Chapter 2557 Hidden Dangers of the Board of Directors

Cooperating with Americans to start a business is inefficient.

It's been almost half a year.

Fortunately, it finally started.

The business location was chosen in New York, which is close to Changyou's New York headquarters campus and is easily accessible. The start-up capital was also determined. This was the biggest point of disagreement between Zhou Buqi and Sinofsky. After many discussions, they also reached an agreement.

Zhou Buqi invested US$50 million and held 50% of the shares; Sinofsky invested US$40 million and held 40% of the shares.

The remaining 10% is used to attract talents and form the best entrepreneurial team.

With Sinofsky's reputation in the industry, he didn't even need Boss Zhou to step in. He alone was enough. He quickly attracted a large number of outstanding industry elites and formed a small entrepreneurial team of 22 people.

16 of them came to the east coast from the west coast with their families.

This was Zhou Buqi's idea for him.

It’s not that there’s no talent here in New York, but it’s more cohesive with “throwing around”.

Find people from Silicon Valley, and then convince them to either abandon their homes and careers or drag their families and leave the West Coast to join a startup project in New York on the East Coast.

In fact, it is torturing them.

The meaning of tossing is cohesion. In order to participate in such an entrepreneurial project, they have given up so much in Silicon Valley and come all the way to New York.

This is quite a bit like failure or success.

It's like burning a boat.

The fighting spirit will be stronger and the fighting spirit will be stronger.

If you choose the "no fuss" strategy and directly select the entrepreneurial team from New York, it will be very safe and leave a way out. When encountering many major difficulties, it will be difficult to move forward desperately.

Of course, the risks of tossing are also high.

Once the way forward is a dead end and the way back is cut off, the outcome will be disastrous.

Many people fail to start a business, so they just jump off the stairs and choose to die. The better part is that he has gone from being a billionaire to being at the bottom of society with debts of tens of millions and hundreds of millions. His wife and children have left, and he can only pick up rags, deliver express delivery, or even go to jail.

For Zhou Buqi and Sinofsky, of course, it doesn't matter "tossing" or "not tossing." They are not entrepreneurs in the general sense. They have noble status, full confidence, and the capital to make troubles.

Even if they fail, it doesn't matter to them.

In order to make the entrepreneurial project successful, poaching people from Silicon Valley and bringing them to New York to torment those entrepreneurial partners will give you a way out and the entrepreneurial spirit to move forward.

Sinofsky worked on it for half a year and finally got it done.

After Zhou Buqi and Boss Ma passed by, he thought that Sinofsky would organize everyone to come together to greet them. After all, there were only about twenty people in total.

But they found that Sinofsky was the only one, and everyone else was immersed in their workstations. Many of them didn't even know that a distinguished guest was coming.

Zhou Buqi said with a smile: "The entrepreneurial atmosphere here is very good. Entrepreneurship should be like this. Put all your energy on starting a business instead of being distracted by unnecessary greetings and send-offs."

Sinofsky said with deep approval: "Well, that's what I thought too, so I thought about it over and over during this period, and I think I should... um..."

Somewhat reluctant to speak.

Zhou Buqi asked: "What's wrong?"

Sinofsky said: "I no longer want to join the board of directors of PayPal. I am still focusing on the entrepreneurial project Elbo."

"That's it..."

Zhou Buqi's plan was a little disrupted and he looked suspicious.

Sinofsky hesitated for a moment, then told the truth: "Several people have sent me messages, saying that PayPal is very complicated now, and they advised me not to get involved as much as possible. Since you are starting a business, you should concentrate on it and don't worry about other things." It caused some criticism and affected the development of entrepreneurial projects.”

Zhou Buqi and Boss Ma looked at each other.

Everyone understands what this means.

Knew it!

PayPal’s board of directors has not stopped at all.

Who is it? You don’t have to think about it to know who it is. It’s just eBay. They are unwilling to give up such a powerful subsidiary like PayPa.

This is the collision of power and capital.

What shareholders are pursuing is maximizing capital and having someone help them make more money. Spinning off PayPal and listing it separately is the best solution.

Carl Icahn approached the project from this perspective.

However, for the actual controller of eBay...that is, Pierre Omidyar, money or not is not really important. He has a net worth of billions of dollars and cannot spend it all.

If he wants to take his personal status to a higher level in Silicon Valley and become one of the top entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, the most important thing is not how much money he has, but how much power he has to influence Silicon Valley.

PayPal has such power.

He is unwilling to let go.

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "I understand. It's good to work on this entrepreneurial project with peace of mind."

Sinofsky felt a little ashamed and led him and Boss Ma to the conference room together. This is a startup project. The office is only 200 square meters in total. There is no independent office. Everyone works together and there is only a digital conference room.

