Reborn in 2000, starting from the university website

Chapter 159 Valuation Upgrade (6K)

Bai Yuhang returned to his office, sent Zhang Jian a text message, and called him into his office. "Don't assign Wang Xiaochuan any work these next two days. I have other plans."

"Received. I was wondering why. This kid was just discussing message queue optimization with me, and then suddenly stopped talking halfway through and just stared blankly at his laptop. I thought he was sleepy and had gone mad," Zhang Jian replied with a laugh.

Bai Yuhang smiled and said to Zhang Jian, "You should take a break too, and call Chuan'er over." Zhang Jian responded and went back.

"Chuan'er, President Bai wants to see you in your office." Zhang Jian went to a corner of the office area, patted Wang Xiaochuan who was engrossed in typing on the keyboard, and then went to catch up on his own sleep.

Less than half a minute later, Wang Xiaochuan pushed open the door and entered Bai Yuhang's office.

Her hair was still a mess, and the bloodshot eyes were even more pronounced than in the morning, but her overall energy and spirit were completely different from when she first arrived, as if she had been set on fire.

Bai Yuhang pointed to the seat opposite the sofa, and after he sat down, he got straight to the point.

"I've seen the prototype of the Chinese word segmentation you wrote last night."

Wang Xiaochuan was taken aback: "President Bai, when did you see it?"

"While you were in the restroom," Bai Yuhang picked up his purple clay teacup, "your progress was quite fast. I took a look, and the idea behind the probabilistic model is correct, but your dynamic programming state transition equation does have problems when dealing with long sentences. It's not a problem with the algorithm itself, but rather that your corpus is too small, the training data is insufficient, and the probability distribution is biased. We'll address that later."

19

Wang Xiaochuan's eyes lit up, and he leaned forward unconsciously, opening his mouth as if to say something, but Bai Yuhang raised his hand to stop him.

"Don't rush to discuss the technical details. I called you here to talk to you about something else."

Bai Yuhang took a key from the drawer and placed it on the coffee table.

"There's a small meeting room on the side of the office area. It's not usually open to the public; someone's working in seclusion there. Starting today, you'll move in too."

Wang Xiaochuan took the key and examined it from all angles: "Who's inside?"

"The head of our company's overseas business division is Zhang Qingheng. You probably haven't met him before. He's also from Harbin Institute of Technology." Bai Yuhang leaned back in his chair. "The work he does is different from yours, but the level of confidentiality is the same. You two will each do your own thing and not interfere with each other. You can talk to each other about technical issues, but you are not allowed to disclose the details of the projects you are responsible for to outsiders."

Wang Xiaochuan nodded and didn't ask any further questions.

He had worked at Sohu and knew what he should and shouldn't ask.

Bai Yuhang opened his laptop and pulled up several architecture diagrams that he had shown to Wang Xiaochuan the night before. He then took out a brown paper bag from the filing cabinet next to him. Inside were technical documents that he had been compiling since arriving in Beijing. They were handwritten and totaled more than twenty pages.

"The search engine project is officially launched today." Bai Yuhang pushed the manila bag over. "You can choose the project codename yourself. It won't be affiliated with any of Qihang's existing business lines; it will operate independently. You are the technical lead for this project. You decide how the architecture is built, how the staff is allocated, and what the technical roadmap is."

Wang Xiaochuan took the brown paper bag, glanced at the first page, and then his fingers stopped moving.

He stared at the contents of the paper for a good ten seconds, his Adam's apple bobbing.

Bai Yuhang did not write a general description of the direction, but rather drew a sketch of the module division of each layer of architecture, the data flow logic, and even the priority queue design of the crawler scheduler.

He hadn't understood some of the terminology last night, but now, with more detailed annotations, his mind was sparking with new ideas.

"President Bai." Wang Xiaochuan closed the document, looked up at Bai Yuhang, and said in a slightly tense voice, "I have something to say to you from the bottom of my heart."

"explain."

"If we can really build this system, no other company in the domestic search engine market will be able to compete," Wang Xiaochuan said firmly, clutching the brown paper bag in his hand. "I'll give you a solemn promise: I'll build the underlying framework in three months. If I fail, you can punish me, and I won't say a word."

Bai Yuhang glanced at him and shook his head.

"Forget about the pledge; it's not like we're fighting a war."

