Reborn since 1993

Chapter 1046 The wildfire never burns out, but the spring breeze blows again

Looking at Lu Wenhua, who was decisive and efficient, he started working as soon as he arrived in America.

Zhou Hualiang, president of Dongling Hi-Tech North America, who came to meet the client, was surprised for a moment. He felt that Lv Wenhua seemed to have other purposes in coming this time.

In particular, before coming, Lu Wenhua asked Zhou Hualiang to collect information about the newly emerged Internet music start-ups in Silicon Valley.

Logically speaking, these Internet start-ups should be competitors of Himalaya Radio, but it seems that Lv Wenhua came here this time just for these start-ups.

This actually made Zhou Hualiang a little confused. He didn't know what the Dongling Hi-Tech headquarters meant.

This is the helplessness of being a frontier lord. Being too far away from the headquarters, they have little idea of ​​what is going on in the headquarters. This is also why the frontier generals all want support from the court, so that they can at least be more informed and know which side to take.

"I have the list here. I'll have someone sort it out and give it to Manager Lu later."

"In the current Internet music industry, apart from Himalaya Radio, I think the newly established websites Napster, Scour and Galaxy are worth paying attention to. Many venture capital companies are paying attention to them!"

Zhou Hualiang told Lu Wenhua the information he had obtained.

After Himalaya Radio launched its music function, the record industry was not optimistic, but the Internet industry was still somewhat eager to move. In addition, several new companies also emerged that wanted to bet on the Internet music platform.

After hearing what Zhou Hualiang said, Lu Wenhua kept these companies in mind.

……

San Mateo, south of San Francisco, California, is adjacent to Stanford and close to Mountain View. It is the most enthusiastic place for the Internet. A large number of start-ups are established every day, and of course, a large number of companies also fail.

Lucky people and unlucky people are born here every day, and countless people regard this place as a place to make money.

The Napster website, which had just been established, was also located in a simple office in a small office building in San Mateo.

Sean Parker and Sean Fanning were huddled in this office, working hard. The office was filled with fast food boxes and there were many cigarette butts on the floor. It was obvious that the two had not left the office for a long time.

The two names sound similar, but they are not relatives, but good friends.

The name of the Nspster website comes from Fanning's nickname, because he has short and curly hair, which is why he got this nickname.

As for Fanning's programming skills, they can only be considered average. On the contrary, Parker next to him is a master hacker.

Parker is the chief technologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States. He learned programming when he was in the second grade of elementary school. He was the kind of person who was born with the help of God.

Parker is famous for his courage, having attacked federal municipal and military websites. Up to now, Parker is still a senior in high school, and Fanning is only a sophomore.

The prototype of the cynical venture capitalist in the second season of the Hollywood TV series "Silicon Valley" was Sean Parker.

Including Facebook, Parker also invested in it and even tricked the founder of Facebook into dropping out of school. His main point was that since he didn't have a college degree, he couldn't let Zuckerberg have one...

Now Fanning and Parker are working together to develop Napster. The fame of this website mainly comes from Parker's reputation as a hacker, which has attracted the attention of some venture capital companies in Silicon Valley.

"We need manpower, funding, and servers!"

Napater now has a clear division of labor between the two. Fanning assists Parker and is responsible for setting the framework of the website and finding investors, while Parker is mainly responsible for mastering the technology.

Fanning rubbed his sore eyes, took a bite of McDonald's, and said to Parker who was still programming on the computer.

In his previous life, Napster was created by Sean, who took a Unix programming textbook, learned the technology on his own, and slowly figured it out. It took him two years to create the Napster website.

But now, inspired by Himalaya Radio, Sean Fanning found his good friend Parker, and the two planned to apply P2P technology to music websites. The core of Napster is exchange!
The Napster website is like a trading platform that allows users to upload music and then share it with each other. In layman's terms, Napster users can directly access the accounts of other users on the platform and then download MP3 music from these accounts!

If we have to make a comparison, it would be the famous radar function that made Qvod become a god in the previous life!

Experienced users know how powerful the Qvod Radar function is. It can directly scan the user’s inventory resources within a certain range.

This technology also made Qvod a dominant force in the domestic Internet at that time. Among the 500 million Internet users in China, Qvod had 400 million. It could almost be said that it dominated the world. Rivals such as Youku, iQiyi, Tudou, and Sohu Video were no match for Qvod.

This was considered a black technology back then, and in fact Napster is currently developing similar technology.

The two people who were developing the Napster website were somewhat dismissive of the Himalaya music platform, thinking that Himalaya Radio had no technical difficulty at all, it was just paid music, and it was just an online record store, so what technical difficulty was there. "Are you going to accept investment from a venture capital company?"