In the conference room, Sinofsky asked in a low voice: "Is there some trouble with PayPal's board of directors?"

Zhou Buqi was very calm, "No trouble, everything is under control."

Sinofsky said cautiously: "I think it's still unstable."

"Um?"

Zhou Buqi raised his eyebrows.

"There are several directors on the board of directors who were nominated by you, as well as two nominated by Carl Icahn... From this perspective, you can indeed control PayPal's board of directors. However, you may not be able to control public opinion. PayPal The purpose of the spin-off and listing of PayPal is to make PayPal a social public company. If it attracts controversy in public opinion, it will violate the original intention of PayPal's spin-off."

Sinofsky is an American and obviously knows more about some of the ways in which American listed companies play.

Domestic companies all have a "chairman system".

Whatever the chairman says is what it is.

The executive directors, directors, independent directors and so on next to them are just decorations. They must revolve around the chairman and do things according to the chairman's orders.

In these listed companies in the United States, the chairman is just the person on the board of directors who organizes meetings. His power is no different from that of other directors. They are all hired by the shareholders' meeting to work for them.

There are almost no chairman of the board of directors who are dismissed by the shareholders’ meeting in China.

Even if the chairman's shareholding is only 5%.

Because the information is not transparent.

The general meeting of shareholders has no idea about the true development of the company... When the real information is revealed, the company may owe hundreds of billions of dollars in debt, it may become insolvent, and the chairman may have absconded with the money.

The general meeting of shareholders simply cannot fulfill its supervisory duties over the board of directors.

It's different here in the United States.

Shareholders are heaven.

The most painful job for board secretaries and chief financial officers every year is to constantly receive calls, letters and emails from various shareholders, and then patiently answer them.

This is where Sinofsky worries.

Once PayPal became an independent kingdom, it caused bad public opinion in the outside world. Public opinion will cause the company's stock price to decline, which will lead to the shareholders' meeting to attack the board of directors.

Even if Zhou Buqi's title as chairman will not be removed, he will definitely be asked to reorganize his company, fire all directors who are related to him, and hire some independent directors who have no equity relationship, no business relationship, and do not work at PayPal. .

At least in name, we should not engage in corporate dictatorship to calm external public opinion and stabilize stock prices.

Zhou Buqi glanced at Boss Ma.

Boss Ma shrugged.

He doesn't quite understand either.

PayPal is obviously a subsidiary of eBay, but through a series of means, it robbed this company and turned it into a company that was not careful...

Boss Ma couldn't do such an immoral thing.

I really don’t know what to do.

Sinofsky said: "You can't trust Carl Icahn too much. He is a bastard. Everything he does is for money. He has never cared about reputation and external public opinion. Zhou, but you can't, you can't Follow his lead.”

Zhou Buqi's heart skipped a beat, and he realized that he had indeed trusted Carl Icahn too much.

This man is indeed worthy of trust.

But his style is too barbaric. He may be able to get the final result, but he can easily ruin his reputation. For example, when Redstone won Viacom with his help, he succeeded in taking advantage of others... Redstone also became notorious.

Zhou Buqi asked: "Do you have any good ideas?"

Sinofsky said: "The situation in PayPal's board of directors will be more complicated. If independent directors are introduced from outside, they may not make a clear stance and will be caught between you and eBay. Carl Icahn clearly stands with you. This may not be a good thing. So I proposed to someone to give up my board seat to him. As long as he is willing to join, many problems can be solved."

"who?"

"Bill Gates."

"ah?"

Zhou Buqi was stunned.

Sinofsky hesitated for a moment, then said bluntly: "Zhou, you have unprecedented reputation and influence in Silicon Valley. You are the richest man in the world. But even so, you and Bill Gates... still exist. Some gaps.”

Zhou Buqi smiled and said: "That's for sure. I have only worked for a few years. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are the two gods of Silicon Valley. I am still too far away from them."

Seeing that he accepted this point of view, Sinofsky breathed a sigh of relief and said with a smile: "Yes, if Bill Gates joins the board of directors of PayPal, there will be no need to worry about many problems. He will not care about what happens with eBay." Look, he may not care what you think. He will only choose the path that is best for PayPal based on the facts. Moreover, once there is bad public opinion from the outside, Bill Gates stands up and speaks the truth on behalf of the board of directors, and his words are also It will be convincing enough to quickly quell unfair criticism from the outside world."

Zhou Buqi was very embarrassed, "He has already retired..."

Sinofsky smiled and said: "If there is one person in the world who can convince him, I believe it must be you."

Zhou Buqi laughed.