Editor's note: This article is from the WeChat public number "burning finance and economics" (ID: rancaijing), the author Du Feng, edited by Wei Jia.
The development of China's Internet is a history of struggles supported by bigwigs and a history of face-slapping starring bigwigs.
Unlike traditional industries, the Internet industry is changing rapidly and practitioners tend to be young. Jack Ma sings rock, Ma Huateng dances hip-hop, and Robin Li brings out the drums, which makes their image in the eyes of the public more real and friendly. At the same time, the bigwigs are happy to take the stage to show their determination and output their views.
But, as the saying goes, too much talk is too much. As the bigwigs begin to perform, they are inevitably in the awkward position of having the situation reversed to the point of being punched in the face.
For example, Lei Jun had openly said that millet only do high-end machine, the words did not fall on the launch of low-end models; Ma Yun had patted his chest that will not be involved in the game, but Ali finally set up a game business group; Jia Yueting out of the United States, "next week back to the country" has become a laughing stock of the industry.
It's difficult to get Internet gurus to stop speaking out. Either on their own initiative or because of passivity, even if they come from different industries and are at different stages of business development, they have all stepped into the same river of being punched in the face one after another.
Their stories are different, but the process of beating their faces has some commonalities. We summarize them into the following four types: open mouth to show personality, dead not admit to the end of the bar, peddling feelings of false seriousness, wild smoke to collect profits.
speak one's mind
Representative characters: Lei Jun, Luo Yonghao
China's Internet is an industry where fan culture is prevalent, and even entrepreneurs have the opportunity to become crossover Internet celebrities. Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi, has seized the characteristics of the Internet and the psychology of users to make Xiaomi a hit. Lei Jun himself is also quite a personality, with "standing on the wind, pigs can fly up", "life and death look down, do not serve," and other thundering words, become an entrepreneur netroots.
Open-mouthed and full of personality, which has allowed Lei Jun to reap the benefits of his fans while sometimes flopping.
In April 2012, there are millions of fans of the big V Lei Jun, in microblogging rumors millet to launch 899 yuan of low-end version of the phone, said "millet focus on high-performance cost-effective fever-grade cell phone, seriously do a good job of high-end cell phone is enough, do not consider the configuration of the middle and low-end," but also @ the millet official, in order to show determination.
However, a year later, Xiaomi issued Redmi Redmi, which focuses on the low-end market and adheres to the ultimate cost-effective route. This product was even declared independent by Xiaomi in January 2019, when Lu Weibing, former president of Jinli Group, joined Xiaomi and was appointed vice president of Xiaomi Group and general manager of the Redmi Redmi brand.
The same as Lei Jun was hit in the face of hammer phone founder Luo Yonghao.
Compared with Lei Jun, Luo Yonghao more "open-mouthed", hammer phone conference, the industry teased Luo Yonghao's "monologue". Several hours of speech on stage, like a well-designed talk show, and his frequent exposure to the golden sentence, but also become a major highlight of the future dissemination.
Hammer's first product, the Smartisan T1, was initially set at a high price of 3,000 yuan. Before its release, Luo Yonghao said on Weibo, "If it's below 2,500, I'm your grandson."
According to his plan, it's a product positioned in the mid-to-high end of the market, and he made a point of emphasizing, "I'm particularly averse to the practice of some handset makers of setting a high price when a new product goes on sale, and then dropping the price soon thereafter. We will keep this price for the entire product cycle, unless the next generation of products comes to market and the previous generation needs to clear its inventory, then the price may be reduced".
However, the T1 was on the market for less than 4 months, the price dropped directly from 3000 yuan to 1980 yuan, not only did not stick around for the entire product life cycle, the shadow of the next generation of products did not even appear.
This may be a commonality in the cell phone industry. The update progress of speech can never keep up with the product iteration speed. The product update speed is too fast, the product pricing can not keep up with the market demand. In the view of industry insiders, another important reason is that Lei Jun and Luo Yonghao have overestimated the high-end appeal of their products and underestimated the explosive power of the sinking market.
For product people, this is not a big deal. In most cases, fans won't blame the big boys for their "inconsistent behavior". After all, the only way to make a good product is to be ultimately responsible for the users.
lit. won't admit it until the end
Representative characters: Zhou Hongyi, Jia Yueting
Open mouth is personality, but whether it can adhere to is another matter. Internet industry popular "hard to carry", a road to the black, I do not care.
If Lei Jun style face, also mixed with the product people's simplicity and personality, then Zhou Hongyi style capital operation, with a hint of dark operation.
In June 2015, 360 announced privatization from the New York Stock Exchange. Privatization lasted more than a year, Zhou Hongyi mortgaged the 360 building and the "360" trademark for loans, and from China Merchants Bank to get a 7-year loan of 3 billion U.S. dollars.
After the completion of privatization, the A-share market emerged a number of "360 privatization concept shares", the market circulated a number of 360 shell list. Before the announcement of the shell program, Zhou Hongyi cautioned on several occasions not to listen to rumors. In short, is not recognized 360 will be in the A-share shell listing. Zhou Hongyi was responding: "too many rumors, we do not have any capital considerations, did not talk to anyone (shell listing)."
For shrewd businessmen, do not have to care about the outside world rumors and rumors. Like Zhou Hongyi, even if the outside world rumors flying, he can still calm and rumors. In the rumor, must be determined attitude, "too much", "any" and other words, is Zhou Hongyi rumors appear in the high-frequency vocabulary. At the same time in a bite, the speed of action is also very important.