"I'm serious." Wang Xiaochuan's speech quickened. "President Bai, you have no idea how I felt after seeing those logic flowcharts you gave me last night. I've studied at Tsinghua for so many years, always thinking I had a pretty broad perspective, but these things you casually drew—I've never even seen the terminology before. With this opportunity in front of me, if I don't give it my all, I'll be letting myself down. Even if it means staying up all night—"

'

"Stop." Bai Yuhang interrupted him, his tone not harsh but clear, "Don't say things like 'I don't want to sleep' anymore. Search engines aren't something that can be done in three months; they're something that takes three, five, or even ten years. If you burn yourself out in the first three months, who will carry the load afterward?"

Wang Xiaochuan opened his mouth, but did not refute.

"I'll be satisfied if we can produce a basic framework in three months." Bai Yuhang put down his teacup. "Chinese word segmentation, web crawling, and index building—choose the one you're most confident in first, master it thoroughly, and then move on to the next one. If you need servers, contact Zhang Jian; if you need corpus data, contact me; if you need research papers, I'll have someone get them for you from the US. If you encounter any obstacles, feel free to knock on my door or call me anytime, even at three in the morning."

Wang Xiaochuan carefully tucked the brown paper bag into his pocket and stood up.

"Mr. Bai, I'll bring up the server issue with Brother Zhang today. I'd like to use the electronic documents from Tsinghua University Library as seed data for the corpus first, and we'll think of other methods if the amount isn't enough."

"Okay, you can arrange it yourself." Bai Yuhang waved his hand. "Go ahead, don't lose the key. Jiao Ge specially changed the lock on the small conference room door, there are only two keys."

Wang Xiaochuan walked to the door, put his hand on the doorknob, and turned his head back.

"Mr. Bai, I've decided on a code name for the project."

"What's your name?"

"Sogou".

Bai Yuhang paused, holding the teacup, and looked up at him.

Wang Xiaochuan rarely grinned, but his smile carried a stubbornness only tech people could understand: "Search engines, you know, have to be like dogs, sniffing around the world and bringing back the most valuable things. The American search engine is called Google, so let's call ours Sogou. Is that okay?"

Bai Yuhang stared at him for two seconds, then suddenly burst out laughing.

In my past life, I was called Sogou; in this life, I'm still called Sogou.

Some things are probably etched into one's bones.

"Okay, let's each search our own, let's call it Sogou."

Wang Xiaochuan pushed open the door and went out with light steps.

As Zhang Jian passed by the technology area, he didn't go back to his office. Instead, he was catching up on sleep at the desk in the office area. Hearing the noise, he opened one eyelid.

"Chuan'er, what did President Bai want to talk to you about this time?"

"Moving." Wang Xiaochuan shook the keys in his hand. "Brother Zhang, I'll be working in the small conference room inside from now on. Call the internal line if you need anything."

Zhang Jian was fully awake. He sat up and watched Wang Xiaochuan walk to the innermost part of the office area, turn into a small conference room that no one was usually allowed to enter, and lock the door behind him with a click.

He scratched his messy hair and muttered, "This kid's been here for less than two days, and he's already the lab director and moved into a VIP room. I've been working here for months, and my workstation is right next to the toilet."

Liu Zhi, who had just woken up, mumbled sleepily, "Mr. Zhang, you have your own private office, why do you insist on sitting here? You just want this temporary workstation because it's close to the toilet, isn't it?"

Zhang Jian grabbed a bucket of instant noodles and threw it at them.

Before 10 a.m., the phone at Qihang Technology's front desk rang.

Jiao Liwei answered the phone, listened for a couple of sentences, his expression changed, and he covered the microphone and shouted into the office area, "President Bai, President Zhang Lei is here, he's already on the elevator, he said it's urgent."

Bai Yuhang had just come out of his office and hadn't even reached the technology area when the elevator doors opened.

Zhang Lei walked very fast, almost jogging in. His suit jacket was draped over his arm, his shirt sleeves were rolled up to his forearms, and his forehead was covered in sweat.

Her assistant, Zhang Jing, followed behind, taking small, quick steps in her high heels, carrying a briefcase, her hair disheveled.

"President Bai!" Zhang Lei rushed straight to Bai Yuhang as soon as he entered the room, grabbed his hand tightly, and shook it several times. "Congratulations!"

Bai Yuhang's arm was shaken so badly by him that he laughed and tried to pull his hand back: "President Zhang, what's wrong? Why are you in such a hurry?"

