Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 219: Explosion and Success

Compared with Zhiyun Technology, which has achieved great success in the field of smart terminals, namely mobile phones, tablets, and ultra-thin business notebooks.

The development of some other innovative high-tech companies under Xu Shenxue is relatively dull.

It’s not that it’s not done well, but either the technology is limited or the market is limited.

The market for drones is restricted. The first generation of drones released by Xiaojiang Technology is undoubtedly the king in the field of consumer drones from a technical point of view... In fact, apart from Xiaojiang drones, there are no other consumer drones at present, and even industrial drones are very rare.

At present, the concept of drones is still very high-end large drones, such as reconnaissance and strike drones. There are also small drones, but they are basically various national defense projects and have nothing to do with ordinary people.

However, Xiaojiang Technology did it through the first generation of consumer-grade drones: drones are not that high-end, and you can make a very good consumer-grade drone for just a few thousand dollars.

Such products are already very good from a technical point of view, and even surpass many military-grade small drones developed in developed countries in Europe and the United States, which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But... unfortunately, this type of drone has too few customers in the civilian market, so even though the technology is outstanding and attractive enough, not many are sold. The estimated sales volume in 11 is only more than million yuan.

This 100 million yuan may be considered a great success for many startups, but it is not that successful for Xiaojiang Technology, which was named as a strategic investor by Xu Shenxue and once caused quite a stir in the technology circle.

It’s mainly consumer-grade aerial photography drones, and the market is too small...even if we take over all of them, there won’t be much left.

This is also the reason why Xu Shenxue asked Xiaojiang Technology to launch better professional aerial photography drones. They are not aerial photography drones that are sold for a few thousand yuan for individual users, but "large" aerial photography drones that are used in professional photography projects, cost tens of thousands of yuan, and can carry professional-grade cameras.

At the same time, it uses its own profound technology to expand from consumer-grade drones to industrial drones, providing better and lower-cost options for some special industries, such as spraying pesticides and fertilizing in the agricultural field, and handling cargo in complex areas.

At the same time, we are trying to add more types of sensors, such as infrared sensors, and cooperating with Zhiyun's portrait recognition project team to develop aerial surveillance drones that can recognize human portraits, to supply them to security units in various countries.

These are the main markets for civilian drones!

Of course, another major function of drones has not yet been developed... because no one has yet brought this thing to the battlefield.

The drone business will not be able to take off in the short term due to market constraints.

Xu Shenxue also had high hopes for the electric vehicle sector, but this was somewhat difficult to achieve due to technical issues...not to mention that the former management of Hailan Automobile had arranged a very disgusting compact lead-acid battery electric vehicle for Xu Shenxue.

This has somewhat affected the progress of the electric vehicle business.

Judging from the current situation of HaiLan Automobile, if they can produce a barely presentable prototype within the next year after a change of management, it will be a victory. As for mass production, it will conservatively take another two years.

Mainly, the three core systems in the electric vehicle field need to be developed one by one, and then the assisted driving technology of the unmanned vehicle project team of Zhiyun Technology also needs to be developed and tested in large quantities, which all takes time.

Finally, there is the field of repetitive rockets, which Xu Shenxue pays more attention to.

Although Nanmen Aerospace Company has been established for some time and several major domestic aerospace units have also supported a lot of technical talents, it is still a little bit lacking. It is still stuck in the research and development of single rockets. With sufficient funds, the research and development progress seems to be very fast, but it is still far from Xu Shenxue's requirements.

Therefore, when he had some free time, Xu Shenxue took a special plane to Qiongzhou Island to inspect the situation of Nanmen Aerospace Company.

Taking into account the particularity of space launches, Nanmen Aerospace Company did not choose to locate its research and development and launch base in traditional large cities or important space launch sites, but instead chose Qiongzhou Island, which is closer to the equator and has lower launch costs.

And the country’s first civilian commercial launch site in history was invested and built here: Nanmen Space Launch Center.

The R&D and production bases are also nearby.

