Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

Yanjing, 798 Art Center.

Chen Yansen sized up the heavy-set man before him, his heart filled with disdain. ’The business community has two infamous jinxes. One is Zhang Jindong, and the other is none other than Luo Yonghao.’

’What’s the difference between an entrepreneur who can’t turn a profit and a complete waste?’

The guy started a blog, and it folded. He sold mobile phones and went bankrupt. He invested in e-cigarettes, only to be shut down by new regulations. He got into live-stream e-commerce, and a dozen of his top streamers were banned while over a thousand others had to line up to pay back taxes.

’The man’s a walking disaster!’

Chen Yansen instinctively took a step back, as if afraid the man’s bad luck might rub off on him.

He wasn’t so superficial as to think Luo Yonghao simply had bad foresight. An entrepreneur who could spot emerging trends like blogging, mobile phones, and e-cigarettes clearly had a keen nose for shifts in the industry.

But aside from some minor success in live-stream e-commerce, every single one of his other ventures had failed without exception.

Clearly, Luo Yonghao was just incompetent. He simply wasn’t skilled enough.

”What do you need?”

Chen Yansen asked indifferently.

”President Chen, I’d like to partner with your company to purchase a patent license for your memory cleaning algorithm.”

Luo Yonghao paused, noticing the impatience on Chen Yansen’s face, and quickly stated his purpose.

In 2012, the best way for an Android phone to solve its issues with cache fragmentation, stutter, and lag was to either run the Aurora OS or license the memory cleaning algorithm patent from Orange Technology.

It wasn’t that Luo Yonghao hadn’t considered developing it himself, but he’d asked around the industry and learned that even giants like Huawei and ZTE were using Orange Technology’s patent.

He knew that with his R&D team alone, he had absolutely no chance of cracking this piece of ’miracle tech’.

”You can contact Orange Technology’s intellectual property department. I don’t typically get involved in patent licensing partnerships.”

Chen Yansen tactfully refused him outright.

’As for whether the intellectual property department would agree to the partnership... that was still his call to make, of course.’

”Of course, President Chen.” Luo Yonghao managed a strained smile, his embarrassment palpable.

He’d been given a clear, albeit polite, rejection. Pestering any further would just be tactless. All he could do was silently step aside and make way.

Just then, Li Wanqiang, having received word, came jogging over. He warmly shook Chen Yansen’s right hand and said, ”President Chen, my apologies for keeping you waiting. This way, please.”

In just one short year, Chen Yansen’s status in the industry had skyrocketed.

When dealing with Chen Yansen, Li Wanqiang found himself subconsciously adopting a more humble posture, leading him to a seat in the front row of the conference hall.

”President Chen, congratulations on the Orange Mobile Phone’s cumulative global sales surpassing twenty million units.”

Yu Chendong, seated to his left, greeted him with a friendly smile.

There was no malice in his eyes, despite them being business rivals.

This was because Yu Chendong had long wanted to expand into online sales channels, but he faced immense internal resistance. The senior management of the end-user sales department, in particular, felt that e-commerce channels were unviable, incapable of generating significant volume, and would even disrupt Huawei’s existing sales network.

To put it bluntly, his strategy of building an e-commerce platform and partnering with third-party channels threatened the interests of too many people.

But then the Orange Mobile Phone had burst onto the scene. With its online-primary, offline-secondary sales strategy, it had sold twenty million units in less than a year.

It was a huge slap in the face to all of them.

The pressure on Yu Chendong dropped dramatically. With that, and the full backing of the big boss, he was finally able to launch the Huawei Mall in March, opening up an online sales channel for the company.

In his eyes, if not for Orange Technology’s resounding success with its direct-to-consumer online channels, the Huawei Mall project would have been incredibly difficult to get off the ground.

Therefore, he felt both gratitude and admiration for Chen Yansen.

”Thank you. And congratulations to Huawei on its domestic phone shipments surpassing Nokia’s for the first time,” Chen Yansen replied with a smile.

”It’s only fun if you’re aiming for the top,” Yu Chendong said with a grin, his voice full of ambition.

”I feel the same way,” Chen Yansen said, his eyes narrowing as he gave a faint smile.

Wang Xiang, the President of Qualcomm’s Huaguo District seated to his right, couldn’t help but chuckle to himself.

Huawei had only shipped four million smartphones in Q1. Even including feature phones, their total barely topped five million units, a far cry from the number one spot held by Mountain Star.

Orange Technology, on the other hand, had shipped a whopping nine million units in Q1. They were less than a million units behind Mountain Star’s sales figures, giving them a real shot at competing for the top spot.

Of course, that was only in the domestic market. On a global scale, Samsung remained the undisputed industry titan. Not even Nokia, Apple, or High Technology Corporation could match it.

Wang Xiang knew perfectly well it was impossible for Huawei to surpass Samsung in shipments anytime soon. But since they were a major Qualcomm client, he offered a polite compliment with a smile, ”I have faith in President Yu’s abilities.”

Yu Chendong paused. He knew his own company’s situation best; he had just been boasting.

With Wang Xiang joining the conversation, the three of them chatted about everything from Xiaomi’s new product to shifts in the international market. Ten-plus minutes flew by in an instant.

Suddenly, the lights in the venue went out, plunging the hall into complete darkness.

The large screen lit up, displaying a flashy countdown timer!

Then, a video began to play, showing Xiaomi users controlling remote-controlled cars and planes with their Xiaomi Mobile Phones, taking pictures of the moon through a telescope, and playing online games with friends.

Three minutes later, the video ended and the lights came back on. The large screen now showed only the orange Xiaomi logo and its classic brand slogan: ’Born for the Heat.’

Seeing this, many of the journalists in the audience shared a knowing smile.

Over the past six months, users had constantly complained about the Xiaomi Mobile Phone’s tendency to overheat.