"That's right." Zhang Lei let go of Zhang Jing's hand, took the briefcase, and casually tossed it onto the sofa next to him. He pulled up a chair and sat down, not waiting for anyone to offer him a seat. He first took a big gulp of the mineral water that Jiao Liwei handed him.

"At eight o'clock this morning, someone from the mobile data department called me." Zhang Lei screwed on the bottle cap, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and said, "They said that last night, the signaling concurrency of an SP (Service Provider) caused their monitoring panel to turn red. The technician on duty initially thought it was a system malfunction, but after checking for a long time, they found it was normal business traffic. When I heard the SP's name was Qihang Technology's Mobile Dream Network, I immediately got worried. I had Zhang Jing check your public recharge channel data from last night, and after holding a conference call, I rushed here."

Zhang Jing added from the side, "Mr. Zhang started making phone calls in the car. First, he called a friend at China Mobile to confirm, and then he called our fund's analysts to have them rerun the valuation model for Qihang. From the Asian Games Village to Zhongguancun, in forty minutes, he made nine phone calls."

"Don't count my phone calls." Zhang Lei glared at her reproachfully, then turned to Bai Yuhang, his excitement unusually undisguised. "Yuhang, I just want to know one number—what was the total revenue across all channels yesterday?"

Bai Yuhang glanced at him, then stretched out one hand with his five fingers spread.

Zhang Lei was stunned for a moment: "Five million?"

"Five million one hundred and fifty thousand." Jiang Shuo peeked out from the finance office at some point and couldn't help but add a cheeky remark.

Zhang Lei suddenly stood up from his chair, almost knocking over the mineral water bottle.

"Five million one hundred and fifty thousand? In a single day? In RMB?"

"RMB, daily, 24 hours, it was launched in the middle of the night the day before yesterday, most users were still asleep." Jiang Shuo pushed up his glasses, his tone carrying the unique reserve of a finance professional, but the corners of his mouth couldn't help but turn up.

Zhang Lei sat in the swivel chair, spun around once, put his hands on his hips, looked up at the ceiling, and exhaled a long breath.

"I've been doing this for years, both domestically and internationally, and this is the first time I've seen an SP (Service Provider) achieve this much in a single day." Zhang Lei turned around and stared at Bai Yuhang. "Yuhang, do you know what this means? SP recharge channels have only been online in China for a few months, and the top ten SPs in the country only have a daily turnover of a little over two million. You made five million on the first day. This isn't just overtaking on a curve; it's starting straight from the finish line."

Bai Yuhang, holding a purple clay teapot, leaned against his desk and didn't respond to the conversation.

Zhang Lei didn't need him to answer. He turned around and looked around Qihang's office area. He saw coats and instant noodle buckets lying haphazardly on the technical department's workstations. He saw Zhang Jian snoring in his chair, and his smile deepened.

"Yuhang, I'm here today not just to congratulate you." Zhang Lei sat down again, his tone shifting from excited to serious. "Once the Mobile Dream Network channel is running smoothly, your cash flow will accumulate at an alarming rate. As your early investor, China Venture Capital Fund has an obligation to remind you that with more money comes more people watching you."

Bai Yuhang put down his teacup and looked at him.

"Tax authorities, business registration authorities, industry peers, the media, and a lot of unlicensed funds that will come running as soon as they smell the opportunity," Zhang Lei counted on his fingers. "You're not listed yet, so your financial data isn't public, but mobile data can't be hidden. SP rankings are updated weekly, and next week your name will be in the top three. At that point, the entire Zhongguancun will know how much money Qihang Technology makes in a day."

Zhang Jing timely pulled a document from his briefcase and handed it over: "President Bai, this is a proposal drafted by our fund's legal department regarding corporate compliance and risk control during a period of rapid growth. President Zhang asked me to expedite its preparation this morning."

Bai Yuhang took it, flipped through a couple of pages, and nodded.

"The tax matters are already being handled," Bai Yuhang said. "Jiang Shuo went to reconcile the accounts with the tax officer yesterday, and everything that should be paid has been paid in full."

Upon hearing this, a hint of approval flashed in Zhang Lei's eyes.

He has seen too many startups lose their heads when their cash flow skyrockets, thinking first about how to evade taxes and how to hide money, only to be caught in a tax audit in the end.

