What's wrong with me being a rich man?

Chapter 528 Substitution
TikTok has always been very restrained.

Whether it's the use of funds, the introduction of traffic, or the statistics of daily active users, Lingang has neither acted recklessly nor blindly followed its competitors. It simply intends to use all its resources during the most special time of the year.

Since the beginning of January, apps like WiFi Master Key have become almost like a second TikTok, going all out to drive traffic to Silicon Carbon "Prince" (a popular Chinese tech app), which has led to a lot of negative reviews on various app stores.

At the same time, WiFi Master Key suspended its advertising deals with existing clients, offering to extend the contracts for another three months as compensation.

As a software that has almost grown alongside the mobile internet, it has consistently led in user growth during the "software matrix" era, placing it in the top tier of mobile internet apps in terms of this alone.

However, just like Xunlei, its tool-like nature, which is meant to connect to the internet, has kept it relatively unknown. In many internet-related discussions and reports, it is simply used as an example of the rapid development of mobile apps.

As of January 2015, WiFi Master Key had over 500 million users and over 200 million monthly active users, but the entire team actually consisted of fewer than 50 people.

This Spring Festival, the team of less than 50 people felt heartbroken watching their software being used in a short-sighted and exploitative manner.

Upon opening the app, a Douyin (TikTok) ad appears on the splash screen. Once inside the page, the majority of the screen is occupied by carefully selected 15-second short videos from Douyin, leaving only space for browsing the two Wi-Fi connection lists.

This isn't even a WiFi universal key anymore; it should be renamed TikTok universal key.

However, the complaints within the team could not shake the company's top strategy, and they didn't even reach Yu Xing.

Douyin has been working to ensure the stability and growth of its daily active users. The total number of users of the software was only 21.5 million on the last day of 2014, but by January 2015, in the first week, the number had increased to 30 million.

The Spring Festival, which runs from January 1st to 21st, lasts exactly three weeks. Both the total number of users and the daily active users increased every week.

Besides leveraging all online resources, including internal company traffic, offline push notifications and media coverage represent the limits of what Silicon Carbon Data can achieve.

On January 20, Yu Xing received a call from Xu Xin of Today Capital on the eve of the Lunar New Year.

“President Yu, I think Pinduoduo is worth a try.” Xu Xin got straight to the point, giving a judgment that was completely different from before.

“That’s great, Mr. Xu. We’re on the same side again.” Yu Xing was quite pleased. “This is definitely an extremely special Spring Festival for Capital Today.”

Xu Xin was somewhat surprised: "President Yu, why don't you ask me why I changed my mind?"

Yu Xing's voice deepened slightly: "Because this matter isn't that complicated, I believe President Xu will see it when he arrives."

Xu Xin was silent for a few seconds, then said self-deprecatingly, "It was my fault for being so blind before."

“That’s not what I meant, Mr. Xu. I think Alibaba’s situation is an objective reality, and the existence of the lower-tier market and the development of mobile internet are also objective realities,” Yu Xing said. “So, this matter is not complicated.”

Xu Xin sighed inexplicably, and then mentioned the spread of Douyin that she had recently observed in rural areas, describing it as "surging in like a tide."

"It's not that exaggerated. Maybe it's just more concentrated where you are," Yu Xing laughed. "The data from Douyin shows that Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu were consistently our top three provinces in terms of user numbers before New Year's Day. As the Spring Festival holiday begins, people returning home from these three provinces are like dandelion seeds, quickly illuminating the area where they go home."

He continued, "I heard from Lü Haiying that she looked at the national statistics and found that economically developed regions such as Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu are indeed the provinces with the most people from Henan working outside the province. Now that it's Chinese New Year, people going home naturally bring our software back with them, which may make you feel that it has suddenly become popular and widespread."

Xu Xin was stunned: "This is actually quite scientific..."

“It’s not science, it’s objective reality. These are just reflections of objective reality.” Yu Xing paused, then smiled and said, “Anyway, I wish Sister Xin a happy new year, and I am very grateful to Sister Xin for her support. Bi Sheng has already assembled a team, and we will start work after the new year.”

Xu Xin was not surprised by this. Ever since she learned that Yu Xing had communicated with Liu Chiping, she knew that the formation of Pinduoduo would definitely not be slow.

She also gave Yu Xing New Year's greetings, and then quickly asked a question that was probably of most concern to the competitors: "How many users does Douyin have now?"

“It’s over 5000 million,” Yu Xing replied, then added after a moment’s thought, “After the New Year, it might exceed 8000 million.”

Xu Xin had previously checked Kuaishou, where the cumulative number of registered users exceeded 1 million. Douyin is likely to approach that number in less than two quarters.

She ended the call, looked at the fireworks that kept blooming in the sky, and thought about the development of Douyin. She felt that it was not like a tide coming in, but like a tide crashing down.

