Chapter 131: Old Ma, you have no money—then there's nothing to talk about between us

The next morning, the three of them hurried to the airport and flew straight to Yanjing.

Gao Weilin held his iPad 2, familiarizing himself with Fox Tao's business and financial data the entire way.

Before departure, Chen Yansen told him the purpose of this trip: to establish contact with Sequoia, Today Capital, DST, and Tiger Capital, and to find potential buyers for Fox Tao.

After landing, the three went straight to the Wanda Sofitel Hotel.

They arrived at exactly 10:30 a. m., counting as one of the latest batches to show up.

Chen Yansen led the two of them into the conference hall and sat down, glancing left and right—there were hardly any familiar faces.

He was arranged in the third row.

The first row was seated by co-founders of several venture capital firms, along with Liu Zhiping, Ma Liyun, Lei Yijun, Li Yanhong, Liu Qiangdong, and others, with a few more beside them whom Chen Yansen didn't recognize.

Zhou Hongyi was beaming, standing on stage and chatting away confidently.

Clearly, the psychological shadow left by the 3Q war had long since dissipated.

From the fact that Ma Wenteng sent Liu Zhiping to attend this exchange meeting, one could see that in the business world, there are no permanent enemies.

After Zhou Hongyi finished speaking, the host invited Ma Liyun, Liu Qiangdong, and Lei Yijun on stage to share their respective business models.

At this time, Lei Yijun hadn't even released Xiaomi phones yet. Although his achievements with Jin Shan allowed him to sit alongside Hangcheng e-commerce Ma and Yanjing pretty boy Dong, he appeared especially modest.

He first praised the two companies' e-commerce models as each having its own merits, then briefly introduced the features of the MIUI system, and handed the microphone to Liu Qiangdong.

Liu Qiangdong had fought his way up from offline. His hometown accent was very heavy. Facing the reporters' cameras, he smiled and shared JD's heavy-asset and procurement-sales model, stating outright that the correct e-commerce model should be played this way.

The implied meaning was that Taobao, this kind of intermediary platform, was no different from guided-shopping e-commerce—it didn't create more employment and sales, just a traffic transfer station.

These words made Ma Liyun very unhappy inside, but he didn't show it.

When his turn to speak came, Ma Liyun said lightly: "Just now Liu Qiangdong said the competition between JD and Mama Ali is fierce—I don't really agree."

Ma Liyun paused, glanced at Liu Qiangdong, then continued: "Ali Baba's mission is to cultivate more JDs. In terms of business model, Taobao has always been on the most correct path…"

Liu Qiangdong frowned upon hearing this. Ever since learning that Taobao was also planning a big promotion on June 18th, competition between the two was inevitable.

But Old Ma's words clearly looked down on him—the showing off was full-on.

What does it mean that Ali's mission is to cultivate more JDs?

So you think JD isn't worthy of competing with you?

We're not on the same level?

Liu Qiangdong's face darkened. He planned to call the procurement and sales managers of each department for a big meeting right after, to fight back during Double Eleven.

After getting the financing, he wasn't short on money, so he naturally had the confidence to wage a price war with Taobao.

Chen Yansen smiled faintly in the audience. It seemed this e-commerce war lasting over a decade was about to begin.

Unfortunately, before the two of them could determine a winner, Huang Zheng brought his Pinduoduo and beat both of them into retreat after retreat.

This Internet Open Conference had two purposes: first, Old Zhou wanted to take the opportunity to promote 360's open plan, launching products like 360 Safe Desktop, Software Manager, and Safe Browser; second, to promote business cooperation across various industries.

To put it bluntly, Old Zhou first wanted to show off, and second wanted to find cooperation opportunities to enhance 360's profitability.

Founders from fields like group buying, e-commerce, gaming, software, and mobile applications also came in considerable numbers, mostly chatting quietly.

The smell of gunpowder between Old Ma and Liu Qiangdong wasn't that thick yet, but the group-buying sites row—every one of them was giving sideways glances; not throwing punches already counted as having cultivation.

After all, in the past month, these companies had been buying each other's press releases to smear opponents, poaching talent, and their ground-promotion staff had even gotten into real-life PKs—relations were naturally at sword's point.

