Reborn in 2000, starting from the university website

Chapter 150 Mobile Dream Network

One o'clock in the morning.

Jiang Shuo compiled and printed out the transaction data from the past hour. His hands were still trembling slightly as the paper came out of the printer.

"Mr. Bai," Jiang Shuo handed over the paper, his voice dry, "In the first hour after going online, the mobile SMS recharge channel generated 214,000 yuan in revenue. Adding the old channel still running on the voice information platform, the total is 270,000 yuan. One hour."

The office area was silent for two seconds.

Zhang Jian slowly turned his head, looking at the numbers on the A4 paper, and dropped the instant noodle fork in his hand onto the keyboard.

"If this were to run for a full 24 hours—" Zhang Jian swallowed hard, not daring to continue the calculation.

Bai Yuhang folded the A4 paper, put it in his pocket, and glanced at everyone in the office area.

"Alright, keep an eye on your respective modules and take turns resting. Tomorrow is the real peak period."

He turned and walked back to the CEO's office, closing the door behind him.

Outside the window are the lights of Zhongguancun late at night, and the neon lights on the roof of the Sohu Network Building not far away are still on. But after tonight, those bright words will illuminate nothing more than a dilapidated building being demolished by its own people.

Bai Yuhang sat in the boss's chair, picked up the now-cold purple clay cup, but didn't drink it. He just stared at the tea leaves that had sunk to the bottom of the cup.

The Mobile Dream Network highway has officially opened to traffic.

Starting today, 20 million users will no longer need to search for public phone booths or wait for 40 minutes of busy signals to make money.

A short message costs only one cent in communication fees, deducted directly from your phone bill and credited instantly.

Once the floodgates to painless consumption are opened, they can never be closed again.

Meanwhile, across the ocean in the Los Angeles Bay Area.

Sequoia Capital's headquarters building in Menlo Park, Silicon Valley, California, is more than 4,000 kilometers away from Wall Street, but every pulse of Wall Street tugs at Sequoia's nerves.

The atmosphere in the partners' office on the 20th floor of the building was even more tense than when the Wall Street stock exchange closed.

Doug Leon slammed the report in his hand on the table, stood up, and walked to the French windows.

He had no interest in appreciating the dazzling skyline of the San Francisco Bay Area outside the window.

"Eighty-three percentage points." Doug turned to look at Kevin Hart, the senior analyst sitting on the opposite sofa. "Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Penn, Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth—the eight Ivy League schools in the East—have an enrollment penetration rate exceeding eighty-three percent. Tell me, how did Sequoia miss out on this project?"

Kevin flipped through the research report in his hand, fine beads of sweat appearing on his forehead.

"Doug, we noticed Facebook's unusual growth curve two weeks ago. The team worked overnight to build data models, and the user retention rate is the highest I've ever seen among all social products, bar none. The average daily online time per user exceeds ninety minutes, and the next-day retention rate is 87%. These figures would be approved on the spot at any VC investment meeting."

"But why don't I have this company's term sheet on my desk?" Doug's voice rose half a octave.

Kevin swallowed hard. "Because we can't find anyone."

"Can't find anyone?" Douglas pulled up a chair and sat down, resting his hands on his chin. "How many companies has Sequoia invested in in Silicon Valley? Google, Yahoo, Cisco, Apple, Oracle—which founder haven't we poached from their garage? A social networking site that's causing a sensation on Ivy League campuses, and you're telling me we can't find anyone?"

"The company is registered in Delaware, which isn't unusual; half the companies in Silicon Valley are registered in the number one state in the US." Kevin pulled a document from his briefcase. "But this company's equity structure has been extremely professionally concealed. We checked the registered agent, and it's a long-established law firm in Wilmington. When we called, they only said they were acting on behalf of their client and couldn't disclose any information."

Doug's brow furrowed into a tight knot.

"I also had someone check the domain registration information, server hosting providers, and promotional teams on various campuses." Kevin turned to the next page of the report. "The domain has privacy protection settings, the servers are distributed across three data centers on the East Coast, and the contracting entities are all shell companies. We did have some success with the campus promotion—Harvard and Yale students reported that there was an Asian man smoking a cigar directing the events, his accent sounded Chinese, but nobody knew his real identity."

"Chinese?" Doug paused for a moment.

"Yes. The promotion team hires local international students and school cheerleaders, paid daily in cash, with no traceable employment contracts." Kevin shrugged. "This operation is too clean, like someone deliberately wiped away all the fingerprints."

Doug suddenly stood up, grabbed the water glass on the table, and tried to take a sip, only to find it was empty. He then smashed the glass into the wastebasket with a thud.

"What's going on with Greylock? What about AcceI? How are these established investment firms reacting?"

“Everyone’s looking.” Kevin gave a wry smile. “Yesterday, Jim Breyer from AcceI called me, asking if we’d secured a share of Facebook’s offering. I said no, and he swore on the phone and hung up. Greylock”

David S. was also pulling strings everywhere; I heard he approached people in the Harvard alumni association, trying to move back through the school's board of trustees, but he was also rebuffed.

Doug rested his hands on the table, staring down at the glaring numbers on the report in his hands.

A penetration rate of 83%.

In his twenty-year venture capital career, he has never seen a product that could attract the vast majority of students from all the top universities in just a few weeks.

This is not growth, this is devouring.

"Keep investigating." Doug looked up. "Triple the budget. Hire a private investigation firm. I don't care what methods you use. A registered law firm in Delaware. Investigate the Asian man you mentioned smoking cigars. Investigate every single transaction. The people behind this firm can't stay hidden forever."

Kevin closed the report, stood up, and was called back as he walked to the door.

"Kevin," Doug's voice came from behind, "if I find out that this project ends up being snatched up by AcceI or Greylock, you won't be coming back."

Kevin turned away helplessly, without looking back, and quickly walked out of the office.

Doug sat back down in his chair and turned to face the night view of the bay area through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

He has been an investor for twenty years and has seen countless brilliant entrepreneurs writing code in garages, drawing business plans in cafes, and passionately peddling their dreams on roadshow stages.

But no entrepreneur has ever hidden themselves more deeply than a CIA informant before their product has even left campus.

This doesn't seem like a typical college student startup project.

This is more like a meticulously planned hunt, with the prey being the entire venture capital circle in Silicon Valley, while the hunter hasn't even shown his shadow.

Three days later, Sequoia's investigation team finally managed to pry a clue out of a junior assistant at a registered law firm in Delaware.

During a casual conversation outside of work, the other party casually mentioned that a name that frequently appeared in Facebook's company documents was Sheryl.

Doug stared at those five letters on the investigation report, rubbing his fingers back and forth across the report.

Sheryl.

Shirley.

This name sounds vaguely familiar at some intersection between Washington, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley.