As a mage, I just want to pursue the truth

Chapter 330 Brainstorming
“Since last night, whether it is the domestic BAT or the foreign BIG, from the executives in front of the stage to the shareholders behind the scenes and even the real controllers, they must have been unable to sleep.

They must be in meetings, exchanging information frequently at various levels.

Since the end of the last century, we have been facing an era of the downward trend of the middle class. Simply put, the income of the middle class in developed countries is no longer ahead of economic growth.

Not only has it failed to continue to lead economic growth, but it has fallen behind, even significantly behind economic growth.

From America to the European Union, to small countries in East Asia such as Japan, Korea, and Singapore, there are no exceptions.

The previous olive-shaped society can no longer be maintained.

This trend has never been reversed in the past four decades.

The middle class, which emerged after the rise of the Industrial Revolution and grew explosively after the end of the Cold War, encountered catastrophic difficulties for the first time.

The expansion of global division of labor and technological revolution under the free system have led to an accelerated expansion of the middle class.

As for why this trend was interrupted around 2,000 years ago, some advocates of free economics believe that it was because China joined this cycle, which hindered the original cycle of middle-class expansion.

The previous cycle is simply:

New technology appeared in England (the spinning jenny) and then their wool spinning/weaving gained an absolute advantage.

This allowed capitalists to open factories freely, resulting in large numbers of British workers being employed and a reduction in the workforce in other industries.

As a result, England was short of labor, so they began to import products from other continents, such as food from Australia.

The current income of workers on both sides has increased. They are no longer just living on the subsistence line and have achieved preliminary well-off life.

This group of people needs other products, which stimulates the birth of more technologies.

Then more people were employed, achieving the most basic food and clothing needs, and even being able to purchase fixed assets.

More and more refined technical divisions of labor will emerge, and workers' income/assets will finally be able to achieve long-term surplus.

This led to the creation of financial services, which allowed workers to borrow money - they could pass on fixed assets to the next generation (and leave the debt to them) and enjoy the benefits themselves.

Or the cash flow of an asset that another person is using can be transferred to you for your retirement through an arrangement called stocks, which is called retirement securitization.

They believe that such a perfect cycle and perfect global division of labor was stuck in China because of the joining of China around 2000.

After joining this cycle, the poor in China got job opportunities and earned money, but their money was taken away by China in a veiled conspiracy.

In fact, this is a trivial reason. The fundamental reason behind it is that it is too easy for capital to make money.

After trying finance and Internet businesses, capitalists have found that the speed at which they make money by developing new technologies is much slower than that of finance and the Internet.

For capital, the essence of the Internet is actually financial business.

The essence is not that China has joined this cycle, leading to the downward trend of the middle class, but that the difficulty of developing new technologies is far greater than before, and China has completely entered deep waters in research and development.

Moreover, the cost of trial and error is extremely high. Even for giants, if they invest too much in the wrong direction, they will lose half their life.

Therefore, the most fundamental reason is that labor income is far behind capital profits, and this phenomenon is becoming more and more obvious.

Corresponding to the downward trend of the middle class, middle-class companies are also moving downward.

This phenomenon began to gradually emerge in 2016, after the rise of the mobile Internet wave.

It is even more obvious today that apart from the giants at the top and the grassroots enterprises, there are fewer and fewer forms in the middle.

almost none.

Before the rise of mobile Internet, e-commerce in various niche fields emerged one after another. At that time, they were called vertical e-commerce. Jumei, Vancl, Miaya, BabyTree, and Mogujie were all wiped out.

Only the giants can survive, Taobao, JD.com and Pinduoduo.

This is true for online e-commerce and other fields as well.

For the companies in the middle, it seemed like the demise was just a blink of an eye.

The fundamental logic behind this is resource integration. The giants' resource integration capabilities are far stronger than those of medium-sized enterprises.

Why is 2016 a critical node? Because at the macroeconomic level, capital contraction was already looming in 2016.

Although the Federal Reserve will frequently raise interest rates in 2022.

Whether it is capital or traffic, it is becoming increasingly difficult for middle-level companies to obtain them.

Small businesses can barely make ends meet by cutting costs, while giants can increase revenue and reduce costs by relying on low financing costs and their own advantages.

