Rebirth 2004: A lone figure in the literary world

Chapter 411 Are you teaching us how to do things?
(There is a small modification at the end of the previous chapter)
"Actually, I'm not interested in money!" Zhang Chao said in front of the TV camera, which shocked the audience at the scene, the audience in front of the TV, and the host Xiao Sadulei opposite him.

This is in response to a question Xiao Sa asked earlier: "Among the guests on stage today, you are the youngest, but also the most well-known one. You can even say that you are the only guest with two completely different identities in the true sense.

And according to the Forbes ranking, you are the richest person under 30 in China! You have achieved great success in both art and business, and are an idol for many young people. Many people hope to learn some successful experiences from you.

What would you like to say to today’s young people?”

This was a question that Xiao Sa carefully chose to warm up the audience. He believed that Zhang Chao was the most suitable candidate in terms of age, influence and personality. He was very satisfied with the question he designed, thinking that it not only complimented Zhang Chao, but also that many people would definitely be interested in it.

But he didn't understand why Zhang Chao glanced at Jack Ma beside him before answering the question, and then turned to him and said "I'm not interested in money" in a pretentious manner, which was as cool as the top of Mount Everest.

Xiao Sa could only look at Zhang Chao with a helpless and speechless look, not knowing how to respond.

Zhang Chao didn't need a joke, and quickly continued: "Money is the foundation of material things and a symbol of success. But don't get it wrong -

It's not that money brings success, but success brings money.

If you only think about money when you do things, believe me, you will not succeed! You have to think about things that are more important than money, such as the trust of readers for me.

If readers are disappointed with me one day, money will naturally leave me. Since money is just a byproduct of my hard work, why should I be interested in it? "

Zhang Chao shut up at this point.

Xiao Sa finally reacted at this time and quickly took over the conversation, "What Zhang Chao said just now was very good! I believe it will be very inspiring to many young people who are confused. What we really need to focus on is..."

Before he finished speaking, Zhang Chao picked up the microphone again and said, "I'm sorry, I was just giving you some inspirational quotes that I don't even believe in."

Xiao Sa: “…” If it wasn’t for the fact that you’re more famous than me, richer than me, taller than me, and stronger than me, I would have beaten you to death!

Zhang Chao continued, "Saying that success can be copied and that money is not important are all chicken soup for the soul of success. When you hear me say 'I am not interested in money', do you find it a little harsh, a little funny, but also a little self-evident?

This is the benefit of being a 'successful person' in the eyes of the world. Because of the halo around you, no matter what you say, there will be people who will believe you and defend you, right?"

Xiao Sa smiled awkwardly and said, "Teacher Zhang Chao is really good at joking..."

Zhang Chao said seriously: "If I continue along the same line of thought, I would say that my happiest days were when I was in high school.

We didn’t have much money at that time. I played basketball with my classmates every day, squatted on the side of the court drinking soda, and watched pretty female classmates walk by with books in their arms. The days passed slowly, one by one - would more people believe this?

I guess someone will praise me for 'returning to basics', right? "

Xiao Sa: “…” Yes, yes, yes, you are right!

Zhang Chao ignored whether the CCTV host, who was known for his quick response, had followed his train of thought and continued, "All successful people's experience summary is 'survivor bias'. If you want to succeed through these 'hindsight' - well, unless you can live again."

Seeing that Zhang Chao was about to have fun, Xiao Sa was afraid that he would say something unpredictable, so he said quickly: "It may be too difficult to live again. Is there really no commonality in success?
If you say that, I'm afraid everyone will be disappointed."

Zhang Chao muttered inwardly: "This is the only truth I've said today..." He looked around the stage and said with a smile: "There are many 'successful people' of this era sitting around me now, but each of them is different -

Some studied liberal arts, some studied science; some graduated from prestigious universities, some did not go to university; some worked until 2 or 3 in the morning, some sang karaoke until 2 or 3 in the morning;

Some are eloquent, some are taciturn; some come from wealthy families, some are poor; some are extremely hardworking, some are extremely talented...

