Film and Television World Life Record

"Brother Li Mu, I'm scared, can you help me?"

Li Mu sighed, pinched her tender cheek, and looked at her so obedient, it was truly rare to see her like this.

Clearly, the changes in her family had shattered much of her pride and confidence. From then on, Qu Xiaoxiao was no longer a rich second-generation, and was no different from Yingying and Fan Shengmei, or even worse. The group of them started a business together, and now it's thriving, far better off than the penniless Qu Xiaoxiao.

"Alright, why are you making yourself sound so pitiful! With me here, I won't let you end up on the streets."

As she spoke, she reached for her phone, opened it, and showed it to Qu Xiaoxiao.

"This is..." Qu Xiaoxiao had some guesses and some doubts.

Li Mu said, "The auction contract for 2203. Wasn't your house auctioned by the court? I found someone to buy it."

"You can still live in this house from now on, for as long as you want. Don't worry, we won't charge you rent."

A flash of joy crossed Qu Xiaoxiao's eyes. Excitedly, she wrapped her arms around Li Mu's neck and gave him a sweet kiss.

After cuddling for a while, Li Mu looked at Qu Xiaoxiao, whose mood had clearly improved, and asked, "Now that you have a place to stay, what are your plans? Are you going to find a stable job, or go out and try your luck on your own?"

Qu Xiaoxiao hesitated for a moment, then hugged Li Mu's arm, putting on a very weak and vulnerable appearance.

“Brother Li Mu, I don’t know, but I’ll listen to you. Whatever you tell me to do, I’ll do it. I promise I’ll be obedient.”

With a "smack," Li Mu slapped her pert buttocks.

"speak nicely."

Qu Xiaoxiao looked obedient and earnest: "Brother, what I said is true. I will listen to you from now on. I will do whatever you ask me to do."

"How about you find me a job, brother?"

Li Mu chuckled: "You little devil!"

"With your personality, you definitely couldn't stand being an ordinary office worker, but there's a place that would be perfect for you."

Qu Xiaoxiao asked curiously, "Where?"

Li Mu asked, "Do you know what those people in room 2202 are doing?"

Qu Xiaoxiao's eyes lit up: "Aren't they starting a business together? It was you, Brother Li Mu, who provided them with the direction, resources, and funding."

"Brother, do you want me to work for them?"

Li Mu shook his head and said, "It's not about going to work. It's about being a partner and starting a business with them to make that company successful."

"Xiaoxiao, although your foundation is not strong, you have been a CEO before, so I know your abilities and skills, and you have a good vision. I believe that your joining us will be a great help to the company's development."

"So, how about joining them?"

Qu Xiaoxiao's eyes shone brightly, as if sparks were flashing within them. In the past, with such a large family fortune waiting for her to inherit, she might not have cared about such an opportunity.

Now, the Qu family has fallen, and she has nothing left, having essentially fallen to the bottom of society. Without opportunity or the help of benefactors, her life will likely remain the same. She will spend her life as a slave to her mortgage, working like a slave to others like an ordinary person.

Now, with such a bright opportunity right in front of her, this is her hope of escaping the bottom of society and standing up again, and she must seize it no matter what.

"Brother, I'm willing..." she said, as if she still couldn't express her feelings at the moment, and her body coiled around him like a snake.

She hadn't studied a foreign language with her brother for a long time and wanted to brush up on it.

……

The next day, Qu Xiaoxiao and her mother officially moved back to 2203, which would become their new home.

The girls on the 22nd floor also heard about the Qu family's situation and were very friendly to them.

After all, Mrs. Qu had been through a lot and had experienced hardship in her youth. She adapted quickly and got along well with her neighbors on the 22nd floor.

Only Qu Xiaoxiao felt a strange, slightly uncomfortable feeling when faced with the sympathetic looks from her girlfriends. She, Qu Xiaoxiao, actually had a day when she was pitied.

However, she no longer had the resources or confidence to stir up trouble everywhere, so she could only calm down and quietly adjust herself, and slowly adapt.

A few days later, at Li Mu's suggestion, Qu Xiaoxiao officially joined 2202 Network Media Company as a founding team member, and served as the company's vice president and marketing director.

Qu Xiaoxiao is indeed quite capable, after all, she was a CEO for a long time and managed the company very well. Her joining brought new vitality to the newly established startup and made up for some of the shortcomings of the other members.

The girls quickly became close friends and worked together to build their careers.

For a moment, Andy was all alone on the 22nd floor, which made her feel very uncomfortable.

She couldn't possibly abandon Origin Technology to start a business with a few girlfriends; the market size was too small and couldn't support her ambitions.

Finally, on Li Mu's advice, I invested some money and became a shareholder of 202 Network Media Company. I would advise the company from behind the scenes and guide its development, which could be considered as starting a business with my girlfriends in a sense.

In a short time, the five beauties from Ode to Joy gathered at this small startup company.

Therefore, the name "2202 Network Media" is no longer suitable. After discussion, the company has a new name: "Happy Five Sisters Network Media Company".

With Andy's strategic planning and the concerted efforts of all the girlfriends, the company developed rapidly, quickly stood out, and attracted a lot of attention.

Chapter 173 Financing and Algorithm Optimization

In early December 2016, under Andy's leadership, Origin Technology's Series A financing was officially completed, with a post-financing valuation of up to $80 billion.

In this round of financing, Origin Technology contributed 15% of its equity, raising $12 billion. A total of seven large investment funds, including Sequoia Capital, CEFC China Energy, CICC, Temasek, and Shengxuan, participated in the financing.

With a valuation of $80 billion and $12 billion in funding, Origin Technology began to gain fame in China and became a well-known unicorn company.

