Restart life

Chapter 386 0376 [The Economic Crisis Was a Period of Advancement for My Career]

"Hello, Mr. Xu."

"Hello, Mr. Chen."

Xu Shiwei was easily recruited, or rather... he had been thinking about leaving Kingsoft for a long time.

After Lei Jun resigned, Kingsoft's profitability actually improved, with revenue increasing by nearly 50% year-on-year in the first half of this year. The main revenue comes from Kingsoft Antivirus and JX Online 3.

However, the personnel changes were very drastic, with many employees choosing to resign or change jobs!
Take Xu Shiwei for example. As early as 2007, he promoted the establishment of Kingsoft Cloud Storage Lab. At that time, he had the support of Lei Jun, but after Lei Jun left the company, Kingsoft Cloud Storage Lab was immediately shut down.

This made Xu Shiwei extremely, extremely, extremely dissatisfied!
Strictly speaking, Xu Shiwei was the first person in China to conduct cloud technology research and development.

Upon hearing that Youke was going to invest in a cloud computing center, Xu Shiwei was extremely interested and immediately switched jobs once the offer was right.

What kind of treatment?
Extremely high annual salary, company stock options.

However, he probably won't get the stock options, because this guy will definitely switch jobs in the future.

In the original timeline, he was in charge of cloud technology research and development at Shanda Innovation Institute. After two years, feeling that the commercial environment for cloud technology was mature, he resigned to start his own cloud service business. In order to leave Shanda smoothly, he gave up all his rights, including stock options, just to terminate his non-compete agreement with Shanda.

Moreover, when he started his business, many of his former subordinates from Kingsoft and Shanda chose to resign and follow him.

After exchanging a few pleasantries with Chen Guiliang, Xu Shiwei began to talk at length about the future of cloud computing, and then said, "The Kingsoft Cloud Storage Lab that I set up last year was shut down in less than six months. Several lab members were very unwilling to accept this, and they still wanted to continue developing cloud technology. If these people were to leave, would Mr. Chen be willing to take them in?"

"Of course we'd love to! We'd love to welcome you with open arms!" Chen Guiliang was pleasantly surprised.

This is Xu Shiwei's old team. If he resigns from Youke in the future, he will most likely take them with him. We'll see how they negotiate a solution.

"Boom boom boom!"

"Please come in."

A man in his thirties pushed open the door and entered.

Chen Guiliang introduced, "This colleague is Zhou Ruiping, a graduate of Peking University with a master's degree in computer science. He will be the chief person in charge of the Rongcheng Cloud Computing Center project. Old Zhou, this is Mr. Xu Shiwei. He started researching cloud technology last year and will be your partner as the technical lead."

Zhou Ruiping smiled and shook hands: "I know you, Mr. Xu, the chief architect of WPS and the founder of Kingsoft Labs. Hello, Mr. Xu, I've heard so much about you!"

"Likewise." Xu Shiwei had never actually heard of Zhou Ruiping.

Zhou Ruiping worked at Microsoft Research Asia for two years, and then worked at Lenovo, where he transitioned from a technical role to an administrative role before joining Game Science two years ago.

Chen Guiliang then called Dong Qianqiu over, and the four of them discussed the more specific project plan in detail.

……

We just poached a chief architect from Kingsoft, and now we have a CEO who has come from Kuxun.

"Welcome to ByteDance, Senior Brother Chen!" Chen Guiliang stood up from a distance to shake hands.

Chen Hua awkwardly joked, "I'm like a stray dog ​​now, only able to come to Mr. Chen's company to make a living."

Kuxun, founded by Chen Hua, is located downstairs from Youke Building. Chen Guiliang had already gone to dig it up half a year ago.

At that time, Chen Hua was already interested, but he still had illusions about his company.

After all, he is the founder and CEO, which might convince investors.

However, venture capital firms aren't driven by ideals; they initially invested to make money. Now, with the economy in a slump, they're desperate to make quick profits.

Especially after the economic crisis broke out, several major venture capital firms held a shareholders' meeting to force Kuxun to turn into a project that makes quick money, and also to increase a lot of advertising content.

Chen Hua gave up too many shares during the AB rounds of financing, and simply couldn't compete with those venture capital shareholders.

Therefore, he, the founder and CEO, resigned.

The co-founder of Kuxun also resigned along with him.

This year, many CEOs have resigned in China. Shanda, Kongzhong, TOM Online, Juyou.com, Yiqi.com... almost every month, a well-known CEO leaves.

The Chinese internet is entering a turbulent period.

However, the two industries Chen Guiliang ventured into—online games and SNS websites—were both entering a period of explosive growth.

This year has seen an explosive growth in the development of social networking sites.

The four giants—Hainei.com, Xiaonei.com, 51.com, and QQ Zone—are all experiencing a surge in registered users. Websites like Sina Space, Yahoo! Relationships, and Sohu Baishehui are also entering the fray, along with the struggling Baidu Space, and a whole host of other sites such as Love Apartment, Ruolin.com, and Zhiji.com.

This situation arises mainly because traditional online communities have reached a bottleneck, prompting internet giants to turn to vertical fields for breakthroughs.

Furthermore, the success of Facebook in the United States and Haiwainet in China has transformed social networking sites, which were met with indifference last year, into hot investment destinations this year.

After opening up its APIs, encouraging third-party application development, and improving its targeted advertising system, ByteDance achieved a slight profit in the second quarter of this year, and its profit exceeded 1000 million yuan in the third quarter. This change has been noticed by major companies and venture capitalists.

