What's wrong with me being a rich man?

Chapter 550 Joining
Conflicts have always been a part of the competitive history of the internet, but it is quite rare for them to escalate to physical confrontations, especially between bosses.

Zhou Hongyi of 360 has made contributions in this field.

He and Lei Jun had a fight in Chaoyang Park. Lei Jun not only accepted the challenge, but also sent people to survey the site and plan an evacuation route. Earlier, he and Li Yanhong from Baidu had a lawsuit over a search dispute. After the trial, a fierce conflict broke out, and they were eventually pulled apart by the crowd.

The conflict between Yu Xing and Pony... was unexpected, yet perfectly logical.

Whether it's Baidu Baixiaosheng, Zhihu, or Weibo, they're all filled with jokes about rumors, and the general consensus is that Pony made his move several years too late...

It wouldn't be surprising if these two had fought a few years ago!
As for this trip to Lingang, it also indirectly reflects Pony's "feelings" for Martin Lau.

In the past, some executives from Tencent have jumped ship to competitors. Liu Chunming, who was in charge of Alibaba's Leyin last year, did just that. Pony Ma was furious about it and launched a non-compete lawsuit. As a result, Tencent discovered problems with him during his tenure after an internal audit, and he is still under investigation.

If Liu Chunming is like this, what about Liu Chiping, who served as president for eight years?

However, last time it was fury, but this time the reaction is... much stranger.

According to casual conversations among Tencent employees on Baixiaosheng, the internal reaction to President Liu's move to Lingang was mixed, with feelings of sadness, anger, and disbelief. There has been no word yet on any non-compete lawsuits being filed, and the General Office has remained silent on the matter.

However, there are also internal rumors that during a general meeting, senior executives slammed their fists on the table and had a heated argument over this matter, and there seems to be a great deal of disagreement about how to handle it.

Penguin remained silent, and Lingang naturally remained even more silent.

However, their peers, always eager for a good show, were subtly stirring things up.

When Sohu's Zhang Chaoyang was interviewed and asked about this, he commented without hesitation: "In the past, everyone said that Sohu was the Whampoa Military Academy of the Internet industry. Now, not counting anything else, just Liu Chiping alone, the title of Whampoa Military Academy can be given to Tencent."

Zhou Hongyi from 360 posted a status update on WeChat Moments: "If I had known, I would have gone to Lingang to work. What a pity."

Alibaba's Ma Chuan didn't talk about it publicly, but he found it interesting when the company mentioned it in a meeting. He said that the Pony Ma he knew had always been a very refined person, but this time he was forced into this situation.

He said with a hint of reverie, "I wonder which of the two held back back then."

Joseph Tsai laughed and said, "Nobody went easy on anyone. I heard they fought for an hour."

Ma Chuan shook his head repeatedly: "This is pure exaggeration. If it took an hour, he would be hospitalized now. I estimate it would only take ten minutes. Pony was prepared, otherwise he wouldn't have brought several carloads of people."

He adopted a relatively restrained version of the events.

Joseph Tsai couldn't help but laugh, and after laughing, he asked, "Do you think this penguin will file a lawsuit?"

“Yes, public matters are public matters, and private matters are private matters.” Ma Chuan gave a judgment, then shook his head with a rare hesitation, “Not necessarily, it’s hard to say, really hard to say, Liu Chiping is different.”

Liu Chiping is different, truly different.

Both Lingang and Tencent remained silent for several days after the incident.

When Xing Hongyu, the former head of Tencent's Weishi, flew back to Lingang from the United States, he saw his familiar old boss and couldn't help but feel aggrieved: "President Liu, why didn't they sue you? How come we're treated differently!"

Xing Hongyu also jumped ship from Tencent to Lingang. In order to avoid the non-compete agreement, he is still nominally employed by Silicon Carbon Group and serves as an advisor to Mus. Even so, he still suffered a non-compete lawsuit from his former employer.

Although it was frustrating, he was somewhat prepared and continued to respond to the lawsuit while also getting his work done.

but……

Should this kind of thing be treated differently?

Given the uproar caused by someone of Mr. Liu's stature, shouldn't we take immediate action?
Pony, what are you doing?

Xing Hongyu really had no choice but to feel wronged.

Liu Chiping was somewhat embarrassed and reassured her, "It's not time yet."

Xing Hongyu's second question made his former boss even more embarrassed: "President Liu, when the company sued me before, was it your decision that was made?"

Liu Chiping: "..."

To be honest, he was the president at the time, so the matter became more complicated.

Xing Hongyu and his former boss stared at each other, and seeing that the other was avoiding his gaze, he could only sigh: "Never mind, President Liu, you were my boss before, and you are still my boss now. I still respect you to some extent."

Liu Chiping asked with a hint of helplessness, "Why is it only half-served?"

“I used to be very convinced.” Xing Hongyu took the opportunity to vent his resentment, “but it’s a fact that Tencent’s short video business has failed miserably, and they’ve promoted Ren Yuxi to the top. I’m just an ordinary person, and I have some doubts.”

Before Liu Chiping could speak, the door to the president's office was pushed open, and the new boss had returned.

Yu Xing laughed and said, "I only heard two words. Does President Xing have any questions?" Xing Hongyu shrugged and said, "Now people say I'm a 'buy one get one free' deal. President Yu, I have a question about this."

