What's wrong with me being a rich man?

Chapter 439 Appearance
Yu Xing soon received a call from Xiong Xiaoge, informing him that Jim was willing to enhance his understanding of silicon carbon data.

He thanked Mr. Xiong for his thoughtfulness, and then... that was it.

Mr. Xiong is taking this too seriously; the company hasn't finalized the arrangements yet.

Xiong Xiaoge found this a bit strange, but it didn't stop her from continuing her multiple phone conversations with Jim. In addition to talking about her optimism about silicon carbon data, she also couldn't help but praise Yu Xing's reputation for operations.

As a Facebook board member and the founder of Breyer Capital, Jim naturally couldn't just listen to Xiong Xiaoge's side of the story, and he also conducted his own preliminary investigation as is customary.

Having learned this, when he heard Xiong Xiaoge boasting on the phone again, he had to ask a crucial question: "Mr. Xiong, since he is so optimistic about the mobile internet and has such strong operational capabilities, why doesn't he devote all his energy to Carbon Silicon Data Company?"

Xiong Xiaoge had forgotten about this and was momentarily speechless.

Jim didn't hear an answer, and after several seconds he said again, "I asked my colleagues about Mr. Yu's background, and I think he only devotes a third of his energy to this company, which is a very worrying issue for us."

Xiong Xiaoge had already come back to his senses and calmly gave the answer: "That's enough, three points is enough."

Jim: "..."

He questioned, "Is that really enough?"

"Mr. Yu is the founder and chairman. In fact, he also has very outstanding colleagues. We have an old saying, 'Three cobblers are better than Zhuge Liang.' I haven't mentioned before that Carbon Silicon Data Company also has a group of outstanding management and technical experts such as Zhong Zhiling, Lü Haiying, Zhai Yifei, Yang Zhenyuan, and Ge Zhijie." Xiong Xiaoge changed from praising one person to praising a group of people. "You know WeChat. Many of these people started their careers in the mobile internet industry through WeChat and are among the best in the industry."

“Carbon Silicon Data is not a traditional internet company, and even its location in Lingang, Shanghai is not a traditionally prominent area. Mr. Yu is more like a gatekeeper. He and this group of practitioners together form Carbon Silicon Data.”

"Lingang has already attracted talents from well-known internet companies such as Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent. I have full confidence in their future!"

Xiong Xiaoge only had 60% confidence, but 6% was more than enough; it was enough to demonstrate 120% confidence.

After digesting these words and pondering for a moment, Jim said, "Then I'll go to Lingang on the 16th of next month to take a look."

He set the date right away.

Xiong Xiaoge expressed a warm welcome.

However, Yu Xing was somewhat helpless about the latest situation: "President Xiong, I have meetings on the 16th and 17th, city-level meetings, so there's no rush regarding the carbon silicon data."

"No rush, no rush. You think money will fall from the sky?" Xiong Xiaoge said, feigning anger. "The timeline is set. You're in meetings during the day, but you'll still have time at night. Look at your attitude towards the investors now!"

“We’ll definitely need to discuss the full picture of carbon silicon data then, so there might not be enough time. Okay, we’ll try our best. If all else fails, you can take him to karaoke.” Yu Xing thought about the situation with Boss Xiong and that Jim, and then added, “By the way, Liu Jiankai from Capital Today is considering starting a cryptocurrency trading platform project. Let’s meet him when the time comes.”

Xiong Xiaoge was somewhat surprised, then said seriously, "President Yu, you may not be aware of the situation in this field. Recently, a ban was introduced in China, so it is basically impossible to do it in mainland China."

"Really?" Yu Xing laughed. "I think he's quite enthusiastic. Anyway, I have a meeting later, so you two can chat. He's really put in a lot of effort for me lately."

Upon hearing this, Xiong Xiaoge agreed.

Yu Xing informed Lü Haiying and others again about the financing intention facilitated by IDG, and asked them to discuss how to handle this connection.

As the year draws to a close, both the Silicon Carbon Group and Silicon Carbon Data are indeed very busy. Amid such a busy schedule, the Gregorian calendar year has quietly entered a new year. And just after New Year's Day, the emissions testing next door has quietly revealed its new name.

Following Volkswagen and Renault, Nissan has also been found to have falsified emissions data for a diesel version of the Qashqai.

At this point, the Mitsubishi-Renault-Nissan automotive alliance, which was only formed in 2013, has completely fallen.

