Since we are both reborn, of course I would choose the rich woman!

Chapter 315: Trouble Brewing! (6k views, please subscribe)

President Liu was expecting President Teng's insightful remarks, but to his surprise, President Teng simply said, "He trusts President Lü's judgment."

Is Mr. Lü some kind of deity?

Even with Buffett, I've never seen you speak so highly of him.

Is he some kind of investment god? When it comes to successful investments, both Tencent and Alibaba are quite good, generally guaranteeing around 80% profitability, with some investments yielding even more outrageous returns.

I've been at Tencent for so long and achieved so much, even successfully helping Tencent transform from a group that everyone hated to one that no one hates now. Why don't you, Mr. Teng, have this much faith in me?

President Liu was filled with countless thoughts, and these thoughts were about to burst forth from his throat when he stopped himself at the last second.

After a moment of silence, President Liu said, "As the group's chief strategic investment officer and president, I can tell you clearly that the company is currently unable to support you in operating in so many areas simultaneously."

He had already put it very tactfully.

President Liu hopes that President Teng can retract his decision.

Although Tencent has tens of billions of yuan in cash in its accounts, not all of this money belongs to Tencent CEO Teng. It also belongs to Tencent's shareholders. To invest so much money, there are procedures to follow.

Now President Liu is sitting here discussing with President Teng, but if President Liu can't persuade him, then the only option is to vote at the shareholders' meeting.

When President Liu was at Goldman Sachs, he was the one who handled Tencent's IPO.

Later, he was hired by Tencent with a high salary. At the same time, he was also a vanguard that Goldman Sachs intended to place in Tencent. With such a complicated background, even though President Liu himself only holds less than one percent of Tencent's shares, his influence is still very significant.

If things really escalate to the point of a shareholders' meeting vote, the impact on the outside world will be even greater.

So although President Liu's words were tactful, the attitude he expressed was exceptionally firm.

This made even the usually composed CEO Teng unconsciously purse his lips. Although his expression remained unchanged, the look in his eyes behind his glasses was like the rapidly shifting moon, alternating between waxing and waning.

This is a complex look in the eyes that even the most skilled actors could not portray.

Just like the change in the eyes of the Imperial Dragon after hearing the score was 4-0.

This change made President Liu very uneasy. President Teng's expression seemed to be hesitating between restraint and anger, or as if he was making some other decision.

Penguin's equity structure is variable and complex.

Overall, however, Tencent is still controlled by Tencent CEO Teng and the South African media group behind him. The South African media group has close ties with a major domestic company. So, if there is a standoff at the shareholders' meeting, Tencent CEO Teng will win in the end.

However, after this battle, President Liu will probably have to gradually withdraw from the core stage of Tencent. Even if Tencent still hopes that he will stay at Tencent, his work at Tencent will definitely not be as open as before.

Just like when he shouted "Don't resist" at the annual meeting back then.

Just four words, yet they can instantly dismantle the power of the Penguin veterans.

So, is the power of the phrase "Do not resist" so great because President Liu's words are law? Or does it possess some mysterious power?
neither.

Simply because behind him, CEO Teng supported him in uttering those four words.

Most problems in this world don't need to be answered with words, because attitude itself is the answer.

When President Teng used the power of the shareholders' meeting to reject President Liu's proposal, it meant that President Liu could no longer get President Teng's full support. As a result, the various parties within the group who had been suppressed for a long time would desperately try to remove President Liu and move him out.

Therefore, the unpredictable situation of President Teng at this moment has brought tremendous pressure to President Liu.

But President Liu did not budge.

This was originally a negotiation, and he was indeed gambling, betting that Teng still needed him, so he believed he could win this gamble.

There was a silence between the two sides for almost twenty seconds before Teng finally smiled again and said, "Old Liu, I have a compromise. The investment budget for the second half of the year will definitely include yours, but what I need to do can continue. I plan to cut some of the unprofitable or loss-making zombie departments under the group."

President Liu was taken aback for a moment, and then he heard President Teng continue, "I know you previously suggested that I shut down projects and departments under the group that were not profitable or were losing money, but I did not agree before."

Mr. Teng sighed and remarked, "But now I understand. 'All' doesn't necessarily mean 'can.' After this period of research on Guang'an Online Games, I've realized that the future direction of internet product operation must be segmentation, high-quality products, and long-term sustainability. This strategy is especially correct for large internet companies like ours."

