What's wrong with me being a rich man?

Chapter 501 A Moment of Favorability or Rebellion

Alibaba hosted a dinner party that evening, with Yu Xing having an appointment to visit industry peers, but the Penguin side, hosted by the locals in Shenzhen, was rather quiet.

As a core executive who has worked with Pony for many years, Liu Chiping, although he did not hear the leader talk much about short videos, keenly sensed that Pony was still unsettled.

However, he didn't intend to discuss this in detail now, because he himself was also involuntarily examining "Weishi" and even the decisions made over the past few years.

Although Yu Xing's words were harsh, some of them were not without merit.

Tencent is satisfied with the progress of instant messaging... which is precisely what's frustrating, especially since Liu Chiping was involved in and pushed forward many of the decisions made in this competitive landscape, including the merger and revival of Weishi...

"Xue Zhiyuan, tell me, with Weishi appearing twice like this, don't you all have some questions in your minds?"

After dinner, Liu Chiping found Xue Zhiyuan, the deputy of the Weishi business.

Hearing the almost undisguised hesitation on his boss's face, Xue Zhiyuan replied without hesitation, "I think everyone is very confident in making Weishi."

Liu Chiping remained silent for several seconds: "Is this the truth?"

Xue Zhiyuan changed to a more cautious approach: "I can say that most people are confident. We have traffic, music copyrights and celebrity resources, and we are also competing in a differentiated way. There is no reason why we can't do well."

Liu Chiping doesn't usually smoke, but he lit one this time. After taking a couple of puffs, he made an observation: "Have you noticed that the importance of traffic is decreasing?"

Without waiting for an answer, he shook his head and said, "It should be said that under the current circumstances, traffic acquisition cannot be concentrated."

In the past PC era, Tencent was quite adept at waging a traffic war, but after entering the mobile internet era, it always felt constrained. Looking back over the past few years, the most regrettable thing internally is that it did not fully develop WeChat.

Alibaba's acquisition of WeChat is like a stubborn fishbone stuck in its throat, and this confrontation in a key area forces Tencent to focus its efforts on competing with it.

Just after the 3Q War ended, Tencent reached a near-unanimous consensus on transformation. "Capital" and "traffic," proposed by Martin Lau, were the two core means of external expansion, representing a reflection on and upgrade of Tencent's past actions.

However, this consensus on transformation was unknowingly lost in the confrontation with Alibaba. A lot of traffic was directed to the e-commerce sector, which greatly promoted the development of JD.com, but it was never able to truly shake Alibaba.

Especially after Alibaba went public, it had no shortage of funds.

It can be said that the attempt to contain Alibaba's e-commerce business has completely failed, and the resulting opportunity cost is enormous.

Looking back, Liu Chiping sighed inwardly. However, the impact of Alibaba acquiring WeChat on Tencent was enormous, and it would be almost impossible for them not to confront each other again.

This increasingly obvious predicament must be addressed by someone.

Xue Zhiyuan pondered for a while, noticing the BOSS's unpleasant expression and lack of response to the previous question. Guessing his thoughts, he suddenly said, "Although Alibaba is aggressive, it's not without its challenges. We have a role to play in the group-buying market."

While the prospects of short videos have not yet been fully proven, group buying O2O has been largely validated. This market has now become a three-way battle among BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent): Meituan is backed by Alibaba, Dianping by Tencent, and Nuomi by Baidu.

However, Liu Chiping has secretly met with Wang Xing of Meituan on several occasions, expressing his willingness to promote the merger of Dianping and Meituan, help Meituan get rid of Alibaba's constraints, and promised that Tencent will not seek control of Meituan in the future.

The two sides have almost reached a consensus on cooperation, with only some disagreements on the merger conditions. This has greatly excited Tencent's top management and is seen as proof of Liu Chiping's keen insight. The reason he contacted Meituan was because he noticed that Meituan had introduced institutions such as General Atlantic this year, thereby diluting Alibaba's equity. He then boldly judged that Wang Xing was actually unwilling to become a further appendage of Alibaba, even though it is now the world's second-largest internet company by market capitalization.

Meituan is the leading player in the O2O market. Once it merges with Dianping, it will solidify its market position and no longer need to compete with Tencent by burning money. At the same time, it will completely destroy Baidu Nuomi's hopes, and Alibaba will become the ultimate loser.

Xue Zhiyuan greatly admires BOSS's operations. Meituan is considered a staunch member of the Alibaba group. Alibaba led Meituan's $5000 million Series B funding round in 2011, and many of its ground sales teams are former Alibaba executives. He is eager to see Alibaba's reaction to Meituan's perceived betrayal.

The O2O market has enormous potential, connecting with urban physical businesses at the lower level and having the potential to erode e-commerce businesses at the higher level, making it an excellent piece of the puzzle.

"It's just going with the flow. Wang Xing is resistant to Alibaba's further moves, mainly because of him." Liu Chiping shook his head and sighed, "Anyone could have done this."

“Look at Yu Xing. When he was making WeChat, it was seen as going against the trend. When he was making this car, it was also seen as going against the trend. The same goes for short videos. But his transformation from going against the trend to going with the trend seems to be just a thought away.”

"I have a feeling that he can also make that car in Lingang."

"If the Lingang car project succeeds, Carbon Silicon Group will become a leading new energy company in China. Coupled with the rapid development of Carbon Silicon Data, Yu Xing will be considered a legend."

Liu Chiping stubbed out his cigarette and said with a hint of helplessness, "He's right that I'm not a good product manager. Xue Zhiyuan, are you a good product manager?"

Xue Zhiyuan hesitated for two seconds: "That depends on who you're comparing yourself to."

Liu Chiping asked, "How does it compare to Yu Xing?"

Xue Zhiyuan hesitated even longer this time. "Well, this..."

Knowing the answer, Liu Chiping said self-deprecatingly, "I've been thinking a lot today, and this is just a casual chat. There's also resistance within the company to restarting Weishi, including resources and plans for Weichat. Sigh, if it really doesn't work out, we might as well invite Yu Xing to be the CEO."

Xue Zhiyuan felt that President Liu's words were starting to go too far.

"If Weishi's momentum falters..." Liu Chiping suddenly had a brilliant idea, "Just like how we invested in Meituan, why not invest in Douyin? We can avoid influencing current decisions with sunk costs. If we don't see carbon silicon data as a competitor, but rather as a tool to extend our ecosystem influence..."

Xue Zhiyuan was shocked upon hearing this. What was going on? Why did they suddenly want to vote when they were just chatting?
Forget about being a product manager or not, can you even be a CEO?

He immediately spoke up: "Mr. Liu, Weishi hasn't reached that point yet!"

Liu Chiping hummed in agreement: "I was just overthinking things because Yu Xing stabbed me twice today."

He waved his hand, but a thought lingered in his mind: just as Dianping couldn't compete with Meituan, they might as well merge to help the other party take over the market. If Weishi really couldn't make a mark in the short video market, perhaps they could explore the possibility of some form of cooperation with Yu Xing.

With this thought arising, I suddenly felt the vastness of the world.

Alibaba is too strong now. If Tencent abandons Weishi and focuses its efforts on Weichat, which is gradually gaining the upper hand, Meituan will defect to Alibaba and attack it, Douyin will expand its scale to suppress Leyin, and JD.com will gain traffic from multiple sources to compete with Tmall...

Liu Chiping pondered carefully, and it seemed that going with the flow or going against it was just a matter of a single thought.

(End of this chapter)