Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

”Songtian Road, get in here!”

Cheng Wei stormed to his office door, stuck his head out, and yelled for the head of the Market Department.

He was going to make sure Little Yellow Bike didn’t get a single order!

”You called, Boss?” Songtian Road came over at a light jog, weaving around a desk to get closer.

Inside the office, Cheng Wei flopped into his chair and looked at Songtian Road. ”Have the product team change the subsidy policy for existing customers. Increase the daily ride coupons from five to ten. Also, copy the red envelope feature from Fast Taxi. Add a ’try your luck’ red envelope giveaway on the order completion page that gives out cash directly.”

’Ten coupons a day?’

’Free rides *and* cash giveaways?’

Songtian Road was slightly taken aback. He felt his boss’s marketing strategy was a bit ruthless.

”The coupon quantity is easy to solve,” Songtian Road replied immediately. ”We can just have the operations team adjust the parameters in the back end. But the ’try your luck’ red envelope will require development.”

”That’s fine. Adjust the number of ride coupons first. The red envelope feature can come later,” Cheng Wei said, waving his hand dismissively.

”Okay, Boss. I’ll sync up with Hai Bo.” Songtian Road nodded, turned, and left the office, heading for the R&D department’s area.

”Goddammit! So what if he has connections? Does he really think he can run wild in the business community just because of his family background?” Cheng Wei cursed.

He admitted he couldn’t beat Cheng Weixing, but that didn’t mean some business newcomer like Chang Wei could just walk all over him.

If he didn’t have any skills or methods of his own, how could he have landed the position of General Manager of Wealth Treasure’s B2C Business Division?

That afternoon, DiDi Bike users in the Yanjing Region were alerted by a pop-up ad and discovered five more ride coupons in their accounts.

”Heh, these internet companies just burn through investors’ money all day. They don’t think about earning a profit, just coming up with all this flashy nonsense. That’s no way to do business.”

”If you ask me, the old days were better. Back when Fast Taxi and DiDi Dache were competing, you’d get a car to pick you up and drop you off just to go buy groceries.”

”No doubt! The shared bikes are free too, but who wants to ride a bike in the dead of winter? It’s just asking for misery!”

”The internet nowadays is really something else. Since we have shared bikes, why not shared cars, or shared wives?”

”Aren’t there already shared wives?”

At the entrance to a hutong alley, a few gossipy old-timers playing chess snickered, wearing the kind of lewd expressions all men understand.

”Gentlemen, if there really were shared cars, would you use them?” a middle-aged man who had been watching the game from the side asked.

”Sure! Why not?”

”If it’s free, we’ll use it!”

The chess-playing men answered nonchalantly.

Hearing this, Wang Fengli grew thoughtful. He turned his head to watch the pedestrians riding by on bikes.

Driven by DiDi Bike and Little Yellow Bike, bike-sharing had become a fashionable trend in Yanjing. You could just pull out your phone, scan a code, ride whenever you wanted, stop whenever you wanted, and not spend a dime.

’This thing can raise hundreds of millions in funding and be valued at several billion?’

Wang Fengli smiled and shook his head as a business plan began to take shape in his mind.

’Shared wives are illegal, but isn’t a shared car service just the internet version of a car rental business?’

The more Wang Fengli thought about it, the more excited he became. He felt he had discovered a brand-new business track.

「At the same time」

Upon learning that Cheng Wei had increased his subsidies, Chang Wei, not to be outdone, raised his daily coupon count to twelve.

However, Little Yellow Bike’s coupons only covered thirty minutes of use, and users still had to pay a 199 yuan deposit.

As a result, the password lists for Little Yellow Bike being shared in QQ groups, WeChat groups, BBS forums, Renren Network, and Qian Du Network drives remained extremely popular.

”Boss, our operations staff got into a fight with some taxi drivers!”

Just as Chang Wei was contemplating his city expansion plans, a subordinate burst through the door and reported urgently.

”The reason?” Chang Wei looked up and asked calmly.

”Our initial guess is that the taxi drivers think Little Yellow Bike is hurting their business, so they threw our bikes into the river,” the subordinate explained slowly.

’Fuck!’

’These idiots!’

Chang Wei’s composure instantly vanished. But then a thought struck him, and he pressed, ”Did they only throw away Little Yellow Bikes?”

”They didn’t spare DiDi Bike’s either,” the subordinate added.