The morning exchange meeting lasted two hours, after which it moved into the luncheon segment.

Old Zhou didn't seem very generous, but the banquet dishes were decent.

Chen Yansen pulled Song Yuncheng to sit down, buried himself in food for a while, rested briefly, then took Gao Weilin around to greet people.

Although his wealth wasn't top-tier here, he knew quite a few big shots.

Tencent's Liu Zhiping and Ali's Zhang Yong both gave him a lot of face, and even introduced him to the Asia heads of DST and Tiger Capital.

"President Chen, President Ma is over there and wants to chat with you."

After Chen Yansen finished exchanging pleasantries with them, Zhang Yong stepped forward and said softly.

"Dylan, help me keep Martin company for a few more drinks."

Chen Yansen patted Gao Weilin on the shoulder, pushing him toward Tencent and several venture capital big shots.

Gao Weilin looked steady as an old dog on the outside, but inside he was panicking hard—less than a week in the mainland and he'd already met so many big shots.

The people before him each had tens of billions in wealth, several times richer than Zhaoye's boss—all precious resources and connections.

At this moment, Gao Weilin was certain he'd followed the right new boss, and decided to resign as soon as he got back.

"Please, sit!"

Ma Liyun saw Zhang Yong leading Chen Yansen over and greeted him with a smile.

He still felt some gratitude toward Chen Yansen—if Chen Yansen hadn't set the example for him earlier, he really wouldn't have known how to handle the ownership issue of Zhifubao.

"President Ma, hello." Chen Yansen sat down with a smile and greeted him generously.

In his previous life, he had seen Old Ma at Ali's livestream e-commerce summit, except Ali's business had stagnated then, being attacked on both sides by JD and Pinduoduo, and Old Ma's condition was far worse than before, showing every sign of decline.

But the Ma Liyun before him had bright eyes and full energy, busy with Ali's listing plan, at the peak of his power in the e-commerce industry—otherwise he wouldn't have been able to say something like "Ali wants to cultivate more JDs."

Although Ma Liyun's words were arrogant, in 2011, he indeed had that capital.

"How were Fox Tao's May results?" Ma Liyun asked in a flat tone.

Heh, really treating yourself as the industry overlord?

Chen Yansen sneered inwardly but stayed silent—after all, in his heart, Ali was the most suitable buyer candidate for Fox Tao.

"As of 24:00 yesterday, cumulative sales were 1.07 billion." Chen Yansen replied just as calmly.

"Then doesn't that mean you have to hit 1.5 billion in sales for June?" Ma Liyun was immediately taken aback.

One should know that Yihaodian and Vancl didn't even have this performance level.

Chen Nian's slogan was shouted loudly enough, but Q1 only sold 800 million—still a hundred thousand miles from the 10 billion sales target.

"It's a bit difficult, but there's a seventy to eighty percent chance of completion." Chen Yansen said seriously.

Ma Liyun laughed, finding it interesting. He greatly admired young and confident people like Chen Yansen.

"What do you think of Yitao?" Ma Liyun thought for a moment, then asked about his own shopping-guide e-commerce product.

"The prospects are good. Backed by Mama Ali, there's no shortage of traffic and merchants. It just lacks a trigger to explode."

Chen Yansen spoke against his conscience, bragging nonsense.

In his heart, however, he said: What can Yitao amount to? It's been more than ten years and it's still half-dead. A huge portion of e-commerce users have never even heard the name Yitao.

Mama Ali doing shopping guides is like Penguin doing e-commerce—losing battle after battle.

Doomed to fail!

Even after 2016, when Mama Ali, Jingdong, and Suning jointly strangled shopping-guide e-commerce, restricting the development of rebate websites through alliance policies.

For example, sales generated from jumps from Meilishuo and Mogujie didn't count toward sales weight, only toward sales numbers, while jumps from Yitao did count.

As a result, shopping-guide e-commerce was beaten half to death, yet Yitao still never took off.

"Young people don't dare to speak the truth?" Ma Liyun laughed. He knew Yitao's situation perfectly well.

