Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

A freshman journalism student and a sophomore visual design student had actually managed to convince him and Liu Zhiping to pull ten million from Penguin’s pockets.

Of course, from Chen Yansen’s perspective, Little Ma had practically forced the money on him.

”You’re too kind, Mr. Ma. This is Pinbei’s Major Accounts Division. We’re primarily responsible for executing brand marketing strategies, with clients mainly in the automotive, digital products, home appliance, and jewelry sectors...”

Song Yuncheng was completely unfazed, eloquently elaborating on his point.

”Compared to two years ago, Director Song’s improvement is astonishing,” Liu Zhiping chimed in.

’So they already know each other. It’s not what I was thinking at all.’

After hearing just a few more words, Huang Zheng completely overturned his previous assessment.

After Song Yuncheng finished showing Ma Wenteng, Liu Zhiping, and the others around the Merchant Operations and Major Accounts departments, Huang Zheng took over and led the group upstairs.

Next came more than a dozen other specialized departments, including marketing, R&D, design, data, ad placement, and product.

Pinbei Technology’s team, aside from a small number of students from Xuyuan, consisted mostly of top graduates from universities like Huake, Luzhou University of Technology, Jinling University, Fudan, and Jiaoda, as well as industry experts poached from platforms like Ah Li, Jingdong, and Sunning.

They were a powerful and formidable force.

’No wonder they managed to topple Jingdong’s position in the industry!’

Ma Wenteng nodded repeatedly, his expression one of satisfaction. Pinbei’s valuation was high, but its market potential was even greater, meaning the return on investment would be higher, too.

’Looking back at Jingdong... if not for the fact that the group wanted to offload three money-losing assets—QQ Online Shopping, Paipai Network, and Yixun Network—and the need to diversify investment risk, he frankly wouldn’t have wanted to invest in Jingdong at all.’

’It was an asset-heavy model with a long path to profitability. Penguin didn’t want to sink cash into it either, which was why they orchestrated the slick maneuver of trading traffic and junk projects for equity in Jingdong.’

Ma Wenteng was pinning his hopes on Liu Qiangdong to deliver results that would satisfy investors after gaining access to Penguin’s traffic portals. Only then would Jingdong have a shot at an IPO, and only then would Penguin have a chance to cash out its shares.

”What are Pinbei’s current daily sales numbers?” Ma Wenteng asked suddenly.

”Between 700 and 800 million. During major promotions, that can triple or quadruple. If we threw money at ads without worrying about cost, we could probably hit five or six times that amount.”

Chen Yansen didn’t hold anything back, stating the facts plainly.

”Jingdong is barely hitting 400 million,” Ma Wenteng said, directly sharing Jingdong’s actual business performance with Chen Yansen.

”That low?”

Chen Yansen blurted out.

Ma Wenteng had no particular reaction, but Liu Zhiping’s face froze. A flash of embarrassment crossed his eyes. As the head of Penguin’s e-commerce division, he desperately wanted to say that a daily sales figure of 400 million was a number Paipai Network could only dream of.

As for the actual number, Liu Zhiping was too ashamed to say it out loud.

In any case, it was more than Vancl and could go toe-to-toe with Dangdang Network.

”400 million is nothing to sneeze at. You have to remember, four years ago, Ah Li was barely reaching that level.”

Ma Wenteng took a deep breath and glanced, perhaps intentionally, at Liu Zhiping, sighing to himself.

’His ’own son’ was a disappointment, so he had no choice but to find an ’adopted son’ on the outside.’

’Pinbei was the first, and Jingdong was the second.’

’With these right and left-hand men, Penguin’s voice in the e-commerce industry could finally be a little louder.’

”Times have changed. At the start of the year, I attended a conference for private courier services. Back then, the total daily volume nationwide was just 20 million parcels. In just six months, it’s already up to 24 million. Zheng Shengyu of the Postal Association even raised the annual target from 6 billion parcels to 8 billion.”

Chen Yansen said in a calm, measured tone.

The implication was clear: the courier and logistics industries were developing at high speed, allowing e-commerce to reach a wider range of cities and users. Combined with the rising popularity of smartphones, the barrier to entry for online shopping had been significantly lowered.

Before, online shopping required spending 3,000 to 4,000 yuan on a computer. Now, all it takes is 799 yuan for an Orange D1.

”You have a point.” Ma Wenteng fully agreed with Chen Yansen’s assessment.

Back in 2008, Ah Li’s network-wide GMV was 100 billion yuan, with revenues of only 2.83 billion US Dollars. In his eyes, it hadn’t posed much of a threat.

