang Nan analyzed as they watched, and finally called their own core R&D team to analyze the underlying logic of Xiaoling APP's algorithm.

After nearly 5 hours, they figured out the approximate rules of the game.

The more I understand the powerful and complex structure of Xiaoling APP's underlying algorithm, the more depressed I feel.

Everyone was secretly shocked!

Hillhouse Capital, as a giant in an unrelated industry, actually has such powerful skills in the cross-border short video platform, which really makes people feel desperate from the bottom of their hearts!

"Hillhouse is now the shadow of all the technology industries in China. They can even directly invest hundreds or even thousands of experienced and experienced people in an unrelated industry, with a monthly salary of more than 20,000 yuan. If the human resources are not enough, they will continue to add more."

“At the beginning, they may not be able to beat us, but when they figure out the tricks in this niche industry, they will run faster and faster, and the moat will become deeper and deeper!”

"What a terrifying thing this would be!"

"Compared to Xiaoling's fineness, Douyin looks like a lump to me."

After they finished the analysis meeting, everyone spontaneously stayed together and did not go about their own business as usual. Instead, they all sat there in an orderly manner, and this group of science and engineering men started to complain.

"Yes! On the surface, they look similar, but in fact, the difference is too great. I find it hard to imagine whether our Douyin can iterate to the level of their algorithm in five years. Their algorithm structure is so terrifying that our model cannot compare at all."

"Just kidding. I heard that their AI boss is Andrew Ng, one of the three big names in the field of AI in the United States. He was recruited to Hillhouse with a large sum of money a few years ago. At that time, AI was not popular at all. It was still a very small branch of computer science and technology. PhDs in mathematics were not that popular. Hillhouse recruited a large group of people, but who would have thought that their persistence over the years would yield such powerful results."

"Hillhouse's development in artificial intelligence has come a long way. Not to mention Toutiao, even our peers in the United States are basically slightly behind Hillhouse. Hillhouse's ALL IN AI is really no joke."

Toutiao is still in its infancy. Although it is already very large, the hierarchical relationships between companies are actually very weak.

This is related to the company's corporate culture, but the most crucial thing is actually related to the founder Zhang Yiming.

He could even continue to work in the company's lobby after the company went public, and he didn't like others calling him Mr. Zhang.

However, the disadvantage of this is that the people below him are basically very casual in front of him.

This is the situation now. He didn't pay any attention to Zhang Yiming's expression and just expressed his opinions casually.

Zhang Yiming sat there with a rather grim look on his face, quietly watching the discussion below.

A strong sense of crisis also secretly arose in his heart.

Hillhouse’s Xiaoling APP can almost be said to be the number one rival of Douyin on the short video platform.

Now, in terms of underlying algorithms, it is firmly ahead of TikTok.

Now he faces two choices.

One is to directly confront Hillhouse, suppress Xiaoling directly, and gradually gain the upper hand.

The second one is to surrender directly and admit defeat. Douyin no longer invests more resources and puts its limited resources into Toutiao.

It seems that Hillhouse Capital does not have this plan now, and it probably does not want to enter the vertical news market and compete with him in the future.

As long as you do this industry well, it seems to be a very good choice.

but. . .

Not reconciled!

Now that Hillhouse has entered the short video track, it must be optimistic about the bright future of this track.

Now they are so aggressive and have invested so much money, and their daily active users are growing rapidly, which fully shows the potential of this industry.

Why did I hesitate and lose the opportunity to delve deeper into this industry?
However, if we confront Hillhouse Capital head-on and invest huge resources, it is very likely that all will be lost.

After all, as a giant in the technology industry, Hillhouse has the strength and potential to allocate various resources. Even if it only allocates a small amount of funds to short video platforms and tracks, it will be enough to make ByteDance suffer. And if the game fails, it is very likely that its own Toutiao will be directly affected!
You have to know that Toutiao's position at this time in 2016 was not stable at all. PC giants like Sina, NetEase, etc. were all eyeing the vertical news apps on mobile phones.

That...

Should we invest money in this industry?

Thinking of this, Zhang Yiming fell into a dilemma and sighed deeply!

The heads of the core R&D departments nearby heard Zhang Yiming's sigh, and they all stopped discussing and looked at him.

In their hearts, they actually realized at this time that the future of Douyin was not optimistic!
Now that Hillhouse’s algorithms are so advanced, how can they catch up?

Like Hillhouse Capital, investing more than 1000 algorithm engineers and public relations to perfect TikTok's algorithm and carry out a revolutionary reform?

What a joke!
There are more than 1000 algorithm engineers, and each of them now has a starting annual salary of 20. That means they need at least million yuan in salary per year.

