Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 554 Shen Jianyuan visits Zhiyun headquarters
After securing the initial agreement on the Zegao Technology project, Wang Hua, who had been busy for several days, finally had some free time to prepare for the wedding.

Although there are still quite a few projects on hand, most of them are routine projects. The three team leaders under him can finalize these routine projects directly, and Wang Hua only needs to review and approve them.

A few of the more important projects are still in the early stages of development and are not yet at the point where he needs to personally handle them.

After all, Wang Hua is already at the level of deputy director of the group, and there are very few projects that require his personal handling. Those are basically either projects involving important technologies or projects with a very large amount of capital.

For other routine projects, his three team leaders and their subordinates handle the work, so he doesn't need to be involved in the entire process.

This is also one of the benefits of being promoted; you don't have to personally follow every project, and you can focus your limited energy on core projects.

For example, projects like Ze Gao Technology involve core technologies and can significantly boost the company's core business of the virtual industry, which is why he personally followed up on them.

After finishing the Zegao Technology project, Wang Hua had some free time.

Zhao Linyi heard that he had been relatively free these past few days, so she took him to pick out some household items for the house.

The house that Wang Hua bought when he returned to China is now fully renovated, but it still needs some time to air out, so he hasn't officially moved in yet.

Wang Hua plans to move in before the official wedding next month.

Before that, some daily necessities need to be purchased and prepared in advance.

According to Wang Hua, there wasn't much to choose from; they were all everyday necessities, not large home appliances.

He just picks some reliable brands, buys them one by one according to the list, and that's it. He doesn't even need to go to physical stores; he can just order online... He's busy every day; he doesn't have time to visit these brand stores in person.

But Zhao Linyi is different. She said she wanted to go and choose things herself, and she enjoyed it. In the past, Zhao Linyi bought many things by herself or with her mother.

Now that Wang Hua had some free time, they took him along to choose some items.

Although Wang Hua felt these things were unnecessary, he readily agreed.

The following weekend, Wang Hua accompanied Zhao Linyi to the mall. She looked around, picking out some household items. She even spent a long time comparing different dishes. Wang Hua didn't say anything, just followed along and offered some inconsequential opinions.

As for what to buy, he didn't really care... as long as Zhao Linyi was happy.

Its main focus is on providing emotional value!
Meanwhile, Zhao Linyi, standing to the side, didn't mind Wang Hua's way of prioritizing her opinions; what she valued was his company...

Zhao Linyi also knew that Wang Hua wasn't very interested in these trivial matters of life, and didn't even pay much attention to them.
This man even has all his clothes made at the same tailor shop, and his wardrobe is full of suits, shirts and ties that he wears year-round without ever changing them... His shoes are also all black leather shoes, all from the same brand and style!

When Zhao Linyi first went to his apartment, she was stunned to see that his closet was filled with only suits, shirts, and vests, without a single casual or sportswear item...

At that time, she knew that this man was a workaholic... but she also felt that only a workaholic like him could become the M7 level deputy director of the strategic investment department of Zhiyun Group at such a young age!

However, although Wang Hua was dressed like a financial elite and looked very handsome, he looked the same all year round, which got annoying after a while... So Zhao Linyi would buy him clothes whenever she had the chance, hoping to make his clothing more varied.

And Wang Hua did not refuse!

Wang Hua simply doesn't like shopping for clothes. He picks and chooses when he needs to wear clothes, so he just buys the same ones. It doesn't mean he likes to dress badly... In fact, he spends a lot of money on clothes. They are all custom-made suits, costing tens of thousands of yuan each time.

Of course, this is also a workplace requirement!
The employees in the strategic investment department of Zhiyun Group are all dressed in suits and ties, looking like high-level investment elites.

Even other clerical employees at Zhiyun Group mostly wear formal attire.

There is a significant difference in dress between clerical staff and technical staff at Zhiyun Group.

Because Zhiyun Group only has dress requirements for clerical employees, requiring them to wear formal attire to work, with men basically all wearing suits... Of course, if you want to wear Hanfu or Zhongshan suits, that's fine too, as that also counts as formal attire.

Women should wear blazers or more formal business dresses, but not anything too revealing or indecent...

