The entertainment empire began with Liu Yifei's premarital pregnancy.

Wang Wei's 60% stake carries 75% of the voting rights, which means that for every 1% of the shares, he has 1.25% of the voting rights.

Lin Bufan's appearance meant that he directly took 25% of the shares from Wang Wei, which gave him 31.25% of the voting rights.

Wang Wei now only holds 35% of the shares, and his voting rights have fallen below 50%, now holding only 43.75% of the voting rights. It can be said that the entire Tudou.com has slipped out of Wang Wei's complete control.

To put it bluntly, if Lin Bufan and the three capital groups agree, they could even kick Wang Wei out of the game and bench him.

Clearly, Wang Wei's invitation to Lin Bufan to attend the company meeting at the end of the month was a test to see what Lin Bufan was really thinking.

Lin Bufan naturally understood what Wang Wei meant.

Looking back at the development of Tudou.com, although Wang Wei was the founder, he was also responsible for both Tudou.com's success and its downfall.

In later years, Tudou.com was originally supposed to go public before Youku, but because its founder, Wang Wei, divorced his wife, his shares were frozen, hindering the IPO and causing them to miss the golden window of opportunity to go public.

As a result, Youku went public first, and as a competitor in the same industry, falling behind one step at a time led to falling behind step by step.

However, this case also gave rise to the famous "potato clause" in the venture capital circle, which requires the founder's spouse to sign an equity waiver agreement in order to prevent marital discord from affecting the company's financing or listing.

"It's me!"

Thinking of this, Lin Bufan picked up the phone and called Xu Hongfei.

"President Lin!"

"Contact IDG Capital, GGV Capital, and JAFCO Asia to inquire whether they are willing to sell their shares in Tudou.com. If they are, we can offer a 50% premium."

IDG Capital, GGV Capital, and JAFCO Asia invested a total of US$1720 million in Tudou.com. Even with a 50% premium, it would only have cost an additional US$860 million.

If he could spend an extra $860 million to acquire Tudou.com, Lin Bufan would definitely be willing.

"Okay, Mr. Lin."

After hanging up the phone, Xu Hongfei began contacting three investment firms: IDG Capital, GGV Capital, and JAFCO Asia.

……

Three days later, Xu Hongfei sent a message.

GGV Capital and JAFCO Asia have agreed to sell their stakes in Tudou.com. These two firms are not particularly strong financially at present, and they are more focused on investment returns.

The initial investment has yielded a 50% profit, which is quite a substantial return.

As for IDG Capital, it is still hesitant and most likely will not sell its shares in Tudou.com. Compared to GGV Capital and JAFCO Asia, IDG focuses more on long-term investment and is less concerned about immediate profits.

Ultimately, Zhewei Capital spent a total of US$2100 million to acquire 16.4% of the shares from GGV Capital and JAFCO Asia, for a total of 32.8% of Tudou.com.

These 32.8% of the shares are B shares, which have only 20.5% of the voting rights. However, when combined with Lin Bufan's 31.25% of the voting rights, his voting rights directly exceed half, reaching 51.75%.

If he wanted to, he could control the narrative on Tudou.com with just one sentence.

On the contrary, IDG's 7.2% stake is not so important. If Tudou.com wants to go public in the future, it will definitely need to introduce other powerful capital.

Only with a large number of investors and a significant influx of capital can Tudou.com's stock price be further increased. However, that's a matter for later; it will have to wait until at least the third round of investment, or even before the company goes public.

………………

"What? You sold your shares to Zvezda Capital?"

Wang Wei received calls from two investment firms. Regardless of the circumstances, they had also invested in Tudou.com's Series A and B rounds, although they had now sold their shares to Zhewei Capital for profit reasons.

However, out of consideration for feelings and morality, I still told Wang Wei.

"Thank you, I understand!"

Wang Wei was furious. He was furious that they had sold the shares to Zhewei Capital without informing him beforehand.

He was furious that the capital firm had sold his shares without even telling him, but after the anger came a wave of helplessness.

As a founder, especially one like him who lacks funds, he is at a significant disadvantage when facing capital.

Even if you have a lot of anger inside, you won't and can't show it.

Immediately afterwards, Wang Wei began to have people investigate Zhewei Capital. When the results came out, he was stunned. The owner of Zhewei Capital was Lin Bufan.

When Zhewei Capital invested in JD.com, Lin Bufan personally intervened.

This news couldn't be kept from those who were interested, unless they didn't care about this circle at all.

"Now……"

Wang Wei calculated that Lin Bufan's 25% stake, plus the stake held by Zhewei Capital, together gave them over 51% of the voting rights.

In other words, if the other party wanted to, they could completely exclude themselves from Tudou.com's management.

"this……"

Wang Wei was dumbfounded.

At the same time, he secretly regretted that he couldn't resist selling his shares to the other party.

All he can do now is contact Lin Bufan and try to find out what the other party really means.

"Have a meal?"

Lin Bufan had just finished a day of filming when Bai Bing came to report that Wang Wei from Tudou.com wanted to treat him to dinner.

"Okay, let's set it for tomorrow night!"

Lin Bufan thought about it and didn't refuse the other party.

Before we knew it, it was the evening of the second day.

"Mr. Wang!"

"President Lin!"

Inside the hotel's private room, Wang Wei saw Lin Bufan enter and hurriedly stood up to greet him at the door.

"Mr. Wang, you're too kind!"

Lin Bufan looked at Wang Wei and nodded slightly.

"Thank you so much, Mr. Lin, for your high regard for Tudou.com! Let me drink to that!"

At the beginning, in order to show his sincerity, Wang Wei downed a glass of baijiu (Chinese liquor) in one go.

After several rounds of drinks and several dishes, seeing that the atmosphere was quite good, Wang Wei decided to test Lin Bufan.

"Mr. Lin, do you have any suggestions for the future development of Potato?"

Wang Wei looked at Lin Bufan with a smile, but in reality, he was feeling uneasy.

Suggest?

Lin Bufan looked at Wang Wei with a half-smile, and Wang Wei's thoughts could be seen from his choice of words.

"Since Mr. Wang has asked, I'd like to hear about your future development plans for potatoes." Lin Bufan put down his chopsticks and looked at Wang Wei.

Lin Bufan hadn't decided yet whether to kick Wang Wei out and completely control Tudou, since his energy was limited.

Wang Wei certainly has the ability; otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to develop the potato industry to its current scale.

However, he worried that the same thing would happen again, because the founder's divorce would cause the potato's IPO plan to be shelved in later generations.