Reborn: Billionaire in College

Chen Pingjiang had just gotten up when the red-robed leader was already standing guard at the door. When he saw Chen Pingjiang, he said shyly, "Blame me last night. I just posted a photo to commemorate or show off, but I didn't expect it to cause such a big commotion, and finally involved Lao Ma. Will he be okay?"

"What's the matter?" Chen Pingjiang smiled. "What could it be? If Old Ma is uncomfortable, just let him say a few words."

Zhou Hongyi nodded: "I said the same thing. Who knew that no one invited him to the dinner party yesterday? It's strange."

It is no news in the Internet industry that Jack Ma values ​​social circles more than anyone else.

He is the only one who likes to run here for a meeting and show up there every few days.

Chen Pingjiang asked himself if he could ever learn this kind of social attribute.

The fact that Jack Ma did not show up at the dinner this time does not mean that he does not like socializing. On the contrary, Jack Ma attaches more importance to socializing and is better at it than anyone else.

In the early 80s, Lao Ma was able to work as a tour guide by the West Lake, just to practice his English and make foreign friends. At the time, this was an advanced social method.

To be honest, even decades later, not many young people can really let go of this kind of thing.

This experience has made Lao Ma what he is today, especially the time he met the Morley family in Australia and then visited Australia, which laid the foundation for Lao Ma's world view and changed his life. Therefore, Lao Ma went to Australia to set up a Morley Scholarship with a grateful attitude.

Alibaba has grown from a dozen people in Lakeside Garden to a super giant with a market value of hundreds of billions of dollars. During this process, Ma's circle has become larger and larger.

In 2013, "Zuo Lin You Li" had dug deep into Ma Yun's circle in the book "Jack Ma's Circle, Wu Ying's Situation".

At that time, Lao Ma already had at least four core circles: the Internet circle. Lao Ma’s West Lake Sword Discussion event invited Internet tycoons who would not invite him to dinner today;

Zhejiang business circle, Lao Ma took the lead in establishing Jiangnan Club, and the strategic cooperation with Intime, etc. all belong to the Zhejiang business circle;

In addition, there are the film and television circles and the investment circle.

This guy's enthusiasm for the circle is even beyond imagination, such as the high-end club by the West Lake and the later Lakeside University.

There are so many Chinese entrepreneurs, but how many of them can be received by leaders of multiple countries like Ma?
If entrepreneurs want to run a good business, they must accumulate resources, make friends, communicate with all kinds of people, and cooperate with like-minded people. It is normal to attach importance to circles, as the essence of circles is socializing.

But the strange thing is that no one invited him to such an important event.

What made Ma Yun even more upset was that Chen Pingjiang sat in the middle.

"What's so strange about that? Old Ma is not a bad person, but he thinks highly of himself. He won't go to a dinner party that's not important enough. If you were a prince from the Middle East or a politician from a major country, he would definitely go." Chen Pingjiang said with a smile, "Besides, Ali's investment companies have been trying to acquire companies these days. He doesn't have many vested interests in the circle, and if there are any, they are just his subordinates. On the contrary, our group of people have a deeper vested interest than him."

"I hope nothing will happen. Don't let people over-interpret it and ruin my fun."

Zhou Hongyi's worries were somewhat justified. Chen Pingjiang said, "I'll make a phone call and ask them to remove the trending search."

…………

When Chen Pingjiang showed up at the restaurant to have breakfast, he looked around and found that it was full.

Although the hotel is large and the organizers have thoughtfully added tables and chairs, the supply still cannot meet the demand.

Because the Wuzhen Summit will start at 9 a.m., the participants' action times are relatively unified.

"Mr. Chen, please sit down. Please sit down."

"Mr. Chen, come sit here with me."

……

Someone familiar saw Chen Pingjiang looking for a seat and quickly stood up to invite him.

Chen Pingjiang politely declined and said he would look for it again.

After a while, a seat by the window became vacant. There was a glass of milk on the dining table, and it seemed that someone was there.

Chen Pingjiang took the opportunity to sit opposite.

"Good morning!"

Just when Chen Pingjiang was eating in silence because his stomach was empty, a greeting sounded, and the voice sounded familiar.

When Chen Pingjiang looked up, they were both speechless.

The person who greeted me turned out to be Robin Li.

On the other hand, Li Yanhong did not expect that the person who was eating with his head down was Chen Pingjiang. After all, Li Yanhong had just come back from getting the food, and Chen Pingjiang happened to be lowering his head.

The embarrassment on their faces faded at the same time, and Chen Pingjiang smiled and said, "What a fate. I was just curious about who was sitting opposite me. Mr. Li, good morning."

