After chatting with Elon Musk a lot, Li Mu learned that it turns out that Silicon Valley bosses and big companies like to go to major science and engineering universities to search for treasures.
The so-called Taobao search is actually to search for small entrepreneurial projects or R&D projects by students in major universities. Just like angel investment, as long as the general idea seems to be right and the direction is more appetizing, you will immediately invest a sum of money in the project. Buyout or holding shares.
Elon Musk himself is a technology geek and highly esteems technical matters, so according to him, in the next period of time, he plans to visit several of the top science and engineering universities in the United States and compare all with them. He inspected all projects related to battery charge and discharge management, motors, transmissions, and dynamic power distribution. As long as they could be invested, he would invest in them all, because in his eyes, sometimes, these students who are purely engaged in R&D with enthusiasm, instead Can unleash creativity beyond imagination.
Li Mu very much agrees with Elon Musk’s point of view. Many large companies in Silicon Valley actually originated from small entrepreneurship or R&D projects on university campuses. The famous Cisco was originally started as a small entrepreneurial project by a couple of professors from Stanford University. , is now a giant in the Internet industry, and as a company whose main business is hardware and solutions, Cisco's ability to withstand shocks in the Internet field is much stronger than that of ordinary Internet companies.
Thinking of the future development trend of new energy, Li Mu said to Elon Musk: "After returning to Silicon Valley, start the company registration. After registration, I will immediately transfer the money to the company account. By the way, do you have the name of the company?" Any ideas?"
Elon Musk immediately said: "Yes! I want to name it Tesla!"
Li Mu smiled, thinking that this kind of person is indeed obsessed. If Elon Musk is given ten opportunities to be reborn, and his memory is reset every time, he should give directions to new energy vehicles ten times. The company was named Tesla. Li Mu felt that this guy's admiration for Tesla should have risen to the level of a life idol.
However, Li Mu still pretended to be curious and asked: "Tesla? Are you talking about the American electrical inventor of the last century?"
"Yes, yes!" Elon Musk said with great excitement: "That's him, Nikola Tesla, the biggest idol in my life, a god-like man."
Having said this, Elon Musk looked at Li Mu and said seriously: "Mr. Li, I think in a few years, my biggest idol will become you, because I believe your future achievements will definitely be among those of Tesla." After all, you are only in your early twenties. This is really terrible. Whenever I see your young and even immature face, and think of the huge industry you have created, I feel that life is boring. "
Li Mu laughed and said, "Don't flatter me just because I am your future boss. Tesla is also a great man in my eyes, so I don't accept your comparing me with him, but you have to I still agree with naming the company Tesla. Tesla himself is an electrical genius, and what we want to do is also an electric car. Strictly speaking, Tesla is our ancestor. Naming it after him is also a sign of respect for him.”
As he spoke, Li Mu sighed softly and said: "Tesla's global fame is really not proportional to his contribution to the world. He is a great man who has been largely forgotten. Since we want to Electric vehicles, to a certain extent, inherit his legacy, so we also have the responsibility to rectify his name on a global scale and let the world know him better."
Elon Musk suddenly became excited, clasped his hands, and sighed to Li Mu: "Mr. Li, there is an old Chinese saying that a scholar will die for his confidant. You are my confidant!"
Li Mu smiled and said, "Since Tesla is your biggest idol, you must go all out to build Tesla."
Elon Musk nodded and asked: "Mr. Li, I might as well resign from PayPal."
Li Mu said: "It doesn't make much sense to leave PayPal now. The core work of Tesla in its early days was research and development. I suggest you continue to stay at PayPal first, and then find a suitable place in Silicon Valley to place Tesla's R&D team. This way, it will be close to you.”
Seeing that Elon Musk was a little confused, Li Mu explained: "Staying at PayPal can help you accumulate more industry resources. After all, PayPal is currently developing rapidly. In the future, more and more physical companies will deal with PayPal. You are here Position, you can get additional resources.”
The recent development of PayPal is indeed amazing. The main reason is that all value-added service payments of Makino Technology overseas are basically through PayPal, which has brought huge turnover and profits to PayPal. Li Mu has no payment foundation overseas. In addition, Makino Technology is already a shareholder of PayPal, so Li Mu is not planning to start another overseas payment channel. In this way, PayPal will reap huge development dividends from Makino Technology.
