Reborn 2005: The Internet Myth

On the morning of June 30, Wang Zheng was invited to Stanford University.

The main purpose of this time is to sign an equity transfer agreement for the crowdfunding network. The Stanford University Entrepreneurship Foundation will exchange 3 million US dollars for 5% of the equity of the crowdfunding network, a premium of 50%.

Stanford believes that the current valuation of the crowdfunding network is around 40 million, 5% is basically a price of 2 million US dollars, and a 50% premium is 3 million.

However, the king of this transaction must have suffered a small loss. As long as the second round of financing begins, the value of 5% of the shares will not be just 3 million US dollars.

If you suffer a loss, you can make up for it elsewhere, so Wang Zheng signed a cooperation agreement with two professors of computer microarchitecture at Stanford. At a price of US$1 million per year, the laboratories of these two professors

We will work together to assist Phil International's institutions in developing new streamlined instruction set architectures.

This nature has changed, because after the research is completed, the intellectual property rights of this instruction set will no longer be shared by Stanford and Phil International, but will be privately owned by Phil International, but Stanford will obtain a non-commercial permanent license for teaching.

Authorization.

Therefore, it is hard to say who will gain and who will lose when it comes to taking advantage of a loss.

The key is that both parties feel that they have made a profit.

From Wang Zheng's point of view, if he can get two high-level professors to help him research chip architecture for 1 million a year, that's a lot of money.

After leaving the enthusiastic Stanford with his little secretary, Wang Zheng's mood was as clear as the blue sky in California.

The phone rang, Catherine picked up the phone and asked, then she covered the phone and said: "BOSS, this is Jeff Rothschild."

Wang Zheng was quite surprised. Ever since they met for a brief chat at the last dance, the two of them had never interacted with each other again.

His sister Diane did a good job with Xindong. In less than half a month, she not only secured the operator, but is currently contacting the newspapers, TV stations and other media that 365 Navigation had previously cooperated with. All-American Alliance is flying around to negotiate.

After receiving the call, Wang Zheng smiled and said, "Jeff, why are you so free today?"

Jeff on the other end of the phone replied: "Phil, I just arrived in Los Angeles and am heading to Menlo Park. If you are free, I hope we can talk in person about some things about Facebook. Peter Dill will go with me.

.”

Having lived in Silicon Valley for a long time, I have still heard of Peter Dill’s famous name.

This man is the founder and president of PayPal. He has been engaged in investment work since selling PayPal to eBay for 1.5 billion in 2002.

Elon Marx, who later became a very famous Martian, was also the CEO of PayPal at that time, but he and Peter Deere had a very bad relationship.

Why did the two of them come together to talk about Facebook?

Although Wang Zheng was confused for a moment, he immediately agreed: "No problem."

The meeting place was arranged at a cafe not far from Meta.

About an hour later, accompanied by the roar of a sports car, Peter Dill and Jeff Rothschild walked into the coffee house together.

What is more surprising is that the two of them are dressed in vests, floral pants, and sunglasses. They look as showy as they want.

"Hey, Phil." Jeff sat down with his head stretched out, looking like he was on vacation rather than discussing business.

Wang Zheng stood up and bumped fists with Peter, then sat down and said with a smile, "Have you two planned a beach party?"

Jeff obviously didn't care at all about Wang Zheng's teasing: "This is how we should dress in California, you are too serious."

They are right. There is a fundamental difference between the West Coast and the East Coast. On the West Coast, unless it is a formal occasion, there are very few people wearing suits and ties.

After asking the leader, Wang Zheng shrugged: "It's time for you to call me. I just finished signing the contract with Louis. What do you want to do here?"

Jeff shook his thumb at Peter, and Peter immediately said: "Phil, are you interested in acquiring Facebook?"

"Acquire Facebook?" Wang Zheng was a little confused. Even though Facebook is in decline now, it still has more than 10 million users, and its daily active users are around 7 to 8 million.

Peter said: "Yes, Jeff and I invested in Facebook twice and currently hold 27% of Facebook's shares."

After some explanations from Peter, Wang Zheng learned that Peter had invested 500,000 in the first round of Facebook at the beginning of 2005, and then at the end of the year, he took Jeff with him and invested 13 million in the second round.

However, in the early days of social networking sites, capital was all that mattered, and the IDC business was like a gold-swallowing behemoth. Facebook now covers more than 2,000 universities and high schools such as the American League, Maple League, and Austria, and has nearly 3 million users.

Facebook originally planned to raise funds again in May this year, but unexpectedly, a Meta suddenly appeared in April, completely disrupting the plan.

Not long after Wang Zheng’s Meta was launched in April, the huge bonus for the “most beautiful college student” attracted many student users, causing Facebook to lose a large number of users.

By May, Meta’s traffic monetization channels aroused the enthusiasm of college students, and Facebook promotion became extremely difficult.

A few days ago, Zach approached Wang Zheng and asked for authorization of the A2V format. The fundamental reason was that he wanted to save money so that he could survive for a while.

Now it seems that Zach can't stand it anymore.

Wang Zheng asked: "You rejected Zack's refinancing this time?"

Peter and Jeff looked at each other, knowing that they couldn't hide it, and nodded helplessly: "Yes. Zach wants to start the third round of financing, but..."

Jeff said no more. It was obvious that in this situation they would definitely not be able to throw any more money into it.

If there was a chance to acquire Facebook three months ago, Wang Zheng would have definitely not hesitated. But now, what is the use of acquiring it?

It has no fixed assets and little intellectual property rights. The only thing left is the still active user data and brand value.

But these users also have a high degree of overlap with Meta users and WeChat users.

Coincidence? Wang Zheng thought, if the price is right, acquiring Facebook seems to be a good choice.

"Peter, Jeff, I believe you all know that Facebook only has a few users left. I can take over, but two conditions must be met, otherwise I would rather wait for it to completely rot."

Peter and Jeff were very surprised when they heard this. As long as someone is willing to take over, it is impossible to make money, and they will accept any loss: "What are the conditions?"

Wang Zhengzheng raised his finger calmly: "First, 100% holding. Second, the price must be reasonable enough."

It's now Wang Zheng's buyer's market. If the price is too expensive, he doesn't have to give it up.

The longer time passes, the lower the value of Facebook will be.

Peter and Jeff looked at each other, and Peter frowned and said: "I'm worried that Zach may not let go of the 29% of his shares easily. This is his first entrepreneurial project, and Facebook is very important to him.

"

Wang Zheng picked up the coffee, took a sip, and smiled slightly: "Peter, you have to know, now that WeChat has started to develop games, browsers and other businesses, how difficult can it be to build a Facebook?"

Peter's expression changed, and he thought quickly before asking curiously: "Are you planning to build a vertical social network?"