At his age, Bai Yuhang already knows to clean up his mess first. This clear-headedness makes him feel more at ease than a daily turnover of five million.

"Okay." Zhang Lei stood up, patted off non-existent dust from his pants, and said, "Keep an eye on the taxes yourself. I'll have Zhang Jing liaise with your administrative head, Jiao, and legal head, Yang, regarding compliance. I'll have the analysts re-run the valuation when I get back today. We need to start preparing for the next round of financing in advance."

He took two steps and then stopped, turning back to look at Bai Yuhang. The expression on his face changed from that of an investor's shrewdness to a more personal sentiment.

"Yuhang, on a side note. In all my years of investing, I've seen too many people build skyscrapers, host lavish banquets, and then have them collapse. But someone like you, whose foundation is deeper than anyone else's before the building is even halfway done, is truly rare."

Bai Yuhang smiled and said, "Mr. Zhang, the foundation is deep because I know how tall this building will be."

Bai Yuhang held the purple clay cup and watched Zhang Lei finish half a bottle of mineral water. He then offered Zhang Lei a cup of warm water before slowly starting to drink.

"Mr. Zhang, there's something else I wanted to tell you."

Zhang Lei screwed on the bottle cap, took the water glass, and looked up at him: "Go on."

"I've already started planning for the acquisition of audio-visual copyrights. Before the market reacts, I'll acquire as much as I can."

Zhang Lei nodded. He had heard Bai Yuhang mention this idea before, so it wasn't unexpected.

What truly surprised him was the next sentence.

"Liu Xin from Morningside Ventures and Wang Jingbo from IDG are currently helping me with this."

Zhang Lei stopped twisting the bottle cap.

"Who are you talking about?"

"Liu Xin, Wang Jingbo." Bai Yuhang took a sip of tea, his tone calm. "You know, Wang Jingbo contacted me before, wanting to invest in Qihang. At the time, I wasn't sure if I wanted to go into Series A funding so early, and Qihang didn't need it. Later, the two of them came to talk together. I told them that the investment wasn't urgent, but I had a project on hand. The copyright market is dirt cheap right now, and I need someone with connections and resources to help me negotiate. They have connections in the film and publishing circles, so they can get things done much faster than if I send people myself, and maybe even save some money."

Zhang Lei placed the mineral water bottle on the table, and the bottle made a soft sound as it hit the surface.

He's seen it all in his years of investing.

But Liu Xin of Morningside Ventures and Wang Jingbo of IDG—both of these two are figures who sit at the head of the negotiating table in the domestic venture capital circle.

Liu Xin is ruthless and decisive in his actions, and is known in the industry for his demanding conditions. Many entrepreneurs have been turned away before they could even finish negotiating their terms with him.

Needless to say, Wang Jingbo is a Tsinghua University undergraduate, Cornell PhD, and an ExxonMobil graduate. Beneath his refined and cultured exterior lies an extremely sophisticated business calculation logic.

Are these two people now running errands for an 18-year-old college student boss to collect copyrights?

"Yuhang," Zhang Lei's voice was half an octave lower than before, "how did you convince them?"

"There's no point in trying to persuade her." Bai Yuhang put down his teacup. "When Liu Xin came, she asked for 20% of the shares right off the bat, and she could ask for any valuation she wanted. I didn't accept. Wang Jingbo's offer wasn't worse than Liu Xin's, but she included a seat on the board of directors, and I didn't accept that either."

Zhang Lei's lips twitched when he heard this.

The terms offered by these two companies would be incredibly generous to any startup founder facing a Series A funding round.

Bai Yuhang rejected it outright.

"And then?"

"And then?" Bai Yuhang leaned against the table. "Both of them wanted to get on board, but I didn't let them. But I gave them a way out by helping me sweep through the copyright market. For music copyrights, I negotiated with record companies; for film and television copyrights, I negotiated with distributors and production companies. Whoever was more efficient, had more resources, and offered lower prices, I would give them priority when it came to financing later."

Zhang Lei gasped.

He finally understood.

Liu Xin and Wang Jingbo wanted to exchange money for shares, but Bai Yuhang turned them into a free business development team with their own investment.

Bai Yuhang borrowed all the personal networks, industry resources, and negotiation experience of these two partners without spending a penny.

What's even more ruthless is his phrase "give priority consideration".