Li Yanhong felt somewhat uncomfortable facing Chen Pingjiang.

Ding Lei called him to the dinner last night, but he heard that Chen Pingjiang was also there, so he found an excuse and didn't go. In fact, he didn't want to see Chen Pingjiang.

The two had never dealt with each other before, but they were very familiar with each other.

The familiarity is due to some "grudges".

Baidu wanted to acquire AutoNavi and had many contacts with the company in the early stage, but it did not expect that Chen Pingjiang would snatch the deal away. This is one of the reasons.

Later, Baidu referred to the Lingqiantong launched by Renren and came up with Baifa, and the two were in competition again.

However, Baifa is too small in size and is just a small Karami compared to WeChat’s Zero-Balance Wallet.

Next, Baidu copied AutoNavi and created the Baidu aggregated taxi-hailing platform, but like Baidu's other projects, it required huge investments but ended in failure.

In the field of driverless cars, the two companies will inevitably have a battle in the future.

Finally, Baidu had previously invested in Uber, and had already fought a fierce battle with Chen Pingjiang's AutoNavi. Uber was clearly losing, and Li Yanhong suffered a big loss again.

"I saw Lao Ma's Weibo last night. Lao Ma was jealous." Speaking of this, Li Yanhong was quite happy.

At least, he was invited to the dinner, but he didn't go. Compared with Lao Ma, he was much better.

Chen Pingjiang smiled and nodded, "Old Ma is the landlord here, and I will soon reward everyone with good things."

Although he is not as old as Lao Ma and has not been in the industry as long as Lao Ma, Chen Pingjiang's commercial status is slightly higher than Lao Ma, so it is not a problem for him to arrange a few lines for him.

Looking at Chen Pingjiang's young face, Li Yanhong felt deeply saddened.

The other party is very young, but has achieved such success in everything he does. In contrast, Baidu is simply a negative case.

When he returned to China from overseas to start a business, Baidu came into being and was successfully listed in 05. At that time, Chen Pingjiang was still in high school.

Baidu was once known as the Google of China, and its market value has always been in the top three. Once it debuted, it was the "B" in bat. That was the best time in his life, and he was praised wherever he went.

Graduated from Peking University, returned overseas with a master's degree, worked on Wall Street, rich and handsome, the favored child of that year could never understand how Chen Pingjiang, a second-rate undergraduate who was as young as could be, could emerge in the Internet world where the law of the jungle prevails.

"Mr. Li? Mr. Li? Are you worried about something?" Chen Pingjiang looked at Li Yanhong sitting opposite him in a daze for a long time and called out quickly.

"Ah, no, no." Li Yanhong came back to his senses, thought of something, and blurted out: "Mr. Chen, I heard that Liu Qing contacted your company about the merger of Uber and AutoNavi, but was rejected?"

Chen Pingjiang nodded, drank a mouthful of porridge, and then said, "That's true. To be honest, the significance of the merger is not great anymore. We have reached a consensus on this matter. I don't need to tell you the specific reasons, I believe Mr. Li also understands it."

"I understand, but I insist that the merger of the two parties has more advantages than disadvantages. After the merger, AutoNavi will dominate the domestic online car-hailing market without any competitors, and it is entirely possible to prepare for an IPO. Moreover, once AutoNavi and Uber establish a cooperative relationship, they can also help each other in the international market in the future."

As long as there is a glimmer of possibility, Robin Li also wants to push for the merger of Uber and AutoNavi, otherwise his investment in Uber China will be wasted.

That's more than 10 billion US dollars. No matter how rich Baidu is, it can't do this.

Once the merger is successful, not only may there be no loss, but there may even be a profit.

But he was also very clear that the final say would still be in the hands of Chen Pingjiang.

How could Chen Pingjiang not be clear about what Li Yanhong was planning?

But he would never allow the two to merge, if for no other reason than Baidu's "unlucky" attribute, he didn't want to have anything to do with Baidu.

Baidu always gets up early and arrives late.

In his previous life, Chen Pingjiang was once curious about how Baidu made profits and supported its stock price.

After all, Baidu has almost no other profit points besides advertising.

Whatever you do, you lose money; whatever you do, you fail; it can all be described as a miracle.

He caught up with everything, but in the end achieved nothing. Chen Pingjiang admired him very much.

From this we can see that Lei Jun is really amazing and can do everything well no matter what he does.

In Chen Pingjiang's opinion, Robin Li has a unique vision, but his management is poor.

For example, when Baidu was developing autonomous driving, almost no one had heard of new energy vehicles. Later, when new energy vehicles emerged, no car company used Baidu's technology.