“Cut off these departments and projects, and use the savings and future budgets to focus on areas similar to the investment directions of ByteDance and Mr. Lü.”

After finishing his sentence, President Teng asked in a consultative manner, "Old Liu, do you think this will work?"

This is the safest and most moderate solution that Teng could think of, but it's tough on the grassroots employees in those departments and projects... Originally, these idle positions were one of the foundations of Tencent's existence, but now, for the sake of future development, Tencent has to make some sacrifices.

However, most people in these departments and projects will not lose their jobs; at most, they will be reassigned. Only those who have not made any real contribution to the group will face unemployment.

This not only solves the budget problem, but also the shortage of manpower for new projects. However, it will still take a lot of time to reintegrate these manpower into a fighting force.

President Liu was persuaded.

He really didn't want to argue with President Teng at the shareholders' meeting unless absolutely necessary.

After both parties reached an agreement, President Liu and President Teng had tea for a while and chatted briefly before President Liu left President Teng's office.

President Teng stood up to see him off, and after seeing President Liu to the door and closing the door, President Teng faced the closed door again and couldn't help but start to adjust his breathing.

Everyone has a temper; the difference lies only in how long and to what extent one can endure it. After seeing President Liu off, in his office where he was all alone, President Teng finally stopped restraining himself and began to vent his anger through facial expressions, breathing, and even certain physical gestures.

Otherwise, if you keep your feelings of depression bottled up for too long, it will cause varying degrees of harm to both your physical and mental health.

After venting his frustrations, Teng realized that it was time for Tencent to make changes again, and at the very least, President Liu's authority should be revoked.

Although this is similar to the outcome of open conflict at a shareholders' meeting, the difference lies in the "timing".

Therefore, it was right for President Liu to come to President Teng privately to discuss things in advance, and it was right for President Teng to make compromises and concessions. Doing so gave both sides enough time to prepare for subsequent changes, and even if it ultimately failed, it allowed both sides to have a dignified exit.

……

More than a dozen products from Tencent have been quietly removed from all online platforms, and nearly thirty games have announced their impending closure. Several of these games have issued announcements in the past few days, and announcements for other games that are about to cease operations are also on the way.

Because the products and games that were previously removed from the platform were those with few players and poor profitability, even if some users of the products or players in the games spoke out online, the impact was not significant.

It wasn't until mid-July, when the announcement of the cessation of QQ Tang's operations was released, that a considerable wave of public opinion finally broke out online.

The idea for QQ Tang originated from the Bomberman gameplay. It is a casual game launched by Tencent at the end of 2004 and has been in operation for 12 years.

Back when the gaming industry was still relatively underdeveloped in China and people didn't have access to high-quality internet devices, games like QQ Tang, with its small size, refreshing gameplay, and cute art style, were loved by many players born in the 80s and 90s.

With the added benefit of Tencent's social system, QQ Tang was once a very popular game.

However, as electronic devices have become more powerful, the gameplay, graphics, and complexity of games have increased exponentially. Games like QQ Tang have gradually declined, with a sharp loss of players, and most of the once-popular servers have now become ghost servers.

However, this game is still a retirement game for many older people. In fact, because the game introduced a marriage system, many players actually got married in the game and have been happily married ever since.

So when the news of the game's impending shutdown was released, couples and other players started posting messages online, and some even used Douyin's built-in video editing function to upload these messages to Douyin.

The title is—

So Young

Once these videos were released, they attracted a lot of attention online. Many older people born in the 80s who had been through the ups and downs of life, who had fought in QQ Tang, or even had online romances or marriages there, all spoke out.

At this point, the social system that Penguin is so proud of has become a source of nostalgia for Penguin itself.

As players reminisce about these past events, they also begin to question why the game has to stop operating, and what will happen to the information left behind by those who spent money in the game.
QQ Tang's official account, or rather, the official account of Tencent's Interactive Entertainment Group, issued a very standard, very beautiful, and very useless announcement.

The announcement basically means:
"The game will cease operation because its profitability is mediocre."

"As for players' in-game purchases, the game's official team has already provided corresponding services, so they apologize but there's nothing they can do."

"As for the issue of game assets, Penguin's game terms have already clearly stated that players only have the right to use the account, and the virtual assets in the game still belong to Penguin."