This is just the surface salary. If other labor costs such as five social insurances and one housing fund are taken into account, the salary alone will be more than 300 million yuan.

Moreover, the salaries of many big bosses are very expensive.

It is far from the level of 20.

After artificial intelligence became popular, the salaries of these bigwigs all started at seven figures.

In other words, for a R&D team of 1000 people, your budget for salaries alone needs to start at million!
This does not include other miscellaneous investments such as purchasing computing power.

The funding of more than 700 million yuan this year is so huge that even if ByteDance were to be dismantled it might not be able to raise it!

Zhang Nan also saw Zhang Yiming's worries, and immediately understood his thoughts. "It seems that Hillhouse's strategy is obviously aimed at the mid-to-high-end ecological niche. I have been watching their videos for so long, even at night, and their video review is very strict. They don't allow those vulgar videos or pornographic content to appear at all."

"So... I think we don't necessarily have to make pornographic and violent things. We can dig deeper into the sinking market and promote it to some third- and fourth-tier cities and below, or to areas with strong regional characteristics, such as the three northeastern provinces. If we surround the city with the countryside, we may be able to make a name for ourselves."

When Zhang Yiming just heard Zhang Nan talking about misaligned competition, his face was numb and he didn't even raise his eyes.

But when he heard Zhang Nan say the phrase "surrounding the cities with the countryside", his brows couldn't help but widen, because he felt that what she said made a lot of sense!
There is almost no chance of winning in a head-on confrontation with Hillhouse, although Toutiao is slightly better than Hillhouse in terms of accumulation of mid- to high-end deep customers.

But Hillhouse is not inferior either. Their Mate series and P series mobile phones are really not to be trifled with!

What's more, if Toutiao, its own company, makes money and competes with Hillhouse Capital, wouldn't it be a bloody clash?

This is not OK!

Very not OK!

However, they are unwilling to withdraw, and it is a very clever move to save the country in a roundabout way and go to a place that Hillhouse has no time to take care of now.

Although he is not confronting Hillhouse head-on now, he still retains a chance to compete with Hillhouse in the later stage.

If TikTok survives in the later stage, everything is possible!
"Then it's settled! Let's do as we're told. We'll change our strategy and start by digging deeper into lower-tier customers and focusing on our investment performance!" Zhang Yiming said with the final word.

. . . . .

Gao Huaijun had no idea that Zhang Yiming would have such a big reaction, and he actually adjusted the business direction of Douyin.

But even if he knew, he wouldn't care.

Because Hillhouse has now become a large company, the decisions it makes will affect the development and strategic changes of all elements in society.

Now this little butterfly with wings made of steel has stirred up this era beyond recognition. What he has to do next must be centered on me!
at the same time.

The rapid development of Xiaoling's product far exceeded Gao Huaijun's expectations.

In Gao Huaijun's previous life, because he couldn't find a direction for development, the algorithm of Tik Tok was very weak at the beginning. Of course, it is still very bad now, and the videos pushed are a mess.

When watching videos, it is already very remarkable if one out of twenty people is interested in it.

Many times, it's some inexplicable crappy videos that are like shit feeds that force you to watch them.

However, after accumulating a massive amount of videos, the advantages of the artificial intelligence algorithm model of Xiaoling APP were revealed.

In order to increase stickiness, at least two out of ten videos pushed by Xiaoling are of interest to customers.

This is quite scary!

This means that even if Hillhouse’s new customers are recommended by friends or learned about the information through promotional channels, the retention rate is very high!

The positive comments and activeness of these customers instantly turned some grassroots self-media people into Internet celebrities overnight!

It is hard to imagine that a short video playback platform that has only been around for about a month can actually create stars and give rise to early short video internet celebrities!

In this era, people are not used to the situation where everyone is a self-media, and they are very envious of those early short video Internet celebrities who can become famous overnight.

Think about it.

It is a terrifying thing that you can let tens of millions of people across the country know about your existence just by posting a random video.

Moreover, it is not just the name.

Because the video became so popular and generated a huge amount of clicks, I also made a profit.

In order to create the first video star, create a role model grassroots internet celebrity.

Hillhouse Capital is an investment that spares no expense.

Basically, for a video with millions of views, Hillhouse will reward tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars!
This is definitely an era that will make future generations of internet celebrities jealous!

People in this era have not yet fully understood new things, and there are no professional self-media agencies, so almost anyone can post a video.

There are also opportunities to become popular.

This has also caused some young people who are frustrated in real life to develop a strong interest in this new short video platform.

The short video platform’s control performance has begun!

(End of this chapter)