Parker raised his head from the computer screen and asked Fanning.

Parker also knew that Himalaya Radio had opened a treasure map. Napster was not the only company eyeing the Internet music market. There were several peers in San Mateo who were also developing music platforms.

Of course, the technology used may be different. Although several other start-ups also intend to ignore the copyrights of the major record companies, their approaches are not as wild as Napster, which is preparing to directly overturn the record industry.

"It's time to accept venture capital. Napster needs to speed up to grab users!"

Fanning stuffed the last bite of McDonald's into his throat. He was almost vomiting from all the fast food such as KFC and McDonald's during this period. Eating three meals of Lao Ba's secret hamburgers a day was too much for even a strong man to bear. His mouth and stomach were almost in a mess.

While the two were discussing, there was a knock on the office door, and then a middle-aged man carrying a briefcase walked in, "Is this Napster?"

After coming in, the middle-aged man was almost suffocated by the smell of the small office, but when he thought of the big boss Lu Wenhua waiting outside, he pinched his nose and looked at Fan Ning and Parker.

"you are?"

Fanning looked up and down at this man who was obviously of Asian descent.

"I'm Jack Zhang from Pacific Rim Venture Capital. Of course, you can also call me by my Chinese name, Zhang Dongchuan!"

Zhang Dongchuan handed a business card to the two of them. It was obvious that the Zhixing Foundation was trying to stir up trouble, so they certainly couldn't use their own name to stir up trouble, otherwise it would be too eye-catching, so they put on a vest of the Pacific Rim Venture Capital Company headquartered in the Bermuda Islands.

Seeing Fanning and Parker, they looked at the vests in their hands and seemed a little confused.

Zhang Dongchuan said to the two of them in a somewhat mysterious tone, "Pacific Rim Venture Capital's parent company is a national giant company, so you don't need to worry about that. This time we are mainly testing the waters in the Silicon Valley Internet industry.

But please rest assured, there is no need to worry about the strength of Pacific Rim Venture Capital. We are not as famous as Sequoia Capital, KPCB, etc., but our venture capital conditions are better!"

Fanning and Parker had no doubts about Zhang Dongchuan's words. Silicon Valley is extremely hot right now, and giant companies and overseas investors are all testing the waters in the Internet industry.

Otherwise, why would Napater, a startup company, be targeted by venture capital companies? It is because a large number of Internet venture capital companies have emerged like weeds.

Just bet on whether you can invest in an Internet company like Netscape, Yahoo, or Himalaya Radio. Once it goes public, you can get dozens or hundreds of times the return. This is more exciting than buying lottery tickets!

As for the Pacific Rim Venture Capital Company in front of them, all they had to do was pay US dollars. As for its background, Fanning and the others didn't care much.

After all, both Fanning and Parker are still very young. Even though Fanning pretends to be profound, he actually does not have much experience.

"I need to state that Napster is a special music website. It is completely different from other websites!"

Listening to Fan Ning praising his own website, Zhang Dongchuan admitted it with a smile, but in fact, he didn't take it to heart at all.

To be honest, he has been in the venture capital industry for many years. Of course, he is just a small role, the kind who runs errands on a daily basis.

As an Asian, it is difficult for Zhang Dongchuan to join the ranks of senior executives of American or Wall Street venture capital firms. There is a career ceiling above his head.

But he definitely has experience. Zhang Dongchuan has met many start-up companies whose founders all regard their companies as treasures. However, whether they are treasures or not is not up to them. It depends on how venture capital companies and Wall Street set the price.

"Can I take a look at the Napster website first?" Zhang Dongchuan asked the two people.

Fanning and Parker looked at each other, hesitated for a moment, and finally gave up one of the only two computer positions in the small office.

“Napster wasn’t fully developed yet, but the basic functionality was there.

The core of Napster is sharing. The Internet is a free world, and users should also enjoy freedom. They should be able to decide to upload and share their favorite songs or other things! "

Fanning spoke with shining eyes about his grand ambitions. What he wanted was to build a utopian world on the Internet.

Parker agreed with Fanning's idea and came over to help Fanning develop the website for free.

Zhang Dongchuan was looking at the website on the computer, but he was terrified after listening to it. He felt that Fan Ning and the others were playing with fire!
But then, he remembered what Lu Wenhua had told him to do when he was sent here. Wouldn't it be adding fuel to the fire if he came here? Napster didn't need him to add fuel to the fire as it was already causing trouble!
(End of this chapter)