Chapter 645 Forerunners and imitators

"R\u0026D is a process of fishing. Unlike some programmers, it may be said that how many bugs are solved in a day, how many lines of code are written, no. It is normal for R\u0026D to make no progress in a day or two, or even a month. .Contributing through creative inspiration is more likely than focusing on writing code every day.”

The translation of Cheng Binghao's words has another meaning.

In research and development, hundreds of millions may be spent, but not a single splash comes out. For example, the database made by Yang Zhenkun has a great reputation, can it really be made?

Probably except for Boss Zhou and Yang Zhenkun himself, no one else has much confidence.

But if the money is invested in the application layer, it will be different, and it will be easy to see results. Even if the money is crazily subsidized and burned to users, at least you can see the fruits, please users, and get the favor of capital.

R\u0026D burns money and subsidies burn money, and capital definitely prefers the latter.

The results of subsidies can be seen, but research and development is a bottomless pit.

Zhou Buqi heard what he meant, and said in a deep voice: "I still say the same thing, what kind of technology company are we doing if we don't invest in research and development? The three-step strategy I just mentioned is feasible. ! Buy some, steal some, and develop some by ourselves. Followers have the advantage of being latecomers, and we must make full use of this advantage to keep up with Silicon Valley. Don’t compare with domestic counterparts, compare with Silicon Valley giants!”

The technicians are of course very happy, and think that Boss Zhou is very kind.

Wang Haoyang said bitterly: "How much will it cost?"

"Two special funds were established, corresponding to Plan A and Plan X respectively. Plan A has 50 million US dollars, which is dedicated to purchasing technology in Silicon Valley. Project X also has 50 million US dollars, which is dedicated to recruiting people in Silicon Valley."

Zhou Buqi is very rich.

It was mainly because of what Tang Binchen said. If Friends.com wants to achieve longer-term success, it must learn from Silicon Valley and have a deeper exploration at the technical level.

Wang Haoyang was stunned, his chin almost fell to the ground, "So many?"

Xu Liangjie shook his head and said, "It's not much. Going to the United States to buy intellectual property rights... There is a lot of resistance, we have to take risks, and we have to do a good job of legal protection. And we can only buy sub-level technology, and the core technology cannot be touched. As for poaching people , the difficulty is even greater. They all have unexpired stocks in technology companies. If you want them to change jobs, you have to make enough compensation and solve the basic living conditions in China. Recruitment per capita Spending $300,000-500,000 is not an exaggeration."

"I rely on it!"

Wang Haoyang was about to collapse.

No such waste of money!

Engaging in technology is really a bottomless pit! On the distributed database side, spending 100 million yuan every year is enough to make people's hearts bleed. It turned out to be a good thing, 100 million US dollars was used to set up two special funds...

Wang Haoyang was going crazy, "Don't talk about 100 million US dollars, we can't even get 50 million US dollars!"

Zhou Buqi said with a smile: "I didn't say to act immediately, let's make a plan first. This year's top priority is financing. Before the financing is completed, there will be no big moves."

He Yangdao: "This is a company secret, the top secret. Even if Plan A and Plan X are implemented, they cannot be made public. In terms of funds, internal accounts are used, and funds from public accounts cannot be allocated at one time. They must be allocated in batches as intellectual property rights and Spending on technical services and spending on human resources."

Sure enough, it came from a big company and knows what is sensitive.

Wang Haoyang breathed a sigh of relief, it's okay.

The funds are not allotted at once, but reimbursed a little bit after the results are achieved, which makes his financial management easier.

Wang Xing frowned and said: "Technology updates in the IT industry are very fast. For example, the projects that Binchen said Facebook is doing now seem to be very powerful, but after two or three years, it may be a bad street. Internet companies can use it at will. If we do research and development with them at the same time, I’m afraid we will suffer.”

As soon as these words came out, He Yanggao couldn't help but take a few glances.

I feel that Wang Xing is really different, unlike ordinary technicians who only focus on technology.

Again, doing R\u0026D requires a collision of inspirations.

But what the domestic education system lacks the most is this thing.

For example, the distributed caching system, Facebook can do it in 3 months. Friends.com is going to do it, because there is a lack of reference, everything has to be explored by ourselves, and it may take 12 months to achieve results.

If the two started at the same time, Friends.com would be 9 months late.

However, if it didn't start at the same time, what if Friends.com was slow to start after half a year?

When the Facebook project is launched, Friends.com will have a template for reference, which can be learned and improved, and it may be developed in 8 months.

Overall, Friends.com is 11 months late.

About the same as starting at the same time.

But the difference is that the development time of the first model is longer and the cost is higher. The second model has a short R\u0026D period and less expenditure.

If it starts two or three years later, and more websites have distributed caching systems, there will be more references, and more technological achievements shared by Silicon Valley... Maybe the distributed caching system will become a bad one. Main Street’s technology is independently researched and developed by domestic technology companies, and it can be easily completed within 3 months.

The research and development costs are even lower!

Moreover, the success rate is even greater!

It is much easier for imitators than forerunners.

The most typical example is that in the previous life, Alibaba started to do cloud computing in 2008.

At that time, the whole world didn't know what cloud computing looked like. There were probably two directions, one was Google's big data processing direction, and the other was Amazon's infrastructure virtual service direction.

Everyone has to cross the river by feeling the stones.

Dr. Wang Jian led the team to do it. Without an exact reference, he could only guess and explore, and then he chose the wrong way and walked in the direction of Google...

This made Alibaba Cloud's initial research and development very difficult. The team collapsed and reorganized several times. Dr. Wang Jian broke down and cried several times. He was also called a liar by others, and his hair was all white.

By 2010, Amazon's "infrastructure-as-a-service model" had succeeded!

Set the standard of cloud computing for the whole world.

Dr. Wang Jian suddenly realized, and then hurriedly turned his head and followed Amazon wholeheartedly.

With a reference, the next step will be very smooth. Alibaba Cloud has achieved great success, but it has also wasted too much money of Ali.

In a few years, other domestic technology companies will find that the cloud computing business seems to be more mature, and the technology is not so high-end, so they will all enter the market one after another.

Jinshan, Sina, Lenovo, Penguin, Baidu, Shanda, Huawei, Wangsu and other companies have all entered the game. Unlike Ali who worked hard to do cloud computing back then, they spent little money and took very little time. Made it easy.

This is the latecomer advantage and the benefit of imitators.

Zhou Buqi felt that Wang Xing's localization thinking was serious, and said resolutely: "Ziweixing is not playing tricks, we want to represent China and become the backbone of China's Internet! We must be the leaders!"

Xu Liangjie said: "Enterprises should not only pursue utilitarianism in technology development. Only by exploring the frontiers of science and technology and unknown fields can enterprises have technological genes."

Wang Haoyang raised his hand to speak.

Zhou Buqi laughed and said, "Old Wang, don't play tricks, just say what you have to say."

Wang Haoyang smiled and said sternly: "I am the CFO, and my wallet is a little tighter, but this does not affect my support for the company in the technical field. I am a technical layman, but I think a company's technology is just like a company's technology. Like human temperament, it needs precipitation. Reading history books, philosophy books, prose and poetry... It seems useless, and some parents even regard it as idle books and forbid children to read them. But there is poetry and book spirit in the stomach! This is the improvement of self-cultivation. The same is true for technology, and it is always good to accumulate more.”

Xu Liangjie waved his hand and said with a smile: "Okay, let's digress. I understand what Wang Xing said just now, and it makes sense. However, there is a basic principle that we must understand. Technology is driven by talents. Talents need to be cultivated." Yes. Look at Microsoft Research, where so many heretical technologies have been researched, but Microsoft doesn’t apply them at all. But they are still approving project funds without restraint and promoting research and development. This is the inner temperament of a technology giant.”

These words reached Zhou Buqi's heart, "Yes! Talents need to be cultivated! Talents are the foundation of technological progress. One person is exploring at the frontier of technology, and the other is following imitation. Even if the result of two people's work They are the same, but are their abilities the same? It’s a world of difference! In the follow-up scientific research projects, the gap in ability will be reflected.”

Only the most high-end projects can cultivate the most high-end talents.

Just like Ali.

It was once a technological desert and was ridiculed by peers. Later, it took a gamble on cloud computing and spent billions. Because it is a pioneer, its expenditure is more than ten times that of its peers.

However, through the Alibaba Cloud project, Ali has cultivated a large number of top talents, making Ali a large technology-based company comparable to Baidu in the domestic Internet circle.

A meeting lasted for 3 hours, everyone discussed enthusiastically, and Ziweixing's technology strategy was finalized.

Don't be afraid to spend money and stay at the forefront of technology.

To be a pioneer, at least a pioneer in the domestic technology industry. It doesn't matter if others follow behind and imitate, Ziweixing must have its own technical concept.

Then, everyone briefly discussed and set four major policies.

First, set up Ziweixing Technology Committee, with Xu Liangjie as the chairman of the committee, Cheng Binghao and Yang Zhenkun as deputy, responsible for some cutting-edge technology exploration of Ziweixing.

Second, prepare two confidential projects. He Yang served as the person in charge of Plan A and was responsible for the establishment of the "A Team" for intellectual property procurement. Wang Xing is the person in charge of Project X and wants to secretly form an "X team".

Third, contribute money, cooperate with universities, and establish relevant research groups and laboratories.

Fourth, follow Silicon Valley and be a domestic pioneer.

Of course, these are plans on paper.

Ziweixing now has no money and no one, so it needs to raise funds slowly and recruit people slowly.

Zhou Buqi was also assigned a task by Xu Liangjie, saying that he was asked to communicate with Zuckerberg to see if Ziweixing could organize a technical visiting group and go to Facebook for a study visit.

The intelligence information Tang Binchen brought back was still scarce.

Liu Qing is a director, but she can't see the details of Facebook's internal projects. If we can organize a technical team to find out... at least we must first figure out what technical projects they are working on. With the topic, Ziweixing can follow up the research in time.