Rebirth Tokyo 1986

Chapter 414 Mutual Boosting is the Key
“Okay, then let’s set up a joint venture to operate it.”

Director Wu was also getting tired of the endless spending on Chinese football, so he simply agreed with Masato Takeshita's opinion.

The two parties established a joint venture, with each holding 50% of the shares.

"Thank you, thank you for your understanding, Director Wu."

Once the business rules were agreed upon, the rest of the discussions went more smoothly.

For example, China and Japan each sent 12 teams.

Then, the club's promotion and relegation are not related to the overall ranking, but to the ranking of your country.

For example, there are four relegation spots for the tournament each year.

Even if you are ranked third to last, as long as the two people behind you are from the same country, you will not be demoted.

Conversely, even if you are ranked 11th in the league.

If only one of the 13 clubs behind you is from the same country, then you will also be relegated.

The competition must ensure that the number of Chinese and Japanese clubs is the same to avoid an imbalance between the two sides.

Because everything went smoothly, the young man took Saburo Kawabuchi back to Tokyo early.

"I'm really sorry, Senior Kawabuchi, I couldn't stick to keeping the club's name neutral."

"It's alright. Sacrifices must always be made for a greater victory."

The fact that the football club's name couldn't be neutral did make him a little sad.

But compared to what he has gained this time, he is happy to accept it all.

After all, in 1996, Chinese football was among the best in Asia, even stronger than Japan's.

Unifying the two leagues would also greatly benefit Japan.

People are more willing to watch international matches, which in turn benefits the overall promotion of football in Japan.

If he could see football surpass baseball in his lifetime, he would truly die without regrets.

"Well, if we change the name to something non-neutral, I imagine large domestic companies will be willing to invest more money."

It's practically impossible for a football club to make money.

Like most clubs around the world, he serves a promotional purpose.

Of course, some people do it to improve their relationship with the government.

After all, the improvement of a region's sports culture can be seen as a reflection of its political achievements.

"I'll leave the rest to you, Senior Kawabuchi."

The young man didn't know much about the competition, so he entrusted Saburo Kawabuchi with all the details of the negotiations with the Chinese side and the establishment of the Japanese division.

Masato Takeshita will only make a brief appearance at the final signing ceremony to express his support for the football event.

"It's okay, I'd love to be busy."

Saburo Kawabuchi has always envied the Chinese national football team because he believes that football, in the end, comes down to population.

With the largest population in the world, China is sure to be a very strong football nation in the future.

It can only be said that he was misled by China's current relatively strong national team.

When it comes to football, it's never about the total population, but about the number of people who play football professionally.

China does have a large population, but very few people are prepared to enter the football industry.

Not to mention comparing it to countries with developed football nations, it can't even compare to many small countries.

Typical examples are Eastern European countries like Croatia and the Czech Republic, whose football populations far surpass those of China, and their results naturally far outshine China's.

With Saburo Kawabuchi in charge of the league, Masato Takeshita is quite at ease.

He simply became a hands-off manager and continued to manage the vast amount of work at his own company.

"Oh, the email service officially launches next Friday. I have to go there and have a celebration party with everyone."

The young man highlighted the important parts of the document and then placed it directly in the column for the secretary-general.

His memory is exceptional; his secretaries dare not forget him.

"Hmm, Yahoo is going to start its pre-IPO roadshow?"

Upon seeing the words "Yahoo!", Takeshita Masato immediately perked up.

Because Yahoo was the pioneer of the global internet industry, it will still be written in textbooks even 100 years from now.

In comparison, even if Google and Facebook become more profitable in the future, they will hardly achieve the same status.

The companies that can be compared to Yahoo are Apple and IBM.

One company pioneered the era of personal computers and smartphones, while the other represented the computer industry.

"I never expected that even Yahoo would go public."

The young man began to carefully read through the contents of the document, afraid of missing any useful information.

"Hmm, valued at 10 billion? It seems that Xinghai Group and I have indeed had a huge impact on the world."

When Yahoo went public in its previous life, its closing price after a surge was approximately $8.5 million.

In this life, Yahoo's pre-IPO stock valuation, or opening price, was $10 billion, directly surpassing the closing price in the previous life.

