Rebirth Tokyo 1986

Chapter 398 Everything is Temporary
"Why not go?" Huawei representatives, having received an invitation from Xinghai Group, quickly arrived in Tokyo.

"That's great! We should have one too."

As soon as they arrived at the VIP reception room of the cafeteria, Ren Zhengfei whispered to Guo Ping, who was standing next to him.

He admired Xinghai Communications' VIP canteen, which resembled a forest garden, and decided to create a similar canteen for his own company in the future.

"Yes, I believe our company will have that soon too."

After so many years of getting along, Guo Ping has come to trust his chairman implicitly.

Because many of the future scenarios for the company described by their own chairman have already begun to come true.

Besides, as long as we agree to Xinghai Group's investment requirements, building a luxury dining hall for foreign guests, or even a Grade A office building, is no problem at all.

"Yes, we'll have that soon too."

Hearing the two whispering, Zheng Baoyong couldn't help but whisper enviously in a low voice.

He decided that he would work even harder on research and development after returning home, so as to help President Ren realize the scenario he had described in the past.

In fact, Zheng Baoyong should be considered one of the early employees of Huawei who made the greatest sacrifice.

He was a doctoral student at Tsinghua University, busy with his dissertation and graduation project. However, inspired by Ren Zhengfei's patriotic enthusiasm, he resolutely gave up his studies and joined Huawei's R&D team.

It's important to understand that Huawei was a small company on the verge of bankruptcy back then, not the Fortune Global 500 company it is today.

Zheng Baoyong's act of providing timely assistance was a gamble with his own future, and it truly demonstrated Ren Zhengfei's deep sense of patriotism and national responsibility.

Of course, Zheng Baoyong's patriotism also played a part in this.

If it were an ordinary person, no matter how eloquently Mr. Ren spoke, they would not give up a promising future to join a small company on the verge of bankruptcy.

In a sense, the two of them were heading towards each other.

When Huawei encountered difficulties again in 1993, a guy later known as "Big Mouth" made a similar decision.

He gave up the opportunity at Tsinghua University to work tirelessly with Mr. Ren on research and development.

All I can say is that Mr. Ren's personal charisma is truly exceptional, making him a modern-day Liu Bei.

Even when the company wasn't doing very well, it was able to attract a large number of top talents.

After the banquet, Ren Zhengfei eagerly asked, "May we visit your company's laboratory?"

He had a lot of things to do at the company and didn't have time for a leisurely tour; he wanted to end the visit as soon as possible.

"Of course, it's our pleasure."

The group was received by Nagasawa Junpei, the technical officer at the Xinghai Communications Laboratory. As for Tanaka Kenji, the head of the research center, he was so engrossed in his experiments that he hadn't even considered receiving them.

After a brief greeting, Nagasawa Junpei didn't linger and quickly led everyone on a tour.

"This is our lab's fiber optic network project group, whose goal is to improve the upload and download speeds of broadband networks..."

"This is our lab's PHS (Personal Handyphone System) base station project team, which is constantly researching base stations with better signal and wider coverage..."

"This is our company's landline project team, which is also researching new switchboard technology..."

"This is our group's mobile phone project team. We are researching the world's mainstream mobile systems such as GSM and CDMA..."

After giving a brief overview of the company, Nagasawa Shunpei led Ren Zhengfei and others to the laboratory where the project team was located.

The first stop was naturally the R&D center for PHS (Personal Handyphone System) technology developed by Huawei, which Xinghai Group hoped to establish.

This project is relatively simple and easy to understand, making it most suitable for emerging small and medium-sized technology companies like Huawei.

"Is this a PHS (Personal Handyphone System) base station? The structure looks a bit simple."

"It's very simple, the price of a base station is what it is."

While not everything is exactly a case of "you get what you pay for," that's true most of the time.

The price of a PHS (Personal Handyphone System) base station is only a fraction of that of a similar mobile communication base station, so its development difficulty is naturally lower.

After listening to Kenji Tanaka's explanation, the Huawei team couldn't help but nod in agreement.

Keeping it simple is good; it's perfect for my research environment.

Although PHS (Personal Handyphone System) was a product project that Xinghai Communications strongly recommended to Huawei, the difficulties were there, and there wasn't much to discuss.

The group quickly moved to the Xinghai Mobile Communication Base Station Project Team, which was the place that best showcased the high-end nature of the Xinghai Group.