The special plane arrived safely at Qiongzhou Island Airport, and then the motorcade set off from the airport and headed straight for the Nanmen Aerospace Headquarters.

The convoy did not include the Mercedes-Benz S-series bulletproof sedan that Xu Shenxue often airlifted with him when he went out in the past. Instead, there were three large bulletproof SUVs that looked exactly the same.

As Xu Shenxue's wealth grew, Zhiyun Technology's dominance in multiple fields also attracted more and more jealousy. The competition between international giants can sometimes be quite cruel.

Xu Shenxue traveled thousands of miles to become a thief, so naturally he was afraid of being targeted by thieves.

Therefore, he upgraded the security level for himself and his family early on.

Xu Shenxue's security team has a total of more than 60 people. They carry out security tasks in three shifts, including on-duty and off-duty, and are equipped with some defensive security equipment within the scope permitted by law.

At the same time, the security team is also equipped with a variety of high-tech equipment, such as drones. Xiaojiang Technology has customized a batch of drones specifically for the security team, which are equipped with infrared sensing, portrait recognition and other sensors.

Then some of the company's R&D departments would also come up with some more interesting things, such as signal jammers, wireless signal detectors and so on. These things were originally intended for the security team, but later on some special agencies came and bought a lot of them in a roundabout way.

It is said that people on the special front have reported that these gadgets are particularly useful in some special occasions, and they hope that Zhiyun will upgrade them.

However, the most critical equipment is the bulletproof car. We had a bulletproof car given by a European tycoon before, but it became more and more sensitive, so this car was no longer used.

Later, Xu Shenxue purchased and customized a batch of bulletproof vehicles, including Mercedes-Benz S-Class bulletproof sedans and large bulletproof SUVs.

However, Xu Shenxue rarely rides in bulletproof cars now. When he travels alone on business, he mostly rides in a bulletproof SUV with security personnel.

This type of large SUV is more capable of withstanding any emergency and is also more convenient for escaping.

After all, the four-wheel drive has a high chassis and can go anywhere.

Its huge convoy drove along the expressway all the way to Nanmen Aerospace Company.

After entering the company, Xu Shenxue simply listened to the introduction of the management. After listening to the introduction and looking at some of their R&D projects, he learned that even the basic design of the repeatable rocket has not been completed.

Then they say the design is difficult, then they say the cost is high, and then they say something else about rockets being such high-tech things and risky, and so on and so forth.

Xu Shenxue felt a little dissatisfied when he heard this.

Some people just don't think straight and always want to use the old ways to create innovative high-tech things.

After taking a look around here, I only saw a regular rocket project...but I didn't see what Xu Shenxue wanted to see.

He wants to repeat the rocket, he wants rapid iteration, he wants unparalleled innovation... You can't fool me with an old rocket. There are a lot of domestic aerospace companies that have rockets of this level. There is no need for Xu Shenxue to develop one specifically.

So Xu Shenxue said a few more words, asking them to speed up the progress and carry out research and development as necessary and experiments as necessary.

Then someone answered, this is impossible... You don’t understand aerospace things. These things must be foolproof and must be done to the best of their ability. Otherwise, a failed launch will mean a major loss. We must ensure success on the first test launch.

Hearing this, Xu Shenxue was a little annoyed: "I really don't know much about rockets, but I've read the report. A commercial launch of a large rocket only costs tens of millions of dollars. For me, this is not expensive. As long as we take precautions for the safety of personnel, the explosion of a rocket is not a major loss."

"Even if your launch fails eight or ten times, it's probably only equivalent to the money I earn in a few days. To be honest, I don't care much about this little money."

“I have many companies and even more R&D projects. I have personally seen quite a few of them. Most of them are improved while being tested, and have failed countless times.

"Many project leaders tried every means to explain to me that failure is the mother of success, and that temporary failure is a necessary prelude to future R&D success. In fact, the more failures we have, the faster the R&D progress will be. They all tried to get me to invest more money and conduct more experiments."

