Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

Qian Du, Penguin, and 360 were iconic companies in Hua Country’s internet industry, but the speeches from Li Yanhong, Ma Wenteng, and Zhou Hongyi were utterly undignified.

After Li Yanhong left the stage, Ma Liyun followed, with Chen Yansen scheduled to speak fifth.

In terms of age, he was the youngest.

In terms of business accomplishments, Senlian Capital’s power was on par with the ”BAT” trio. Some media outlets had even started referring to them as ”BATS.”

When Chen Yansen took the stage, he didn’t launch into vicious attacks on his competitors. Instead, he calmly introduced the R&D and manufacturing process for the Orange Mobile Phone, as well as the founding purpose behind Cloud Speed Express establishing service points in rural markets.

One reason was to extend the reach of his e-commerce business into even the most remote towns and villages.

The other was to provide a channel for agricultural products to be sold online, thereby increasing the income of rural residents.

He also highlighted products like Fast Taxi, Kuai Pao, and Gaode Map, emphasizing the changes they brought to the lives of ordinary people.

His speech took only seven or eight minutes, yet it contained two to three times as much information as the ones given by Li Yanhong and the others.

After Chen Yansen, a series of other speakers took the stage: Li Guoqing from Dangdang, Deng Yaping from Jike, Liu Qiangdong from Jingdong, Pei Yi from Kuai Pao, Liu Yun from Google, Gu Yongqiang from Youku, and Lu Qi from Microsoft.

The morning session of the conference finally wrapped up just before noon.

During the two-and-a-half-hour lunch break, Chen Yansen had planned to head back to his hotel. But as soon as he stepped out of the conference hall, he was hailed by Ma Wenteng, Lei Yijun, and Yu Chendong, who invited him to lunch at Yue Long Residence, a restaurant next to the conference center.

Chen Yansen made a show of politely declining, but seeing Ma Wenteng’s insistence, he agreed and called for Zhou Shouzhi, Pei Yi, Cheng Weixing, and Huang Zheng to join him.

Since it was only a two-hundred-meter walk, the group decided to go on foot.

The contingent from Senlian Capital formed a formidable entourage, following imposingly behind Chen Yansen.

Seeing this, the reporters quickly raised their cameras, shutters clicking away.

”What are your thoughts on the ride-hailing market?” Ma Wenteng asked casually as they walked to the restaurant.

Although Penguin had participated in Fast Taxi’s Series A and B funding rounds, he couldn’t quite grasp Chen Yansen’s true intentions.

DiDi Dache was losing a net three hundred million a month. With its larger user base, Fast Taxi’s losses were bound to be even greater.

Even though Fast Taxi had raised 500 million US dollars in its Series B round, at the current burn rate of the subsidy war, that money would be gone in less than a year.

’When that time comes, should Penguin continue investing in Fast Taxi?’

’Investing would be like throwing money down the drain. But not investing would undoubtedly damage their cooperative relationship with Senlian Capital.’

”Does Li Yanhong want to concede?” Chen Yansen asked in return.

”He wants to pause the subsidy war and have us compete on product and service quality instead.”

Ma Wenteng nodded, admitting it freely.

Li Yanhong didn’t want to keep burning cash to grab market share, and neither did he.

”Mr. Ma, it’s not that I won’t agree, but a verbal agreement like this isn’t binding. I trust you, but I don’t trust Li Yanhong.”

Chen Yansen smiled, shook his head, and refused flatly.

’Business is war. We’re already at the point of a knife fight. If we suddenly call a truce, who can guarantee Li Yanhong won’t pull some dirty tricks behind our backs?’

”We could pause for a week to see how it goes. Otherwise, if this subsidy war keeps up, how are we supposed to participate in Fast Taxi’s Series C funding round?”

Ma Wenteng said, his expression grave as he looked at Chen Yansen.

”Fine,” Chen Yansen said after a moment’s thought. ”Tell Li Yanhong we’ll adjust the instant discount for new users back to ten yuan, subsidize existing users a maximum of five yuan per day, and drop the per-order driver subsidy to two yuan. It takes effect tomorrow.”

’If he could lose a little less money, of course he wasn’t going to refuse.’

”No problem,” Ma Wenteng readily agreed.

In reality, the proposal hadn’t originated with Li Yanhong. The true driving force behind it was the collective group of investors in both Fast Taxi and DiDi Dache.

Chen Yansen gave a faint smile. He didn’t know if Li Yanhong would keep his promise, but he himself had absolutely no intention of obediently halting all subsidy activities.

’If the Fast Taxi app can’t offer subsidies, then I’ll just offer them through Kuai Pao, Pinbei, and Gaode Map.’

’For example, order twelve yuan worth of food delivery and get a twelve-yuan Fast Taxi coupon. Or have a link to claim a ride coupon pop up on the payment page after placing an order on Pinbei Mall.’

’There were plenty of tricks like that!’

