After divorce, I can hear the voice of the future

Chapter 173 Rich’s firepower covers
The next day, Liu Mingxuan sent a message: "I'm leaving. Thank you for your red envelope on behalf of my child."

"Bon Voyage."

Lu Liang received it, replied with a message, and then ignored it.

When the relationship is good to a certain level, even if you only see each other once a year, you can quickly get back to the feeling of the past.

This is the relationship between him and Liu Mingxuan.

On April 4, Xigua was online for one week.

The data is extremely impressive, with the number of registrations exceeding 10 million.

At first, most people came here to get the freebies, but ByteDance’s algorithm is sophisticated and not everyone can get the freebies.

Gradually, some creators’ data were not ideal, so they gave up the idea of ​​taking advantage of the platform and stayed on Xigua.

Although Tik Tok has exceeded five million users and is already a popular app, Xigua has surpassed it, which put a lot of pressure on Yang Zhenyuan. He couldn't sleep for the whole night, and his already plump forehead looked even fuller.

On this day, he rushed from the capital to the Magic City to discuss with Lu Liang, intending to activate Article 21 of the contract in advance.

Article 5 states that he has the right to propose that each shareholder dilute their equity and invest 10-66.7% into the equity incentive pool, but this clause requires absolute control of % to pass.

Even if Douyin did not have a round A financing, he only held 60% of the shares, so he needed Lu Liang's support.

Yang Zhenyuan knows the gap between Douyin and Xigua, so he plans to recruit some industry bigwigs.

The real big guys cannot be impressed by money. The price that Douyin can afford will only be higher than that of others.

It can only be bound by equity.

It was with this in mind that Yang Zhenyuan came up with Article 21 of the contract.

It’s just that he didn’t think of using it so early, but there was no way, Xigua’s algorithm was too powerful.

Tik Tok doesn’t even let you see the other person’s back.

"Wait a little longer. If you use it now, you won't have a chance later."

Lu Liang looked through the data of Douyin for the past week. Although the number of users and daily active users increased, the quality declined significantly.

Before Xigua appeared, Douyin had an average of about 25 daily active users, and the average online time of users was about 72 minutes.

Since Xigua went online, in just seven days, the daily active online time has been shortened to 66 minutes, and there is a downward trend.

Yang Zhenyuan sighed bitterly, and couldn't help but feel a little pessimistic: "If I don't use it now, will there be another chance in the future?"

"There will be."

Lu Liang frowned. It was not a good sign that Yang Zhenyuan was so pessimistic.

If Douyin cannot stand up, how can it be sold at a good price?

The price of a motivated opponent and a loser on the side of the road are completely different.

"How about this? First recruit a large number of engineers and offer salaries 150% higher than the industry average to attract talent to join."

"Don't worry about the funding. As long as the funding is in place, I will find a way if there is not enough money."

Lu Liang pondered, his plan of getting something for nothing had failed, so he could only change his strategy and use money to carve out a smooth road.

If history does not change, in mid-November next year, Toutiao will spend $11 billion to acquire Musical.ly for Douyin and facilitate the merger of the two parties.

Douyin, which has attracted ByteDance to invest such a large amount of money, must be valued far more than 20 billion US dollars, conservatively at billion US dollars.

Lu Liang still has nearly 400 million US dollars in cash and is worried about where to spend it. The worst that can happen is that he will fight Zhang Yiming with real weapons.

According to Zhu Hu, ByteDance's liquid funds are only over 200 million US dollars, and it has already allocated 1 billion to promote Xigua Video.

Although it is not a one-time payment, including ByteDance’s funds, it will not exceed US$200 million.

With nearly 400 million US dollars, you still can't beat him? You can even poach his people and make him rich.

After all, times have changed. As the saying goes, when you are poor, you use tactics of interspersion; when you are rich, you use firepower coverage.

Lu Liang already has the capital to cover the firepower, so Zhang Yiming had better come over and ask for peace, otherwise Lu Liang doesn't mind fighting him to the end.

"Thank you, Mr. Lu. You are our pillar of support. With your words, we feel relieved."

Yang Zhenyuan was overjoyed. It is good to lean on a big tree for shade. Equity is important, but real money is more important.

They can’t attract real technology giants, but they can go for volume and simulate algorithms through huge mountains of shitty code.