If we take them as samples, then we can extract only one common point: Chinese people. "

Zhang Chao's words caused a burst of laughter at the scene and in front of the TV. Zhang Chao in front of the camera continued: "So what I want to say to young people is -

Since you are Chinese, you have the possibility of success. Of course, this is also a mouthful of chicken soup, but believe it or not. "

Zhang Chao's words resonated with many people.

In this turbulent era, everyone seems to be able to see a glimmer of hope for changing their destiny in the dust raised by the speeding wheels of development, but how to change one's destiny is a difficult problem facing most people.

As a result, "success studies" became the darling of public opinion.

Countless "success gurus" have deceived many young people through their passionate performances and eloquent words. They have spent a lot of money, learned a bunch of useless clichés, and even become mentally unstable.

Zhang Chao's words were not like his novels, but very simple. The audience looked at the dozen or so single sofas lined up on the stage and found that it seemed to be true.

Just like those two horses, they really have nothing in common except that they are both humans or Chinese.

Although Zhang Chao is not a victim of "success studies", since he has been caught in the crossfire, he doesn't mind taking a hit, although he knows it is actually useless.

After all, "success studies" hit the weaknesses of human nature and have an irresistible appeal to most people.

After Zhang Chao finished speaking, he put down the microphone and began to focus on his nose. After all, there were more than a dozen people here, and it was not just a stage for him alone.

However, his performance was enough to attract people's attention. After all, everyone else present was a "senior". Whether in terms of business scale or personal wealth, Zhang Chao could not compare to them.

But Zhang Chao also has advantages that others cannot match - youth and influence on public opinion.

People always say “Don’t look down on young people because they are poor”, and what’s more, this young man is not poor?

Let’s not talk about other things. Just for the two platforms of Weibo and WeChat, I heard that whether it is acquisition or investment, the asking price is sky-high…

So after Zhang Chao finished speaking, everyone started to applaud and nodded.
Xiao Sa also quickly ended the warm-up and started discussing Internet topics. The theme was:

"The Internet makes the world a better place!"

When it comes to literature and human nature, the big guys may not be as good as Zhang Chao, but when it comes to the Internet, everyone is not sleepy, and each of them starts to explain from their own perspective:
“Our B2B platform has connected 4000 million companies around the world, allowing clothing factories in Zhejiang to communicate directly with retailers in New York, and coffee farmers in Africa to go directly to European consumers without going through middlemen.

The Internet breaks the "information island" of traditional trade and makes "small businesses" the protagonists of the "big world".

In the next decade, we will promote the digital revolution of cross-border payments and logistics, allowing data to flow freely like water. But the premise of all this is that governments must open up data barriers!" - from an Internet shopping leader who looks like an alien.

"The number of concurrent online users of our social software has exceeded 4000 million this year, but behind the numbers is the power of 'connection'.

A child from Sichuan met his pen pal XJ through QQ Space, a migrant worker used QQ video to see his children left behind in his hometown... Social platforms allow communication to transcend geographical gaps.

Of course, we must be vigilant against online violence and privacy leaks. Our responsibility is to protect the bottom line in openness and let technology warm people’s hearts.”

——From a leader of an Internet social platform with sharp eyes.

"With 1 million search queries hitting our site every day, the real challenge isn't how many questions to answer, but understanding what questions are worth answering.

We have just launched the 'Cancer Patient Bar' mutual aid community, using algorithms to connect scattered life stories. Technology is neutral, but engineers must have warmth. "

——From a leader of an Internet search engine who looks very elegant and easy-going.

“Our free antivirus software made us called ‘traitors’ by our peers, but users voted with their feet, and our installation volume exceeded 1 million in half a year.

Security is not a luxury, but a necessity. Today, 90% of Trojans are spread through web pages. Internet companies cannot prevent them on their own, but we are professionals.

I call on all Internet companies to invest 1% of their profits in security construction. It would be best to establish a cybersecurity alliance, and our company can contribute its technical strength! "

——From an Internet vulnerability exploit expert who loves to wear red clothes.