’Who in the business world plays fair?’

Five minutes later, the group entered Yue Long Residence and was led to an opulent private room on the top floor.

Chen Yansen had just taken a seat when he spotted Liu Qiangdong and a middle-aged woman walking past the doorway of their room.

”That’s Xu Xin from Today Capital,” Ma Wenteng explained in a low voice, following his gaze.

”If Xu Xin hadn’t thrown a wrench in the works, Mr. Ma’s QQ Group Buy, Yixun Network, and Paipai Network would have likely been sold off by now,” Chen Yansen remarked.

As soon as the ”August 15th” price war between Jingdong, Sunning, Dangdang, and Gome ended, Li Guoqing went on Weibo and aired all of Liu Qiangdong’s dirty laundry. He stated bluntly that Jingdong’s cash flow was about to dry up and that the company wouldn’t make it past September.

This threw Jingdong’s supplier network into chaos. Merchants were afraid Liu Qiangdong would take their payments and blow it all on advertising, leaving him unable to settle his accounts with them later.

At the critical moment, Xu Xin stepped in with a sum of money that helped Liu Qiangdong pull through.

Now, the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan had invested 400 million US dollars in Jingdong, leaving it flush with cash. They’d even shelved the talks about a traffic-sharing partnership with Penguin.

Ma Wenteng gave a dry laugh but didn’t comment.

’He wouldn’t interfere with Senlian Capital’s partnership with 360, and in return, Chen Yansen couldn’t undermine Penguin’s strategic positioning in the e-commerce sector.’

After lunch, Chen Yansen was driven back to his hotel to rest.

At two-thirty that afternoon, the breakout sessions officially began. The project managers from Senlian’s various subsidiaries immediately fanned out in search of business opportunities.

Chen Yansen, however, took Gao Weilin and Song Yuncheng to meet with representatives from Penguin, Goldman Sachs, Huake, and Huaxin. They found a small conference room and signed a letter of intent for Pinbei’s Series B funding round.

The funding round totaled 2.2 billion US dollars, with Penguin as the lead investor and Goldman Sachs, Huake, and Huaxin following. This brought Pinbei’s post-money valuation to a staggering 22 billion US dollars.

Whether in terms of daily active users, gross merchandise volume, or overall valuation, Pinbei’s position as the number two e-commerce platform was indisputable.

After all, even after receiving 400 million US dollars in funding from the OTPP, Jingdong was only valued at 8 billion US dollars—less than half of Pinbei’s.

「The next morning.」

As Chen Yansen, Pei Yi, and the others were having breakfast in the hotel restaurant, Pei Yi’s expression suddenly darkened after he took a call. He instinctively glanced at Chen Yansen before giving a series of calm instructions into the phone, ”Have people from administration and legal step in to mitigate the impact of this...”

Only after he hung up did Chen Yansen ask, ”Trouble?”

”Our ground team in the Northeast had a... minor scuffle with the sales reps from Meituan, Dianping, and Lashou Network while talking to a merchant.”

Pei Yi said, frowning. He had clearly chosen his words carefully.

”Did our guys get the worst of it?” Chen Yansen asked.

”No,” Pei Yi replied quickly.

”Good,” Chen Yansen grunted, asking no more questions.

With his abnormally sharp hearing, he had of course heard everything clearly. In the group-buy and food delivery markets of 2012, it was common for street teams to get into physical fights over merchant contracts.

It was the first time an incident like this had occurred, but it wouldn’t be the last.

Typically, the administration department was responsible for visiting injured employees in the hospital, while the legal department handled bailing people out of the local police station. Pei Yi was becoming increasingly seasoned at managing these situations.

For the next few days, their schedule was packed: attending the internet conference by day and navigating a gauntlet of business dinners and drinking parties by night.

After four straight days of this, even the normally energetic Zhou Shouzhi, Gao Weilin, and Pei Yi couldn’t help but look exhausted.

Fortunately, the trip had been highly fruitful. They had signed a stack of letters of intent covering advertising, commercial monetization, co-branded partnerships, and information copyrights.

For example, Gaode and Ctrip struck a deal for ad placement and e-commerce referrals. When users navigated to a destination, the Gaode app would recommend relevant travel packages and attraction tickets from Ctrip on the arrival screen.

To improve the efficiency of their in-house logistics networks, both Jingdong and Sunning purchased the patent for Cloud Speed Express’s electronic waybill technology.

On the evening of September 14th, Chen Yansen flew back to Xucheng.

Meanwhile, just as Li Yanhong got back to his office, Xiang Hailong knocked and entered. ”Boss, Fast Taxi went back on their word. They canceled the subsidies in their own app, sure, but they just added a whole new slew of subsidy promotions on Kuai Pao, Pinbei, and Gaode Map.”

”Get Lashou and Qian Du Map to match them immediately,” Li Yanhong ordered without a moment’s hesitation.