You call this entrepreneurship?

Chapter 258 Personal Relationship
Zhang Pingyi was stunned for a moment, and after thinking for a moment, he asked hesitantly: "Who is Qin Donghai?"

"It's my father." Qin Shaoyan replied.

Zhang Pingyi almost couldn't hold back his anger at that time, "You are really smart. How did you come up with such a...strange operation?"

"It's just a little father-son affair." Qin Shaoyan acted very nonchalantly, "Not worth mentioning."

Zhang Pingyi was too lazy to look at Qin Shaoyan's smug face. He frowned and thought, "That is to say, when those investors recognized YouTube's billion-dollar value and spent money to get on the bus and wait for it to take off, you said you couldn't fly anymore."

"Won't the people at Vanguard and BlackRock be pissed off? How are you going to explain this?"

"Who do I need to explain to?" Qin Shaoyan said confidently, "Under my leadership, YouTube has achieved a valuation of one billion US dollars in just half a year. Who else can do this except me?"

"I have done my best for Sequoia, Microsoft and other shareholders."

Zhang Pingyi nodded, "Of course, who can be as bad as you?"

Qin Shaoyan continued indifferently, "To put it another way, YouTube itself is a very good Internet product, and video websites are one of the future trends of the Internet."

"The fact that Vanguard and BlackRock funds can get on board with such a small amount of money is already a huge profit."

"YouTube has huge potential and a lot of room for appreciation. I didn't lie to them about that."

"It's just that the original rocket launch plan was cancelled, and the plane ticket was changed to a long-distance bus."

“Progress is still happening, it’s just not as fast as they expected.”

"As long as they wait patiently, they will be able to taste the fruits of the harvest sooner or later."

Zhang Pingyi asked humbly, "How long is your morning and evening?"

Qin Shaoyan gestured and said, "About a year. That's already fast."

"Of course, that's if everything goes well."

"One year is about right." Zhang Pingyi let out a long sigh, "At least I didn't let others get too excited for nothing."

"I hope other investors think the same way as you do." Qin Shaoyan concluded, "Why don't you just give me the money and save me the trouble of going through so much trouble?"

……

YouTube's negotiation team quickly contacted Yahoo and revealed its intention to be acquired.

Yahoo certainly wouldn't refuse. YouTube has performed very well in the market recently and they are also paying close attention to this website.

Now that YouTube has taken the initiative to approach Yahoo, a playboy who loves acquisitions the most, will naturally not refuse.

A man is in love, a woman is interested, and they are entangled with each other like a burning passion.

The atmosphere was very harmonious as soon as the two sides met, and there were a lot of greetings, friendships and business activities.

After the foreplay, it was time to get down to business, and YouTube's negotiation team soon discovered that the situation was not quite what they had expected.

Logically speaking, a company like Yahoo, which likes to make acquisitions everywhere to stimulate its stock price, should be very good at acquisition negotiations.

But these people at Yahoo are completely useless. Giving them chances is completely useless.

The original purpose of negotiation was to ask for a high price and then pay a low price, but the representative of Yahoo acted like "I want the goods, but I don't want to pay for it."

YouTube CEO David Banks had heard about Yahoo's performance before, but when he really came into contact with it, he almost exploded on the spot.

The first day of negotiations ended hastily with huge differences between the two sides.

"These beach boys are just looking for free money," David Banks complained to several shareholders. "Their offer shows no sincerity in negotiation."

"YouTube is such a promising website, but Yahoo is only willing to offer $500 million for it."

"If I were the CEO of Yahoo, I would fire all these people."

The shareholders present also condemned Yahoo's outrageous behavior, and Facebook CEO Fred, who is one of the shareholders, also cursed a few words.

Davis comforted David Banks for a few words, then looked at Qin Shaoyan, "John, what do you think?"

Qin Shaoyan was very stable, "It's okay, we can continue talking."

"Raise the asking price to $1.2 billion and see what Yahoo says tomorrow."

The next day's negotiations ended in a bad mood again.

David Banks has not yet made his offer, but Yahoo has stated that after a detailed review, they believe that YouTube's value should be less than $400 million.

If YouTube is willing to start negotiating at this price, Yahoo will continue to negotiate.

YouTube rejected it on the spot, and the show ended in less than half an hour.

On the third day, no one from Yahoo showed up.

People at YouTube were in an uproar. Is Yahoo so arrogant?