In the future, PayPal's status in the Internet industry will become higher and higher. In this case, Elon Musk will also be highly sought after in the industry, and the payment channel has a very big advantage: it is more convenient than other online products. It is close to offline because it connects not the user's computer but the user's wallet. In this way, in the future stage of rapid development of e-commerce, the real economy will become increasingly dependent on PayPal.
What Tesla wants to do is to manufacture new energy vehicles. In the future, it will have to deal with many parts suppliers around the world. If Musk still has the name of PayPal behind him, he will have to deal with these suppliers in the process of bargaining. If he resigns now and concentrates on Tesla, he will not be able to help much in the pure technology development stage. On the other hand, he will also lose huge resource channels.
Elon Musk understands Li Mu’s intentions. Although he hopes to devote his whole life to Tesla, Li Mu does have a more pragmatic view. Tesla does not need him to be a full-time CEO, at least for some time in the future. None needed.
Later, Elon Musk said to Li Mu: "Mr. Li, then I will continue to work at PayPal, then establish Tesla in Silicon Valley, and quickly start concentrated research and development in the field of Tesla batteries and motors."
Li Mu nodded and asked him: "We develop the battery and motor ourselves, so where does the platform technology for the car come from?"
Ordinary people say that there are three major parts of a car, which means that the essence of a car is power, transmission and chassis. Tesla can solve the power and transmission problems by itself, but the chassis technology cannot be handled by itself.
Moreover, Li Mu feels that the three major components are not the most important, but the production platform. Only companies with the ability to build production platforms can be called car manufacturing companies in the true sense.
Elon Musk has a different view than Li Mu. He said: "Mr. Li, I think there is no need to consider the platform so early. What we really lack now is chassis technology. When the time comes, we can choose a car company and buy their For chassis technology, we can even directly hand over the chassis to them for OEM, and even hand over the body frame to other companies for OEM. In this way, we only need to set up our own assembly production line to achieve mass production."
Li Mu shook his head after hearing this.
It’s no wonder that Tesla has difficulty delivering goods all day long and suffers huge losses at every turn. If you build cars with your mindset, it’s no wonder that you’re not going to lose money to death.
Seeing Li Mu shaking his head and sighing, Elon Musk hurriedly asked nervously: "Mr. Li, is there anything wrong with what I said?"
Li Mu sighed again, looked at him, and said seriously: "Elon, I believe that Tesla, under your leadership, can design and produce the best new energy vehicles in the world, but..."
When Li Mu said this, his tone became much more serious. He paused and continued: "But! Under your leadership, Tesla will definitely not become the most successful new energy vehicle manufacturer in the world. I even highly doubt it." , if you don’t change your thinking in time, Tesla will go bankrupt in your hands one day.”
"Why..." Elon Musk was extremely puzzled, but Li Mu said it so seriously, which made him feel particularly panicked.
There are very few people who can make Elon Musk confused with just one sentence. The young Li Mu may be the only one.
Seeing that Elon Musk was a little flustered, Li Mu explained to him: "Internet thinking is indeed very advanced, and environmental thinking is also very advanced, but it does not mean that you will be able to find the right direction if you use these two kinds of thinking to do real industries. "
After that, Li Mu picked up a Zippo lighter that he placed on the coffee table and asked him: "How many types of Zippo lighters are there?"
Elon Musk said subconsciously: "I can't count them. There are too many kinds."
Li Mu asked again: "Will Zippo build a production line for each lighter?"
Elon Musk hurriedly said: "Of course not."
Li Mu nodded and said: "Zippo wants to handle the production of thousands of different styles of products, so its production line must be designed to be highly compatible. At least 80% of the styles can be produced on the same production line. Produced, are you right?”
Elon Musk agreed: "I believe it must be so."
Li Mu added: "Then you are not going to build a real car production platform, but only an assembly production line. Are you going to only let Tesla produce one model in the future?"
Elon Musk was particularly ashamed. He said without confidence: "Mr. Li, to be honest, to a certain extent, I do think so. What I think is that Tesla only launches one classic model at every stage." model, so we don’t need to build a highly versatile platform, we only need to build a production line for this model.”
Li Mu stared at him dumbfounded and said after a while: "You idiot!"
(End of chapter)