Chapter 107: Chen Yansen: I Am Very Angry Right Now

After the pleasantries ended and everyone exchanged a few modest words, they all took their seats.

Chen Yansen looked at Lei Yi and Zhou Hongyi with great interest; who could have imagined that a few years later, these two would engage in a war of words on Weibo over the mobile phone business, even going so far as to arrange a fight at Chaoyang Park.

Although they didn't actually fight in the end, the fact that Lei Yi had sent Li Wanqiang to spy on the enemy was exposed.

While Chen Yansen was observing Zhou Hongyi, Old Zhou was also squinting at him.

Old Zhou's face was expressionless, yet a hint of hostility showed in his eyes; hearing the two words "Penguin" now made him angry, as Fox Tao was backed by Penguin and was allied with his rival.

If Lei Yi hadn't been present, he would have been unable to sit still much longer.

"President Chen, the new Channel Director at Amazon is an old colleague of mine; I've already spoken to him. Tomorrow, just have your company's business personnel responsible for channel expansion contact him."

As soon as Lei Yi sat down, he first expressed his sincerity.

He was the founder of Joyo. com; seven years ago, he sold Joyo. com to Amazon, and at that time, most employees were merged into Amazon. The old colleague he mentioned was likely one of his former subordinates.

"Thank you, President Lei."

Chen Yansen smiled faintly and politely expressed his gratitude.

At this time, Fox Tao had already hosted over forty B2C websites of various types, so its need for Amazon was not as strong as in the early days.

Even without Lei Yi's help to make the introduction, the other party would have come to Fox Tao to discuss cooperation on their own after taking office.

After all, competitors had already moved in; failing to move in would mean losing a portion of the market share.

"Chen Nian from Vanke is an old friend of mine; he will arrive a bit later."

Seeing Chen Yansen's indifferent reaction, Lei Yi hurriedly added.

Another unlucky guy!

Chen Yansen chuckled inwardly; he remembered clearly that in 2011, with the support of Lei Yi and investors, Vanke shouted out a revenue target of ten billion, but only completed one-third of it. Not only did the valuation shrink significantly, but the warehouses also accumulated two billion worth of goods, taking a full five years to fill the deficit.

However, clearing inventory cannot happen without a price; Vanke's brand value also dropped along with it, becoming a generic commodity.

It wasn't until more than a decade later, when Lei Yi succeeded in making cars, that Chen Nian became popular again.

Thinking of this, Chen Yansen looked at Lei Yi and couldn't help but sigh: Lei Zong is truly generous to friends; Chen Nian owed him one hundred million US dollars, yet they didn't break apart. If it were me, daring to lose so much of my money, breaking one of your legs wouldn't be an overreaction.

"Yuncheng, tell President Lei about Fox Tao's current situation."

Chen Yansen nodded, signaling Song Yuncheng to do some brand promotion work.

"No rush; today we just drink and chat. We will discuss the details in detail at my company tomorrow."

Lei Yi waved his hand and said.

Although the outside world couldn't get the most accurate data on Fox Tao's daily active users, orders, and sales figures, they could guess the general situation with about eighty or ninety percent accuracy.

Compared to Fox Tao, Lei Yi was more interested in Chen Yansen as a person.

A shopping guide e-commerce track that no one valued had been forced into success, ranging from brand flash sales and group buying flash sales to brand marketing, with a wide variety of businesses.

Yesterday, when he called Chen Yansen, the other party seized the opportunity like a snake climbing a pole, proposing to cooperate with Xiaomi on game joint operations, adopting a CPS and CPA revenue-sharing model, which Lei Yi greatly appreciated.

If Fox Tao's valuation hadn't already exceeded 2.8 billion, he would have wanted to pull Chen Yansen into Xiaomi's marketing department.

Just as they were speaking, Chen Nian walked in with his female assistant, looking very pleased and confident.

At the end of last year, Vanke completed a Series E financing of one hundred million US dollars, with a valuation exceeding one billion US dollars, easily entering the ranks of unicorn enterprises.