Davis from Microsoft became a little uneasy and complained to Qin Shaoyan: "Yahoo has no sincerity at all. The offer they made is too outrageous. It is even lower than the valuation given by Vanguard and BlackRock Fund."

"It doesn't matter. This is Yahoo's usual style." Qin Shaoyan remained calm. "Since Yahoo has suspended the negotiations, we should not be idle."

"Just go to Google, I think they'll be willing to talk."

Davis immediately stood up and started contacting Google, while Taylor from Sequoia behaved exactly like Qin Shaoyan.

"Did you expect the offer from Yahoo?" Taylor asked curiously.

"Not really." Qin Shaoyan shook his head and denied, "I've heard rumors about Yahoo, but I didn't expect them to be so outrageous."

Taylor chuckled. "They are using the old business negotiation tactics against the YouTube guys, but they are outdated."

"Business negotiations in the Internet era are completely different from negotiations in other industries. Yahoo's shareholders found these people from nowhere. They are really smart."

"But speaking of which, the negotiations didn't go well. What do you want to do next? Go back and continue the talks with Vanguard and BlackRock?"

"NO." Qin Shaoyan denied flatly, "If we go back to talk now, won't we be ripped off again?"

"You're going to screw up now." Taylor picked up the wine glass, took a sip, and shrugged.

"Did it break?" Qin Shaoyan smiled slightly, "This is just the beginning."

Taylor looked at the confident Qin Shaoyan curiously and asked tentatively: "John, do you have any more cards?"

"No." Qin Shaoyan smiled, "I just have more confidence in YouTube. It will get the value it matches."

……

Compared with Yahoo's strange operations, Google seems to attach more importance to YouTube.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt personally showed up, along with founder Larry Page, and the negotiations were of a very high standard.

The negotiations finally got back on track, and David Banks finally found an opportunity to perform.

After careful evaluation, Google believes that YouTube's value should be around US$6 million, but in order to show sincerity, they are willing to pay a premium for the acquisition.

The initial victory gave YouTube renewed confidence.

The two sides then had a heated discussion on the price issue. YouTube insisted on $7 billion and refused to give in, while Google raised the price from the initial $ million to $ million.

After two days of talks, although the two sides still failed to reach an agreement, both sides were still very sincere. When YouTube and Google were in a heated battle, Yahoo finally realized that something was wrong and notified YouTube that it intended to restart the negotiations.

But YouTube showed little interest. CEO David Banks said he would rather talk to Google for a month than waste another day with that bullshit.

Since Google is so sincere, shareholders also feel that there is a greater chance of negotiation with Google and support the termination of negotiations with Yahoo.

However, Qin Shaoyan felt that Yahoo should be given a chance, so he personally stepped forward and made an appointment for a private meeting with Steve Lawrence, Yahoo's vice president in charge of investment.

This vice president and Qin Shaoyan are old acquaintances. They have worked together on a Tupu.com project before.

The original investment manager also rose to a higher position and became the vice president of Yahoo.

Steve Lawrence brought his assistant and drove to Qin Shaoyan's villa to visit.

As soon as he entered the door, Steve complained, "John, this is terrible, this is really terrible, I really want to kill all those idiots."

"Mr. Steve, you are too radical." Qin Shaoyan smiled and shook hands with the other party, and warmly invited him to take a seat. "I have prepared coffee and snacks for you. If you need champagne, brandy, or whiskey, that's fine too."

"No, my personal doctor has strongly asked me to quit drinking." Steve waved his hand and refused, "But you can drink less coffee. It would be even better if you have black tea. I have recently become fascinated by the mysterious oriental culture."

"I'm sorry, I don't have any tea prepared here." Qin Shaoyan said regretfully.

"That's a shame, John, you're so un-Eastern," Steve complained.

Qin Shaoyan smiled and said, "The black tea you drink is not oriental at all, it adds a bunch of weird things."

And Steve doesn’t care about whether it is Eastern or not, he just wants to find a topic.

Yahoo messed up the acquisition from the beginning, and Google took over immediately like a dog, which made Yahoo a little anxious.

So they specially sent Steve to meet with Qin Shaoyan in order to ease the relationship.

After all, he was the only person in Yahoo who had a good relationship with Qin Shaoyan, so he could only be pushed out to meet him.

Qin Shaoyan got straight to the point and asked, "Mr. Steve, did Yahoo ask you to come here to lobby me?"