The companies in the middle can’t do that.

In China's real estate sector, those that have died in recent years are all middle-sized private enterprises, while the large enterprises have not died, even if they are barely surviving.

But yesterday's press conference of Ke Chuang Bio will change all that. Except for me, all of you will become middle-level enterprises.

All the original advantages will be overturned.

Take Tencent as an example. The traffic moat you built with WeChat and QQ has no effect at all in the virtual world.

The user relationship network you built also loses its function in the virtual world.

Tencent’s only advantages are its employees and the cash flow on its books.

The moat was directly destroyed by a nuclear bomb from Ke Chuang Biotechnology.

The same is true for ByteDance and Taobao.

In the new era, these giants have been reduced to middle-level enterprises due to the dimensionality reduction attack by scientific and technological innovation and biological companies.

Let us wait and see who will be able to break through and get the ticket to the new era again, and who will be degraded.

In addition, if any of my classmates working in Ke Chuang Biotechnology see this Weibo post, congratulations, you have already got a first-class ticket to the new era.

Being in a growing monopoly enterprise is really no different from sitting on the cusp of a trend waiting to take you to the sky.

From IBM to Microsoft to Apple, being their employee in the early days was like winning without doing anything.”

A financial celebrity posted a long post on Weibo the night before to analyze why the U.S. stock market plummeted.

He has actually touched upon the core essence of the U.S. stock market crash - the repricing of assets.

Lei Jun was deeply touched after seeing this Weibo post, because he had run many similar businesses.

To put it bluntly, Joyo.com was a middle-level enterprise back then, and then it was eliminated.

It's not just Joyo, it's also the case with Cheetah and Vancl.

He was very afraid that rice, the greatest effort of his life, would be destroyed in the new era.

Although business failure is common, it is rare for a company to become an evergreen.

The vast majority of large enterprises that can persist and last for a hundred years or even longer have developed in multiple aspects.

Only in this way can we have a stronger ability to resist risks.

That is the concept of disaster recovery in computer concepts.

Like Nokia, after selling its mobile phone business, it can still survive by relying on its communications business.

If Nokia had only developed its mobile phone business because of its success in the field, it would have collapsed long ago.

Lei Jun also learned a lesson from this, and after the Mi mobile phone did well, he went on to start Mi department store and then Mi automobile.

The core purpose is to build a complete ecosystem, and improving the ability to resist risks is also one of the goals.

"The purpose of passing the cold air to everyone here is not to make you feel scared, but to make everyone feel a sense of urgency and realize that rice may go bankrupt at any time.

This is something that I can foresee is likely to happen in the future. The white sphere in my hand is the virtual reality device of Kechuang Biology. "Lei Jun picked up the virtual reality life form next to him, and then held it in his hand and said.

Because Lei Jun's tone was too serious, the executives and middle-level managers present did not dare to whisper to each other. They just looked up at the virtual reality device in Lei Jun's hand.

All eyes were focused on Lei Jun's hands.

"Boss Lei and Boss Zheng really have an unusual relationship. They can actually get the real thing first-hand."

"Thanks to the relationship between Mr. Lei and Mr. Zheng, Dami will also be able to get a piece of the pie in the virtual reality world, just like when Dami invested in Kechuang Future."

“I don’t know how virtual reality equipment works.

Why does the virtual reality device in Lei's hand look a bit strange, neither like plastic nor metal? "

All kinds of thoughts flashed through the minds of the participants present.

Most people's thoughts are somewhat similar to the famous saying: I feel relieved to see ** being so rogue.

What they thought was that I would feel relieved seeing that Lei Jun and Zheng Li have such a good relationship.

"Everyone, please take it and experience it first. Each person has a maximum of five seconds. Everyone can look at it and touch it."

After saying that, Lei Jun handed the white sphere in his hand to Lin Bin beside him.

The participants present at the meeting could no longer suppress their emotions.

"What? Why does it feel a bit like skin!?"

“I didn’t see any chips at all, so is the virtual reality device of Kechuang Biotechnology a biological device?”

"It looks like, what kind of black technology is this, Kechuang Bio?"

"This should be another one of Zheng Li's inventions. It's so scary. Is he still human?"