However, to appease players, Tencent offered coupons and compensation packages for other Tencent games. Players could claim these in-game currency, skins, or discount cards in other currently operating games. This tactic of shifting blame before offering compensation quickly quelled the public outcry.

QQ Tang already had very few players and users.

The last major update to QQ Tang was in 2010. Since then, the game has been in a state of semi-dormant activity, so its shutdown was somewhat expected. Many long-time QQ Tang users have accepted the compensation offered by Tencent.

But the tree may wish to be still, but the wind will not cease.

Penguin wanted to gloss over the incident with minimal cost, but Lü Yao, who had been keeping a close eye on Penguin, wouldn't let them off easily.

So Lü Yao immediately summoned his senior executives, and even brought in Liang, the general manager of ByteDance, and Zhang Xiaonan into the online meeting. It was a small meeting room with few people, but all of them were very important managers around Lü Yao.

In addition to Lü Yao, the attendees at this meeting included Yao Qiguang, Feng Ji, Zhang Jingwen, Chen Li, General Manager Liang, Zhang Xiaonan, and Gan Xiaoxi.

The managers of Lü Yao's two major business operations are both here.

Once the meeting began, Lü Yao got straight to the point: "We're all familiar with each other, so let's skip the small talk and I won't beat around the bush. Mr. Gan, would you like to speak to him first?"

Gan Xiaoxi was also in an online meeting. After hearing what Lü Yao said, she said, "OK, I have some information that the president of Tencent met with Tencent CEO a while ago. The two sides had a conversation, and then a large number of Tencent's internet products and games were shut down."

As she spoke, Gan Xiaoxi opened a file on her computer and displayed the corresponding report.

Everyone present stared intently at the documents that Gan Xiaoxi had released. These documents revealed that, according to internal sources at Tencent, the company was about to shut down nearly thirty games, but only about ten had been officially announced so far.

This means that announcements of the cessation of operations for more than twenty other games will be released soon.

Many of these games were originally under the management of "Timi Studio" by Yao Qiguang.

So Lü Yao looked at Yao Qiguang and asked, "President Yao, many of these games are operated by Timi Studio, right? You used to be a senior manager at Timi Studio, what are your thoughts on that?"

Yao Qiguang had already obtained the information and prepared his answer, so he said almost without hesitation, "These games were indeed operated under Timi Studio before, but although they were under Timi Studio, they were actually small studios."

Tencent began laying off employees, reorganizing and restructuring its numerous game studios around 2012, eventually integrating them into the four major studios we have today.

Although they are called the four major studios, the actual model is still similar to before.

However, the four studios have slightly different roles and responsibilities, but they all share a common overall person in charge. This hierarchical management model allows responsibilities to be implemented more quickly and enables the company to operate more efficiently.

However, after the streamlining, many of the older games lacked the manpower to update activities and content.

Therefore, among the four major game studios under Tencent Interactive Entertainment Group, there are quite a few "zombie departments" that were left over from the previous reorganization of the game business.

These zombie units are only enough to keep the game running, and the resources they consume are actually very limited.

After analyzing the situation, Yao Qiguang said, "Each of these projects doesn't consume much energy, but with so many projects and games being cut at the same time... the amount of money and human resources saved is also very large."

That's almost fifty projects!

Moreover, it's a project from a major company like Tencent.

The human resource costs saved from this alone amount to a considerable sum.

After listening, Lü Yao said, "Yes, even if more than fifty projects are cut, the budget saved is not much. The more valuable part is the employees on the projects. But even so, our old rival Tencent still did it."

"What does this mean?"

Lu Yao slapped the table: "This shows that even penguins aren't rich."

He had no idea what exactly had happened on the penguin's side, but he was determined not to let the enemy get what they wanted, or at least not easily.

Lu Yao leaned forward slightly, exuding a strong sense of aggression: "My idea is this: First, Mr. Gan, you've worked so hard, could you help me select and recruit some employees from Tencent who are truly talented and have solid technical skills?"

When departments lay off employees, it's usually the techies who do the work but don't write reports and aren't good at socializing who are the ones who get fired.

Because the layoff list is usually drawn up by middle and senior management, these managers who don't usually do much work will definitely want to leave themselves a way out. After they take up some of the spots, naturally another group of people will lose their spots at Tencent.

This is inevitable.

