Chapter 321: Net Worth 5 Billion, Passive Sina, Double Bing Clash Again

At the end of July, Yan Li lost the Weibo God competition to Dayao.

That day, he added "Top Four of the First Weibo God Contest" to his Weibo bio, creating a stark contrast with the numerous CEOs and chairmen listed before it.

It had the weird, whimsical humor of a crayon cartoon character sneaking into Ultraman.

Without waiting for external praise or mockery, Yan Li took the initiative to meme, generating buzz for Weibo and the Weibo God contest.

Sure enough, Weibo gained a new trending topic, prompting many netizens to update their bios with playful, self-deprecating titles.

Such as "Former Deputy Group Leader, Row 2, Group 2, Class 7-3, XX Elementary School" or "Bronze Medalist, Amateur Division, XX Street Children's Calligraphy Contest."

Reports have noted that Chinese netizens are exceptionally skilled at interactive creation; with good material, they rapidly expand and spread it into catchphrases or memes.

Previously, the most active meme platforms were Tieba and Tianya; now, the main battleground has gradually shifted to Weibo.

Because Tieba and Tianya still had some community barriers, Weibo had no real barriers, and its interconnected information and topics always allowed users to find kindred spirits and trend-following idlers.

Several of the biggest internet catchphrases of the first half of this year were tied to Weibo.

For example, this year's "Soy Sauce Gate" gave birth to the term "Soy Sauce Clan."

It originated from a TV interview with a passerby who said, "What's it got to do with me? I'm just out buying soy sauce." The video went viral online.

At the time, Weibo was the frontline for gossip and social news, and its comment sections were always filled with these "soy sauce buyers."

To match the trend, Weibo's official team even created a soy sauce bottle emoji, which became the Soy Sauce Clan's symbol—first thing you do in the comments is throw a bottle.

Besides soy sauce, Yan Li's own "Yan Li Style" also became wildly popular for a while.

Industries across the board imitated it; even an Olympic athlete version of the ad was produced.

The phrase "representing myself" was endlessly punned on, and even under Yan Li's Weibo God voting comments, people daily fed him bags of salt.

Yan Li once posted a Weibo begging, "Please stop! If you feed me more, I'll choke to death."

Yet immediately after, a "salt bag feeding" emoji appeared—clearly encouraging and aiding netizens in meme creation.

Because memes generate buzz and foster a light-hearted, humorous community ecosystem, beneficial for attracting and activating users—great for Weibo.

So Yan Li himself jumped in to guide the trend, helping Weibo while shaping his persona and breaking down user barriers.

On Weibo, many celebrities still held themselves aloof, or were restricted by their teams and companies.

Yan Li set an example, reducing their hesitations.

He, a film and TV tycoon, didn't care about face—he playfully teased netizens, endured jokes and mockery, and stars would gradually loosen up; at least those who liked to have fun couldn't hold back their true selves.

"Celebrity humanity" was a key term in Weibo's annual reports.

Compared to later celebrities who became cautious, serene, and restrained, early internet-active stars were fiercely self-expressive, vividly personality-driven, and brought Weibo endless buzz and topics.

Thus, Yan Li consistently prioritized this—not only participating himself, but also assigning Hu Siyan and others to demonstrate and lead, with good results.

Some celebrities emerged with strong humanity and striking contrasts.

For instance, diva Wang Fei—publicly perceived as a cold, composed woman.

But on Weibo, Wang Fei acted oddly goofy, loved to ramble, had a short temper, enjoyed clashing with others, and seemed psychologically young.

This shocked many netizens who only knew her through her voice and had no deeper impression of her.

Also Liu Huohua—previously, the public image of him was also quite literary.

After all, he'd starred in many art films, his eyes always carrying melancholy, his face full of stories; many assumed he was an artist type.

But after opening his Weibo, after lurking awhile, he went completely wild—not just goofy, but downright abstract.

His favorite thing? Snatching the sofa—that is, being the first commenter.

Whether he did it himself or his assistant did it was unclear, but his success rate was high—a top-tier celebrity, daily high-intensity surfing, fighting netizens for the sofa—Liu Huohua quickly became famous on Weibo.

Even in hot news stories, people would hunt for Liu Huohua's comments; if found, they praised him; if not, they @ed him to mock him.

These celebrities made Weibo more fun and authentic.

Relevant institutions have analyzed monthly active users of Weibo and blogs.

Although Weibo hasn't yet surpassed blogs, its trend is upward, while blogs are clearly affected, with traffic declining.