At least the algorithm can be compressed from 12 times to 6 times, that is, it takes only one hour to build a user portrait. However, Yang Zhenyuan did not realize that Lu Liang was not interested in this. He only wanted to make electric cars. Doing this was purely a war to seek peace.

In the afternoon, Yang Zhenyuan returned to Beijing with Lu Liang's promise, and then all the major Internet companies in Beijing were shocked.

The first to be affected was the old employer Baidu, which offered a salary 150% higher than the current one and poached a technical team.

Secondly, ByteDance and Kuaishou have poached more than 50 people to form R&D teams of over 100 people.

"Fuck, is Yang Zhenyuan crazy?"

"Does a $150 million Series A round make him so proud? It would be funny if he jumped over it and ended up with no money."

"My cousin works at TikTok. I heard that Yang Zhenyuan just came back from Shanghai. It seems that he went to see Lu Liang."

"Lu Liang...isn't he working on new energy? Why is he still interested in short videos?"

"New energy is now, and even earlier, he was optimistic about short videos. It is said that it was because of him that Yang Zhenyuan left ByteDance and started his own business."

“It goes without saying that Lu Liang is the founding investor of Douyin. Even after the A round of financing, he still holds 33.25% of the shares.”

"Tsk tsk, Byte is going to suffer. Spend money, and ask yourself, who in the world can beat Lu Liang?"

Somewhere in Zhongguancun, several employees from large companies were chatting. It was almost a consensus among them that they could not beat Lu Liang even if they spent money.

After all, the first quarter of this year has not yet ended, and the two private equity funds managed by Lu Liang have made a guaranteed profit of US$13 billion.

Even if he took out 300 million US dollars to play around, even if he lost it all, the investors would not dare to complain.

In contrast, ByteDance is just an Internet company that has not yet made a profit. In terms of spending money, it really cannot beat Lu Liang.

Near the evening, Zhu Hu suddenly called and asked, "Yang Zhenyuan is so crazy? Is it really your order?"

"Yes, it was my instruction."

Lu Liang smiled, paused and said, "If you don't want to follow, I can take back Jinshajiang's shares."

Zhu Hu pondered for a long time, and suddenly asked: "Then how much premium do you plan to pay?"

Lu Liang strolled indifferently: "How about 10%? It's good to earn some interest."

Zhu Hu's face darkened, and he said unhappily, "Can you be darker?"

"So you want to follow?" Lu Liang asked with a smile.

"No matter how many there are, I think Shen Peng thinks the same. Don't think of throwing us off the bus."

Zhu Hu looked indignant. Today, no one would question Lu Liang's investment or speculative vision.

As a victim, he has a special say.

Sometimes, he couldn't help but wonder if Lu Liang had planned everything out.

Otherwise, how could he have withdrawn from ofo so promptly, allowing him to voluntarily pay a 20% premium to become the buyer.

Although ofo's valuation has reached US$5 million, its management and financial problems have been exposed one after another.

The main thing is that Dai Wei seems to want to carry out the Enfeoffment Order to the end. He plans to introduce Matrix Partners in the C round of financing and give up a veto power.

Upon hearing the news, Zhu Hu was overwhelmed and had already started negotiating with Ali, determined to get out of this situation even if it meant losing some money.

It has to be said that Lu Liang's exit in the B round was a very appropriate time, as if it was calculated.

Now that Jinshajiang holds shares in Douyin, Lu Liang has allowed Yang Zhenyuan to go ahead and provide financial support.

It seems that he is very optimistic about the development of TikTok. Although ByteDance is eyeing it covetously, Lu Liang is a person who is good at creating miracles.

No matter what he says, I will follow him to the end.

Even if I lose money, I'll accept it.

Lu Liang suddenly felt bored: "Just follow me, I'll go ask Shen Peng for his opinion."

After ending the call with Zhu Hu, Lu Liang called Shen Peng again. Shen Peng's answer was exactly the same as Zhu Hu's.

He smiled and said, "Just tell us how much you are short of. As long as you are still following up, Sequoia will continue to follow up."

Although he didn't understand Lu Liang's thoughts, he could still afford to lose hundreds of millions with him.

He believed in Lu Liang's vision.

(End of this chapter)