The person Cheng Ran wanted to meet was called Lin Xiaosong, a classmate of Li Mingshi at University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. After graduating from college, he was assigned to the Shenzhen Telecom Department. Later, he worked as the marketing director for a company that provided Internet value-added services and was jointly invested by the telecommunications department and the Special Economic Zone Development Group. The company was also a government-designated engineering and enterprise information service provider.
Lin Xiaosong was previously responsible for the promotion of the first broadband community in Shenzhen. To put it simply, it was system integration, buying equipment from suppliers and selling it to real estate developers at a higher price.
The project was an impossible task from the beginning, because the real estate developer was also extremely shrewd. He contacted insiders through his connections to calculate the quotation, so he set the budget price to 1.5 million, the lowest quotation that the equipment supplier could provide.
At that time, everyone in the company thought that this project was going to fail, but Lin Xiaosong took the lead.
He called all the departments of procurement, finance, and administration together for a meeting, did some calculations for them, and had them sign an equipment purchase agreement with the equipment provider first, agreeing to pay according to the progress of the project and the current price of the equipment within one year of the project implementation. He also reminded everyone that this project was for a one-year period, and within a year, the telecommunications equipment would be updated and iterated, which would result in a drop in price. With good coordination, this 1.5 million yuan worth of equipment could be purchased for a maximum of 1 million yuan, and everyone should hurry up to sign an agreement with the real estate developer, let the real estate developer pay first, and earn 1.5 million yuan first, so this project was a sure win.
This was still the mid-1990s, and Lin Xiaosong's ability to do projects in the same way as futures trading was like the swordsman's superb swordsmanship.
Now the Shenzhen city policy has changed, the Telecommunications Bureau is rectifying the "tertiary industry", and the joint venture company of the government-designated engineering unit where he works has come to an end. Lin Xiaosong has suddenly reached the lowest point in his life. Going back to the Telecommunications Bureau? There are so many obstacles there, and he can only do a minor job at most, with no future.
Then he should go into business? The business world is full of ups and downs. How can he make a name for himself without capital? What should he do? When he was wavering, he happened to hear about Li Mingshi's situation at a classmate gathering in Shenzhen. This old classmate was already doing well in Chengdu. He used his connections to make a connection and decided to come over to take a look.
After Cheng Ran entered the office room 506 of Fulong Building, which served as the CQ office headquarters, he saw Lin Xiaosong chatting with Li Mingshi.
Lin Xiaosong has a broad face, a square mouth, slanted lips, and a pair of black-framed glasses with narrow lenses on his broad nose. Perhaps due to years of marketing and socializing, his figure has gained some weight, but his every move exudes amazing energy.
In general, he looks like a powerful boss in movies and TV series. This is not surprising, because when Lin Xiaosong was in a telecommunications joint venture, he dealt with CEOs of state-owned enterprises, real estate bosses, and government officials, and he had seen all kinds of situations.
Seeing Li Mingshi's gesture, Lin Xiaosong noticed Cheng Ran with his sparkling eyes and came over to shake hands.
In fact, Lin Xiaosong was surprised and secretly criticized. Although Li Mingshi had hinted at the boss's "youth", he never expected him to be so young.
If Li Mingshi had not repeatedly clarified his name, he would have suspected that it was the young master Fu Long who was still in high school who was making trouble.
As soon as Cheng Ran saw Lin Xiaosong's expression, he knew that he was actually a very proud person.
After shaking hands with Lin Xiaosong, he asked seriously, "Have you eaten?"
"I've eaten it, and it feels like I'm back to when I was in school in Chengdu." Lin Xiaosong smiled and glanced at Li Mingshi. When he came here, he and Li Mingshi had a big bowl of beef rice noodle in the alley outside Fulong Building. There was no toasting, no shouting, just like when we were still in school, a small restaurant in a small alley, everyone had a bowl, and talked about technology and the future.
"Then let's have a meeting, together."
Seeing Cheng Ran turn around and walk towards a meeting room specially separated by wooden boards, a look of surprise flashed across his eyes, and then he followed him.
Li Mingshi smiled as if he was watching from the sidelines.