"Do you think I don't have enough money for you to spend? Or do you think you are a one-in-a-million genius who can succeed in one experiment?"

"For innovative research and development projects, including this reusable rocket project, if you don't try it, how do you know it won't work? If you don't explode it once, how do you know what went wrong?"

“How can you solve a problem if you don’t know the problem?”

"Just go for it. Give me a launch test this year. It doesn't matter if it explodes. The key is to find the problem and fix it. After the improvement, we can try it again and see what goes wrong!"

"It will be done if it keeps blasting!"

“What we pursue is not one success, but improvement from one time to the next!”

"Everyone, do you understand what I mean?"

After listening to this, a group of young technicians standing at the back were very excited. Their boss spoke in a domineering manner and his work style was just as rumored. He had an extreme pursuit of technological innovation and was not afraid of high R&D costs.

But some of the management and several senior technical experts at the front looked unconvinced, and they were almost saying it out loud: It’s nothing great that you are rich, rockets are not about money, they are about high technology, do you understand high technology... You are an undergraduate student from a second-rate 211 university, and you studied liberal arts, what do you know about rockets!
Looking at the reactions of the two groups of people, this is why Xu Shenxue doesn't like these traditional industry managers and old technicians. They are all too rigid in their thinking...

After the angry inspection, Xu Shenxue simply replaced several key management members of the rocket company. The current management team was not very good, their minds were too rigid, and their understanding of rockets was still stuck in the old way.

If we rely on them to lead the team, they probably won’t be able to produce a repeatable rocket in ten years!

Even those so-called old experts had to be fired. Xu Shenxue suspected that they were sent here by their original aerospace companies. They had no real skills and just talked a lot of nonsense!
Everyone is complacent with their achievements in their youth and their current academic qualifications, and they are unaware that they are lagging behind the times.

While Nanmen Aerospace is developing a brand new thing like reusable rockets, they are still treating their previous experience as a treasure. This is not acceptable and this is not acceptable.

Respecting elders is fine in other fields, but in scientific research… no!
Because scientific research is essentially a process of questioning existing things and creating new things through questioning.

You have to have a questioning spirit in order to innovate well. Otherwise you will just follow the crowd and do repetitive work.

A bunch of old guys think they are academic authorities, and they can't do this or that. A bunch of young and middle-aged people have ideas but dare not say them or do them. What's the point of that?
He needs to find a group of management personnel from Internet high-tech companies to manage it.

Since it is difficult to poach ready-made top technical talents, we should talk to those aerospace companies and try to get a group of middle-aged and young backbones over, and then find a group of fresh graduates for the remaining talents.

When it comes to research and development, young people are needed.

After leaving Nanmen Aerospace and returning to Shenzhen, Xu Shenxue quickly adjusted the structure of Nanmen Aerospace and sent the deputy chief engineer of the robot project in Zhiyun Technology to serve as CEO... Although sending a robot maker to work in aerospace sounds a bit like a cross-industry move, this is management, not asking him to work in technology.

There is no essential difference between using a whip to urge a team to make a robot and urging the team to make repeated rockets. It’s all about management and human nature!
Then we quickly started negotiations with major partner companies, trying to poach people in the most friendly way possible, and at the same time started large-scale campus recruitment at various universities.

Xu Shenxue gave them an order that they must launch a rocket this year no matter what... I don't ask for a successful launch, I just ask for you to find the problem.

----

The electric car and repeated rocket projects were a bit bumpy because we were not paying attention at the beginning and brought in too many people from traditional industries. However, although the process was a bit tortuous, after some major adjustments, we are finally moving in the direction we want to see.

The future is expected!

Compared with the somewhat troublesome development of these subsidiaries, the development of Zhiyun Technology is much smoother.

As October began, Zhiyun Technology's mobile phones, laptops and tablets continued to sell well. At this time, in addition to the regular large-scale press conferences, Zhiyun Technology also held a small-scale special press conference to release two new products: an all-in-one computer and a mini host.

To further improve its own PC business line.

(End of this chapter)