"Is this...this is your company's mobile device R&D lab?"

Ren Zhengfei stared in astonishment at everything before him. He had never imagined that the laboratory would have so many machines and such a wonderful environment.

In comparison, Huawei's labs are like a messy family workshop.

It was a mess, with parts scattered everywhere by researchers.

If I had to describe it in one sentence,
Huawei's labs are like small, personal workshops, with a bunch of researchers crammed together.

Starsea Communications' laboratory is like an experimental site from a Hollywood science fiction movie, where everyone has their own private space.

"Yes, this is our mobile device R&D lab."

Kenji Ono is deeply proud of his experimental environment, as it is unique in the world.

Not to mention China, even other Japanese tech giants and their American counterparts don't have such a comfortable laboratory.

Far ahead!

This contains the imprint of Masato Takeshita's personal thoughts from the future, as well as the influence of the Xinghai Group's excessively abundant funds.

The young man's personal ideas allowed the entire laboratory to be ahead of its time, even from the blueprint stage.

The funding from the Xinghai Group made the laboratory designs, which seemed somewhat like science fiction in the 1990s, a reality.

This can be considered a small contribution by Masato Takeshita to the aesthetics of the 1990s.

However, if we were to talk about the greatest contribution of young people to aesthetics in this day and age, it would probably be the design of shops.

Under his guidance, Xinghai Clothing's clothing brand stores all adopted the modern style of large floor-to-ceiling glass windows.

The space appears more open, which makes shoppers feel more comfortable.

The shopping supermarkets under the Xinghai Group have also become increasingly well-organized under the personal inspection and visit of Masato Takeshita.

This is also the power of time travelers; even if you know nothing, you can live well simply by relying on your knowledge from before you time travel.

For example, the store layout of a mobile phone specialty store, which is commonplace in later generations, would have been a game-changer in the 1990s or even the early 21st century.

Because the new design looks high-end and beautiful, it is very suitable for selling more expensive mobile phones and computers.

The young man wanted to bring these kinds of shops into Xinghai Group, but he was waiting for a better opportunity to ignite the market.

"It's so beautiful, so lovely."

Ren Zhengfei touched the tables and chairs in front of the Xinghai Communications R&D personnel, then stared intently at the rows of computers and machines in front of him.

When will we have so much equipment at home? Then our employees won't have to work by hand so often.

"Your company will have that soon too."

"Well, I hope so."

Ren Zhengfei's mindset changed at this point, and he became more inclined to secure investment from Xinghai Communications.

While the fruits of hard work taste sweeter, it's also good to have the opportunity to improve by standing on the shoulders of giants. After a quick tour, Kenji Ono arranged for someone to explain in detail to President Ren what each project team was doing and how to use each machine.

Of course, the main point is to introduce Xinghai Communications' patent achievements in the CDMA field, which almost explicitly states that joining Xinghai Communications will lead to faster development.

"Oh, so that's how it's used."

Ren Zhengfei did not respond to the question, but continued to inquire about the various aspects of the laboratory.

He also wanted to build one at Huawei, considering it a long-term goal for the company.

Ren Zhengfei refused to take the challenge, leaving Kenji Ono with no other option but to take Ren around Xinghai Communications every day for inspections.

Then, he couldn't take it anymore and called Masato Takeshita for help.

"Chairman, Mr. Ren Zhengfei is very steady and will not give up until he achieves his goal."

The desire of Ren Zhengfei, Zheng Baoyong, Li Yinan, and others for CDMA technology was evident even to ordinary employees of Xinghai Group.

Some employees were getting annoyed by their questions.

Of course, the Huawei team was very tactful. Their questions weren't very in-depth and didn't touch on Xinghai Communications' core technologies.

Although Huawei may be somewhat unscrupulous in its methods, it still knows when to act.

"Oh, I see. Then bring them to headquarters tomorrow. I'd like to meet them."

Masato Takeshita greatly admired this middle-aged entrepreneur and had long wanted to meet him.

Even if Kenji Ono doesn't call, the young man will ask him to help invite them.

"President, do you wish to meet him in person?"

"Yes, this is beneficial to both of us."

"Yes, understand."

After Kenji Ono relayed the message to the Huawei team, Ren Zhengfei and others looked extremely surprised.

"President Takeshita wants to see us?"

"Yes, our president greatly admires Mr. Ren's entrepreneurial history."