Late at night, Xu Xin saw a post from President Yu on WeChat Moments, which announced that Douyin users were about to exceed 100 million, with most of the comments expressing shock and congratulations.

Xu Xin thought it over and over, and figured that occasionally boasting about Douyin might put more pressure on the opponent.

……

Weishi is giving away money, collecting blessings, driving traffic, and promoting celebrities to send New Year's greetings.

The same goes for LeEco.

Like most platforms, Douyin (TikTok) spends money on content, but there are still very few celebrity events during the Spring Festival. Instead, there is a greater variety of content sharing and tag challenges by ordinary users.

Customs, the Little New Year, family reunions, the journey home, New Year's Eve, going home for blind dates, and so on—a great deal of content can make users feel that Douyin is tied to the big IP of "Chinese New Year" with just a little guidance and promotion.

And there's also the interactive collaboration with CCTV's Spring Festival Gala, which still has the power to spread information.

As a competitor, Weishi was amazed by Douyin's performance during the Spring Festival. However, when they looked at their own product's content, they suddenly felt that it was monotonous and inferior. But what really shocked them was Yu Xing's "official announcement".

In ancient times, there were those who led 100,000 troops and claimed to have a million; nowadays, there are boasts about those who have just exceeded 50 million but are already approaching 100 million.

The problem is that Douyin has never really talked about data or boasted about it before...

Liu Chiping couldn't sleep well after learning the data on New Year's Eve. If Douyin really reaches 100 million users, how will Weishi compete with its 40 million users?
In particular, even with the same user base, their daily active users and content are far inferior to each other.

Liu Chiping was genuinely puzzled. They were both users, so why was the other party's daily active users so much higher?

On the evening of the first day of the Lunar New Year, he held a conference call to discuss competition while lagging behind.

However, they only chatted about this and that, and never came up with any systematic advice.

Everyone is really at their wits' end.

Traffic was provided, money was burned, talent was poached, celebrities were hired, and technology was upgraded, but Weishi still seemed half-dead. Many "money-sensitive" users would become inactive after receiving their money and would only become active again the next day when they could receive more money.

The pressure then came like a tidal wave.

As Liu Chiping considered the scale of Douyin and the possibility that Tencent might face another setback, he became increasingly anxious.

On the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, Tencent's core executives returned to Shenzhen early for a meeting to assess the development of Douyin.

This meeting became a turning point in Liu Chiping's career.

Or rather, the turning point began with COO Ren Yuxi's opposition at the last general office meeting, and this time it has truly come to a head.

Ren Yuxi not only questioned Liu Chiping's leadership of Weishi by citing the company's spending spree and subsequent underperformance, but also criticized Liu's suggestion to collaborate with Carbon Silicon Data, which Ren had brought back before the Lunar New Year. Has he gone mad? Absolutely insane!
Have they lost their minds and actually believed Yu Xing's claims about cooperation in the e-commerce field? Do they even have the ability to make correct judgments anymore?

From its competition with WeChat in the form of WeChat, to its failure to encircle and suppress Alibaba in the e-commerce sector, to the merger and revival of Weishi, and now the setback of the new Weishi in the short video field, it has suddenly partnered with a rival in the new e-commerce direction...

Despite some attempts to court Meituan, the overall situation for Tencent still appears lackluster.

Ren Yuxi bluntly listed ten sins committed by Liu Chiping during his tenure as president of Tencent, and directly stated that he was no longer suitable for the position.

Liu Chiping occasionally offered rebuttals, but remained surprisingly calm throughout.

Pony Ma remained silent most of the time, only expressing his opinion at crucial moments.

He said, "Penguins are indeed facing a very serious problem right now, and we are all to blame."

"Overall, I am satisfied with the first five years of my ten years as president of Tencent, but disappointed with the last five." After hearing the leader's statement, Liu Chiping said something that was almost like admitting defeat: "President Ren is right to criticize. Tencent's struggles in the past two years are obvious to all. I have to take responsibility for this situation."

He is the president, he has to take responsibility, and he had already made a solemn pledge when he was pushing for the revival of Weishi and securing internal resources.

Now that Douyin is about to reach 100 million users, Weishi is still struggling to survive. Shouldn't that pledge be put into effect?
"It's not about putting you in charge; it's about all of us discussing how to make Penguin more vibrant. Is our product no longer popular with young people? This is a very distressing issue." Pony Ma didn't want such a rapid change of leadership at this time.

Liu Chiping instead said, "It's not just a matter of responsibility. Pony, I do have my doubts. It's not good to do work with doubts, but I have two questions to address."

After a moment's hesitation, Pony Ma acquiesced to Liu Chiping's final speech as president.

Liu Chiping calmed himself down a bit and simply asked the first question: "Weishi's current approach won't work, so what should we do?"