So having Gan Xiaoxi search online will definitely be useful.

Lu Yao added, "We only need those who are willing to do the technical work; we don't need the low-level managers who just talk big."

In the Chinese workplace, it's normal for technical backbones who can't make PPTs or reports to not get promoted. But if you can talk a lot of nonsense and are still a junior manager in a zombie department, that's enough to show how incompetent you are.

Gan Xiaoxi nodded to the camera and said, "OK, leave it to me."

In formal settings, Gan Xiaoxi is very proper, and she is also truly reliable in her work.

Then Lü Yao looked at the online participants from ByteDance: "President Liang, President Zhang."

Mr. Liang nodded and said, "I'm here."

Lü Yao: "It's clear that Tencent is determined to restart its short video business. Gan has also received news that Tencent is looking for a new person to manage Weishi, which was previously shut down."

"Although this product is still Weishi, it is completely different from the previous Weishi. The previous Weishi was an 8-second short video focusing on sharing life, and its positioning was more similar to Weibo's Miaopai. However, due to the downgrading of the strategic position of Tencent Weibo, the strategic position of Weishi also declined, and it was eventually merged into Tencent Video last year. Two months ago, there were only a few technicians doing simple maintenance."

"But now, the information I have is that Tencent is gathering technical staff to rejoin the Weishi project team. They want to break down the underlying architecture, rebuild the ecosystem and gameplay positioning, and re-enter the short video track."

At this point, General Manager Liang finally couldn't help but speak up in the online video: "I've also heard about what they mean by breaking the underlying architecture. They're trying to figure things out by observing us, positioning their products as music short videos and lip-syncing recordings."

"Not only that!"

Mr. Liang frowned as he said this: "I also received news that this time, Tencent has handed over Weishi to the former Tencent Space team. At the same time, it will also connect with Tencent Music's library of tens of millions of songs. In fact, not only music, but all games, animations, movies, and variety shows in the Tencent ecosystem will provide content support for the new Weishi."

As Lü Yao and General Manager Liang dropped bombshells one after another, the atmosphere in the conference room became increasingly tense, and the pressure in the room almost materialized.

The pressure from Tencent is indeed suffocating, especially given Tencent's vast holdings of internet content copyrights.

Lu Yao broke the heavy atmosphere of the meeting at the right time and said with a smile: "Penguin's strength is indeed frightening, but we are not without a chance of winning. We have the algorithm that General Manager Zhang has trained, and we have a technical team that is even stronger than Penguin to support content updates. In addition, we have our own game ecosystem content supply. In fact, the gap between us and Penguin is not that big."

"As for the music library, we don't need to focus on domestic music content. More trendy pop songs from abroad are more suitable for our products. At the same time, we can also incubate amateur musicians."

After 2016, folk music flourished, and those sweet love songs or pop songs of the past will be submerged by folk music. They can focus on discovering folk singers who have potential but have not yet become popular.

At the same time, we will increase the content updates for the Douyin product.

Features such as video follow-up shooting, AI subtitle function, intelligent beauty and shaping function, and convenient video editing function should be developed as early as possible to lower the threshold for creators as much as possible.

These are all positive approaches.

But direct confrontation has never been Lü Yao's style.

So after he finished speaking, he laughed and said, "Everyone knows me, so when it comes to direct combat, I can only talk my way out of things and offer some ideas. This time, the penguins are coming on strong, so my idea is much simpler: let's make things difficult for the penguins first."

Everyone couldn't help but smile when this was mentioned; that's definitely Mr. Lü's style.

Mr. Liang chuckled and asked, "So, what does Mr. Lü plan to do?"

Lu Yao displayed a picture on the projector, simultaneously showing it on the video screens of General Manager Liang and Zhang Xiaonan: "Tencent's announcement states that virtual assets in games are essentially the user's right to use, not the right to own. This means that players do not have ultimate ownership of their accounts, in-game equipment, items, or even the game's visuals."

“Is that right?”

Mr. Liang immediately understood and smiled, "Of course that's not right."

Lu Yao chuckled and said, "While many players in the currently closed game are disgusted by Tencent's actions, even more players are unaware of this news. Therefore, I need Mr. Liang and Mr. Zhang to help me break through this information cocoon."

The words sound grand and dignified, but in reality, they can be summed up in just two words—

"Let's cause trouble!"

(End of this chapter)