”Well, that’s good... good my ass!” Chang Wei’s anger flared. He instructed his subordinate, ”Have the legal team make a trip. We will absolutely not settle. Teach these people a harsh lesson.”

’Otherwise, everyone will start copying them. How am I supposed to run a company then?’

”Understood. I’ll get on it right away,” the subordinate replied with a nod.

”Right, have the frontline operations staff tally the losses,” Chang Wei added.

But to his surprise, the operations team reported a loss of just over 6,700 bikes. Where were the remaining 1,300?

Little Yellow Bike, after all, had deployed a total of 8,000 bicycles in Yanjing.

’Are they all in the river?’

’Or have people broken the mechanical locks and taken them as their own private bikes?’

’I have to hurry up and replace them with smart locks!’

Chang Wei’s mouth fell open, his face a mask of bewilderment. Then, he silently steeled his resolve.

...

...

「Hang City, Xingchi Technology Headquarters.」

”317,000. Not bad. Enough for Pinbei Mall to acquire tens of thousands of new customers.”

Wang Zihao pursed his lips and gave a self-deprecating smile.

Going from spending tens of millions a day to earning just over 300,000 a day, Brother Hao naturally felt the difference.

But his position had been promoted from Advertising Director to COO, so in a way, he had come out ahead.

”President Wang, OFO Bike can’t be compared to Pinbei Mall. Only by conquering the national market can it achieve profitability through economies of scale,” Hu Weiyi said with a smile.

She had worked with Wang Zihao for several months and had gradually come to understand his temperament, as well as his business capabilities.

Although Wang Zihao was young, he was extremely efficient and acted with a steady hand.

Wang Zihao grunted in acknowledgement, then changed the subject. ”Once the year-end work reports are done, immediately open a financing round for OFO Bike. Penguin, Gao Ling, and Redwood Capital have all expressed interest. After the New Year, it’ll be our time to expand.”

DiDi Bike had completed two rounds of financing, and Little Yellow Bike had completed one. Only OFO Bike had yet to accept any.

Chen Yansen wasn’t short on cash, but he didn’t want to pour too much of his own money into bike-sharing. As long as he maintained a controlling stake, he might as well spend the venture capitalists’ money.

It wasn’t some cutting-edge technology; there was no need to keep it all for himself.

’Pulling in a few more suckers to share the burden is the right move!’

Projects like the Orange Z1 and the Celestial Craft T100 were different. For projects that could bring him enormous returns, Chen Yansen always employed a spin-off strategy, making them independent from Orange Technology.

Thus, although the chip design department where Mike Keller and Wu Shengyu worked was in the same office building as Orange Technology’s employees, the entity on their employment contracts was not the same company.

「Two days later, on the last workday of the year.」

At 8:15 in the morning, as the December salaries were paid out, 260,843 wisps of Human Dao Fire appeared on Chen Yansen’s system panel.

’Synthesize and enhance!’

He was long accustomed to the enhancement process. After just a few breaths, his physique stat rose from 64.48 to 90.56, just one step away from breaking 100.

His skin grew tougher, the density of his muscles and bones increased rapidly, and blood surged from his heart and brain, instantly coursing through his entire body.

The qi, blood, and strength in his body felt like they were about to overflow.

”Huh? What’s this?”

Chen Yansen stood before a full-length mirror, carefully examining his eyes. A circular, metallic-sheened pattern had appeared on his irises. If not for his keen powers of observation, he might not have noticed it at all.

It faintly glowed with a dark golden light.

After fiddling with it in various ways for a while, he didn’t discover anything unusual.

Chen Yansen couldn’t be bothered with it. As long as his kidneys were still going strong, that was all that mattered.

Then, he pushed open the gate of his villa’s courtyard, sat in the driver’s seat of his Bentley Mulsanne, and sped toward Zhuxianzhuang Science and Technology Park.

「At the same time.」

Hu Ruihui was leading a dozen or so R&D engineers from the Loongson Team by car to Xucheng.

”Hu Gong, I think Orange Technology is probably going to disappoint you,” one of the R&D staff said dismissively.

At the end of the day, Orange Technology is just a smartphone assembly company. Maybe they’ve had a small technological breakthrough with their voice interaction engine, but instruction set technology is far more difficult than that.

”Don’t be so quick to dismiss them, but don’t be so quick to praise them either,” Hu Ruihui said in a level tone.