Chapter 375

Fang Hong's email, once sent, ignited a storm among the leadership, leaving every recipient exhilarated.

Everyone wanted to be the boss, everyone wanted to build something great, and fantasized about creating a trillion-dollar enterprise, sitting at the partner table and controlling everything.

Get others to work for you, and rake in bonuses until you die!

These temptations were overwhelmingly powerful, sparking immense work enthusiasm among many managers.

Problems that had long been unsolved were instantly resolved—for example, viewers had long complained about stuttering on Bilibili and Chang'e Video.

The leaders immediately pressured their subordinates to simplify code architecture and algorithms, reducing unnecessary computations and loops.

Memory consumption and CPU usage were also reduced, making video playback extremely smooth.

Of course, this assumed the network was fine.

But most connections were still 3G; 4G wouldn't begin widespread adoption until next year, since the authorities had only just issued licenses to major operators this year.

Also, games kept suffering from cheats; the legal department acted immediately, and soon a headline appeared in the social news section: "Police Crack Down on Full-Chain Cheat Operation; 'Hero Glory Cheat Production and Distribution Gang' Arrested."

This was demanded by leadership because games were their only monetization channel—if they couldn't profit from games, nothing else could.

Must crush and cripple it—no discussion.

This was the motivation—not lack of ability, but lack of drive.

On the very next day after the Partner System was announced, Hua Wei recruited Xie Xin, another technical powerhouse who had previously worked at Baidu and later at ByteDance.

But he no longer had a chance to go to ByteDance.

Xie Xin was extremely capable—he proposed the web crawler concept and developed the website monitoring system.

He could monitor over ten million websites across the country twenty-four times per day.

That meant, if he wanted to know, he could know exactly what content had been updated on any website in China.

He joined the Technology Department, responsible for technological innovation and internal tool development.

Internal tools included communication, document management, and team knowledge bases—any technology could be searched for and applied within this knowledge base to avoid resource waste.

There were also internal management tools, internal code repositories, and online servers.

In the future, Fang Hong wouldn't use external email platforms or WeChat to communicate with his management team.

An internal communication platform was established, strengthening confidentiality.

One could imagine: the people Hua Wei initially recruited weren't incapable—they just lacked motivation; once given motivation, they instantly unleashed their capabilities.

This was Fang Hong's leadership: giving his people motivation kept the company alive.

Besides Zhang Lidong, all others—including Zhang Nan, Gao Zhun, Yang Zhenyuan, Hong Dingkun, and Hua Wei—maintained tremendous enthusiasm; already in high positions, they were more likely to achieve results and become partners.

Recently, Chang'e Technology made minor adjustments to its senior leadership roles.

Zhang Nan still oversaw operations; Gao Zhun still managed finance; Yang Zhenyuan now specifically managed the Recommendation Algorithm; Hong Dingkun specifically managed the Search Algorithm.

Hua Wei managed human resources and served as Fang Hong's Assistant—he had to review every new hire and every person targeted for recruitment.

If the talent hadn't yet risen in his past life, recruit them intensively; if they were renowned experts, target them aggressively.

This Partner System email spread through the high-end internet circles and academic circles—anyone with ambition who thought themselves exceptional could come and try.

Even Zhang Yiming saw Chang'e Technology's email and felt tempted.

Nothing else—he was just a small fry, and his product, Today's Headlines, had fewer monthly active users than Bilibili.

The people Chang'e Technology recruited and poached were all people he had once admired—Zhang Lidong, Yang Zhenyuan, Hua Wei, Hong Dingkun, Xie Xin—all of them.

Some people had already agreed to join him, but after this email, they lost interest and stayed at Chang'e Technology.

What's the point of going to become a partner?

You, Zhang Yiming, still need funding—you still have to beg capital, serve investors. But the Principal clearly stated: no capital needed; if you're capable, you get equity—you become the company's owner.

This temptation was incomparable to any other internet company.

Talent determines destiny; talent comes first!

This was Chang'e Technology's corporate culture now—simple, clear, not empty slogans like "technology changes the world."

At this point, Zhang Yiming was still just a small fry; his product, Today's Headlines, had fewer monthly active users than Bilibili.

Today's Headlines had about six million monthly active users—modest success.

In his past life, daily active users eventually broke one hundred million, reaching the level of Xiaohongshu and Bilibili—but of course, they had TikTok as their traffic juggernaut, so it was different.