However, neither Yu Xing nor Liu Wanying were surprised at all. This kind of fraud, which must have been known to a portion of the insiders, was a systemic project. There was no reason why only one company in the Renault-Nissan Alliance under Ghosn's leadership would commit fraud for profit.

However, among the Nissan models currently being investigated, only one overseas version of the Qashqai has been found, making Nissan much more "honest" than Volkswagen and Renault.

"If there is only one model, and it is not sold in the United States, Nissan can be put on hold for the time being. Our short-selling report alone may have limited impact. It must be combined with heavy penalties from institutions in the United States and Europe to create an expectation of a sharp drop in the stock market."

"Moreover, we do need to consider timeliness. Better safe than sorry. If other organizations beat us to it, that would be a real problem."

There have been instances where other short sellers preemptively targeted targets, so Liu Wanying considered things more comprehensively.

Yu Xing agreed with this policy and had only one attitude towards the car industry's inspections: "Inspect, inspect, and see what they can find out."

It can be considered a two-pronged approach, on one hand, testing the mountain peaks, and on the other hand, dealing with the abnormal behavior that the silicon carbon group can access.

As 2014 arrived, Mus, which had already signed a partnership agreement with Facebook, began testing its app in the US market.

Mus has not chosen other global markets and is focusing on the United States for the time being. However, the United States is also divided into many regions. The first two weeks of January were spent testing in several cities to verify the competitiveness of the Mus software under the current circumstances with a larger traffic volume.

Furthermore, compared to the version before January 1st, Mus updated its features before streaming, adding dance templates and setting tag challenges to encourage user creativity, while selectively disseminating the best content on external platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

Before the user base was expanded, Mus had 24.6 users, which was a result of a cold start.

Yu Xing asked Lü Haiying, "What do you think is a passing grade after two weeks of testing?"

“Reaching 35 would be good. We’re advertising in five major cities, and the advice we’re getting there is to adjust the age group to 13-18 years old,” Lü Haiying said. “If the core data performs well, our subsequent advertising efforts can improve Musk’s ranking in the Apple App Store, and the speed will be even better.”

She continued, "The testing over the past two weeks has mainly focused on whether we can improve retention rates after reaching more targeted customer groups. We believe the current version of Mus should be quite competitive, so..."

Lu Haiying clasped her hands together and said, "Senior brother, I'm starting to get anxious!"

Mus is the result of everyone's best efforts at this stage. If the testing is unsatisfactory, the direction of subsequent modifications may need to be significantly changed.

Yu Xing nodded, offering little words of comfort. He understood that this was inevitable; he had also felt anxious when he was developing WeChat.

After pondering for a moment, he asked, "What do you think of this contact with Jim?"

Lu Haiying took a long time to reply this time: "I have talked with President Zhai and Zhiling. This opportunity to become a Facebook board member is indeed quite rare. The general consensus is that we can have an open and honest discussion."

In any case, Mus is just a niche product, and Jim Breyer Capital and Xiong Xiaoge, who acted as intermediaries, shouldn't be hindering Mus's development. Besides, the mutual constraints between WeChat and WeChat are inevitable.

Yu Xing considered it briefly, then said without objection, "Alright, by then the test results will be available. You can start preparing a comprehensive presentation of Mus's vision and development." Lü Haiying confirmed the details: "Should we also inform President Xiong?"

Yu Xing nodded and said, "Yeah, Mr. Xiong is a good friend."

He then added, "Jim and he are very close, and they have business dealings on both sides, so it's very likely that it can't be kept secret."

Lü Haiying felt that this was very realistic.

This year's Spring Festival falls on the last day of January, so there's a lot of time to prepare for routine things.

Yu Xing had a meeting in the city where he needed to discuss the overall situation of the silicon carbon group, so he first reviewed the situation himself to make sure he had a thorough understanding.

With the Silicon Carbon Group having achieved this, the next tasks are quite clear: the first half of the year will focus on production line debugging and supply chain establishment, while the second half will involve producing pre-production vehicles for further testing, adapting to subsidy policies, and launching the sales network construction.

Then comes mass production ramp-up, final verification, and delivery preparation.

Of course, there are still various sub-projects under the main goal, but it is much easier than the previous stages.

Two weeks passed in the blink of an eye. Jim from Breyer Capital arrived in Shanghai on the morning of January 15th, met Xiong Xiaoge who had arrived earlier, and then went to Lingang together.

Yu Xingren was in the city, so Zhong Zhiling and others from the company received him.