But in the years that followed, Ah Li’s growth was astonishing.

Over 200 billion in 2009, over 400 billion in 2010, over 600 billion in 2011. And this year, driven by smartphones and the courier industry, some third-party business intelligence firms were predicting that Ah Li’s GMV would soar to one trillion yuan.

Faced with this enormous pie of an e-commerce market, Penguin couldn’t even get a taste. How could Ma Wenteng possibly stand for that?

This was exactly why he was willing to invest in Pinbei at a premium, even at the cost of trading primary traffic access from QQ and WeChat.

A market worth trillions, potentially even tens of trillions in the future, was about to take off, and Penguin didn’t even have a ticket to board. How could that be acceptable?

After abandoning his in-house e-commerce strategy, Ma Wenteng immediately resolved that he had to get a seat on that plane—a first-class seat, even if he had to buy his way in.

Fortunately, Chen Yansen had not disappointed him. In just one year, Pinbei had caught up to Jingdong’s market share and then effortlessly surpassed it.

The group spent an hour touring the Pinbei headquarters. Ma Wenteng then expressed his desire to visit Orange Technology, and Chen Yansen readily agreed.

”The Aurora OS R&D Department!”

”The Orange Mobile Phone Hardware and Industrial Design Department! The Testing Department!”

”The Artificial Intelligence Laboratory!”

”...”

By the end of the tour, Ma Wenteng couldn’t hide his astonishment. He had assumed Orange Technology’s main accomplishment was merely the industrial design of its smartphones.

He never would have imagined that the technology and talent pool at Orange Technology’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory were so deep. The R&D engineers on staff were, without exception, senior researchers from top universities in Europe and America and leading tech companies.

’This Chen Yansen... did he kidnap their entire families to get them to come here?’

Ma Wenteng, his face full of suspicion, couldn’t help but wonder silently.

”Something on your mind, Mr. Ma?” The man’s thoughts were written all over his face, plain for Chen Yansen to see, so he asked with a smile.

”You wouldn’t be going to such lengths—spending a fortune on server clusters and recruiting from overseas—just for a voice interaction engine and a smart speaker, would you?”

Ma Wenteng pressed, his curiosity piqued.

”Of course not.” Chen Yansen shook his head. He paused for a moment before continuing.

”There’s a lot you can do in the field of artificial intelligence. Orange Technology’s initial plan is to start with voice, text, image, and video data to build an intelligent AI search engine. The goal is to change user habits. In the future, instead of sifting through search results for the right answer, an AI bot will give you the answer directly.”

Ma Wenteng’s brow furrowed. He fought to suppress the shock he felt inside. After hearing what Chen Yansen said, he had to admit that Orange Technology was completely different from mobile phone manufacturers like Xiaomi and Meizu.

In truth, Chen Yansen didn’t delve too deeply into the topic.

Even though Ma Wenteng himself had been a top computer science student at Shencheng University back in the day, the field of artificial intelligence was still in its infancy. Never mind a decade ago—even today, the research was just getting started.

The titans of large AI language models, OpenAI’s GPT-3 and Google’s BERT-based models, had not yet been created.

If he went any deeper, Ma Wenteng wouldn’t have understood.

Touching on it briefly was just the right amount.

However, Ma Wenteng didn’t express any intent to invest after the tour. Chen Yansen figured he was sticking to his principle of never investing in an industry he didn’t understand.

As noon approached, it was time for lunch.

Chen Yansen suggested going to the Sky Garden—after all, it was the only halfway decent hotel in Xucheng—but Ma Wenteng wanted to check out the company cafeteria instead.

Since Xiaoma wanted to save him some money, Chen Yansen certainly wasn’t going to object.

Under the watchful eyes of employees from Orange Technology, Pinbei, and Toutiao, Ma Wenteng unhurriedly finished a bowl of beef noodle soup.

He barely touched the various other dishes on the table.

Xucheng was located in northern Anhui, a region that really knew its way around noodles. Plus, the cafeteria’s noodle chef had been poached from the kitchen of a hotel in the city.

The man’s skills were top-notch.

The chef behind the service window saw that Ma Wenteng had eaten every last noodle and smiled, puffing out his belly with a look of self-satisfaction.

The new product launch for the Orange Mobile Phone was scheduled for two in the afternoon, so Chen Yansen led Ma Wenteng and his group to his office to rest for a while.

The moment he walked through the door, his phone rang. He pulled it out, and sure enough, it was Chen Yizhou from Renren Network again.

’The guy must be really desperate.’