Chapter 277 Stanford
"Mr. Xu, where do you plan to go?"
"Stanford University."
He has long admired this world-famous school. .
It’s a pity that I have no luck with it in my two lifetimes.
Now that I'm in the United States, I just want to go and have a look.
"Okay, sir."
The driver started slowly and the car drove towards Silicon Valley.
The main part of Silicon Valley is located in Santa Clara County at the southern end of the San Francisco Peninsula. It mainly includes a 25-mile-long valley from Palo Alto to the county capital of San Jose.
I don’t want to mention how many great inventions and technology companies were born here.
Apple, Google, and Intel are among the leaders.
After leaving downtown San Francisco, the car quickly arrived at Xu Liang's destination along the highway.
Getting off the car, Xu Liang looked at the surrounding scenery that was very different from that in China, curiosity flashed in his eyes.
Looking at the sign next to it.
"Dune Road?"
Looking at this road that stretches into the distance, with lush vegetation on both sides and pleasant scenery, the memory of the sand dune road comes to mind.
There are two special places in the United States, one is Palo Alto Sand Dunes Road in Silicon Valley, and the other is Greenwich on the East Coast.
The former is a gathering place for venture capital, densely populated with more than 300 venture capital institutions, controlling a market power of US$230 billion, and the amount of venture capital accounts for one-third of the United States.
It is rumored that the building at 3000 Sand Hill Road alone houses more than 20 private equity investment institutions.
Famous investment institutions such as Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, NE Investments, and Mayfield are all concentrated here.
It is said that if you throw a brick casually on the sand dune road, you can hit several venture capital investors.
In contrast, Greenwich is a hub for hedge funds.
After September 11, hedge funds moved their companies to Greenwich, a suburb of New York, where operating costs are lower.
Later, more and more people gathered, and gradually it became something like a sand dune road.
“Mr. Xu?!”
The sudden sound interrupted Xu Liang's thoughts.
Subconsciously turned his head to look.
A young man wearing a black coat and black-rimmed glasses came into view.
“Do you know me?”
The man nodded quickly and walked over with excitement in his eyes.
Seeing the guarded bodyguards around him, he wisely did not get too close and introduced them quickly.
"Mr. Xu, I was Hongmeng's intern last year. Later, after I was admitted to Stanford, I resigned and came to the United States."
Xu Liang suddenly understood.
As an old capitalist, he never misses any opportunity to have sex for free, especially interns, who have low wages, good obedience, and most of them are talented.
So, after Hongmeng developed, it began to cooperate with surrounding universities.
Because there are not many Internet technology companies in Beijing, even those 985 universities will not refuse.
"What's your name?"
"Li Jiawei."
After signaling to the people around him to relax their vigilance, Xu Liang walked over with a smile.
“Since you are a student at Stanford, how about taking me around here?”
"No problem."
Li Jiawei patted his chest.
Although he came to Stanford to study for a master's degree and gave up the opportunity to work at Hongmeng, he is still very concerned about the domestic situation. He also knows that Hongmeng is valued at US$2.8 billion and has raised US$560 million.
To be honest, I still regret it a bit. If you are an employee of Hongmeng, you will definitely be assigned option indicators this time.
After working for three years, you will definitely have a chance to get it.
"Mr. Xu, can I still join Hongmeng after I graduate?"
"Of course. We welcome talents from all over the world to join Hongmeng anytime, anywhere, especially top students like you from Stanford." Xu Liangxiao road.
Li Jiawei looked excited and nodded vigorously.
“Mr. Xu, many domestic media are now saying that your acquisition of Sina was a bad move. It not only failed to further Hongmeng’s business, but also consumed more funds.
And Sina Now we are attacking everywhere and have no focused development strategy. It is more like seeking new business, obtaining a balance of revenue, and seeking medical treatment in a hurry.”
Li Jiawei has not been in the workplace for too long, and he is still young. He still retains the simplicity of a college student, and he does not feel offended when asking questions.
Xu Liang smiled and said, "Outsiders are looking at things in the fog and can't understand them at all. The reason why they criticize wantonly is just to attract attention, don't take it to heart.
As for that, Sina's current business has just begun. I'm not in a hurry myself, so who should worry about it?"
Feeling the strong confidence exuding from him, Li Jiawei nodded unconsciously.
At this moment, the mobile phone on his body rang.
After Li Jiawei picked up the call, he quickly hung up.
"Mr. Xu, the school has invited the founder of an Internet company to give a speech. Do you want to listen?" "Really? Which Internet company?" Xu Liang asked curiously.
