When a new tycoon comes on the stage, it will disrupt the rhythm of everyone on the stage, because no one understands the new tycoon's style of doing things, whether it is conservative or radical, rational or paranoid. Once he makes any move, it will arouse everyone's close attention. Pay attention, no one dares to take it lightly.
For Meg Whitman, Li Mu is such a new tycoon.
Push forward one month, and Meg Whitman didn’t even know who Li Mu was, let alone what Makino Technology was. But when the Chinese government launched the “Internet into Homes” policy and personally promoted China’s Internet industry as a government When it was developing, Internet giants in the United States heard Li Mu’s name for the first time.
When Li Mu's name first appeared in American media reports, everyone regarded Li Mu as a key figure in promoting China's Internet market and a key. It didn't matter who he was. What was important was that this person existed. It opened up a new era of vigorous development of the Chinese Internet, and also gave American Internet companies and capitalists a huge market full of endless imagination.
However, as the Silicon Valley media dug deeper into Li Mu, Makino Technology’s software, YY, which amazed the global elite, was dug out of the iceberg. Then, YY was like a prairie fire, quickly sweeping the entire United States and the entire world.
Li Mu's rise on the world stage is so fast that he has become famous throughout the American Internet industry without even leaving the country. It is precisely because of this that Meg Whitman feels deeply towards Li Mu, whom she has never met. There is also considerable fear.
According to normal thinking, young and promising people generally have a more radical behavior style. On the one hand, they are young, and on the other hand, success comes too quickly, so they naturally think that success is very easy.
Therefore, what Meg Whitman is most worried about is that Li Mu will take down Paypal at all costs due to his radical behavior. She is not afraid of Li Mu and Li Mu's Makino Technology at all, but she is afraid that Li Mu will indirectly bring huge consequences to her. Influence.
There is nothing to worry about when a stranger comes to town, but once he comes into contact with his sweetheart in the town, everyone will worry: Is he a charming gentleman, or an unscrupulous devil? If it's the former, he will let his sweetheart be impressed by him; if it's the latter, he might forcibly defile his sweetheart late at night.
Li Mu is an entrepreneur and his own boss. A failed decision will not bring him catastrophe. But for a professional manager like Meg Whitman, if he makes a major decision-making mistake during his tenure, he will definitely suffer. Will be fired by the board of directors.
Every high-end professional manager signed a fairly generous equity return agreement before joining a large enterprise. However, there are many conditions for obtaining this batch of equity. First, they must stay in the position for enough years, and secondly, and more importantly, , is to bring a sufficiently high rate of return to shareholders within a specified period of time.
Meg Whitman's equity incentive cycle is a three-year cycle. Now, the second three-year cycle is halfway through. If Meg Whitman wants to meet the requirements of the board of directors and help the company within this three-year cycle, If shareholders achieve their required rate of return, they can get the next three-year contract, and after the end of these three years, they can unlock and cash out a batch of stocks worth at least millions of dollars.
On the contrary, if Meg Whitman fails to meet the requirements of the board of directors in these three years, not only will her contract for the next three years not be secured, but even the stock incentives after the three-year period will be completely lost.
For eBay, the acquisition of Paypal is the most important part of its current work. Once it fails, it will have a huge impact on the confidence of eBay shareholders. Therefore, Meg Whitman asked herself to be nervous and never allow a newbie to take over. Young Chinese people took Paypal away from their hands.
Tom Anderson, eBay's vice president and directly responsible for the Paypal acquisition project, is no less stressed than Meg Whitman at this time. If she misses Paypal, Meg Whitman, as CEO, can at least survive it safely. During the contract period, I was not so lucky, and Meg Whitman might take the blame at any time.
So, after the meeting, Tom Anderson immediately contacted Peter Thiel. On the phone, Tom Anderson's first sentence was: "Peter, what are you doing? We have been talking about the acquisition of Paypal for so long. You just went to talk to the Chinese people without saying hello. Isn't this a bit too much?"
Peter Thiel was not surprised at all when he received a call from Tom Anderson. He smiled slightly and said to Tom Anderson: "Tom, we have not signed any intention agreement. We are still in a stalemate over the price issue. This Do we have any problems finding other potential buyers? If eBay had made some concessions on key issues, we might have already signed a contract."
