Reborn 2005: The Internet Myth

On the evening of June 11th.

No. 19 Silver Crystal Road in Menlo Park is a beautiful two-story white building. The house was newly built. After being introduced by the real estate agent, Wang Zheng rented it.

In 2006, housing prices in Midland were very expensive, so there was no need to choose to buy one.

Therefore, all offices are currently leased. When the real estate market drops by at least half in 2008, it will be a good time to buy.

This small villa is Wang Zhengxin's residence, only two streets away from the company.

Ultron now has more employees. It is very inconvenient for him to still live in No. 255, and the privacy is relatively poor.

Therefore, the accommodation area was converted into an office, and he moved into this independent villa.

Turning on the computer, Wang Zheng was sipping tea leisurely and looking at the candidate information sent to him in the mailbox.

What he is currently selecting is the CEO position of WeChat, and there are three candidates in total.

I looked at them one by one and found that these people were all between 35 and 45 years old. They had rich experience working in Internet companies and were young and powerful. Their academic qualifications and resumes looked very intimidating.

Wang Zheng was very interested in one of them because Steve Ford came from Microsoft and was the deputy general manager of MSN business before leaving.

Although MSN business is not developing well domestically, it still has a high market share internationally.

Steve, the deputy general manager responsible for global expansion, is the talent WeChat needs most at the moment - WeChat must also launch its globalization strategy simultaneously.

As for the other two, I can't say bad.

After all, WeChat is no longer considered a small company, with more than 10 million users there. Although the collaborative office business does not see much future, there is a "farm" game with a strong ability to attract money, and headhunting companies do not dare to fool around.

Neither of these two people have experience in the instant messaging industry, so they are not more in line with WeChat's needs like Steve.

But one of them Wang Zheng felt had to stay, Jed Raymond.

This is a woman, born in 1975, from Maple Country. She has rich experience in the game industry, and has worked for Sony, Electronic Arts and Ubisoft.

The reason why Wang Zheng felt that he had to keep her was also very simple. She had successively led the development of two heavyweight games, "The Sims" and "Assassin's Creed".

Both of these games have left a strong mark on the history of gaming and are famous. Although "Assassin's Creed" has not yet been released, it is said that it is almost completed.

The reason why headhunters recommend her is also very simple: her management skills are quite outstanding.

Before leaving, she managed the development work of three Ubisoft studios, and the reason for leaving was "sexism" that was very common in Midland.

Wang Zheng feels that she can completely lead Alpha Game Company.

What's more, aside from technical ability and management ability, she is a very rare woman in the game industry. She has good looks and is naturally very topical.

Of course, this is both an advantage and a disadvantage.

If the product is well made, it will be a big advantage.

If the product stretches the crotch, haha, if you don’t get sprayed to the point of being autistic, it can be regarded as psychologically strong.

Wang Zheng believes that if he can lead a team to make a game like "Assassin's Creed", Jed Raymond will definitely not be wasted, and with him as his check, it is impossible for Alpha to waste time making bad games.

Invitations were sent to these two agents respectively. Now Xindong Company has not found a suitable professional manager, but Tik Tok has not been launched yet, so there is no need to worry.

Just let the headhunter recommend it.

Wang Zheng closed his mailbox and began to plan how to spend the $100 million.

Only when money is used will it be regretted.

One hundred million U.S. dollars seems like a long number, but in practice, it’s not quite enough.

The console planned by Wang Zheng has not yet been released, and the first phase of funds must be set aside at least 30 million - R&D, production, and promotion all require money.

To develop a new game, you don't just hire dozens of people and then leave them alone. The wages of these people are not low and they have to be maintained.

Moreover, many art resources and music resources also need to be outsourced, and at least US$10 million must be reserved for this part.

The planned second phase of IDC will have 15 data centers. If this plan is to be launched, at least 50 million must be reserved.

Therefore, we can save 10 million US dollars, which can be used for investment in other businesses.

Being in Silicon Valley, the most worthy investment area is of course the semiconductor business.

However, Wang Zheng does not intend to directly intervene in the production of semiconductors for the time being. If he needs to use it now, he can just buy it off the shelf. It doesn't mean that it cannot be used.

What he wants to do is research and develop semiconductor materials.

The first generation of silicon-based chips is now very mature, but twenty years later, facts have proven that the silicon-based chip manufacturing process has an end, and a comprehensive shift to carbon-based chips is the only way to go.

In 2006, China mastered silicon wafer manufacturing technology, but the difficulty was that it did not have the manufacturing process - the West included such technology in the Wassenaar Agreement and imposed a complete embargo on Daxia.

Now, developed countries such as Midland are already researching and manufacturing second-generation semiconductor materials, which are compound semiconductors based on gallium arsenide and indium phosphide. However, China is still stuck in the first-generation semiconductors and cannot make any progress.

So Wang Zheng's plan has three parts.

First, to start research on graphene chips abroad, we must first deviate from the overall research direction of the West.

Graphene was discovered in 2004 and won the Nobel Prize in 2010. Until 2025, it has not yet demonstrated its commercial value - apart from being used as a gimmick, it is basically meaningless.

Silicon chips can be used on a large scale not because they have the best performance, but because the preparation process is relatively simple and can be mass-produced on a large scale.

The structure of graphene is too stable, making it difficult to prepare and process.

Moreover, in the field of carbon-based chips, there will be materials that are easier to commercialize in the future, so after graphene was hyped as a gimmick for a while, it was gradually shelved.

It is now 2006, and there are still 4 years until the discoverer of graphene wins the Nobel Prize. What if we tell a big lie, without even telling a lie, and with a little guidance, make graphene look like the future of the chip industry?

The most important thing is that graphene, as a two-dimensional material, has excellent performance. It has been placed high hopes by the scientific community around the world and is considered to be a breakthrough in the development of battery technology and chip technology.

As long as the performance is realistic enough and the data is reliable enough, I believe most materials research laboratories will start to move in this direction.

Then I didn’t realize until 20 years later that I had done it for nothing.

The next step is to let the country skip the second generation and directly enter the research of third generation semiconductor materials, that is, gallium nitride, silicon carbide, zinc oxide and other directions.

These are compounds that will be proven feasible through extensive research and demonstration in the future. At this point in time, there are no technical barriers. As long as large-scale preparation methods and application environments are developed, there is no need to worry about being restricted by others in the 5G era.

Of course, semiconductor materials have their own uses, and not all of them are used to make chips.

The third step is of course to find a way to bring the two core equipments of the current mainstream 60/45 nanometer lithography machine and etching machine back to China, and solve the manufacturing problems of Daxia Semiconductor through great reverse engineering.

As long as the technical route can be mastered, it is only a matter of time before the country's capabilities are used to increase the independent production of key domestic components.