On the day Yahoo goes public, its market capitalization could grow to at least $20 billion. In other words, users who bought the stock would have their profits doubled on the same day.

As for why he is so confident?
It's very simple. The young man plans to notify Xinghai Capital and have Jiaben Longzheng and others immediately buy in large quantities when the market value is below $20 billion.

In short, it is essential to maintain Yahoo's high market capitalization growth.

Only in this way can enough greedy capital be attracted, thereby driving the overall development of the internet industry. Xinghai Group can also earn more from this.

It's remarkable that Yahoo has achieved such a high valuation in this lifetime.

The people we should thank the most are the Xinghai Internet Cafe Alliance.

Its emergence not only greatly increased the number of internet users worldwide, but also made the internet grow at a much faster pace than in its predecessors.

Although internet cafes will eventually become relics of the past, they have played a significant historical role in popularizing the internet.

The emergence of Masato Takeshita can be seen as extending its historical significance from developing countries to the entire world.

"I have a roadshow in Tokyo this Saturday, so it looks like I have no choice but to attend."

Although Yahoo is an American company, two of its three major venture capital firms are from Japan.

In addition, Japan is now the world's second-largest economy.

Therefore, in addition to New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago, Tokyo was added as a roadshow city.

If Yahoo can attract a group of investors, its stock price might rise again.

Jerry Yang's idea was good, but it was basically impossible to realize.

Most people don't understand or know what the internet industry that Yahoo operates in is all about.

Not to mention the Japanese, even in the United States, where there are the largest number of internet users, most investors completely failed to understand Yahoo's business model.

Why should a company that is still losing money have such a high valuation?

As for terms like "users" and "growth," they are meaningless numbers to most investors.

They want to see the rate of return, to see specific profit figures.

Prospects and such are all vague and uncertain things, and cannot be taken seriously.

The Japanese are more conservative, and having just suffered losses in the stock market, even fewer are willing to take risks.

Apart from Xinghai Group and a few other investors like SoftBank who are optimistic about the development of the internet, most investors will remain silent.

You can watch the show, but don't even think about investing any money.

However, none of this matters; the lack of investors will not affect the significant increase in Yahoo's market value.

The young man glanced at the previous document and a new idea suddenly popped into his head.

"Yes, we'll give Yahoo a big gift before the IPO."

He plans to spend a large sum of money to buy Yahoo's most prominent advertising space for three years.

Yahoo's revenue could increase significantly, and it might even turn a profit in the next earnings report. Its market capitalization would naturally surge accordingly.

Xinghai Group also won big.

For three years, Yahoo's most prominent advertising space will significantly enhance the brand awareness of a series of internet companies under the Xinghai Group.

For internet companies in the 1990s, brand awareness was essentially equivalent to the number of website users, and consequently, the company's market value.

If Xinghai Group doesn't act quickly, it will be difficult to have such a good opportunity again.

Aside from Yahoo and StarMail, the rest were minor, insignificant matters.

After a cursory glance, Masato Takeshita wrote his name on it and stamped it with his and his company's seals.

Saturday arrived quickly, and the young people arrived at the venue early.

He is also a major shareholder of the company and needs help with some matters.

Upon entering the venue, Masato Takeshita saw Jerry Yang, accompanied by his lover, passionately directing the event.

He first smiled and stepped forward to greet her, then casually asked, "Yang-san, where's David?"

"David doesn't like these kinds of occasions; he manages the technology team at the company."

"I see, that certainly fits David's personality."

Jerry Yang and David Schwarzman, one flamboyant and the other reserved, are the perfect type to work together.

If both of them are flamboyant and enjoy being the main character, the company will probably be fighting each other even before it goes public.

Physically, they became one.

After casually asking his partner, Masato Takeshita brought the topic back to the present moment.

"Hello, Ms. Yamazaki. You and Mr. Yang must have suffered a lot these past few days."

"It's normal to be busy at the beginning; I only made a very small contribution."

Akiko Yamazaki, a Japanese-American, is Jerry Yang's lover and future wife.

"You're too kind. You're a top student from Stanford."

The story of how the two met is quite legendary.

It could be that they are interested in Japanese culture, or it could simply be that they want a change of scenery.

During their doctoral studies, Jerry Yang and David chose to work as exchange lecturers in Japan.