Jim formed his first impression of the carbon silicon data company, which consisted of a factory-like setting, and then turned to Xiong Xiaoge and asked, "Mr. Xiong, are we here to discuss the future of an internet company? Not to discuss financing for that company that manufactures range-extended electric vehicles?"

Xiong Xiaoge sensed the sarcasm in his tone and instead said seriously, "His range-extended vehicles are also quite good. If you'd like, you can take a look with him."

Jim laughed and said, "Now I'm even more curious about this Mr. Yu. I really want to see what kind of person can be 'professional in both cars and the internet'."

The two investors arrived together and spent the afternoon touring the Silicon Carbon Group before meeting with Liu Jiankai, who was interested in creating a cryptocurrency trading platform.

Following instructions from General Manager Yu, Liu Jiankai came over with great enthusiasm to promote the project.

Xiong Xiaoge gave General Manager Liu five minutes.

Five minutes very precisely.

He then stated his position: "Mr. Liu, you said you want to do this in Hong Kong, then I think you'd better do it first and then come to us. We also need time to observe the future of cryptocurrency."

Liu Jiankai was reluctant to give up: "Mr. Xiong, I've already found a partner, and I plan to..."

Xiong Xiaoge made a stop gesture and asked, "Will President Yu vote?"

Liu Jiankai was taken aback, thinking of President Yu's previously stated low-key attitude, and replied, "President Yu is not interested in this."

Upon hearing this, Xiong Xiaoge became even more blunt: "President Yu himself isn't investing, yet he's asking you to come and raise money. President Liu, shouldn't you ask President Xu to invest some money for you first? Haha, let's not talk about this today."

As a former investor, Liu Jiankai is now feeling the difficulty of raising funds.

Damn it, I haven't even finished explaining my project yet! Can't you guys have some manners?!
However, Liu Jiankai himself had done such a thing, so he had nothing to say about it.

That evening, Yu Xing hurriedly returned from the city.

He didn't exchange many pleasantries, nor did he bother to inquire about Liu Jiankai, who seemed to be on the verge of death. He directly summoned Zhong Zhiling, Zhai Yifei, Lü Haiying, and Ge Zhijie, along with Jim and Xiong Xiaoge, to the conference room to discuss matters related to going to sea.

The meeting started normally. Zhai Yifei introduced the algorithm technology of silicon carbon data and emphasized its personalized recommendation capabilities, while the breakthrough in revenue of information flow advertising was the most practical explanation.

Jim understands this perfectly; Facebook is doing the same thing now.

He was simply somewhat surprised by the level of performance reflected in the carbon and silicon data.

Lu Haiying noticed Jim's expression and mentioned an ad related to Facebook: "The latest hot topic this year is app install ads. We believe that they are already at a similar level to Facebook's App Install Ads. This is also the most efficient ad format for conversion that Facebook has matured in 13."

Jim nodded, not too surprised by their research on Facebook.

Since Lü Haiying had spoken up, she then went on to talk about the trends in short videos and products such as Vine and Instagram overseas, as well as Weishi and Miaopai in China.

After listening for a while, Xiong Xiaoge felt that the conversation had gone a bit off-topic, and gestured to President Yu with his eyes that he could try to steer the meeting in the right direction.

Yu Xing ignored him.

After a short while, Lü Haiying formally introduced MusVid: "MusVid is a short video app that combines music. It currently has 40 users in the United States and has performed very well after two weeks of testing on Facebook."

"Compared to traditional Vine and Instagram, it focuses more on the entertainment content track and has a unique market positioning with music as its core."

“We believe that teenagers under the age of 24 are highly receptive to new things and are not fully covered by mainstream platforms, making them an excellent entry point.”

As Xiong Xiaoge listened, he had to interrupt, "Wait, wait, MusVid?? What is that?? 40 American users??"

He looked at the composed CEO Yu in astonishment: "What are we going to talk about today? A carbon silicon data company? Going global?"

Yu Xing pointed at the screen: "It's out! It's already out, it just came out not long ago, and we immediately invited you all to come and taste it."

Xiong Xiaoge: "..."

Many thoughts flashed through his mind. He glanced at President Yu one moment and then at the serious President Lü the next, unsure of what to say.

Seeing his old friend's astonished expression, and then looking at the content displayed on the screen, Jim said, "Mr. Xiong, shall we continue our conversation?"

Xiong Xiaoge sighed: "Of course we need to talk. This MusVid is clearly the product of President Yu's cunning."

His thoughts had already drifted to the matter of Tencent's Weishi and WeChat's integration of short videos. It wasn't just cunning, it was treacherous!

(End of this chapter)