This was Vanke's highlight moment, and also Chen Nian's highlight moment.

Hearing that Lei Yi wanted to introduce him to new friends, he inquired and learned that it was actually the founder of Fox Tao; wasn't this exactly the external traffic channel he was most lacking at the moment?

Having already shouted out a revenue target of ten billion, to achieve it, everything from traffic to products needed to be improved significantly.

"You're here; sit next to President Chen. Let me introduce you: this is Chen Nian from Vanke, and this is Chen Yansen from Fox Tao."

Lei Yi stood up and introduced the two to each other.

"President Chen, I've long heard of your name!"

"President Chen, so young and promising!"

The two shook hands with smiles, but in his heart, Chen Nian actually carried a bit of arrogance.

In Chen Nian's view, building his own platform was the right path; a traffic intermediary platform like Fox Tao could see its ceiling at a glance, with no development prospects.

Zhou Hongyi watched coldly from the sidelines; he and Lei Yi had another meeting next, as 360 was seeking an opportunity to go public, and Lei Yi had experience in this area, so he had come to seek help.

Lei Yi said it was just a meal, so no one else talked about anything else; they simply discussed the domestic economic situation and casually shared their respective views.

They originally thought Chen Yansen was young and couldn't say much on this subject, but they were shocked when Chen Yansen opened his mouth.

For a moment, everyone thought they were chatting with an old veteran who had been mixing in the business world for many years.

After listening for half a day, Zhou Hongyi scoffed at Chen Yansen's words and suddenly steered the topic to his own industry: "President Chen, what do you think the future development of internet security services will be?"

Chen Yansen glanced at him, knowing this guy had no good intentions, and smiled as he spat out two words: "It will die."

Zhou Hongyi's face instantly stiffened; 360's main business was computer manager and antivirus software, so Chen Yansen's words were undoubtedly saying that 360 was doomed in the future.

"Nonsense!"

Zhou Hongyi snorted coldly and directly swore.

"Old Zhou, how are you speaking!" This drinking gathering was organized by him, Chen Yansen was the guest he invited, and Zhou Hongyi's words neither gave Chen Yansen face nor treated him with respect.

"Alright, President Chen, I spoke without thinking; just pretend you didn't hear it." Seeing Lei Yi's bad mood and remembering he had something to ask for, Zhou Hongyi softened his tone and spoke perfunctorily.

"President Chen, don't hold it against Old Zhou; he is just a rough person." Lei Yi glared at Zhou Hongyi, smiled to smooth things over, and tried to ease the atmosphere.

"Some people cannot bear to hear the truth; there's nothing to be done about it. Industry trends will not change just because someone cannot accept them."

Chen Yansen said with a grin, not taking Zhou Hongyi seriously at all.

His attitude actually aroused Lei Yi's interest, who couldn't help but ask curiously: "Why don't you explain in detail, so Old Zhou doesn't think you are targeting him."

"First point: Microsoft started embedding Windows Defender (Security Guard) in the system from Windows 7. Although it only provides basic virus protection functions, it is sufficient for daily use for most people, which reduces computer users' dependence on third-party antivirus software. Perhaps Microsoft will embed even stronger antivirus software in the next version."

After hearing this, Lei Yi's eyebrows relaxed, feeling that Microsoft's move would indeed bring a shock to domestic security service products.

Zhou Hongyi knew about Microsoft's move but hadn't taken it seriously before; after Chen Yansen mentioned it, his heart couldn't help but give a thud.

"Second: Mobile phones are entering the era of large screens; mobile device systems are closed, and combined with the audit mechanism of app stores, this inevitably causes the number of viruses to decrease sharply. No one will install antivirus software on their phones, as it affects the smoothness of use..."

Chen Yansen continued.

When smartphones first emerged, their running memory was small, and most people wouldn't waste precious memory on antivirus software.

By the time smartphone memory grew larger, everyone had long grown used to days without antivirus software.