If Fang Hong had TikTok as his traffic juggernaut, Bilibili and Xiaohongshu would be different too. In his past life, ByteDance's many other products besides TikTok and Today's Headlines all failed, falling into Tencent's trap—Xigua Video couldn't compete with Bilibili, and Xiaohongshu couldn't compete with Xiaohongshu.

Kexin, Party Island, Shiqu, Feiliao, Dolphin, Time Album, Wukong Q&A—all failed.

Too obsessed with algorithms; Xiaohongshu and Bilibili had already formed their own cultural communities with highly loyal users—algorithms couldn't match that.

Of course, their success and rise to giant status had undeniable strengths—strengths others couldn't replicate or surpass.

That's why Fang Hong was desperate to poach ByteDance people—nothing else—he wanted to replicate it!

That same day, the first tranche of 2.1 billion yuan from Uncle's bank arrived; Fang Hong planned to invest one billion yuan in building a data center with ten thousand servers.

Previously, there had been only one thousand servers—clearly insufficient; such massive data couldn't even be stored, let alone the fact that an average of five thousand videos were uploaded daily to Bilibili.

And this volume kept accumulating—how could such massive data possibly be stored? Servers had to be built.

Such massive video uploads existed only because a threshold was met: if you reached a certain view count, you earned money, giving ordinary people motivation to enrich Bilibili's content.

Of course, there were also marketing accounts—many accounts posting identical content in bulk.

This couldn't be managed yet, and wasn't the time to manage it.

Chang'e Technology couldn't afford this one-billion-yuan data center project yet—those funds were needed to acquire Shengda Literature, which had to be settled this year.

Fang Hong borrowed forty million U. S. dollars from the U. S. family, equaling 280 million yuan, as startup capital to carry through the year.

Previously, the box office profit from The Fault in Our Stars had left several million yuan, and now The Purge 3's global box office exceeded 118 million U. S. dollars.

That meant Fang Hong's share was 29.5 million U. S. dollars—roughly two billion yuan in returns.

The movie had already left theaters; in September, Moonlight would be released, still distributed by Universal.

Yu Xian was also working hard, striving hard—there was no choice; his expenses were high.

For each movie, Fang Hong basically gives him two to three million dollars, equivalent to his salary, and if the box office explodes, ten million-plus dollars is also possible.

Just transfer it directly from the Zhong family's capital pool.

Now the Zhong family has many movie rights, and each movie's licensing fee brings in at least ten million dollars in revenue, so they can afford to pay him compensation or reinvest.

Originally, the Zhong family's movie investments weren't high.

The current 280 million is enough to first buy the land, build the house, and lay the foundation, paying the deposit for server equipment — 20% will do.

Building the house is also simple, just like that kind of factory building, doesn't cost much money; the main thing is the Data Center equipment that's expensive, and one server isn't a single standalone machine.

Rather, it's made up of processors, memory, hard drives, and network interfaces, possessing storage, computing, and networking capabilities.

And this money also includes the air conditioning system, because the biggest problem with a Data Center is heat dissipation, so an air conditioning system is needed to keep the Data Center in a relatively low-temperature state.

Anyway, it just gobbles electricity — not only does the air conditioning consume power, the data servers also consume power, and Huailai County was already a major electricity-producing county, with more than enough power of its own.

On September 4th, Fang Hong once again met with Chen Tianqiao to discuss the acquisition.

This time Chen Tianqiao looked even more haggard, all because Shengda Literature had gone through high-level personnel changes, and after a large batch of novel authors left, Hou Xiaoqiang, who had taken over Shengda Literature, fell seriously ill.

It was all retaliation by those people; the infighting was truly brutal, too painful to watch.

Fang Hong didn't care about any of that — what he wanted wasn't any one person, he wanted the entire Shengda Literature, and then just lie low.

This negotiation would center on the acquisition price — the purchase price of Shengda Literature.

Besides Chen Tianqiao, those negotiating also included his wife, as well as Hou Xiaoqiang, who had taken over Shengda Literature.

On Fang Hong's side, it was Gao Zhun and Zhang Lidong — three people in total.

Zhang Lidong also managed investment, and the key point was being a partner — not letting him come would be a bit disrespectful of his opinion.

At the very least, you have to put on a show, right!

And he didn't oppose acquiring Shengda Literature either, all because the literature market can produce IPs, the giants are all muscling in, and they can't fall behind either.

One could say that after becoming a partner, his ambitions had swelled.

"General Manager Chen, long time no see — you don't look like you're in great spirits!"

Before the meeting even started, Fang Hong made small talk first; in a way, this was also a display of his strong confidence.

Unlike before, when seeing these big shots, he couldn't help but feel a head shorter.

(End of this chapter)