Tom Anderson was speechless for a moment. The two parties had been negotiating on the acquisition for a long time. If we were to talk about the matter, he really had no right to interfere with the other party's search for other buyers, but the key was that he had invested so much effort and energy and showed enough Sincerity, but the other party was as ungrateful as Bitch, and would even leave him at any time to hook up with other people. Of course, Tom Anderson was angry in his heart, but when Peter Thiel said this, he immediately felt helpless. The feeling of powerlessness in rebuttal.
After hesitating for a moment, Tom Anderson said to Peter Thiel: "If you have any objections to key issues, we can sit down and talk. As long as we are sincere to each other, we will definitely reach a final consensus."
For Peter Thiel, he has been moved by Li Mu's proposal. What he and Elon Musk are looking forward to most now is to be able to cash out part of the Paypal shares in their hands, and then hold part of the shares for appreciation. If Being fully acquired by eBay, the profit margin is really unimaginative.
For them, Paypal is equivalent to a piece of land in the core of Manhattan. If they develop it themselves, it will be a multi-story building with less than ten floors at most. If eBay buys it and develops it, it might be a 100-story building. Skyscrapers, originally, eBay's requirement: I pay, the land belongs to me, you take the money and get out, it has nothing to do with you how I play in the future.
Now, Li Mu gives them a new option: You partner with me, and together we force eBay to let us take shares. You can sell half of your land to get money to improve your life. This money is enough for you to buy a car and a house. When it comes to buying a house, it’s time to show off, when it’s time to pick up girls, when it’s time to manage your finances, and when it’s time to invest.
As for the other half of the land, you can use it to invest in this skyscraper with more than 100 floors in the future. Once the building is built, at least more than 20 floors will be yours. This is no more than the money you paid for selling the land. How much? If I work with eBay to lay a stronger foundation, and this skyscraper will have 200 floors in the future, you will have at least 40 floors.
However, you are not strong enough. If you want to leave me alone and play such a game with eBay alone, with your strength, you simply cannot check and balance such a huge enterprise as eBay. So if you want to participate, you can only use Yu Qichu's method. Strategy.
If you want to compete with Qi and Chu, you must first have both Qi and Chu. If there is only eBay, how can you directly confront eBay yourself
Only by bringing in Makino Technology, allowing Makino Technology and eBay to become Qi and Chu in the future Paypal landscape, can Paypal's original team become Teng, sandwiched between the two countries. Only in this way can the balance of the game be ensured .
However, Peter Thiel and Elon Musk did not completely trust Li Mu. They initially regarded Li Mu as a tool to check and balance eBay to seek the best interests. However, the two people with this goal in mind were suddenly replaced by Li Mu. Attracted by good plans, it would be great if Li Mu's plan could work. However, if this plan fails to be implemented, they will still return to their original plan and use Li Mu to force eBay to increase the acquisition price.
Out of this plan, Peter Thiel still wanted to leave some room for Tom Anderson, so he said to Tom Anderson: "Tom, when we met with Li Mu, we actually wanted to leave more escape routes for ourselves. This is also normal business. Behavior, you don’t need to be so sensitive. We will continue to negotiate with eBay, and we will continue with great sincerity. As you said, if everyone can reach a consensus, we will naturally sign the contract without hesitation. .”
Tom Anderson asked him: "So what are your requirements for the acquisition now? If it's convenient, you can give me an outline first, or we can directly bring out the acquisition team tomorrow and talk face to face."
Peter Thiel said: "Then let's meet and talk tomorrow. There is no need to bring the whole team out. Let's meet alone and talk."
…
The next day, at 9:30 a.m. New York time, the Nasdaq opened in the United States.
At this moment, the time on the West Coast is just half past six in the morning.
The news that Elon Musk went to China to interview Li Mu and jointly announced to the media that Makino Technology plans to control Paypal has spread throughout the United States since last night.
Both the U.S. Internet industry and the capital market believe that eBay is very likely to miss out on Paypal. Even if it finally wins the hearts of the Paypal team and successfully acquires Paypal, the price will probably be higher than the previous US$1.5 billion. Much more.
Therefore, this is really bad news for eBay's stock price.
eBay's opening price was US$50.55, which was a drop of nearly 5 percentage points from the previous trading day's closing price of US$52.88!
The influence of bad news is beginning to appear!
(End of chapter)