Although his chairman didn't say it, Kenji Ono had already keenly sensed his chairman's appreciation for Huawei.

If it weren't for this, he wouldn't have been so passive when dealing with Huawei.

"This is... President Ono is exaggerating."

At this time, Ren Zhengfei was very insecure. He did not believe that the leader of a large group that had started around the same time as him and had two Fortune 500 companies and several other companies that were no different from Fortune 500 companies in just a few years would really admire him.

That's right, the Xinghai Group, controlled by Masato Takeshita, already has two Fortune 500 companies under its umbrella.

One of them is Xinghai Technology, and its ranking isn't too low.

The other one is Starry Sea Life, which is also not at the end of the line.

As for companies like Xinghai Investment, Xinghai Entertainment, Xinghai Software, and Xinghai Communications, although they are also very strong, they are still a step behind the two companies mentioned above.

Of course, if we're being precise, Xinghai Investment can also be considered a Fortune 500 company.

After all, Galaxy Capital's revenue alone is already at the lower end of the Fortune Global 500.

Because the annual revenue of the bottom-ranked companies in the Fortune 500 is currently less than 10 billion US dollars.

It can only be said that there are huge gaps among the Fortune Global 500 companies.

The giants at the top of the list have annual revenues exceeding hundreds of billions of dollars, while those at the bottom only have a fraction of that.

Xinghai Group is slightly better off; its total revenue is only a fraction of what others make.

Although the gap is still significant, it is no longer as dramatic.

"That's true. Our president also started from scratch, so he admires people like him the most."

Strictly speaking, the idea of ​​a young person starting from scratch should be questioned.

On one hand, he was a time traveler; on the other hand, the entrepreneurial environment in Japan at that time was simply too good.

Even if Masato Takeshita didn't have the patent for the rolling suitcase, given the extravagance of Japan's bubble economy at the time, he could still get a loan of 1 billion yen by virtue of his status as a Waseda University student.

Because at that time the government was forcing banks to lend more money, legitimate companies couldn't borrow that much, so bank employees had to resort to all sorts of underhanded tricks to meet their performance targets.

He can easily achieve his goal of getting a loan by using a few tricks.

The simplest way is to use your university degree to apply for jobs at companies, earn millions or tens of millions of yen, and then buy a small piece of land.

It doesn't matter if the area is small, as long as there is such a piece of land.

Then, using this land as collateral for loans, borrowing money far exceeding the land's value. This process is repeated continuously, resulting in ever-increasing wealth.

Of course, this kind of approach was only feasible during Japan's bubble economy era. Because during that time, major Japanese banks would provide loans far exceeding the actual value of the land.

In normal times, the amount of money obtained through loans would be reduced, and development would only be possible by proceeding step by step.

"This is an exaggeration, President Ono. This is very ordinary."

Ren Zhengfei is an absolute tyrant within the company, often verbally abusing leaders who make mistakes.

But he always treated his customers very well and was very humble.

He did not show any pride because of Kenji Ono's words, and continued to maintain his simple, farmer's son persona.

Yes, Ren Zhengfei is very simple. And this simplicity is not pretentious, but genuine.

Leaving aside the hardships of starting a business in its early stages, even now that Huawei is wealthy, he still commutes to work by bicycle every day.

Later, because it was too far from home, I bought a used ordinary car.

At that time, Huawei's sales revenue was already close to 10 billion yuan.

Later, Huawei's reputation grew even further, and the company's revenue exceeded 100 billion yuan.

His car was just a regular BMW.

Unlike Masato Takeshita, who had his company buy him a luxury car early on.

As the company further developed, it even switched to expensive bulletproof vehicles.

The number of security personnel around me is constantly increasing.

As of today, Xinghai Group's spending on security for Takeshita Masato could easily eat up the combined annual profits of Huawei and ZTE.

In addition, Xinghai Group had arranged for him to have a private jet and other expensive items.

Of course, apart from security and travel, young people's other expenses are not very high.

The food was a bit better, but it was all very ordinary home-cooked food. Masato Takeshita would never try those exotic deep-sea seafood dishes.

Needless to say, their clothing consisted entirely of cheap items sold by their own company.

On the one hand, it's for advertising purposes, and on the other hand, I genuinely don't think those expensive clothes are that great.

There's not much difference between a T-shirt that costs a few dozen or a hundred yuan and one that costs several thousand or tens of thousands of yuan.

(End of this chapter)