This creates a competitive relationship between two top funds; whoever moves faster and negotiates better will be qualified to sit at the negotiating table for the next round of financing.

Liu Xin and Wang Jingbo were not unaware that they were being used as pawns, but they had no choice.

The data from Qihang speaks for itself: daily revenue of five million, 24 million users, and a nearly vertical growth curve.

If you miss this round, the valuation in the next round could easily multiply several times.

Instead of waiting idly outside, it's better to go in and start working; at least you'll become a familiar face.

"What's the progress now?" Zhang Lei asked.

"Liu Xin flew to Guangzhou yesterday, had dinner with people from Taihe Rye Music and Warner Music, and brought back a list of music copyright quotes. The package price for his artists is less than two million. Wang Jingbo also acted quickly. He contacted several film and television companies in Hong Kong, and the digital copyrights were ridiculously cheap. The exclusive digital copyright for a movie was only a few thousand dollars. He negotiated for more than four hundred movies in one go."

After listening, Zhang Lei remained silent for several seconds.

He recalled what he had said to Zhang Jing in the car earlier—"Bai Yuhang's foundation is deeper than anyone else's."

Now he feels that those words were too mild.

Bai Yuhang wasn't laying the foundation; he had already secured the land deeds for the adjacent plots before anyone else even realized how valuable they were.

Moreover, the hand that pulled back the land deed was borrowed from someone else.

"Yu Hang." Zhang Lei stood up, patted his trouser leg, and looked at the young man in front of him who was holding a purple clay cup and had a calm expression. He suddenly felt that the composure he had developed over the years of investing seemed a bit ridiculous in this office.

"How old are you again this year?"

"Eighteen. Almost nineteen."

Zhang Lei shook his head and chuckled. The chuckle contained a complex mix of emotions: admiration, relief, and a lingering, inexplicable fear.

Fortunately, he submitted his application early. What he fears is that if he had approached the negotiations with harsh conditions like Liu Xin and Wang Jingbo, Zhang Lei's name would probably be among those running errands now.

"Okay." Zhang Lei picked up his briefcase, waved to Zhang Jing, and said, "Keep pushing the copyright issue. If you need any cooperation from the China Venture Capital Fund, just let me know. I'll go back and have the analysts add the valuation model for the copyright to it. The materials for the next round of financing need to be updated."

He walked to the door, then stopped, without turning back.

"Be careful with Liu Xin, he's not someone to be trifled with."

"I know," Bai Yuhang's voice came from behind, neither loud nor soft. "The most troublesome lamps burn the brightest."

Zhang Lei paused for a moment, shook his head and laughed, then pushed open the door and walked out.

In the corridor, Bai Yuhang, Jiao Liwei, and Jiang Shuo leisurely saw Zhang Lei off. Zhang Jing followed with small, quick steps in her high heels, and after a few steps, she turned back and nodded to Jiao Liwei as a greeting.

The moment the elevator doors closed, Zhang Lei took one last look through the narrowing crack at the young man engrossed in coding in Qihang Technology's office area, and at the CEO's office, whose door was half-closed at the far end.

Eighteen years old.

When he was eighteen, he was still worrying about his college application form.

After the elevator doors closed, Zhang Lei's voice drifted out: "Zhang Jing, the first thing you need to do when you get back is to raise the valuation model for Qihang, and double the bottom line."

"Mr. Zhang, if we double the amount, the investment decision will be made—"

"I'll handle the investment decision meeting; you just focus on the calculations. If you miss out on a company like this, you won't see another one for ten years."

Zhang Jing covered her mouth and chuckled, not daring to reply.

Jiao Liwei stood at the front desk, watching the floor numbers above the elevator jump down, then turned to Bai Yuhang and gave him a thumbs up.

"President Bai, I've figured out Zhang Lei now. He's usually as calm as an old monk, but the way he came here today is like he's won the lottery."

Bai Yuhang smiled as he walked back with the purple clay cup in his hand, stopping briefly as he passed Jiang Shuo.

"Shuo, Zhang Lei is right. Once the SP rankings come out next week, a lot of people will be watching us. From today onwards, the finance department must handle the accounts according to the standards of listed companies. Every transaction must be auditable."

Jiang Shuo paused for a moment, then said, "President Bai, aren't we still a long way from going public?"

"Whether it's early or not, let's get the habits right first." Bai Yuhang walked into the office without turning his head.

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