“Netflix, an online service provider that provides DVD and Blu-ray rentals.”
Xu Liang didn’t think much about it. There are too many companies in the United States.
Let Li Jiawei lead the way to the school auditorium.
There were many people listening to the speech, and the auditorium, which could seat four to five hundred people, was almost full.
Even many people were standing in the aisle.
Xu Liang and others arrived late, and the seats were already gone, so they could only stand in the aisle.
“It seems that the people who came today are quite important.”
Xu Liang said.
Not long after, several people in suits walked in.
A fat old man walked up to the rostrum first and tried the painting tube without any problem.
“I didn’t expect so many people to come today. It seems that Mr. Hastings is very popular, but it’s understandable. After all, we are all Netflix customers, and the DVD rental model they pioneered is really cool. ”
The old man spoke very humorously, and there was also good-natured laughter from the audience.
“Okay, let’s welcome Netflix founder and CEO Reed Hastings to share his entrepreneurial experience with us.”
Wow….
Warm applause broke out.
Wearing a black suit underneath, a blue shirt underneath, and a neatly trimmed mustache on his lips, the handsome middle-aged man walked up to the podium with a smile.
After shaking hands with the fat old man from before, he stood in the center of the stage.
"I am very honored to be standing here today. It reminds me of my college days, youthful, flamboyant, and full of dreams for the future.
Of course, beautiful girls are also an indispensable spice to the boring college life. . Speaking of which, I envy you very much. Now you can live in the same dormitory with girls. You can fall in love easily and even live together. But in the 1980s, universities did not allow it. Do this.
The above is the biggest emotion of a forty-year-old middle-aged man.
The next step is to enter your favorite part of entrepreneurship.”
Reed Hastings picked up the microphone and walked to the front of the podium.
“Like many successful entrepreneurs, my business also came from an accident.
I really like the movie "Apollo 13" starring Mr. Tom Hanks "", it represents the hope of us humans breaking out of the earth, so I rented its CD through Blockbuster in 1997.
That year I experienced the worst thing in my life. , I forgot the DVD of this movie at home and did not return it in time.
When I saw it again and returned it, it had been more than two months.
Over the past two months, Blockbuster has charged me $40 in late payment fees.
God testifies, even if I bought a movie CD of "Apollo 13", it would be cheaper than this.
This made me very dissatisfied, and I complained to my heart's content on the Internet.
Soon, I discovered that many people had similar experiences to me, and I also discovered that 20% of Blockbuster’s revenue, the largest video rental company in the United States, comes from customer defaults. gold.
This is very incredible, and it also made me subconsciously think about how to avoid this part of the liquidated damages. After all, I have to watch movies a lot, and I can't guarantee that Apollo 13 won't happen again.
After about two nights, I came up with a solution.
I bought the CD of the most popular movie at the time, then posted a message on the forum to rent out my video, and soon people contacted me.
I made an agreement with them that for $2 per month, they can rent any video from me without incurring any late fees.
In just one week, this small business made me three hundred dollars.
This made me realize that this model works.
So I founded Netflix and turned this model into a real business. "
After a pause to allow everyone time to digest, Hastings continued.
" Netflix has completely abandoned Blockbuster's 'pay per picture' model and instead adopted A subscription model: users only need to pay a fixed fee to rent and watch movies as much as they want, eliminating the need for film due dates, late fees, shipping and handling fees, and a series of troubles.
Our rates are also lower than Blockbuster, which charges $10 for five movie rentals for five nights, while Netflix is $5 per month for up to 4 discs at a time.
This series of user-focused strategies allowed us to gain 240,000 users in 1999.
Although Netflix already has a complete business model, we have not stopped innovating.
Last year we further improved our business processes, further simplified the process and provided more standardized membership services.
All members pay a monthly membership fee and select their favorite movies from Netflix’s online movie library to form a personal viewing plan list.
Netflix mails DVDs according to the order listed.
This simplifies the operation process, making resource flow more efficient and causing fewer exceptions.
This model allows users to pay a fixed monthly fee to watch unlimited blockbusters in the comfort of their own home.
In addition, membership fees are paid on a monthly basis, eliminating the need to calculate each rental fee in the traditional model, making customers more sticky. ”
The reason why Hastings accepted this speech was also to promote Netflix, so he made it very clear about Netflix’s model.
For the founder, any growth Our customers are extremely valuable.
“Thanks to the membership system, our users increased by 60% in 2000, exceeding 350,000, and our monthly revenue exceeded US$8 million. ”
(End of this chapter)