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Chapter 337 0334 [HarmonyOS Technology]

Professor Wu was persuaded in just a few words.

Chen Guiliang arranged to meet with non-executive director Zhang Suyang again. He originally planned to fly to Shanghai by himself, but Zhang Suyang ended up coming to Beijing instead.

"Tudou.com is almost out of money. Mr. Chen, would you like to invest in the Series D round?" Zhang Suyang stated his purpose.

Chen Guiliang asked, "Is Tudou.com having difficulty raising funds?"

Zhang Suyang said, "The current economic climate is terrible, and Tudou.com's IPO seems a long way off. Of the previous rounds of venture capital firms, only one, besides IDG, was willing to invest further. But I have high hopes for Tudou.com, so I'm helping them attract investment everywhere."

The current environment is indeed particularly bad.

ByteDance's stock price is expected to fall below its IPO price during the Spring Festival period.

Giant Interactive, which went public at the same time, will likely see its share price fall below its IPO price by March at the latest.

Baidu's stock price has plummeted from $430 to just over $350. The faster it rose before, the faster it's falling now.

The US stock market is in utter devastation.

All venture capital firms have become cautious, and some are even struggling to keep up with their own investments, having invested in a large number of companies and securities that are now stuck with losses.

Chen Guiliang said, "ByteDance can invest an additional $100 million in Tudou.com."

"That's great! Mr. Chen really has good taste!" Zhang Suyang was very happy.

$100 million may not be a lot, but every little bit helps.

Zhang Suyang plans to fly to the United States to find wealthy investors, such as the Rockefeller family.

He believes Tudou.com has a bright future.

At its peak, three to four hundred video websites emerged in China; now, fewer than ten remain. Tudou and Youku, however, stand as the two giants, leaving other video websites far behind. Persistence pays off!
After discussing Tudou.com, Chen Guiliang asked, "Mr. Zhang, have you been following Tianyu's news?"

Zhang Suyang immediately smiled: "Invest 10 billion yuan in smartphones over the next three years?"

"Yes." Chen Guiliang nodded.

Zhang Suyang said, "Tianyu is obviously just creating hype. How can you make a smartphone with 10 billion yuan? The louder the slogans are, the less confident Tianyu is."

Huawei, Lenovo, ZTE, Coolpad, Gionee, China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC) and other companies have also announced their plans to develop smartphones. They have all emerged in droves recently.

It was quite lively.

Chen Guiliang said, "I also plan to do it."

“ByteDance or Youke?” Zhang Suyang was not surprised at all.

Chen Guiliang said, "Bytes."

Zhang Suyang asked, "What's the R&D budget?"

Chen Guiliang said, "5000 million yuan. I also need the support of at least one more director."

Zhang Suyang asked, "Are there any more specific plans?"

Chen Guiliang said, "Three professors from Peking University, Tsinghua University, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences led their graduate students to conduct research and development together."

"Then you need to keep a close eye on things and not let the professors just focus on publishing papers," Zhang Suyang reminded him.

Chen Guiliang said, "If the mobile phone is tied to their interests, they won't be so busy producing low-quality papers. The specific cooperation plan hasn't been finalized yet, but I need to control the finances. Any expenditure exceeding a certain amount must be personally signed off by me."

Zhang Suyang said, "I will support you on the board of directors' side."

Chen Guiliang said, "It would be even better if we could get support at the shareholders' meeting."

Zhang Suyang said, "I need to go back and discuss this with Mr. Xiong and the others. Are you worried that the shareholders' meeting won't approve it?"

Chen Guiliang nodded.

Zhang Suyang said, "Don't worry, the shareholders who entered during the IPO stage don't have time to worry about your 5000 million investment right now. Everything in the US is a mess, and everyone is too busy to handle it."

Large institutions have invested in numerous companies and have dedicated companies or teams handling various voting processes. They're all incredibly busy right now and probably don't even have time to come to China. For a small investment of 5000 million RMB, they could very well decide the outcome with a vote via email.

There is also a very small possibility that a fund manager or senior representative will be sent over to question Chen Guiliang during the on-site voting.

A few days later, Chen Guiliang convened a board meeting.

He realized he was being too cautious; the directors appointed by those American investment firms would never actually come to China for meetings.

These institutional directors often hold board positions in multiple companies, making frequent international flights impractical.

They participated in the vote via remote video conference, asking their routine questions. Seeing that Chen Guiliang had the support of more than half of the directors, they ended the video conference according to procedure, not bothering to ask Chen Guiliang a few more questions.

The shareholders' meeting was much the same.

ByteDance sent a prospectus to its US shareholders, including the meeting agenda, details of the proposals, board recommendations, and more. The institutional investors (US shareholders) held a small meeting and, upon discovering that ByteDance was using relatively small sums of money, and that it intended to invest in smartphones, quickly delegated their representatives to vote remotely.

The whole process went surprisingly smoothly.

Because everything went so smoothly, Chen Guiliang felt as if it were child's play.

This is caused by a variety of factors.

Firstly, Chen Guiliang personally holds nearly 50% of the shares, and with the option pool held on his behalf and Guo Feng's shares, the total reaches 60%. Under these circumstances, as long as the proposal isn't too outrageous, institutional shareholders are too lazy to bother with it.

Secondly, the overall economic environment in the US is very poor, and investment institutions have more important matters to attend to. As Zhang Suyang said, they simply don't have time to concern themselves with a small matter like 5000 million RMB. ...

However, a problem arose with the three professors.