Lin Xiaosong was also very surprised. He wanted to see what was so special about Cheng Ran.
The CQ office area of 506 now has a total of six developers, including Li Mingshi, forming a team. These people were asked by Cheng Ran to come over from Cheng Feiyang, and then Cheng Ran paid their salaries and used them himself.
Everyone came to the conference room. Lin Xiaosong stood in the corner. Cheng Ran looked at everyone and said, "I know that the number of front-end users is growing rapidly every month and breaking records every time period. Our quota for Fulong servers is almost full. I'm here to bring you good news today. From now on, we will purchase our own servers. Haven't you already set your eyes on those two xSeries tower servers from IBM? Take over and I'll make the decision. Buy them, buy, buy."
A crowd of people let out a “Wow!”
The optimizer named Liu Yi joked excitedly, "Mr. Cheng, it's hundreds of thousands. You can buy it if you say so. Which project did you make a lot of money from? Does Mr. Cheng know? It might be confiscated. Don't just promise us and then turn around and hand it over!"
Everyone burst into laughter. For those who work on software, the server is just like the shield in the hands of a Roman swordsman. Only a good shield can support safety and security, and only then can you stab the sword with confidence.
Even if everyone sleeps on the floor in a small corner, hugging a powerful server to sleep, it is still more comfortable than living in a luxury villa in the royal garden.
Engineer Liu Yuan said with relief, "Now we don't have to run to the computer room on the 13th floor when problems arise, and we have to look at people's faces when debugging..."
This was a joke. Although the Fulong server was used by the CQ team, everyone knew it belonged to Cheng Ran, so who would give him a cold shoulder? However, the Fulong computer room was not open to anyone. There were strict rules and regulations, such as the number of people the computer room could accommodate at a certain time, and the debugging personnel must be supervised by a person in charge. Sometimes the person in charge of the computer room was short of staff, and there was something going on, so the CQ server debugging could not be completed in the first place.
It is no wonder that Fulong's management is so strict. With Cheng Feiyang's military standards, any operation must be strictly in accordance with the regulations, otherwise there will be punishment. Even if Cheng Feiyang himself makes a mistake, his salary will be deducted, not to mention ordinary employees. This management style is completely different from CQ's relatively loose temperament, which is destined to be impossible to integrate in the future.
As CQ grows in the future, it is impossible to use Fulong servers and occupy Fulong's resources. This is unrealistic. Do you plan to install servers in a Fulong building in the future
His father's Fulong supported him through the initial stage, but CQ still had to rely on himself for development in the future.
Lin Xiaosong nodded secretly in the corner. In fact, when Li Mingshi mentioned it, he had already noticed the hidden danger. He originally planned to bring it up in front of the boss to show off his ability, but the boss Cheng Ran took care of the matter as soon as he came to the meeting.
Cheng Ran was still saying, "Everyone, work hard... We will upgrade to servers above level 6000 in the future!"
"Huo, Mr. Cheng, we don't need to think too much about it. It's enough to use our own X series. That thing costs at least 800,000 RMB per unit. We are just jealous. We are not profitable yet, so how can we afford it!"
"Okay, okay, I understand... Just cash in our sports car first..."
Cheng Ran smiled, and then said to everyone, "There will be bread, and there will be servers. I know that we are breaking records every moment now, and I am not here to commend you. I want to talk to you today. What should I talk about? I want to talk to you about what we are going through, and the position and situation we are in."
Then, in this small meeting room of less than 20 square meters separated by wooden boards, Cheng Ran's voice and the sound of rustling leaves in the golden afternoon outside the window resounded together.
"What is happening in our world right now?"
"Last year, in November 1998, AOL acquired Netscape for $4.2 billion. The browser war between Netscape and Microsoft entered a white-hot stage. Bill Gates strongly promoted the bundling of indos95 and TE browser, which achieved miraculous results. This giant also announced indos98 last year. What does this mean? It means that indos will truly become an Internet-oriented desktop system! This huge ship of Microsoft has already intervened and dominated the great route of the future!"
Lin Xiaosong in the corner listened, thoughtful.
