Reborn in Russia as a Big Shot

Chapter 117 Renamed Bilibili

JPMorgan Chase acquired Bear Stearns in a lightning-fast deal for $11.9 billion.

The Federal Reserve established a special agency, Maiden Lane, to bail out Bear Stearns' $290 billion in bad assets.

This marks the first time since the Great Depression that the Federal Reserve has provided large-scale crisis guarantees to non-bank financial institutions.

The Federal Reserve's firm stance of providing unlimited bailouts brought the strongest single-day rebound in the US stock market since the outbreak of the subprime mortgage crisis.

The S&P financial sector surged 8.5%, Goldman Sachs jumped 15% in a single day, and Lehman Brothers was even more dramatic, rising 46%.

Shopee's CDS positions also saw profit-taking due to the Federal Reserve's intervention, but overall they are still in a floating profit state.

In San Francisco, Crunchyro II is still the same small workshop, only the former four-person team has become a two-person team.

Li Xiang informed Ruan Wu to convene a shareholders' meeting to merge the two pirate websites, Crunchyroll and WeTV.

"Let's begin the meeting. You two chat, and I'll take the minutes," Huang Bin said with a broad smile.

"Stop wasting time, let's vote directly." Li Xiang raised his right hand. "I agree, his opinion is irrelevant, the merger proposal passes."

Ruan Wu protested, "How can my opinion not be important? You have to tell me how WeTV arrived at its $1000 million valuation. I can sue you for infringing on the interests of minority shareholders."

"Then go ahead and sue," Li Xiang threatened. "After the restructuring, I'm planning to form a board of directors. I'll kick you out. So what if you're a shareholder? I can still keep you out."

Huang Bin repeatedly gave Ruan Wu meaningful glances, signaling him to back down.

Li Xiang tossed the prepared contract documents to Ruan Wu and said, "Don't say I'm bullying you. I'll give you one last chance. If you're not satisfied with the proposal, you can withdraw your investment."

Ruan Wu immediately refused, saying, "I will not withdraw my shares."

Huang Bin turned to Li Xiang and suggested, "How about we take a break for now, and I'll try to persuade him again?"

"No need to persuade me, I'll fight him to the end." Ruan Wu tried to reason with Li Xiang, accusing him, "You..."

"You can't just buy things and leave them untouched. I sent you so many proposals, and you haven't replied to a single one. If it weren't for the email recall function, I would have thought you hadn't even read them."

Li Xiang, his face stern, urged, "Agree, disagree, or abstain? Give us a result quickly and get the voting process complete. They're waiting to take meeting minutes."

"I disagree," Ruan Wu said, his teeth itching with hatred.

Huang Bin asked cautiously, "I've finished taking the minutes. According to the voting rights, the merger proposal has passed. Shall we adjourn?"

Ruan Wu got up to leave.

"Where are you going?" Li Xiang sat there without moving.

Ruan Wu said, "The meeting is over."

Li Xiang turned to Huang Bin and said, "Add another temporary proposal. Record his absence in the meeting minutes."

"I wasn't absent." Ruan Wu sat down again.

Huang Bin asked, "What is the content of the impromptu proposal?"

"After the restructuring, we'll launch a Series A funding round. I'll invest an additional $1000 million in CrunchyrolI for a complete redesign." Li Xiang turned to Ruan Wu and asked, "Do you agree this time?"

Ruan Wu finally smiled and quickly said, "I agree."

Although Huang Bin had already sold his shares, he still hoped that both the company and Ruan Wu would have a good outcome, so he said, "Then I'll pass it unanimously."

Li Xiang said with a smug look, "I haven't voted yet, I abstain."

Huang Bin said with a wry smile, "Well, it's approved now. The company finally has money."

"Let's talk about the revision plan again," Ruan Wu said with a smile.

"I don't care, if user growth doesn't meet expectations, I'm firing you." Li Xiang frowned slightly and complained, "Who even came up with the name Crunchyrol?"

"It has many syllables, a long spelling, is hard to remember, and easy to misspell. I only recently learned that this is a type of American sushi roll. Can you two explain to me what this has to do with anime?"

Huang Bin shifted the blame, saying, "Gao Kun named it because he likes to eat it."

Ruan Wu muttered softly, "It's quite delicious."

Li Xiang rolled his eyes at Ruan Wu and said, "WeTV targets the Russian-speaking market. Asking them to memorize such a long string of words whose meanings are unknown is a bit much. How about we change the name during this restructuring?"

"I'm not forcing you; I'm asking for your opinions."

Huang Bin stated, "If you're going to make changes, do it sooner rather than later; the longer you delay, the greater the losses will be."

"What should we change it to?" Ruan Wu knew there was a problem with the website's name, but he was still a little reluctant to change it.

Li Xiang said, "I have a suggestion: change it to Bilibili."

"What does this mean?" Ruan Wu asked.

Li Xiang said, "Just tell me if it's easy to remember. CrunchyrolI is a niche food in the US, but it's just a string of letters to overseas users. As long as it's easy to remember, that's fine."

The sale of CrunchyrolI did not attract much attention in the United States, and only spread within a small circle of the San Francisco tech community.

Three of the four founders cashed out and left, and it's unclear how much they sold for.

This time the situation is different.

CrunchyrolI has been renamed Bilibili and completely redesigned, mimicking the Japanese animation website Niconico. It now allows users to upload their own videos and adds a bullet screen comment feature.

They even imitated YouTube's revenue sharing agreement, transforming their community from one of passion to one of commercial bloggers.

It used to be a piracy website, now it's a video sharing platform. Users who upload pirated videos bear the primary responsibility for infringement, while the platform is merely negligent in its oversight.

YouTube has walked this path before. If you want to make a profit, don't be afraid of being sued. The bet is that the speed of user growth can outweigh the legal risks.

Shopee, the behind-the-scenes capital firm that spearheaded this business transformation, has thus come into the view of the US internet venture capital field.

The entrepreneurial culture in Silicon Valley is all about just doing it first and thinking about the consequences later.

If you fail, don't think too highly of yourself; no one will care if you infringe on others' rights.

If it's done, then securing funding won't be a problem. Hire the best legal team, pay the damages as they should, and settle any disputes that need to be settled.

However, as stakeholders, Bandai Entertainment, the North American publisher of Japanese manga, and Funimation, the anime website owned by Sony, have expressed strong indignation at Shopee's investment in aiding and abetting wrongdoing.

They will not only publicly criticize, but also seek legal recourse to claim compensation.

The success of CrunchyroII, the American version of Bilibili, in its previous life, which became the world's largest anime streaming community, was due in part to the benefits of the times, but also largely to the weakness of its competitors.

Both Sony and Bandai lack an internet DNA.

With the rise of smartphones, Sony's mobile phone business is facing disruptive challenges.

In addition, Sony's unique "zero-sum game" management model means that its various subsidiaries all regard each other as competitors in order to obtain more resources from the group, and they wish the other would die as soon as possible.

When adapting Sony Pictures' core IP, Spider-Man, into games, they always choose Activision, not Sony Games.

These departments all operate independently and do not interact with each other.

Funimation is confined within the Sony system. Although it started with a high level of support from a major company, its own positioning is not important enough, making it difficult to compete with the more important departments such as film, games, and music. This, in turn, has become a limitation to its further development.

Bandai's business model is outdated; it treats animation as a toy-selling game and never had the intention of embracing the internet from the beginning.