In this regard, the main consideration is the group's image. Zhuyun Group is not an ordinary high-tech company; it is one of the world's top multinational high-tech enterprises, and its nature and influence are very different from those of conventional companies.

When senior management goes abroad for inspections or studies, local television stations and various media outlets follow them from beginning to end with cameras and broadcast it on local television news on the same day.

Public statements by senior management are always hot topics in financial news and can even affect the stock price fluctuations of an entire industry.

You can't just wear anything!

Ordinary high-tech companies can pursue personalization, but not companies like Zhiyun Group... If you pursue personalization, people will be afraid that you will do something reckless!

However, at Zhiyun Group, there are no dress requirements for technical staff... As long as the technical staff are not naked, not dressed in a messy or indecent manner, there is no problem.

So in some R&D buildings, you can often see Zhiyun employees wearing t-shirts, shorts, and slippers in the summer, and nobody cares.

And don't be fooled by the casual attire of these technicians, some of whom even look a bit sloppy; they all earn high annual salaries... The median annual salary of technicians at Zhiyun Group is much higher than that of clerical staff.

Such high-income clerical employees as Wang Hua are actually a minority, because he is in management and also involved in investment... and the income in the financial investment field is inherently high.

While the income of ordinary clerical employees is significantly higher than that of employees in other companies, it is not to an exaggerated degree.

Due to work requirements and Wang Hua's unwillingness to spend time on clothing, she always had her clothes custom-made at a tailor shop near the company.

Many people in the company also order from this shop. The owner of this tailor shop doesn't need to take on outside business; he can make a lot of money just by taking on business from the high-income employees of Zhiyun Group.

Zhao Linyi couldn't stand it, so she often gave him some casual, sporty clothes, so that he would have suitable clothes to wear when he wasn't working, on weekends, or when he went out to play.

If you wear a suit when you're not at work, people will think you're selling insurance or real estate!

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Today, Wang Hua was dressed in casual sportswear and accompanied Zhao Linyi on a leisurely stroll. They didn't stop at one shopping mall; they also visited several boutiques of lifestyle brands...

After shopping and buying a lot of things, they returned the items to the new house before heading to their current residence.

This house was one of the dowry items that Zhao's parents prepared for Zhao Linyi. It was a pretty nice three-bedroom house, and it was also located in a good school district.

Years ago, before Zhao Linyi graduated, her parents prepared this house for her with the school district issue for her children after she got married in the future.

However, this degree is no longer needed.

Because Wang Hua's future child will definitely attend the affiliated school at the headquarters of Zhiyun Group... because Zhiyun Group has a lot of employees in Shenzhen, with 60,000 to 70,000 employees at its headquarters alone.

Moreover, most of these employees are young people, and many are of marriageable age and have children.

To address the childcare issues faced by married employees with children, the administrative and logistics department of Zhiyun Group first established a kindergarten, and later even set up a primary and secondary school.

Subsequently, kindergartens or primary and secondary schools were opened in Guangcheng Science and Technology Park and other places with a large number of employees, completely solving the employees' worries about their future.

The private schools run by Zhiyun Group itself have excellent teaching staff... After all, these schools are run by Zhiyun Group itself. In order to take care of the employees' feelings and make them feel at ease, these schools have not been outsourced or other private schools have been introduced. Instead, they have adopted a self-operated model.

Therefore, the teachers in the school are also employees of Zhiyun Group, and all their salaries and benefits are in accordance with the standards for formal employees of Zhiyun Group... and Zhiyun's salary level and other benefits are unparalleled.

This is a legitimate opportunity to join Zhiyun's clerical positions. As everyone knows, ordinary clerical positions in Zhiyun Group are extremely difficult to get into, much more difficult than technical positions... Therefore, these teaching positions will attract a large number of top teachers vying for applications.

Because of the excellent teaching staff and the low tuition fees, employees in the group company are happy to send their children to the company's school.

In Shenzhen, private schools with the same teaching quality would cost at least tens of thousands of yuan a year in tuition.

Zhiyun's own private school is no exception. When enrolling students from outside the company, the tuition fee is over 100,000 yuan per year. However, children of Zhiyun employees can receive a tuition reduction when enrolling in Zhiyun's own private school, paying only 10,000 yuan or so. However, if they leave the company, they will have to pay the tuition fee normally if they want to continue their studies.