The meeting between the former head of Weishi and the former president of Tencent in Lingang also attracted attention online, as the former had experienced some minor controversies at the time.

“Others may not know, but you do.” Yu Xing replied, quickly shifting to the key point, “MusVid’s company structure is different, even from domestic companies. The teams in Europe and the United States need to be separated, and the teams in different countries in Europe also need to be like this. In other words, different teams have a lot of autonomy.”

It's not that Xing Hongyu is useless now that Liu Chiping has arrived; on the contrary, he can get more support from his former boss, who was essentially parachuted in as the former president of Tencent.

It's not enough to just give someone a title without giving them the authority.

Promised power is nothing but an empty promise if it is not implemented at the grassroots level.

All three people in the office knew this, so Yu Xing's summoning of Xing Hongyu back this time was to give him genuine support.

Liu Chiping was somewhat surprised, as this setup was rather counterintuitive.

Yu Xing noticed Liu Chiping's expression and explained, "Mus's competitor is not Alibaba's overseas music platform. Music can only cause some minor troubles at most. The one we need to be most wary of is Facebook. Facebook has a stronger monopoly on traffic than Tencent. It is both the referee and the opponent overseas, which makes it very difficult to deal with. We cannot allow it to obtain more accurate data from Mus. Google also has a monopoly in this area, but Google is not as threatening as Facebook at this stage."

Liu Chiping pondered deeply, realizing that this involved overall strategic issues.

After a while, he suddenly said, "Among the funding Mus received was Breyer Capital, whose boss, Jim, is a board member of Facebook."

“Yes, we hope to effectively leverage such resources and relationships in the early stages.” Yu Xing talked about his experience, “How can small companies compete with giants? I have some experience over the years, and in summary, there are two main points.”

Liu Chiping's expression became even more focused, something that would be almost impossible to hear when he was an opponent.

Yu Xing continued, "One is presence, and the other is speed. Small companies should take full advantage of their speed when they have no presence to expand their scale. Large companies have long decision-making processes and many entangled interests. When they are not paying attention, you can take advantage of their speed to make a big difference."

Liu Chiping suddenly felt a pang of heartache again. So painful, so painful.

He paused for a moment, looking at overseas competition from Mus's perspective. Now one thing is very clear: Mus seems to have been considering the two global giants, Facebook and Google, from the very beginning of the project. His planning is undeniably far-sighted.

Those who are frequently harmed know that the timing of such content carrier changes is the most dangerous.

Liu Chiping nodded in agreement with President Yu's point of view, and then pondered before raising another question: "President Yu, I think Mus's financing is very restrained, and how come a portion of the funds comes from loans from overseas financial groups?"

He naturally didn't know that the so-called overseas consortium's funds came from Guoshanfeng, and he just felt that this was unusual.

Yu Xing calmly said, "My plan for MUS is to maintain its independent operation for a period of time, but ultimately it will return to carbon silicon data. I don't want its valuation to rise too fast. The money was raised with the support of friends. However, we still need to think about the timing. Now that you have turned over a new leaf from Tencent, it's definitely not going to happen anytime soon."

Hearing the assessment of "repentance," Liu Chiping smiled wryly and said, "President Yu..."

“I understand, I understand, I loved you, I loved you.” Yu Xing laughed. “I won’t comment anymore, let’s talk business. If you want to communicate with Tencent, go ahead, don’t worry about me. Anyway, there’s no business competition between Mus and Tencent. By the way, regarding the cooperation with Pinduoduo, if you have a channel to communicate, I still hope you can talk to Pony directly. Pinduoduo is developing very fast, which is because it has taken advantage of the two key advantages of presence and speed.”

Upon hearing this, Xing Hongyu couldn't help but say, "President Yu, you've already hit someone, how could President Ma possibly still want to talk to you?"

Yu Xing was taken aback: "Rumors? Who told you this? We didn't do anything."

Xing Hongyu, who was in the United States, had heard many versions of the story, but he felt that no matter what Mr. Ma did, the large population of Lingang would definitely not be at a disadvantage, so he adopted his own version.

He nodded, deciding to take the limited courtesy of both his former and current bosses for granted.

Yu Xing chatted with these two former Tencent employees for a while before heading to the meeting room when the time for the Carbon Silicon Data meeting was almost up.

Although Liu Chiping had been in Lingang for several days, this was the first time he was formally introduced and joined.

only……

Many people were secretly observing Liu Chiping, their old rival, creating a rather strange atmosphere.

Yu Xing could only introduce and appoint, but could not solve all of Liu Chiping's problems.

Liu Chiping naturally sensed the awkwardness in the meeting room. After his boss finished speaking, he calmly said, "The experience of failure is always very valuable. I came here with the experience you gave me, hoping to use it to make Lingang's success even more dazzling."

"I am probably more confident than anyone here, because your opponents know you better than you do."

"Past failures were painful, and I hope to share that pain with more of my colleagues."

"Defeating Tencent is just a thing of the past for Lingang; defeating more giants is what Lingang needs to accomplish in the future."

　It's not finished yet; there will be another chapter tomorrow at noon.

　
(End of this chapter)