At the same time, Akiko Yamazaki also went to Japan as an exchange student.

However, he was a student, not a teacher.

After returning to China, the two dated frequently and eventually got together.

Of course, the most legendary marriage among internet tycoons should be that of Pony Ma.

They met through QQ chat, then met in person and got married.

It can only be said that Ma Huateng, who appears to be low-key, is more trendy than anyone else when it comes to doing things.

After chatting for a while, they noticed that Masayoshi Son had also hurriedly arrived at the venue ahead of schedule.

"Good afternoon, Ms. Sun!"

"Good afternoon, Mr. Takeshita, Mr. Yang, and Ms. Yamazaki."

Since everyone was an old acquaintance, there was no need to address each other by title. After a simple greeting, we got down to business.

Of course, it was mostly Jerry Yang and Masayoshi Son who were busy.

Takeshita Masato was of a high position, so no one dared to ask him to do anything.

After the Tokyo roadshow, the young man walked up to Jerry Yang.

"What's wrong? A little disappointed?"

"Yes, people in Tokyo don't seem to understand the internet very well."

Jerry Yang was disappointed because no one seemed interested.

The few who thought it was okay were all blindly following the young people's mindless all-in bets.

"That's normal. New things always need time for people to understand them."

In his previous life, Jerry Yang became successful and went to China to negotiate with the government, but not many people understood what was going on with Yahoo.

Keep in mind that this was in 1997, and Yahoo had already been listed for a year.

"Besides, you know the stock market environment here, so naturally everyone prefers to take the stable route."

"Indeed, I was hoping for too much."

"Alright, cheer up. If Tokyo isn't working out, isn't America a hot spot?"

With Netscape already established, American investors, though not yet understanding the internet, didn't care as long as the stock appreciated.

After all, very few people play the stock market; most prefer long-term holding.

Most people buy today and sell when the price rises tomorrow or the day after.

As for the option of growing together with the company, that's extremely rare.

However, due to the explosive profit growth of Xinghai Fund, the number of funds that are being held for the long term is increasing recently.

The risks are too great in the short term; it's better to gamble on the future based on the company's performance.

"Yes, the US market has indeed gradually opened up after Netscape."

Jerry Yang is still very grateful to Netscape, because Netscape placed Yahoo in the most prominent position on its homepage.

Users who open Netscape will generally be able to see the Yahoo website.

Of course, Yahoo was able to obtain such great benefits for free in its early days mainly due to the help of its two major investors.

Both Starsea Ventures and Sequoia Capital hold shares in Netscape. Ultimately, thanks to the power of its shareholders, Netscape did them a small favor.

This is also a key reason why many well-funded companies are willing to accept venture capital.

Good venture capital firms can not only help with human resources and money, but also make a huge contribution in terms of resources.

For websites of the same type, I had WeChat promotion right from the start, while you can only work your way up slowly.

Even if they are launched at the same time, the former will most likely be successful.

The internet industry exhibits a very strong Matthew effect; falling behind even once can easily lead to falling behind at every step.

In the end, they either go bankrupt and disappear, or they are directly swallowed up by the former.

"That's it then. Anyway, we don't lack investors, so it doesn't matter what."

Takeshita Masato shrugged, then changed the subject to something that would make them both happy.

"How's the growth rate of internet advertising?"

"It's still in its early stages, and large companies are only willing to try investing."

Even the giant companies don't know if advertising directly on the internet will be effective, so they are only willing to invest a small amount as a trial.

For example, try spending $10 on an advertisement.

If the results are good, it shows you have a keen eye for talent. If the results are bad, $10 won't make a difference.

Therefore, thanks to these shrewd advertising executives from large companies, Yahoo finally managed to make some progress.

"Ahem, take it slow, everyone will soon see the results."

In reality, the young man was being somewhat insincere, because the effect of early morning internet advertising is minimal.

Most of the ads from internet companies are artificially inflated.

Yes, just like Taobao, most of the early advertising sales of internet companies came from fake orders between each other.

Because the internet was something new, investors simply didn't understand it.

Those working in the internet industry eventually simplified the complexities of the internet to user growth rate and revenue growth rate.

If these two factors are significant, then it's a good company worth investing in.

(End of this chapter)