After all, this school is a benefit provided by Zhiyun Group to its employees... If it weren't to solve the employees' problems with childcare and schooling, Zhiyun Group wouldn't even bother to build a school: it would be a money-losing venture.

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Although Wang Hua and Zhao Linyi have just registered their marriage and haven't held a formal wedding banquet yet, if they have children in the future, they will most likely send them to the private school operated by Zhiyun Group's headquarters. Therefore, the school district associated with Zhao Linyi's house will probably not be used.

Wang Hua spent two days shopping with Zhao Linyi over the weekend, and was even busy trying to conceive at night. After the weekend, Wang Hua felt more tired than when she was at work... She felt quite exhausted when she went to work on Monday!
After arriving at the company and handling some documents, Wang Hua received a notification that Shen Jianyuan's team from Ze Gao Technology was visiting the headquarters.

Prior to this, Zhiyun Group had officially signed a full acquisition agreement with Ze Gao Technology. The transaction has now been completed, and Shen Jianyuan and more than 20 technical team members have joined Zhiyun Group.

However, they have all settled down locally and are unwilling to move to big cities like Shenzhen, so they will stay and work locally.

It doesn't matter. Zhuyun Group has branches or subsidiaries in major cities across China, so it's normal for them to have another company like Zegao Technology.

Although they don't work at headquarters, they are still very interested in visiting the site... Wang Hua, who was in charge of the entire harvest project, also took some time out of his busy schedule to show Shen Jianyuan and his team around with a deputy director of a department under the Software and Internet Business Division. They even treated them to lunch at noon.

From now on, everyone will be colleagues, and Wang Hua is counting on Shen Jianyuan's team to continue to improve and optimize the virtual development software, and better integrate it into the virtual development software system of Zhiyun Group. Wang Hua will benefit from every achievement that Shen Jianyuan's team makes in the future.

The more successful Shen Jianyuan's team was, the more outstanding Wang Hua's achievements became... So Wang Hua paid close attention to them.

During lunch, Shen Jianyuan also mentioned that they had made adjustments to Zegao Technology, focusing on optimizing the virtual development software they had in mind. They expect to complete the initial optimization and integration next month and officially release it to the public.

When he spoke of it, Shen Jianyuan was somewhat apprehensive and even worried... he was concerned that the software would not receive a good response after it was released.

After all, Zhiyun Group acquired them for the software development and their team... If the team's software development is not good, then it will be embarrassing.

Although he received the acquisition money and achieved financial freedom, Shen Jianyuan still wanted to achieve even better results...

After all, creating a user-friendly and efficient virtual content development software, in conjunction with other virtual development software within the group, especially the Zhiyun Physical Simulation Engine, can improve the efficiency of virtual content development and lower the barrier to entry.

That's where the value of their entire team lies!
If you can't demonstrate your value, it will be very embarrassing, and you'll lose face...

During their visit to the headquarters of Zhiyun Group, Shen Jianyuan and his team were also greatly impressed. First of all, the place was too big. The Zhiyun headquarters, which has 60,000 to 70,000 employees, has six skyscrapers with more than 40 floors, and there are many more office buildings with more than 10 or 20 floors.

The headquarters office area is flanked by employee apartments of Zhiyun Group... These are two super large residential areas.

Getting around the headquarters requires taking a shuttle bus or riding an electric bicycle... It's too big, and walking back and forth would be a waste of time.

Besides its large scale, another major feature is the sheer number of R&D centers... While other companies' headquarters are mainly composed of administrative and business departments, Zhiyun Group's headquarters is primarily comprised of various R&D centers.

Most of the office buildings, some of which are ten or twenty stories high, are not regular administrative office buildings, but rather office buildings for research centers, research institutes, and research institutes... Moreover, Shen Jianyuan even saw a supercomputing center deployed inside!

What other company would set up a supercomputing center in its own headquarters like Zhiyun? But Zhiyun does it, and it's a real need... They have too many R&D projects and too many computing projects, so they really need their own supercomputing center.

All of this demonstrates the uniqueness of Zhiyun Group compared to other large enterprises: it is a high-tech company driven by technological research and development!

Most of the company's departments are dedicated to research and development... As for the administrative and marketing departments, they actually have relatively few people and occupy less office space.