Experts analyze that blogs now rely solely on years of accumulated user habits and content—users are attached and unwilling to abandon them.

Without this accumulation, blogs would have already collapsed under Weibo's pressure.

But even so, blogs' inferior mechanisms compared to Weibo mean more people are switching to Weibo; users who once used both are gradually favoring Weibo.

Once everyone gets used to Weibo, and blogs see fewer and fewer users, it will be a regime change.

Sina doesn't have much time left!

This is a widely acknowledged fact—Sina's new platform, Weike, must launch quickly.

Then, before Weibo fully devours blogs, transfer as many of Sina Blog's core users as possible to Weike, using Weike's superior mechanisms to compete with Weibo, leveraging Sina's strengths.

…

"It's too late."

At a Weibo executive meeting, Yan Li shook his head: Sina rushed desperately, ignoring flaws, trying to launch beta testing before August to capture Olympic Games traffic in Beijing.

This isn't necessarily a bad move, but it's not necessarily a good one either.

Before summer vacation, Weibo had already surpassed 30 million users—a gap Sina couldn't close in a short time.

Under these conditions, the outcome of both platforms competing for Olympic traffic was obvious.

"Still, we can't let our guard down."

Yan Li had confidence in Weibo and never underestimated Sina: "If I'm not wrong, Sina's two cards are their exclusive celebrity groups tied to blogs, and their media resources and portal traffic."

"We must prepare thoroughly to neutralize these two cards—crush them completely!"

Many celebrities from Sina Blog have been poached by Weibo, or use both platforms.

Some exclusive celebrities—like Han Han, Xu Caiv, Gao Xiaosong, Yang Lan, Xu Xiaoming—are closely tied to Sina.

These individuals will undoubtedly form the backbone of Sina Weike.

Meanwhile, some Weibo celebrities may be lured over to Weike by Sina.

Just like when Yan Li poached people for Weibo—no one gets offended, just open another account.

But whether they'll be active is uncertain; getting them to use Weibo originally took tremendous effort.

Sina trying to replicate this will be difficult.

Because Weibo's mechanisms completely surpass blogs, offering unique advantages.

Plainly put, Weibo is more fun than blogs—everyone will choose Weibo.

But Weike has no real advantage over Weibo—it's just a fake Weibo, and due to legal fears and time constraints, some features are even worse than Weibo's.

If so, why abandon the better, more popular Weibo to play an immature Weike?

Unless Sina spends heavily, signs exclusive deals with celebrities, and bribes them.

Then it's simple: Yan Li and Weibo already prepared—earlier, they aggressively poached users, built a moat ahead of time; for Sina to poach enough to seriously damage Weibo would require astronomical spending.

And Weibo isn't stupid—it won't just watch Sina dig under its walls; it'll spend money too.

But Weibo, already in absolute dominance, doesn't need to spend money competing for users—it just needs to sabotage Sina, disrupt its layout, and drain its funds.

Sina's media resources and portal traffic are indeed powerful, but Yan Li isn't without resources either.

Even if weaker than Sina's, he can compensate by spending money.

Moreover, Yan Li has TV channels—his previous endorsement ads proved TV channels still effectively attract new users.

This is Yan Li's key weapon to offset his weaknesses and fight other internet platforms.

You draw traffic from internet platforms; I draw new users from TV platforms.

"The King of Distribution" isn't a title given lightly—when it comes to TV channel resources, Yan Li can outplay these internet companies to death.

In short, Sina's tactics are predictable—Weibo knows exactly how to respond and counter.

Even, Yan Li obtained details of Weike's new features and had Weibo's tech team roll them out first.

Closing the gap of the pursuer means widening the lead—Yan Li waits to see how Sina will respond.

After concluding the meeting on Sina, Yan Li pulled two core executives to discuss funding.

Previously, due to the financial crisis and the imminent bursting of the internet bubble, he didn't need money urgently, so he still raised funds by selling 10% of Weibo's equity.

Weibo's valuation was just over $500 million USD, raising nearly 400 million RMB.

Considering Weibo's current momentum, this price could have been negotiated higher.

But Yan Li feared delaying would bring the financial crisis, so he cut the deal quickly, accepting this "relatively conservative" valuation—with one condition: the money must arrive immediately.

He feared the financial crisis would hit, investors would run out of cash or deem it worthless and start delaying payments.

As long as the money arrived and no withdrawal clauses were set, it would be hard to make Yan Li give it back—then just sue.