"Two years ago, Apple acquired Next, and Apple's former founder Steve Jobs returned to Apple in this way. Yes, you heard it right, the guy who made "Toy Story", what did he do after he came back? Also last year in 1998, after his drastic reforms, he launched a computer called iMa! Minimalism, very beautiful, right? There is no sign that it will become the new ruler, but in my opinion, the name Steve Jobs will create rules for the world to follow in the future! He will be the ruler for a long time, making opponents tremble and chasers stay away! Even his name will be engraved on the monument of modern figures, and he will inevitably be admired."
Everyone looked at Cheng Ran. Lin Xiaosong noticed that Li Mingshi's eyes were full of conviction. How could this young man assert that Jobs would become a conqueror? But the content and breadth of his words did exceed his cognition. After all, at that time, even with the Internet, China was still relatively closed.
"It was also in 1998 that the most outstanding and admired Chinese American youth in the United States was named Jerry Yang. He created Yahoo, appeared on the covers of Time and Business Week, and jumped to the 16th place on the Forbes High-tech Rich List with a net worth of $1 billion. But he made the stupidest decision in his life, which he would probably regret for the rest of his life. He rejected the search technology that two Stanford alumni wanted to sell for $1 million. Later, these two people, named Larene Edward Page and Sergey Brin, were forced to create Google in a garage in the suburbs of California. I dare to assert that this company will grow wildly and become the largest search engine company on the entire planet in the future."
Lin Xiaosong was increasingly dumbfounded. Perhaps no one would dare to say that Jerry Yang, the well-known Chinese Internet hero, had no vision!
"Although Jerry Yang lacks a certain degree of vision amidst the halo, he has inspired a generation of people. Last April, Zhang Chaoyang's team cloned the Chinese version of Yahoo and named it Sohu. He was the first to complete the development of the Chinese search system and left behind his pursuers, becoming the first national news figure in the Internet industry."
"That was last August. Xie Qian of Soitong Company acquired Huayuan and announced the establishment of Tonglang.com this year. The portal era of our domestic Internet has arrived. Tonglang, Sohu, NetEase, 163 Post Office, Guozhong.com, People's Daily website, Shanghai Hotline, Capital Online, Yahoo China, ChinaByte... They were named the top ten commercial websites in this year's China Business Times. In addition to these leaders, I also know that a man named Zhu Jun created "The Ninth City" last year, and a man named Chen Tianqiao, who just graduated from Fudan University, founded Shanda Network. You can also ask around in Zhongguancun to see if there is a man named Liu Qiangdong who founded a company called JD.com, and if there is a man named Jack Ma who runs a small and medium-sized enterprise trade website in Hangzhou. If so, tell me and I will invite him to dinner. In the fields of online games, e-commerce, and search engines, many big names have emerged in this tide."
"What did you see?"
“What I have seen is that in the past two years, many stars have been shining brightly, competing to shine in this new generation of galaxies!”
"New technologies have brought about a new world order. The global Internet wave has arrived. These people have no natural resources, no connections with the powerful, and no need to seek rent or bargain with government officials. They are relying on their own creativity, their own struggles and knowledge, and their will to stand at the forefront of the times... In this tide, what are we CQ? What are we?"
After a pause, facing the people whose breathing had been aroused, Cheng Ran said, "We are nothing."
"If we are not careful, we will all be forgotten by the crowd, and no one will remember what we have fought for! Our future will be closely related to the world created and changed by these stars. We will live in the world they have transformed and follow the rules they have set. The red envelopes they leak will make us flock to them like little animals."
“As we are witnessing the hustle and bustle of this era, we are the frontline personnel who can use the weapons in our hands to bring about change. If we do nothing and fail to make a difference, will there be a day when we will feel regret for our mediocrity?”
"This is what I want to tell you, what kind of generation we are in, what position we are in. So everyone, I hope you look forward."
"In the future galaxy, can our group of people, our CQ, be able to join it? Can we have a foothold in that splendor and become a shining part?"
"mutual encouragement!"
As soon as Cheng Ran finished speaking, there was a uniform and resounding response.
Lin Xiaosong was shocked.