At the headquarters of Zhiyun, which has 60,000 to 70,000 employees, more than 60,000 are R&D or technical personnel...

The remaining 10,000 or so are clerical staff... and many of these clerical staff serve these R&D personnel, such as the teachers in the headquarters' self-operated schools and some staff in the logistics department.

Aside from these support staff, the remaining personnel are responsible for operations and markets around the world, managing a wide variety of businesses.

For example, the Strategic Investment Department where Wang Hua works sounds very prestigious, but the head of the Strategic Investment Department is only a vice president of the group, and the employees of the Strategic Investment Department who work at the headquarters are only a few hundred people... In fact, it is considered a peripheral business department in Zhiyun Group.

Companies that employ mainly R&D personnel and whose business is driven by R&D are quite rare in other industries, even among high-tech companies... They're incredibly lucky!

This is also a peculiar case in the field of contemporary business management research, leaving countless business management researchers baffled, as it goes against their understanding... because according to common sense, such a company cannot survive and is destined to go bankrupt sooner or later!

But Zhiyun is thriving and its scale continues to expand... it has grown into one of the world's top high-tech companies.

Because they didn't know that Xu Shenxue also had a research system!

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Just as Zhiyun Group was working to further reduce the difficulty of developing virtual content, promote the development of the virtual content industry, and thus drive the development of the entire virtual hardware device industry.

Xu Shenxue also received a report from the Virtual Industry Division!

Over the past few months, sales of Yun VW virtual appliances have steadily increased, now stabilizing at around 70,000 units per month.

In terms of sales volume, the entry-level model, priced at over 400,000 units, became the top seller, with monthly sales reaching around 50,000 units. The mid-range model, priced at 800,000 to 900,000 units, also accounted for over 10,000 units.

The sales volume of high-end models costing over one million and flagship models costing over three million is much lower, totaling only a few thousand units.

"The significant price reduction of entry-level devices has effectively promoted the expansion of the market, which is a very good phenomenon!"

"In addition, we are also planning a new, cheaper model. First, we plan to upgrade the existing entry-level and high-end versions to use the APO4600S graphics card in the spring."

"At the same time, we will launch a cheaper, simplified version with an APO4500M graphics card, eliminating the robotic arm and reducing other components to some extent, aiming to reach around 270,000 to 280,000 yuan!"

The virtual machine equipment sold by Zhiyun Group is affected by the production capacity of graphics cards, especially the packaging process capacity. Except for the deluxe version and the flagship version, which have remained unchanged, they have always used APO5000 graphics cards. However, the high-end version costing 800,000 to 900,000 yuan and the entry-level version costing 400,000 yuan use different graphics cards!
This caused a lot of complaints from the virtual equipment business unit!

In the earliest days, the first-generation 800,000 version used dual APO4600 graphics cards... These graphics cards used 3D packaging technology, and soon the APO5000 graphics cards were in short supply, and the 3D packaging technology was insufficient.

In order to free up 3D packaging capacity for the production of APO5000 graphics cards, the semiconductor division directly stopped production of APO4600 graphics cards.

As a result, the virtual equipment business unit was forced to launch an entry-level version with dual APO4500 graphics cards and a high-end version with four APO4500 graphics cards this summer.

Just a few months later... the semiconductor department said that our APO4500 graphics card would also be officially discontinued in January because the 2.5D packaging process used by the graphics card was insufficient. The semiconductor department planned to free up the 2.5D packaging process capacity to produce the APO4600S graphics card!

This made the virtual equipment business department curse again... "I've only made changes for a few months, and you've already discontinued the graphics cards I use. You can't treat your fellow departments like this!"

However, there was nothing they could do. The semiconductor business unit was absolutely unwilling to continue producing the APO4500 graphics card, feeling that it was too cheap and occupied 2.5D packaging capacity... Starting in January, the semiconductor business unit would completely switch to producing the APO4600S graphics card, which has better performance and is naturally more expensive.

The APO4500 graphics card stopped accepting new orders in November. Existing orders will be produced until around February, after which production will cease entirely.

As a result, the virtual equipment project team was forced to replace the graphics card again!

I plan to upgrade to the APO4600S graphics card in both the entry-level (around 400,000 RMB) and high-end (around 800,000 RMB) models.