When Yan Li was an investor, he minimized payments and tried to withdraw funds whenever possible—shareholder interests came first.

Now as a company founder dealing with investors, he maximized funding and used every trick to keep money in the company—even if shareholders were unhappy, they had to prioritize the company's overall interests.

In short, his stance was flexible—entirely dependent on which side his ass was on.

With these hundreds of millions in funding, Yan Li's confidence grew—he knew Weibo's war would require heavy spending and had long prepared mentally.

Now that Weibo has momentum, as long as it maintains market and user leadership, an IPO opportunity will attract investors willing to gamble.

So Yan Li wasn't afraid of burning cash—most of it wasn't his money anyway; he could just take less equity.

Again, Yan Li never relied on Weibo, Yi'an, or Tudou to make money—there are far more profitable industries.

With his system's advantage, he could buy low and invest, reaping far greater returns in a few years.

But in this world, you need more than money—you need power. This industrial chain representing the grand cultural entertainment sector is Yan Li's power, helping him protect his wealth.

At least high exposure and high attention can block many things from happening, preventing him from being quietly swallowed up.

Thus, the Weibo war became a cash-burning war—the one worried wasn't Yan Li, but certain platforms; Sina at least might not have the resolve.

Every year's report on Sina showed it fighting fiercely in the Weibo war because it maintained its first-mover advantage and had already sunk massive sunk costs.

Win big, eat everything; lose, lose everything—and the chance of winning is high, so it must fight to the death.

But now this first-mover advantage is in Yu Yanli's hands; Sina's other resources are not obviously superior to his, the success probability is low, and the sunk cost is minimal.

Under these circumstances, will Sina abandon all caution and spend a fortune to fight a risky microblogging venture?

What do the other divisions within Sina think?

What do the shareholders and senior executives think?

To be honest, Sina's current scale isn't truly monstrous compared to Weibo—it might even be influenced by Weibo.

Especially in the first half of the year, Weibo's rise severely impacted Sina's core blog business, causing its market value to continuously decline, even dropping below two billion U. . dollars.

And don't forget, the financial crisis is coming soon.

Compared to the newborn Weibo, Sina, already listed and with multiple divisions, will suffer a massive shock.

By then, even if Sina wants to fight Weibo to the death, it won't be able to muster that much money in a short time.

Previously, Yu Yanli thought launching Weibo in 2008 meant it would still be some time before the mobile internet era, carrying considerable risk.

Now it seems 2008 had its own advantages: too many major events, one hotspot after another, and the financial crisis triggering an industry earthquake.

A new platform unprepared for the financial crisis would surely die, but if prepared, the crisis would help stall competitors, indirectly becoming Weibo's accelerator.

Timing, terrain, and human harmony—all favor Yu Yanli. He even feels a bit sorry for Sina.

…

On August 2, Weibo announced the completion of its Series A financing; it did not officially disclose specific equity stakes or funding amounts, but its public valuation had already reached 650 million U. . dollars.

It was the last frenzy before the financial crisis—take advantage of the financing to inflate the valuation as much as possible.

Outsiders don't know how many shares Yu Yanli holds, but industry insiders believe Weibo's rapid growth means Series A couldn't have sold too much equity; after reserving a portion for management and the option pool, Yu Yanli must hold at least 60% of the shares.

In reality, this guess is still somewhat conservative—the financing shares weren't solely from Yu Yanli, and he also invested his own money.

So his current stake remains above 70%.

But he has no need to announce this; outsiders calculating at 60% is acceptable to him too.

Moreover, even at 60%, that's roughly 3 billion RMB—within just half a year, his net worth has more than doubled from the 2 billion RMB reported on the Forbes list at the start of the year.

Including his other industries, Yu Yanli's total net worth has reached 5 billion RMB.

This had been calculated before, but back then Weibo hadn't raised external funding—it was just a rough valuation, largely theoretical.

Now Weibo has actually raised capital; though not directly equivalent to listed stock, it still represents a degree of market recognition and carries real reference value, which many accept.

Five billion RMB in net worth!

The key is Yu Yanli is under twenty-eight and built it from scratch.

The allure of money and success quickly reversed most of the negative fallout from Yu Yanli's blog scandal; even Qin Lan and others are envied by many.

If Yu Yanli were still participating in the Weibo God election now, his chance of winning would be extremely high.

External commotion hasn't much affected Yu Yanli—things are not like they used to be.