Chapter 442 Dream Building
Twitter is a new venture for Odeo.
The founder of Odeo is Noah Glass, and the investor is Evan Williams.
Evan Williams once created Blogger, the largest blog network, which was later acquired by Google, achieved financial freedom and became a multi-millionaire.
After investing in Odeo, Evan Williams became the company's chairman and Noah Glass served as CEO. However, the company's development was not smooth. In order to get more funds, Noah Glass asked the chairman to increase the capital by 200,000 US dollars.
Evan Williams disagrees. Later, he said that he was willing to increase capital, but he wanted to be the CEO himself and no longer recognized Noah Glass's ability.
Noah agreed.
So far, Evan Williams has become the controlling shareholder, chairman, CEO, and the big boss of Odeo.
When Evan Williams came to power, he promoted a young man with a nose ring named Jack Dorsey. At the same time, Google also has two technical giants, Biz Stone and Jason Goodman.
These few people supported the core business of Odeo and disbanded all the previous teams.
It's a pity that the company's performance still can't improve.
It looked like it was going to go bankrupt.
At this time, Jack Dorsey came up with a wonderful idea to build a microblog platform.
Micro means tiny, and blog means blog.
The translation is called Weibo.
However, Jack Dorsey has dyed green hair, a nose ring, and a blind temperament. He felt that the traditional "micro-blog" name was too rustic, so he came up with a new name, Twitter.
Then, it is to buy a domain name.
Then, the domain name owner sent a message, saying that they intend to cooperate, carry out financing, and conspire for great things!
Evan Williams, Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Jason Goodman lifted their spirits when they found out.
Now there is no money in the company's books.
The team is about to break up.
Unexpectedly, joy fell from the sky.
Together, several people immediately became an independently operated Twitter company, with Evan Williams holding 70% of the shares, Jack Dorsey holding 20% of the shares, and Biz Stone and Jason Goodman holding 20% of the shares respectively. There is 3%, 2% is allocated to the rest of the employees, and 2% is used to reverse acquire all the assets of the former Odeo company, including computers, servers, offices, telecommunications networks, etc.
The action is surprisingly fast and the efficiency is surprisingly high.
Then, wait for investors to come to your door.
Zhou Buqi, Liu Qing, Zhen Yu and a 6-member legal team, including Xu Liangjie who has submitted his resignation report and has not officially left eBay, also asked for leave to come here.
It always feels weird when a group of foreigners come to your door. But Xu Liangjie changed his nationality a long time ago, and his appearance as a Silicon Valley boss is even more shocking and convincing.
Cooperation hit it off!
However, the specific shareholding amount of the investment team remains to be discussed.
For this kind of start-up company, the amount of investment is really not the core factor in determining the amount of shares held. If a company with a valuation of 10 million US dollars can get 10% by investing 1 million, but can it get 40% by investing 4 million? It's almost impossible.
unless……
Investors can bring huge strategic help to the company.
For example, Jack Dorsey, a programmer like a punk, is not as skilled as Biz Stone and Jason Goodman from Google. But the concept of "Twitter" was conceived by him, and he can get 20% of the shares without paying a penny. The other two can only get 3%.
Coincidentally, talking about strategy with eloquence is what Zhou Buqi is best at.
The mandarin he spoke, Liu Qing acted as an interpreter.
Zhou Buqi said: "In blogs, the right to speak out belongs to the elite class who have the ability to fully discuss issues. However, the mode of Twitter must be limited to 280 characters and 140 characters in short message format. Too short content restrictions allow users to only Can express opinions, but can't develop specific discussions. This allows ordinary people to have a voice."
Such a judgment is very advanced in this era. Because speaking out should not only be the power of elites, but ordinary people should also have it. This is the equal value pursued by American imperialism.
This is wonderful.
It has become a mission to make everyone's eyes shine.
But the sequelae are also obvious.
Blogs are long-winded elitism, and behind every point of view are detailed arguments. Nonsensical remarks and messy arguments will only cause laughter and ridicule.
The Twitter mode has completely changed, only expressing opinions, not arguments. The result is that the plain and easy-to-understand views that are most understandable by the public have become the most mainstream voices.
Because there are so many people, so the focus is high.
In turn, it led to the trend of de-elitization and the prevalence of anti-intellectualism.
The information cocoon created by the Internet has boosted the global ultra-left trend of thought. Even the king became the president, and even a film like "Black Panther" can be selected as a candidate for the best picture Oscar. Even European and American countries would rather accept refugees from the Middle East. , Asian immigrants are also not welcome, just because Asians generally work too hard.
It was simply a worldwide disaster.
However, Zhou Buqi didn't want to interfere too much, and he didn't have that ability, and he didn't think he could figure out such a complicated sociological problem.