As for the deluxe and flagship versions, we will continue to use the APO5000 graphics card... These two models of virtual devices have low sales volume and low usage. In addition, they are for personal use. As long as the company has stock, there will always be a demand for graphics cards for virtual devices. Therefore, we will continue to use the APO5000 graphics card.

Meanwhile, they're also planning to release a base model priced at 270,000 to 280,000... while this one will be a 64GB version with a less powerful APO4500M processor.

The virtual machine has changed its graphics card several times in just one year, which is a helpless move... The virtual machine uses too many graphics cards, but the production capacity is limited.

Furthermore, although the semiconductor division and the virtual equipment division are sister divisions, the semiconductor division wouldn't disregard its own performance and work for free for the virtual equipment business division!
Their semiconductor division also has a ton of projects to support, and Zhuyun Microelectronics has hundreds of billions of dollars in capital expenditures every year. Naturally, they want to use their limited production capacity to produce products with higher profits.

Products used by other departments are still products!

When different departments within the Zhiyun Group order and use these chips, although they don't have to pay each other directly, their internal performance still needs to be accounted for... It's not fair to say that the semiconductor department gives you the chips and then all the profits go to your virtual equipment department.

When the semiconductor division supplies the virtual equipment division, their internal statistics aren't based on cost price, but rather on market price with a discount at most...

We can't really sell the APO5000 graphics card to the virtual equipment business department at a cost price of 20,000 to 30,000 yuan...

The semiconductor division is doing unpaid work, so how do they get performance bonuses?
Then various things happened, leading to the current awkward situation!
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Initially, Zhiyun Group planned to use only APO5000 graphics cards for its virtual machine equipment... but due to production capacity and cost issues, they ended up with a version using AP4600 graphics cards.

Then came a series of downgrades, from APO4600 to APO4500, and now a mix of APO4600S and APO4500M.

Of course, it's just a matter of changing the graphics card; other designs don't need major changes... The omnidirectional treadmill and VR headset don't need to be changed; just modify the host of the virtual equipment.

The host of this virtual device is essentially a computing server, consisting of a motherboard, CPU, graphics card, memory, and other components... You just need to replace the graphics card, flash the firmware, and that's it!

So don't be fooled by the high-end models from Zhiyun Group that cost 800,000 to 900,000 NTD. They may seem to be different, but they are actually the same thing, just with different graphics cards.

Otherwise, all this back-and-forth tinkering and constant design changes would drive the virtual equipment engineers crazy...

The models that have actually undergone a redesign are the entry-level model priced at 400,000 and the base model priced at 270,000 to 280,000, which are planned to be launched in the spring.

However, what reassured the virtual device business unit was that the graphics card would remain unchanged!

The semiconductor division confidently stated that these existing graphics card models will remain unchanged for the next three years, namely the APO4600S, APO4500M, and the APO5000 graphics card, which uses a 7-nanometer process and 3D packaging technology.

The new graphics cards to be released later will only be more advanced, such as the APO6000 graphics card using a 5-nanometer process, and the APO7000 graphics card using a 3-nanometer process in the future.

Even the outdated APO4500M series graphics cards, I will produce them for you as long as you need them... The second-generation 12nm process, coupled with the very mature and high-capacity BGA packaging process, I dare not say that I can produce as many as you need, but it will definitely be enough.

If all else fails, I can find an external packaging manufacturer to supply you. There are quite a few BGA packaging process manufacturers both domestically and internationally, so finding an outsourcing company is a piece of cake.

Unlike 2.5D and 3D packaging, where 90% of global production capacity is concentrated at Zhiyun Microelectronics... because only Zhiyun Microelectronics has such a large production capacity requirement for this technology, while other manufacturers don't actually have much demand.

Therefore, external manufacturers do not have much advanced packaging technology capacity. Only TSMC and Intel have a small amount of capacity, but they need to use that little capacity themselves!
As for other second- or third-tier manufacturers, they don't have this need, nor do they have the technology to do it!

However, BGA packaging is different. There is plenty of excess capacity globally, and many second- and third-tier semiconductor manufacturers in China also have it.

With ample production capacity, the semiconductor business unit has stated that they can offer a significant price reduction for the APO4500M graphics card in a year or two!

The virtual equipment business unit is very much looking forward to this!

(End of this chapter)