Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

On the second day after Yu’e Bao went live, it gained 1.3 million new users, bringing the total number of users who had activated the feature to 4 million. The total funds reached a staggering 24.4 billion Hua Yuan.

On October 13th, Penguin sued 360 on the grounds of ’unfair competition’.

The reason was simple: 360 Security Guard was forcibly blocking QQ Browser’s update program, getting in the way of Little Ma’s mobile transition.

As soon as Chen Yansen got to the office and turned on his computer, he saw Zhou Hongyi’s ”cordial greetings” to Ma Wenteng on Weibo.

After getting the gist of the situation, he couldn’t help but let out a wry laugh, and a sense of ’admiration’ for Zhou Hongyi welled up inside him.

The guy got antsy if he didn’t stir up trouble every couple of days.

Among internet entrepreneurs, finding a friend of Zhou Hongyi’s was like finding a needle in a haystack. Finding his enemies, however? You could throw a brick and hit a dozen.

The people Zhou Hongyi had cursed out and the people who had cursed him out, all gathered together—that was the golden two decades of the Hua Country internet.

Chen Yansen shook his head. Though he was on good terms with both parties, he had no interest in getting involved in the feud between Little Ma and Zhou Daqiang.

Additionally, the schedule for Tmall Mall’s Singles’ Day mega-sale had been released. The pre-sale period would run from October 15th to November 10th, the official sale would be on November 11th, and a limited-time ”encore” event would take place from November 12th to 13th.

You had to hand it to him—Zhang Yong had copied ninety-nine percent of Pinbei’s playbook.

What was originally a one-day shopping festival had been forcefully stretched to thirty.

Jingdong followed suit. Its pre-sale period ran from October 18th to November 10th, with the official sale and limited-time encore dates matching Ah Li’s.

And their pre-sale event started three days earlier than Tmall Mall’s!

In response, Huang Zheng made a last-minute strategy adjustment, moving the pre-sale date up by one day to October 14th—tomorrow.

From a user’s perspective, a month-long shopping event was painfully long and drawn-out, ruining the shopping experience.

From a merchant’s perspective, however, extending the sales period was the only way to fully unleash consumer purchasing demand.

For indecisive customers, a single day was nowhere near enough time.

The third piece of news was directly related to Pinbei. Although more than forty days had passed since Pinbei signed its Series B financing agreement, Senlian Capital had waited until October 12th to announce it to the media.

The reasons were threefold: first, to build hype for Pinbei’s Singles’ Day mega-sale and attract more traffic; second, to increase brand exposure and attract top talent; and third, to drive up the company’s valuation and pave the way for future financing or an IPO.

”After Jingdong, E-commerce Runner-Up Pinbei Mall Completed Its Series B Financing Yesterday With a Post-Money Valuation of 22 Billion US Dollars!”

”Pinbei Raises 2.2 Billion US Dollars, Poised to Become Ah Li’s Biggest Threat!”

”Twenty-Year-Old Chen Yansen Has Another Hundred-Billion Company!”

Chen Yansen glanced at the headlines. ’The new media outlets are masters of sensationalism,’ he thought. It wasn’t hard to imagine how much of a gut punch this news would be for Handsome Dong.

After all, Jingdong had struggled for years, and its valuation was only 8 billion—not even half of Pinbei’s.

Ten minutes later, Chen Yansen closed the web browser, logged into the data backend, and began his routine check of the core metrics for his various projects.

「Meanwhile.」

After settling his family in, Wu Shengyu bought a one-way high-speed rail ticket from Jinling to Xucheng.

It wasn’t until the train started moving that he gave a belated, bitter smile. He couldn’t believe that even at forty, the age of clarity, he could still be as impulsive as a young man. After just a few words of encouragement, he had decisively packed up his entire family and returned to China from San Diego, California.

After so many years away from his homeland, he found the country had undergone earth-shattering changes.

3G networks were widespread, and 4G networks were in preparation. Hua Country’s internet population was approaching 600 million, with over 1.1 billion mobile phone users and the number of smartphone users nearing the 400 million mark.

As far as he knew, the Alexa Smart Speaker, which was all the rage in Europe and America, was actually a product of Orange Technology.

In his mind, it was hard to imagine that a smart voice assistant so technologically advanced could have come from his home country.

After all, even the voice interaction engine in Amazon’s latest Echo couldn’t match Alexa’s response speed or the precision of its answers.

Wu Shengyu reflected on his decision. ’Perhaps it was curiosity, or perhaps I was mesmerized.’ Even now, recalling his conversation with Chen Yansen made his heart race with excitement.

The patriotic passion that had lain dormant for years seemed to have been reawakened by him.

As the scenery outside the window blurred past, Wu Shengyu couldn’t help but get lost in his memories.

He was a Jinling native. In 1993, he graduated from Tsinghua University with a degree in Electronic Information, then went on to pursue advanced studies at the University of Toronto. Five years later, he joined Qualcomm. He started as a common chip design engineer and, after fourteen years of hard work, finally reached the position of Supervising Engineer.

An annual salary of 180,000 US Dollars!

In Europe and America, that was considered a middle-class income!

But he knew in his heart that Qualcomm didn’t particularly value its Chinese engineers. Supervising Engineer was pretty much the glass ceiling for them. Only a tiny fraction ever managed to break through and get promoted to Senior Supervising Engineer.

And above Senior Supervising Engineer, there were still three more ranks: Principal Engineer, Senior Principal Engineer, and Chief Scientist.

’I’m forty years old,’ he thought. ’What room is there left for advancement?’

But Chen Yansen was different. Right off the bat, he had offered him the title and compensation of a Principal Engineer: an annual package of 1.8 million Hua Yuan, plus a comprehensive benefits package with stock options and a dozen other perks.

’Better to devote myself to our country’s own chip industry than to keep slaving away for someone else!’

His dozen-plus years at Qualcomm hadn’t been for nothing. He’d moved from the baseband integration department to the IoT chip department, and then to the RF R&D department. On top of his official duties, he could also handle the work of an architectural designer.

With Wu Shengyu’s skills, he was more than qualified to be a Principal Engineer, but Qualcomm refused to give him the chance.