The situation around 2008 was delicate, with universities and research institutes tightening policies on professors taking on part-time jobs and starting businesses outside the university. While not completely abolished, institutional approval was required, with varying degrees of leniency among different institutions.

Peking University is quite lenient in its regulations, but the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Tsinghua University won't approve it!

This situation is terrible because after the project is completed, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Tsinghua University may come to claim the patents—the professors' inventions made in the course of their employment.

Pan Aiming plans to resign and start his own business, but the other two professors are unwilling to resign.

After discussing with the three professors, Chen Guiliang decided to adopt the most popular "research institute" model at the time.

The specific plan is as follows:

ByteDance will fund and register a wholly-owned subsidiary. A "Joint Research Institute" will be established under this subsidiary. The subsidiary will centrally manage R&D funds, intellectual property, and project progress.

Three professors joined the research institute as chief scientists, each leading an independent laboratory and responsible for modules such as hardware, systems, and communications. The laboratories were allocated budgets as needed, with funds disbursed centrally by the company, and expenditures requiring approval from Chen Guiliang.

The three professors circumvented university policy oversight by not directly holding shares, instead holding stock options in ByteDance's subsidiaries. The vesting method for these options is determined by project outcomes. Upon successful completion of a planned project, the professors receive a percentage of the planned progress as stock options.

Although the school's laboratory management was very lax at the time, and professors often used the school's facilities and equipment to take on private work, the patent risks were extremely high.

Therefore, Chen Guiliang decided to build his own research and development center.

The main R&D center was located in Shunyi, a region that Chen Guiliang had previously favored, where it will be responsible for hardware mass production pilot testing, reliability testing, and so on.

However, the main R&D center will take some time to be completed, and the commute is quite long.

Therefore, a forward station was set up in Zhongguancun as a transitional facility, providing professors with a place for daily office work, algorithm simulation, student collaboration, and so on.

For the next period of time, Chen Guiliang was extremely busy.

He pulled management and finance teams from ByteDance to set up the subsidiary's framework. Then he went to Shunyi to negotiate cooperation, acquiring land under the guise of establishing a research and development center.

The professors weren't idle either; as soon as the final exams were over, they came to help with the construction planning of the research and development center. They also presented a list of equipment, urging Chen Guiliang to purchase it as soon as possible.

I didn't even have time to rest during the Spring Festival!

……

"Aren't you going home for the New Year?" Bian Guanyue asked.

Chen Guiliang slumped on the sofa and said, "I can't get away, I'm swamped with work."

As he was talking, Chen Guiliang suddenly laughed.

Bian Guanyue asked curiously, "What are you laughing at?"

Chen Guiliang said, "I thought of some funny things. ByteDance set up a subsidiary called 'Hongmeng Technology Holdings Co., Ltd.', which has a 'Hongmeng Joint Research Institute.' The institute has three major laboratories called Kunlun, Fusang, and Guixu, which represent hardware, systems, and communications, respectively."

“These all seem to be from the Classic of Mountains and Seas. The names are nice, but there’s nothing funny about them,” Bian Guanyue said.

Sigh, being reborn is so lonely; no one understands your jokes.

It's not all just memes; all the names have deeper meanings.

Hongmeng goes without saying; it is the primordial chaos energy at the beginning of the universe.

Kunlun, the ancestor of all mountains, corresponds to the physical components of a mobile phone, such as chips and circuits. The nine-layered structure of Kunlun Mountain represents the layered design of mobile phone hardware.

The ten-day rotation of the Fusang sun is the central rule governing the rising and setting of the sun, corresponding to the core functions of an operating system in scheduling resources and managing processes.

Guixu is a place where all waters converge, "the waters of the eight directions and nine fields, the flow of the Milky Way, all flow into it," symbolizing global communication coverage.

Anyway, the names are all pretty cool. I bet graduate students who come here to work will find those names particularly impressive.

As for Huawei, let them use whatever name they like.

Anyway, Chen Guiliang registered the name "HarmonyOS" first. This saves Huawei from having to torture programmers and users to death with its pure HarmonyOS in 2025.

"I'll take you to the airport tomorrow," Chen Guiliang said.

Bian Guanyue said, "No need, you're so busy, I can go by myself."

Chen Guiliang said, "The address of HarmonyOS Technology Company and R&D Center is right next to the airport, in the Airport Industrial Park. After I take you to the airport, I'll sign the land acquisition agreement with them there."

Bian Guanyue asked, "Is there going to be further demolition? Demolition is a lot of trouble."

Chen Guiliang said, "The demolition is none of my business. The local government will handle it themselves. They are racking their brains to attract high-tech companies. Besides, it's a rural area with a low population density. I'll just be responsible for paying the money."

The land transfer price is unbelievably cheap, only 8 yuan per mu (the price after preferential subsidies for land used in the electronic information industry in Beijing).

However, the land is prohibited from being converted to commercial use. It can only be used for mobile phone manufacturing; it cannot be used for logistics parks, low-value-added factories, etc.

What's even more ridiculous is that two years ago, Lenovo acquired land here for 22 yuan per mu, which is almost three times the price Chen Guiliang paid for the land.

Because the policy has changed!

Since Chen Guiliang acquired the land cheaply, he must make some sacrifices; he needs to hire a certain number of employees from Beijing, especially those with bachelor's or associate's degrees from Shunyi District.

……

(Last month's update to Pure Blood HarmonyOS drove me crazy. After the system update, all recommendation lists, book review sections, and fan rankings disappeared from the Qidian Reading app. No matter whether I edited chapters using a computer or a mobile assistant, the modified content wouldn't refresh.)
(End of this chapter)