I won’t mention Wen Xin anymore. The WM Motor that Baidu invested in went bankrupt, the Lantu that it cooperated with has fallen into obscurity, Baidu Takeout is gone, no one uses Baidu Pay, and there is no follow-up to the Xiaodu speaker.

This does not even include the more than 91 billion RMB spent on the acquisition of Assistant.

Chen Pingjiang can count so many failed projects just by counting them on his fingers, but even so, Baidu did not go bankrupt. Isn’t that amazing?
There is a type of person at the poker table who always loses every time he gambles and is possessed by bad luck. When playing against such a person, it is always a good idea to buy the opposite number.

Baidu has similar talents, so much so that Chen Pingjiang really doesn't want to have anything to do with Lao Li.

"Uh! Mr. Li, I'm done eating. Please take your time and we'll see you later." After finishing the food quickly, Chen Pingjiang smiled gently and walked out quickly without giving Li Yanhong a chance to speak.

Li Yanhong was so angry that he kept shaking his head, but he could do nothing about it.

Uber has already declined. Its US headquarters approached AutoNavi more than once, but was rejected every time.

I can't bear to let go, no one wants to join together, and I can't win when fighting. It's really torturous.

………………

The venue for the summit is the specially designed Wuzhen International Internet Exhibition and Convention Center, whose architectural style combines the characteristics of traditional Jiangnan water towns with modern architectural concepts. The entire venue is very large, and it takes about 300 meters to walk from the main entrance to the main venue.

It is jokingly called the red carpet of the Internet industry.

Along the way, there will be staff, reporters and even fans taking photos, interviewing or asking for autographs.

Chen Pingjiang never expected that just walking on a road could be so dramatic.

After arriving at the venue and getting off the car, Chen Pingjiang took Lin Bin and Li Xiren to the main venue.

This group of people is the largest and has the most momentum.

In particular, Chen Pingjiang, who was walking in the front, was young enough, eye-catching enough, and handsome enough. There were staff members clearing the way in front of him, and reporters taking pictures beside him. He was even stopped for a brief interview in the middle of the way, and there were also female fans cheering enthusiastically.

But what was unexpected was that Li Yanhong, who was walking behind, was given flowers and hugged by a female fan.

Chen Pingjiang couldn't help laughing, "Men are in their prime at 41, and they become more popular as they get older."

Gao Songbin, who was walking beside him, joked: "The main reason is that the female fans who came today are all older and commercial, and they don't dare to give you flowers."

The joke immediately made Li Xi, Lin Bin and others burst into laughter.

The organizer arranged the seats very carefully. Except for the first and second rows which were occupied by dignitaries and leaders from various countries, the C position in the third row was reserved for Chen Pingjiang and his group.

Coincidentally, the people from Tencent Group were on Chen Pingjiang’s left hand, and the five people from Jack Ma’s side were on his right hand, and the two companies surrounded Chen Pingjiang and others in the middle.

Chen Pingjiang arrived relatively early. When he arrived, there were probably only one-third of the people in the venue. People did not sit down, but walked around and greeted acquaintances.

Dongzi came over from outside at this time and said with a smile: "Zhang Chaoyang was walking with me just now, and I was recognized by someone, but he was too low-key, so the reporters didn't take a picture of him. He didn't say anything, but his face turned black at that time."

When Chen Pingjiang saw Zhou Hongyi, he almost sprained his waist and pointed at his tie helplessly.

"I say, Lao Zhou, those who know you know that you are attending the summit, but those who don't think you are the groom, why are you wearing a red tie?"

Unexpectedly, Zhou Hongyi didn't care at all. "It's better than when I attended the Seattle Internet Forum earlier this year. I wore a suit on top and khaki pants on the bottom, and my bright yellow tie was crooked. Someone took a picture of me and posted it online. A bunch of people laughed at me."

At this point in 2014, the fashion sense of these Internet giants is really not very good, but of course there are still some highlights.

Zhao Chaoyang was wearing a casual suit with a plaid shirt underneath. If you didn't know him, you would think he was a programmer.

Jack Ma is exquisite in every detail. The fabric of the jacket is crisp and thick, and the dark checkered pattern shows excellent workmanship. The cuffs of the shirts are also custom embroidered. When receiving business cards, the JMA (Jack Ma) on the sleeves is inadvertently exposed, which shows his achievements and fame! He is very familiar with formal wear, from Chinese small stand-up collar to suits.

Li Yanhong, who still has the image of an idol, looks very much like Xu Wenqiang in his coat.

As for Lei Jun, he was determined to comb his hair like an adult and put on a slim and stiff suit. He wanted to be fully armed and become a street photography icon.

After a round of greetings, the venue gradually filled up and time slowly passed to nine o'clock.

The first World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit officially begins! (End of this chapter)