"Mainly because the truth is often something nobody wants to hear." Chen Yansen replied with a smile.

Ma Liyun understood—the other party didn't think much of Yitao's prospects either.

He didn't press further. He raised his glass and clinked it against Chen Yansen's. After a moment of silence, he suddenly asked: "Interested in joining Mama Ali? I can hand over the Ju Hua Suan and Yitao businesses to you to take charge of."

"Fox Tao merging into Mama Ali?" Chen Yansen asked.

"Sure. Fox Tao employees can sign new contracts, I'll take them all on." Ma Liyun agreed readily.

Chen Yansen knew the rank and treatment of a Ju Hua Suan head well enough—at least Vice President M6 or P11 level, with an annual salary of 3 million, plus 30,000 to 50,000 shares.

Converted, that's roughly worth 33 to 53 million, paid out over four years, averaging about 10 million per year.

"What price is President Ma planning to offer?" Chen Yansen compared silently, feeling that Little Pony was still more generous—opening his mouth with shares worth 200 million, annual income starting at 50 million.

No wonder even the Father of WeChat, Zhang Xiaolong, couldn't resist the temptation and took the initiative to join Penguin.

Little Pony simply offered too much!

At this time, Mama Ali hadn't gone public yet, revenue hadn't peaked, and funds weren't abundant—naturally it couldn't compare to Penguin.

Three years later, that Mama Ali that strongly backed Kuaidi Dache, fought a bloody battle with Didi, and burned over a billion in subsidies in one go, finally began to show its edge.

After going public, when Mama Ali's market value soared past 200 billion US dollars and it went on a buying and merging spree domestically, ordinary people suddenly realized.

So this e-commerce giant, Mama Ali, was actually this formidable!

"How about I exchange Mama Ali or Zhifu Bao shares with you? If you want cash, we can also use a combination of cash and shares as payment."

Ma Liyun had just finished the first half of his sentence when he saw Chen Yansen's brow furrow tightly. He hurriedly added the second half.

Damn! All that fuss just because you can't bear to part with money!

Chen Yansen cursed inwardly.

Honestly, if he weren't in a rush to enter the mobile phone industry and lay out other businesses, he would most likely have accepted Ma Liyun's proposal.

After all, two or three years later when Mama Ali went public, he could ride the wave and become a billionaire.

But he didn't want to wait, and couldn't be bothered to wait.

Chen Yansen smiled and shook his head without speaking. The gesture was already a refusal.

"Does President Chen disagree with the share exchange, or with joining Mama Ali?" Ma Liyun pressed.

"President Ma, personally I'd love to join Mama Ali, but let's skip the share exchange. If it's a cash acquisition, I'm very happy to."

Chen Yansen said with a smile.

After hearing this, Ma Liyun was helpless. Offering share exchange was already his biggest concession. As for cash payment, it wasn't that he didn't want to—he simply had no money.

Although in 2011 Mama Ali's share of the e-commerce market exceeded 50%, all his funds were being prepared for buying back Yahoo's shares.

Regarding the transfer of Zhifu Bao's ownership, although he had smoothed things over with Jerry Yang, Yahoo's investors in the Lighthouse Country were unhappy and directly sued him for improper operations.

Because of this, he had to promise that after Mama Ali went public, he would give these investors a one-time cash return—economic compensation.

So there was simply no money for a cash acquisition of Fox Tao.

After being refused, the thought of suppressing Fox Tao instantly arose in Ma Liyun's mind. But then he thought—if Chen Yansen turned around and supported Jingdong, one would rise as the other fell, and that would affect Mama Ali's future stock price.

In just a few breaths, Ma Liyun forced himself to hold back, put on a smile, and chatted with Chen Yansen about the situation in shopping-guide e-commerce.

Chen Yansen narrowed his eyes, looked at Ma Liyun, and seeing his contemplative expression just now, guessed he wasn't up to any good.

But he didn't care. Before Mama Ali went public, Ma Liyun absolutely wouldn't make a move against Fox Tao. Suppressing shopping guides would be like cutting flesh off his own body.

Old Ma wouldn't do something that stupid!

(End of this chapter)