"I'm sorry about the misunderstanding that happened earlier." Steve sighed, "They messed up so badly that they had to push me out to clean up the mess."

"Actually, I don't want to get involved in this matter, but I owe them a favor."

Qin Shaoyan looked at the other person with a smile and said nothing.

"John," Steve said seriously, "YouTube is in contact with Google, right? Are you planning to sell the site to them?"

"This is a trade secret." Qin Shaoyan said lightly.

"Come on, John." Steve spread his hands. "If this is confidential, where do you think I got this information from?"

"We are negotiating about the acquisition." Qin Shaoyan hesitated for two seconds, "The negotiation is going more smoothly than Yahoo."

"Okay, John, I know you're a little angry." Steve said helplessly, "But that's how business negotiations work. You make an offer, and we counter-offer."

"This is not a matter of bargaining, Steve." Qin Shaoyan retorted, "Your people are making fun of serious business negotiations."

"They want to buy YouTube for $400 million. I don't see any sincerity in that."

"Look at Google, they were willing to pay $800 million to acquire YouTube."

Steve sighed. “Come on, John, I think you know better than me how much YouTube is worth.”

"YouTube is worth at most $600 million, and that includes some premium."

"The price of $800 million is too high. The board of directors will not agree to it."

"On the contrary, Steve, the price of $800 million is still very low." Qin Shaoyan retorted bluntly.

Steve was stunned for a moment, "Are you kidding?"

"If YouTube is really only worth $600 million, we can reach an agreement with Google right now." Qin Shaoyan said calmly, "Our people are still negotiating because you all underestimate the value of YouTube."

"I am very optimistic about the development prospects of YouTube, but do you know why I want to sell YouTube?"

Steve frowned, "Why?"

"The reasons are complicated, because I recently proposed a plan to acquire YouTube overseas." Qin Shaoyan sighed, "If this plan goes smoothly, YouTube's valuation will double."

"But other shareholders opposed the plan because it was too expensive and it was too risky for YouTube to spend so much money on acquisitions."

"After many consultations and negotiations, we had major differences in our business philosophies and it was difficult to continue working together, so we decided to sell YouTube."

Steve sat up straight and asked curiously, "Can you tell me about the overseas plan?"

"Of course." Qin Shaoyan replied, "I found a video website similar to YouTube in China. It has great potential. I invested some money in it."

“Although this website was created not long ago, it has accumulated nearly 10 million users.”

"I think this is a good opportunity for YouTube to enter the Chinese market. As long as the acquisition of this video website means that YouTube has opened up a larger market."

“It’s just that the price offered by that website is higher.”

Steve asked, "How much does it cost to acquire Huaxia's video website?"

"Not much." Qin Shaoyan said regretfully, "Two hundred and forty million US dollars."

"It's a pity that others disagree."

"The price is too high." Steve shook his head. "China's video website is not worth this price, John, you have too big an appetite."

"No, Mr. Steve." Qin Shaoyan frowned, "You don't know the inside story here."

"Although I am a shareholder of Huaxia Video, I am also a major shareholder of YouTube. YouTube is more valuable, so of course I have to give priority to the interests of YouTube."

"Why am I pushing for this acquisition plan? It's because this Chinese video website is very special."

Steve asked curiously, "What's unusual about it?"

"Wait a minute, I'll show you something." Qin Shaoyan stood up and left. After a few minutes, he took out a copy of the document and handed it to Steve. "This is it."

Steve took a look at it. He didn't recognize the Chinese characters on it, but he knew it seemed to be an official Chinese document. "What is this?"

"A permit." Qin Shaoyan explained, "An access permit."

"Its full name is 'License for the Transmission of Audiovisual Programs on Information Networks'"

"There is only one license for the entire Chinese Internet now."

Steve's eyes lit up and he studied the copy of the license closely.

Qin Shaoyan complained nearby, "Originally, the people from YouTube and the Chinese website had already negotiated, and the two sides were about to reach an agreement."

"As long as YouTube comes up with the money, the Chinese website will sign, and YouTube's valuation will at least double by then."

"Unfortunately, those shareholders don't agree at all." Qin Shaoyan said indignantly, "How can I run YouTube well with these guys?"

Steve agreed, "That's right, John, they don't understand the value of this."

"They're not good business partners, how about we work together?"

(End of this chapter)