He is just a businessman.
To put it bluntly, he is a capitalist. To put it mildly, he is an entrepreneur.
And here is the US emperor, so you don't need to worry about it so much, just make money.
When talking about Facebook, Boss Zhou gave another important instruction. He said: "Facebook needs to establish a friend relationship before you can see friends' dynamics. But Twitter should not set social pressure, and let everyone be free. You can express your personal opinions, you can comment and repost without establishing friendship, and you don’t need to be real-named.”
This is very important.
Now the mainstream social networking sites in the world mainly have two models, one is blog, represented by MySpace, and the other is circle of friends, represented by Facebook.
If Twitter wants to take a share in the social field, it must take a different path in the two modes of blog and circle of friends.
Zhou Buqi's words went straight to the core!
Use mass media to compete with blogs, and use a more open and free social environment to seek differentiation from Facebook.
This market position is perfect!
The four founders of Twitter were all stunned.
Feel like seeing God.
Then, Zhou Buqi threw out the third big killer: "Whether it is a blog or Facebook, it is an update of the user's personal status based on himself. That is, What_are_you_doing? Twitter should be more open and more Multivariate, creating a new type of information network, what's_happening?"
"Is there any difference?"
This point of view is a bit advanced. In the early days of Twitter, several founders were at a loss.
Zhou Buqi's inscrutable explanation: "For example, when a fire broke out at the corner of the street, the former tweet would be 'I saw a fire at the corner of the market on Third Avenue', and the latter tweet The text is 'Fire broke out in the Third Street Market'. The former is a diary, and the latter is news. If users from all over the world gather on Twitter, then what happens all over the world can be shared. , form a medium for dialogue, and a platform for new media.”
In the simple conference room, everyone was silent.
It's like it's time for Zhou Buqi's solo performance.
Although, the two sides cannot communicate directly, and an interpreter is needed. But after such a great idea was put forward, the charisma of personality brought by that insight seemed to transcend language barriers and extend to everyone's heart.
It was so shocking!
Evan Williams took a deep breath, and said inexplicably, "This is not entrepreneurship? It's clearly a dream."
Jack Dorsey only came up with a concept and got 20% of the shares.
How much is this dream map of Zhou Buqi worth?
The subsequent financing negotiations went very smoothly.
Because the founders all know that although this group of investors has strange origins, they are really capable. It is a dream to let them participate in the company's strategic decision-making.
have lunch.
We will continue to talk in the afternoon.
In the evening, the financing plan was finally negotiated.
Invest 4 million US dollars and get 40% of the shares.
After the financing, the largest shareholder of the new company is Evan Williams, holding 42% of the shares, the second largest shareholder is Ziwei Star, holding 40% of the shares, and the third largest shareholder is Jack Dorsey, holding 12% of the shares. %...
At the very beginning, Zhou Buqi wanted to take control in one step.
Anyway, it was the early stage of the company, and they were so short of money, they had to seize the opportunity.
But this group of entrepreneurial teams didn't want to give up their dominance.
Xu Liangjie recommended this new plan.
Ziwei Star holds 40% of the shares, which is very particular.
If it is consistent with Evan Williams, of course, no problem, firmly control the company. If there is a disagreement between Evan Williams and Jack Dorsey, and Ziweixing supports Jack Dorsey... that's easy to handle, 40%+12%=52%, Evan Williams can be removed.
Twitter's entrepreneurial team is very immature.
Their opinion is to let Jack Dorsey be the CEO. First, he conceived the project, and second, Evan Williams did a poor job when he was the CEO of Odeo.
Zhou Buqi didn't quite agree.
He doesn't know what happened in his previous life, but this Jack Dorsey... doesn't look very good at first glance. He has dyed green hair, wears a nose ring, and looks like a hooligan. Can such a person run a technology company well?
He still trusts Evan Williams more.
With the strong recommendation of the capital side and Evan Williams himself as the major shareholder, he successfully became the chairman and CEO of the new company.
In addition, as the capital that plays a decisive role in the company's strategy, Ziweixing has won two of the five directors, namely Liu Qing and Zhen Yu.
It can be regarded as unintentional.
In the previous life, Jack Dorsey was the first CEO of Twitter, and it turned out to be a mess. Evan Williams couldn't bear it anymore, dismissed him, and became the CEO himself, leading Twitter into a stage of rapid development, and the number of users once surpassed that of Facebook. It's a pity that the good times didn't last long, and Jack Dorsey joined forces with the capital again to dismiss Evan Williams...
It's a mess.
However, Zhou Buqi doesn't care about these.
Twitter's role in the international media is too great, he will not change his nationality, and the decision-making power he has here will not last for too long. Within five years, they basically have to withdraw.