"If technology only stays in office buildings in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, and if online game companies only make money from teenagers' pocket money, the Internet has no right to talk about 'beauty'.

I believe that after making money, Internet companies should actively give back to traditional industries, especially the people’s livelihood industries!
In the future, we will invest 10% of the company's profits into traditional industries, and use Internet experience to transform traditional industries and improve their efficiency and production capacity."

——From an offline farming industry leader.

“Portals used to be beacons of information, but now everyone is a beacon – but a beacon has to have a light source, right?

During the Olympics, our official website received over 5 million visits! This is no accident - we built the world's first live broadcast system that supports tens of millions of concurrent broadcasts, and even NBC came to buy our technical solutions!"

——From a physics teacher.

……

For a moment, opinions and passions took off on the stage, and everyone was talking and arguing.

The audience in the stage are not all there to watch the fun. At least those sitting in the front row are basically in the same industry as those on stage, but their scale and influence are much smaller.

For example, Dongfangxing is one of them.

He sat at the edge of the second row. This corner was particularly dark and no one would notice the loneliness in his eyes.

Especially when seeing Zhang Chao, who seemed exceptionally silent on the stage at this moment, the situation became even more complicated and difficult to understand.

In just less than half an hour, he had imagined more than once that if he had been able to keep Zhang Chao at "Blog China", would there be an extra sofa on the stage today?
But there is no if.

Now, let alone his "Blog China", even the industry leader "Sina Blog" has fallen into a swamp of stagnation.

Users, especially young users, increasingly want to share their daily lives on Weibo rather than read long, boring articles on blog sites.

Zhang Chao’s updates on “Blog China” stopped forever at the end of 2005.

Dongfang Xing wanted to find Zhang Chao or Huang Jiefu to "discuss cooperation" more than once, but due to his self-esteem, he could never bring himself to do so.

As a result, the longer the delay, the slimmer the hope... Ultimately, "Blog China" went from being a market trendsetter to an outcast, in just three or four years.

"If you want to see Huang Jiefu now, you have to wait in line for half a month..."

Just as Dongfang Xing was daydreaming, the speeches of the people on the stage were almost over.

Xiao Sa recovered from the blow just now, and regained his signature smile. He threw the topic to Zhang Chao: "What is the most popular thing recently? It must be Mr. Zhang Chao's three novels.

I have read all three of these novels, which also imagine a lot of impacts of the Internet on future life, but it doesn't seem so 'good'...

Is it because you are a writer that you are more pessimistic about human nature? Can the Internet really make life better? "

Zhang Chao picked up the microphone and looked around him with a playful look, feeling a little unreal. These people were all so-called "big guys" who were unattainable in the original time and space in 2024, but now they were sitting on the stage with him on an equal footing. They listened carefully to what he said and even pretended to agree and support him.

But now is 2008. Not to mention others, even the two most famous horses on the stage are far from reaching the future heights.

Alibaba will hold its first "Double Eleven Shopping Carnival" this year. In the past two months, it has been inviting merchants to participate in the event and giving consumers bigger discounts - but almost no first-tier brands pay attention to them.

Penguin fell into a vicious circle of stagflation after the total number of registered users exceeded 8 million. It had a huge user base but lacked a clear profit prospect. Affected by the financial crisis, its stock price once fell to single digits.

Not to mention the others, those who run portal websites are basically at the end of their strength, and those who run blog platforms are also on the decline...Dadongzi's shopping website has not yet become popular and almost went bankrupt this year. Now he doesn't even have the chance to sit on the stage.

Zhang Chao thought to himself: "Maybe this is the era... It's a different time than it was then."

However, under the gaze of the crowd, he could not remain in a daze for too long, so he quickly picked up the microphone and said: "In fact, it is quite the opposite. I have more confidence than anyone here that the Internet can make life better.

But at the same time, I am a little bit lacking in confidence because of all of you here!"

This sentence made many people on the stage frown slightly, while the people below the stage shouted in their hearts: "You have guts!"

Before Zhang Chao could continue speaking, a "big boss" picked up the microphone and asked, "Are you teaching us how to do things now?"

(End of this chapter)