Last year, even dogs wouldn't invest in social networking sites, but this year, venture capitalists are pouring money into them despite the pressure of the economic crisis.

Chen Guiliang had been trying to poach Chen Hua in order to upgrade ByteDance's in-site search and targeted advertising system. That guy's technical skills are phenomenal.

If Youke's cloud technology achieves a breakthrough, it will greatly enhance ByteDance's ability to accurately target advertising—of course, ByteDance will have to pay to enjoy Youke's cloud services.

……

However, the news of Chen Hua's departure somehow leaked out, leaving the KuXun employees completely bewildered.

The company's two founders resigned together, what the hell is going on?
Seeing the company's morale wavering, Chen Hua convened an all-staff meeting: "I won't be leaving for now; I'll wait for the shareholders to send a new CEO to take over. Thank you all for your support and companionship over the past two years. I'm sorry for breaking my promise to become 'the next Baidu.' I've deserted; I'm leaving. But the company won't be dissolved; it will continue to operate..."

Zhang Yiming, who had been poached by Wang Xin for several months, still felt that Wang Xin was a bit unreliable, so he chose to stay at Kuxun while looking for a better opportunity.

After the employee meeting, Zhang Yiming privately approached Chen Hua and asked, "President Chen, are you planning to go to ByteDance?"

Chen Hua nodded and said, "Yes, they're offering me a high salary."

Zhang Yiming asked, "Are they still short-staffed?"

"You want to go too?" Chen Hua asked with a smile.

Zhang Yiming said, "Several of us long-time employees wanted to go. A new emperor brings a new court; if you two leave, what are we still here for?"

Zhang Yiming always felt a sense of familiarity with the name ByteDance, as if it were a natural connection between him and the company.

Chen Hua said, "ByteDance recruits every year, you can give it a try. But it's best to hold out for now and wait for the new CEO to arrive, otherwise it will look bad. I'll quietly inquire for you."

Most of the original founding members of ByteDance were working at Kuxun at the time, and now half of them wanted to join Chen Guiliang's team.

Of course, the main reason is that ByteDance has become more powerful, making it more attractive to these employees.

Whether or not it goes public is secondary; the current operating model of HaiNei.com is being studied by internet giants across the country. They're researching how Chen Guiliang made his SNS website profitable!
Chen Hua treated his long-time employees well. That evening, he called Chen Guiliang and praised these employees to the skies, asking if ByteDance had any suitable positions.

Chen Guiliang was unaware that about half of the original ByteDance startup team wanted to switch jobs, because he only knew Zhang Yiming.

“They can come,” Chen Guiliang said. “ByteDance’s WAP site is undergoing reforms and adjustments, and it just so happens that we need to recruit a group of experienced people. Whether it’s administrative positions, marketing positions, or technical positions, we need to recruit people next.”

“Okay, I’ll explain the situation to them,” Chen Hua said happily.

In fact, whether it's Chen Hua, Zhang Yiming, or Xu Shiwei who jumped from Jinshan, they are all exceptionally capable of causing trouble.

As long as the entrepreneurial environment improves in the future, these guys will inevitably switch jobs and run away again.

Startup failure, finding a job, gaining experience, quitting to start another business, failing again, finding another job... an endless cycle until the day the startup succeeds.

……

During the economic crisis, many internet companies laid off employees.

People were surprised to find that both of Chen Guiliang's companies were hiring. In fact, they had expanded their recruitment efforts.

Following that, news somehow spread that Xu Shiwei, the founder of Kingsoft Labs and chief architect of WPS, had joined Game Science.

Then it was revealed that Chen Hua, founder and CEO of Kuxun, had joined ByteDance.

Both of them are well-known figures in the internet industry, which immediately attracted the attention of industry insiders, and financial newspapers also reported on them with great seriousness.

A post on Tianya Forum also appeared: "Chen Shiyi will definitely become China's richest man within five years!"
The poster is probably a die-hard fan of Chen Guiliang, listing all of Chen Guiliang's impressive achievements. They also claim that while the world is currently experiencing an economic crisis, Chen Guiliang's two companies are precisely entering a period of industry boom, which is definitely not a coincidence, but rather stems from his astonishing predictive abilities.

"Haha, Chen's hype is at it again. ByteDance's stock price has plummeted, and its market value is less than one-tenth of Tencent's. You think he can become China's richest man within five years?"

"Please, OP, go look at the Forbes and Hurun rich lists. Half of the top ten richest people are in real estate. CEOs of internet companies can't even crack the top ten. Want to be the richest? Get into the top 50 first."

"I was so scared that I ran back to check this year's Hurun Rich List. Chen Guiliang was indeed on the list, ranking over 300th. He's still a little short of being the richest man in the world."

"Damn, don't you guys know how much money 'Future Era' makes? Hurun's statistics must be wrong. Game Science makes way more than that. This company is already the third largest in revenue in the online game market."

"Who has read Professor Lin's paper predicting the economic crisis? Chen Guiliang was the second author, and it was specifically noted that he provided inspiration and direction. People can even predict economic crises."

"..."

Supporters and opponents argued endlessly.

Amidst this debate, the consensus gradually shifted to "Chen Guiliang is awesome".

The crux of their debate lies in whether Chen Guiliang can become China's richest man within five years, with many opponents saying that Chen Guiliang won't even make it into the top ten.

(End of this chapter)