There was a brief silence in the conference room.

Ren Yuxi broke the silence and put forward his idea: "Simply developing a standalone Weishi is not enough. We need to combine it with our existing advantages. Instead of just providing a short video function in Moments, we should directly integrate Weishi into it."

Previously, Weishi only allowed users to upload short videos of a few seconds to their Moments; it wasn't the full Weishi feature.

He thought Liu Chiping would object or press him when he made the suggestion, but to his surprise, the other party just nodded and didn't say anything more.

All the senior executives at Tencent in the conference room were focused on Liu Chiping's face.

After a moment of contemplation, Liu Chiping unexpectedly posed his last question to Pinduoduo, a company that seemed like a pipe dream: "When I visited Yu Xing in Lingang last time, we discussed Pinduoduo. Carbon Silicon Data and Tencent have a basis for cooperation. If this fails, it doesn't matter, but if it succeeds, it will inevitably harm Alibaba."

Ren Yuxi asked, puzzled, "Why do you believe that Pinduoduo, which started from scratch, can impact the core e-commerce business of Alibaba, the world's second-largest internet company? Don't you think that's ridiculous?"

Liu Chiping succinctly stated: "That's how I initially viewed Yu Xing's WeChat messages."

How could WeChat, which started from scratch in Lingang, impact the core communication business of a giant like Tencent?

At that moment, at this moment.

Ren Yuxi was suddenly speechless.

Liu Chiping looked around at his colleagues and gave a brief farewell: "Thank you all for your support of my work. I am very grateful to Tencent and honored to work with you all. It's just a pity that I couldn't do my job well."

Pony Ma then spoke up to advise Liu Chiping, saying that he was not asking Liu Chiping to take responsibility in his position as president.

Liu Chiping shook his head, his attitude resolute.

No decision was made at the meeting, but everyone knew that the position of CEO of Tencent was going to be changed.

When Liu Chiping arrived at the office, he saw that the sect leader had also come over quickly. The two had another exchange on official matters, but when his attitude remained firm, the topic shifted to internal stability and the honor of their work.

Having served as president for ten years, Liu Chiping is practically the second person at Tencent to achieve this. His departure would undoubtedly spark speculation and concern both inside and outside the company.

As is customary, Liu Chiping will receive an honorary title, and he will also receive support from Tencent Resources if he wants to start a new career.

However, he doesn't have many ideas about the future yet and plans to take a break.

That evening, after returning home, Liu Chiping subconsciously pondered the competition from Weishi, only to laugh self-deprecatingly when he realized what was happening.

After hesitating for a long time, he called Yu Xing in Lingang: "Mr. Yu, WeChat may not be able to support your Pinduoduo."

"Is that so? Are there many internal objections?" Yu Xing guessed, then changed his perspective after thinking for a while. "If they disagree, fine, but I hope Tencent won't disclose our plans for this project. If we can make it work, Tencent's Wechat can invest in it later, it's all the same."

"I'll try my best," Liu Chiping said, then asked, "Your Pinduoduo concept is based on communication tools. Without WeChat, how are you going to proceed?"

“If you’re not investing resources, you’re just doing a normal small startup project. You can start by cultivating it on WeChat. Why would a giant like you care about the emergence and development of a small project?” Yu Xing laughed. “Such a normally functioning thing, you won’t block it on WeChat either, right?”

Liu Chiping said with a touch of humor, "Not necessarily. Things in Lingang are not necessarily so. Mr. Yu, you should know that."

“This is not a company in Lingang; Lingang is just acting as a matchmaker,” Yu Xing emphasized. “If it succeeds, there will be no harm whatsoever.”

Seeing that the other person didn't speak, he pressed on, "Is there a lot of internal dissent within Tencent?"

Liu Chiping pondered for a moment and said, "It's a bit big, so it's hard to say."

Yu Xing laughed and said, "Look at you, the president of Tencent, do you even have any sense of right or wrong?"

Liu Chiping chuckled, unwilling to reveal his situation.

After chatting for a few minutes, Yu Xing suddenly asked, "Is it about time for you to lose your position as president?"

Liu Chiping was surprised, but his voice remained calm: "What are you saying? President Yu, how can you say such a thing?"

“Oh, before, you couldn’t wait to hang up the phone after we finished talking, but now you don’t have that energy anymore,” Yu Xing said honestly. “It’s quite strange.”

Liu Chiping was helpless, but he couldn't help but be surprised by Yu Xing's sharp insight at times.

He replied, "You really dare to dream. When I can't keep this up anymore, I'll tell you first, and I'll make sure you're happy."

Yu Xing laughed heartily, all his doubts vanished.

Liu Chiping ended the call, still hoping that Yu Xingshao would be happier.

(End of this chapter)