After the Series A funding round concluded, in addition to the 15% equity raised through the additional financing, Li Mu allocated another 10% of the equity to establish an employee stock ownership platform, which serves as the option pool for Origin Technology, aiming to attract and retain more talent.

Thus, the equity structure of Origin Technology is as follows:

Li Mu holds 75% of the shares, making him the undisputed largest shareholder; the employee shareholding platform holds 10%; and seven investment institutions hold 15%.

The valuation of Origin Technology, which was founded just over a year ago, has reached a staggering eight billion US dollars, astonishing and sparking much discussion.

But this is just the beginning. With the country's vigorous promotion of speed-up and fee reduction, data traffic is becoming increasingly cheaper, and short video platforms will experience explosive growth.

With $12 billion in revenue, Origin Technology's cash flow is once again abundant. With ample ammunition, a new round of cash-burning plans has been launched.

……

Several months have passed in the blink of an eye, and it's now 2017. With ample cash reserves, Origin Technology has experienced rapid growth during this period.

Its two apps, Toutiao and Douyin, have a combined user base of 4.5 million and 1.8 million respectively, making them the largest comprehensive media platform and short video platform in China.

During this period, Happy Five Sisters Network Media Company also developed rapidly, launching its Series A financing round, with Li Mu and Andy jointly investing 50 million yuan, valuing the company at 200 million yuan post-investment.

In an instant, Fan Shengmei, Qiu Yingying, and Guan Juer became wealthy young women with assets worth tens of millions.

Qu Xiaoxiao was especially happy. After the Qu family's downfall, she had risen again through hard work and opportunity. Perhaps she could start from scratch like her father in the future.

……

As Douyin's user base officially surpassed 200 million, some problems began to emerge. Based on his experience in the real world, Li Mu began to further optimize Douyin's algorithm.

The current algorithm mechanism of Douyin can be summarized in one sentence: "While you are browsing Douyin, Douyin is also staring at you."

By analyzing users' browsing history and preferences, Douyin creates user profiles and then uses a comprehensive mechanism to push content that users love, making them addicted. Douyin's algorithm is actually a complex "For You" algorithm system, with different focuses and distinctions for different user groups.

For example, for video publishers, once a video is successfully published, this algorithm system will first automatically allocate an initial 0-1K views. The satisfaction level of these users after watching the video, based on metrics such as "comprehensive clicks, completion rate, likes, and comments," will determine whether the work can enter the next level of traffic pool to gain more traffic.

If the user is satisfied, then a second wave of traffic (1K to 5K views) will be provided, followed by a third wave of traffic (1 to 10 views), and so on.

The videos released in this way are the high-quality videos that users truly enjoy. Under this algorithm mechanism, on the one hand, it will encourage video creators to continuously create better videos, and on the other hand, high-quality videos can attract more and more users and traffic.

Currently, Origin Technology has different traffic pools for accounts with different weights. The main evaluation criteria are: number of likes, number of comments, number of reposts, and completion rate.

Views > Likes > Comments > Shares

At the user level, the design of this mechanism is much more complex. Based on each user's different preferences, the system can rank videos and recommend content using multiple factors.

In fact, from the moment you register an account, your series of user behaviors have been continuously feeding data into the "For You" algorithm.

These user behaviors basically cover various aspects: such as account settings and device model, region settings, device model, etc.

The user's selected interests during registration: news, travel, entertainment, etc.; user usage scenarios: the user's geographical location, the scenario in which the video is viewed, etc.; published video information: hashtags, video content, etc.; various user interaction information, such as clicks, likes, favorites, comments, and reposts.

Finally, after comprehensive consideration and continuous revision, the software creates an increasingly accurate self-portrait for the user; sometimes, the software understands you better than you understand yourself.

Although the mechanism itself looks complicated, the entire recommendation process is completed quietly in the background.

Users don't need to do anything; they just need to open a video or give a few likes, and Douyin's backend can gradually determine their preferences. Moreover, the algorithm's recommendations are tracked and updated in real time. The more browsing history you have, the better the software understands you.

However, while this algorithm appears advanced and is indeed very advanced, even among the world's best, it still has quite a few problems.

Based on his experience in the real world, Li Mu detected some early signs.

For example, it's not obvious now, but in two years more people will find that the algorithm mechanism of recommending based on user preferences will create huge information cocoons, segmenting different types of users and immersing them in their own small circles, preventing them from accessing more external information.

Since Douyin's user base surpassed 200 million, the information cocoon effect has begun to emerge. Currently, not many people are paying attention to this issue, but if no changes are made, it will definitely cause greater controversy in the future.

In response, based on ByteDance's experience in the real world, Li Mu has recently begun to conduct large-scale optimizations to Douyin's current algorithm.

It will be more humane and flexible, allowing the software to not only automatically filter out erroneous or deceptive browsing traces, but also to avoid "idiotically" pushing a large number of similar videos.

It will occasionally push related, similar, or even opposite videos to test, guide, and stimulate users, so that users can break out of their information cocoon and have more interests and focuses.

This ensures a continuous flow of high-quality videos, which are consistently pushed to those who are genuinely interested.

Of course, this is not just an algorithmic issue; the underlying logic is actually the decentralization of traffic allocation.

If your videos are high-quality and interesting enough, even if you are a newly registered novice account, your videos can get tens of millions of views; conversely, even if you are a big influencer with millions of followers, if your videos are mediocre and boring, it will be difficult to succeed effortlessly.

Currently, Li Mu has recruited and hired hundreds of top algorithm experts to build and optimize this algorithm system. Once fully developed, Douyin will be in a league of its own in the short video field, even globally, within the next few years.

As long as nothing else goes wrong, the future shouldn't be too bad!