Since not installing antivirus software didn't cause any problems with the phone, why bother installing it?

A decade or so later, the antivirus software market was left with only the enterprise user segment.

"Does President Chen believe mobile devices will replace the computer market?" Lei Yijun asked curiously.

This aligned perfectly with his own thinking — it was precisely because he had spotted the development opportunity in the mobile communications industry that he decided to found Xiaomi.

"An inevitable trend." Chen Yansen said with conviction.

Seeing how bullish he was on the phone industry, Lei Yijun smiled and invited him to visit Xiaomi's R&D studio the next day.

Chen Yansen naturally agreed readily.

After that, the group began raising glasses and toasting each other — as bosses, none of them were lightweights when it came to drinking.

Before long, Lei Yijun's face was flushed red; he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and passed them around to everyone, then lit one up and began puffing away.

Chen Yansen shook his head and declined — he drank, but never smoked.

The few cartons of cigarettes in the car were just for socializing.

Two hours passed, everyone had eaten and drunk their fill, and the drinking gathering dispersed.

As they were leaving, Chen Nian had his assistant note down Song Yuncheng's phone number for follow-up communication about cooperation.

Chen Yansen and Lei Yijun waved goodbye, set a time to meet the next day, then got in the car and had the driver take him straight back to the hotel.

After Chen Yansen's car drove off into the distance, Lei Yijun turned to Li Wanqiang and asked: "What do you think?"

"Anyone who can build a company to a valuation of over a billion isn't going to be that simple."

Li Wanqiang was moved — he had observed the entire evening from the sidelines.

If it had been him, at less than twenty years old, having dinner with a bunch of bosses worth several billion each, he wouldn't have been as at ease and natural as Chen Yansen.

"The joint game venture can be discussed. I heard from people at Siwei Capital — before the New Year, Fox Taobao's daily new customers already hit 400,000. How could only 1% of users enter the promotion page? Excluding returning customers, that's still over a million in traffic a month, which can take a lot of pressure off us."

Lei Yijun said, patting Li Wanqiang on the shoulder with a smile.

"Giving up some of the profit is still acceptable." Li Wanqiang grinned and nodded in agreement.

"Old Lei, you trust that kid just like that?" Zhou Hongyi was a bit unconvinced and questioned him.

In his view, Chen Yansen's few points of analysis were no different from wild guessing — how could a young whippersnapper possibly predict the future direction of the industry?

"I only believe half of it — and that's that mobile terminals will most likely become the mainstream."

Lei Yijun said confidently.

Meanwhile.

Back at the hotel, Chen Yansen sat on the sofa by the window, deep in thought. Tonight's drinking gathering wasn't for nothing — at the very least, he'd brought two B2C platforms onto the platform.

Tomorrow, taking advantage of the visit, he could also gain an in-depth understanding of the phone R&D and manufacturing process. If it wasn't too difficult, he might even have to compete with Lei Yijun in the phone sector.

As for Zhou Hongyi, he hadn't taken him to heart at all — even without his interference, Zhou Hongyi would have backed himself into a dead end.

A decade or so later, when Zhou Hongyi met up with Pony Ma again, he would still be teased with "You've become a streamer."

For the once-hundred-billion-worth Old Zhou, those words were a face-to-face mockery, rubbed right in his face.

Chen Yansen picked up the water glass on the coffee table and took a big gulp.

The northern climate was dry, and after drinking, he felt increasingly parched.

At the same time, his internal heat was also raging.

Through the reflection in the glass, Chen Yansen could see Song Yuncheng's every move — at this moment she was squatting halfway in front of the sofa, her fair fingers tapping rapidly on the keyboard.

Clearly still adjusting the meeting materials for tomorrow, afraid that even the slightest oversight in content would cause the cooperation to fail.

A wisp of Song Yuncheng's hair clung to the corner of her mouth, her pure white dress pants wrapped around her rounded, perky hips — this sight made Chen Yansen's internal heat burn even stronger.

(End of this chapter)