In November 2017, A-share listed company Jiangnan Jiajie released a 360 shell announcement, and the news of 360 shelling back to the A-share market was confirmed. Subsequently, 360 in just one and a half months, quickly completed from the restructuring program release to suspend the meeting, waiting for the meeting to pass all the preparatory work. In 360 before, privatization back to A shares of the giant network with nearly 4 months, Focus Media with two and a half months. Zhou Hongyi with the momentum of lightning, will be a capital drama operation to watertight.
Although before and after being hit in the face, Zhou Hongyi is not a loss at all. When delisted from the U.S. stock market, 360's market capitalization was about 9.338 billion U.S. dollars, which is equivalent to about 62.6 billion yuan, and today's market value is 166.4 billion yuan.
Jia Yueting was similarly hit in the face. But he was hit in the face at the same time, but also wrapped in the inexorable investors.
After the outbreak of the Leshi crisis, Jia Yueting left the United States on July 4, 2017, leaving tens of billions of dollars of debt in the country. At that time, Jia Yueting said: it is only a short-term trip abroad, and will return within a week. LeTV's external statement is also: "Mr. Jia will return to China in the near future, most likely within a week or two, the specific time according to the progress of the United States matters."
On July 17, the second interim shareholders' meeting of LeTV.com in 2017 was held, and Jia Yueting did not appear, and was seated by Sun Hongbin. On the contrary, a large number of suppliers appeared on the scene to collect wages. In the following months, LeTV was exposed to IPO financial fraud, and Jia Yueting's external caliber became "temporarily not to return to the country, after returning to the United States, FF will collapse".
On December 25, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) issued a letter requesting Jia Yueting to return to China by a deadline, cooperate in solving the problems of LeTV, dispose of risks, and protect the interests of investors. Before that, Jia Yueting has been included in the list of executors who have lost faith. But Jia Yueting did not pay attention to, to this day, Jia Yueting "next week back to China" has become a mystery.
In short, I do what I do since I do. In some specific situations, it's a PR tool for bigots to not recognize, ignore, or say anything.
peddle sentimentality and be prudish
Representative characters: Ma Yun, Luo Zhenyu
The Internet era is an era of sentimentality. Up to the Internet bigwigs, down to the first-line sales, always love to take the sentiment to say things. There is no sentiment, this era are embarrassed to come out to start a business.
Jack Ma is considered a very sentimental big brother. In the early days of Alibaba, he declared that he wanted to "make the world no difficult business".In June 2010, Ma Yun said in a work report, the game can not change China, the children can not all play games. "Games we do not invest a penny. People vote, we applaud, but we do not do, this is one of our principles."
At the time Ma said this, Ma Huateng and Ding Lei were still relying on their gaming business and feeding their other innovative business teams. Games are the main business of Tencent and NetEase, and because of this, the two companies have endured skepticism from the majority of students' parents. Ma, on the other hand, stood on the moral high ground and was on cloud nine.
In January 2014, Liu Chuning, president of Alibaba's digital entertainment business group, said at the 2013 China Mobile Game Industry Annual Summit that Ali would launch its own mobile game platform. When the news came out, Ma Yun faced the risk of being hit in the face.In September 2017, Ali Dazhong Entertainment directly set up a game business group, under the open platform division and interactive entertainment division. In addition, Ali Dazhong Entertainment also announced the wholly-owned acquisition of Janyue, which was founded by former NetEase COO Zhan Zhonghui and others, and began to bet on the game industry.
At this point, Ma Yun once preached sentiment, but also completely dissipated. After all, in the face of commercial interests and peer competition, once said, let it go.
If Jack Ma and other top big brother is still a little far away from the public, then Luo Zhenyu such as good at capturing the user's psychology of the "master", is more adept at close to the general public. Luo Zhenyu one hand sentiment, one hand anxiety, the knowledge of the business of payment to do a good job.
At the beginning, there is still a little bit of sentiment, want to quietly do a self-media, but as a member, Luo Zhenyu changed into a shrewd businessman. He has crafted a "knowledge formula" for countless urban youth who are eager for progress and increasingly anxious, and he sells it openly at a marked price. Standing on a high platform, he spews out his opinions, conveys his emotions, and opens the door to disciples. This is the role that many big men are happy to play: a leader, or a preacher.
Everyone wants to be a friend of time, but oftentimes, time smacks you in the face.
Luo Zhenyu's first New Year's Eve speech in 2015, he stood up for LeTV and Storm, "Don't look at them with traditional eyes, the existence of this new species will definitely change our environment, so I suggest that we all, don't talk about what a demon stock people are." Later, Jia Yueting went to the United States and did not return, Feng Xin was sent to the iron window. LeTV and Storm left a mess of chicken hair.
The second New Year's speech in 2016, Luo Zhenyu put forward a new concept "time battlefield", that the next step is to help users save time. However, the subsequent rise of short videos is to help users consume time, diametrically opposed to his judgment.
One of the biggest drawbacks of the internet age for bigots who are happy to share is that all information is recordable and traceable. This makes a punch in the face, well documented. A strong point of view, a serious book, and a sound bite will indeed reap applause and traffic, but time is not always willing to be friends with him.
Reap the benefits of the smoke.
Representative characters: Liu Qiangdong, Zhu Xiaohu
Whether it is the Internet entrepreneurship circle, or venture capital circle, it is popular to put smoke bombs. Mouth say don't don't, but also waved their hands and shook their heads, but the body is very honest. Especially some of the key business game, known as a large smoke bomb throwing site.
A common trope is