Regarding the launch of virtual reality life forms by Ke Chuang Biotechnology, the official Chinese attitude is that it can be promoted, but it is best not to reveal one's identity.

In other words, everyone can guess, but Zheng Li or Ke Chuang Biotechnology should not admit it.

You can guess whatever you want, just like people on the Internet have been guessing that Wang Mang was a time traveler.

For things that cannot be explained by science, the best way is not to explain them.

"Fuck! This black technology is too dark"

"How do I charge this? I don't see a charging port."

"It should be the same as the biological storage server we bought, which relies on nutrient solution."

"There really aren't any gaps. It should be a biological device. What is the technical principle behind it? Can signals be transmitted between organisms?"

The experts in charge of the technical aspects felt reluctant to part with the device after getting it in their hands.

"How do I use this? I can't even put it on my head."

Lei Jun waited for the virtual reality device to return to his hands, and then the participants below quieted down again before continuing:
“Shocking, right?
I am on a business trip recently to help Kechuang Biotechnology test their virtual reality equipment. "

This is what the Chinese government asked Lei Jun to say to the public.

After all, an entrepreneur of Lei Jun's level has been missing for about a month inexplicably.

During this period, Lei Jun was only asked to report his safety to his family.

Therefore, during this month, there were various rumors in foreign media.

“I was equally shocked when I was testing it.

It’s a shame this VR device is wired to my brain, or I’d love for you to try it.”

“I can tell you that this virtual reality device is a living organism, and the way to use it is very simple, just put it next to you.

Then you will automatically enter the virtual world.

Your brain nerve signals will match the virtual reality device, which will provide the five senses you need.

I can clearly tell you that the virtual reality world of Kechuang Biotechnology is very close to the real world in terms of perception. "

"Whether it's smell, taste or touch, it's at least 90 percent true."

"In this situation, do people still need mobile phones? Do they still need cars? Do they still need computers?

Dami’s two core businesses, Dami mobile phones and Dami cars, are no longer needed in the virtual world. What can we rely on to support such a company with 30,000 employees?
These 30,000 people do not include outsourced employees.”

“I have been thinking about this question since I started using Kechuang Bio’s virtual reality equipment.

What are we going to rely on to survive?

I thought about it for a month, but I couldn’t think of a good solution.”

“We held this meeting today in the hope that we can pool our wisdom and think together.

I hope there will be sparks of wisdom between us.

Everyone is welcome to speak freely. If any of you have anything to say, just press the button in front of you to speak.

If you speak well, there will be extra rewards.

If you give me the answer that satisfies me the most, I may let you take full responsibility for the strategic transformation of the Rice Group."

Lei Jun is not only the founder and chairman of the Rice Group, but also the founder of Kingsoft Software.

But compared to Jinshan, he was more worried about rice.

Because even in the virtual world, people still have the need to work, Kingsoft Software's core WPS can still be ported to the virtual world.

There will always be a demand for software.

The only thing that can kill PPT is artificial intelligence.

Once artificial intelligence becomes so common, Kingsoft will be unable to resist.

And the crisis of rice in the virtual reality world is imminent.

“I think we can work with Kechuang Biotechnology to build a similar approach to FutureOS.

Even if it is a virtual world, someone still needs to build it.

We can cooperate with Sinovation Biotech in this area.”

This is a kind of path dependence. I think in the virtual reality world, we will still need Dami's experience in the field of mobile phone systems.

Before the middle-level executive could finish, Lei Jun interrupted him:
“First of all, let’s not talk about whether this method is feasible or not. Who will talk to Mr. Zheng of Kechuang Biotechnology?
Virtual reality is here. Among Microsoft, Apple, and Google, which one doesn’t want to build a system for scientific and technological innovation?

Let’s not talk about the foreign ones, who wouldn’t want Tencent, Ali and ByteDance in China?

Why should Kechuang Bio choose us?

The advantages of MIUI alone are not enough for us to take a piece of this cake.

My relationship with Mr. Zheng is not good enough for him to let Dami develop the virtual world system."

Lei Jun doesn’t know yet that building a virtual world doesn’t require programmers at all.

My procrastination has struck me again. I stay at home but I just wait until the last minute to start writing. . .

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(End of this chapter)