A week later, Li Jie and Su Mingyu set out on their way to Stanford. This time they drove there by themselves and did not ask Su Mingzhe to send them off. Living in the United States is impossible without a car, otherwise daily life would be very inconvenient.
Even if Su Mingyu lives near the school, she still needs a vehicle. The public transportation system in the United States is not as good as that in China. The state of public transportation in some remote areas is worrying, which has also given rise to a huge family car market.
Neither of them bought very good cars. Li Jie bought an ordinary silver-gray Volkswagen, and Su Mingyu chose a red BMW 5 Series. These two cars can be seen everywhere on the street.
In Palo Alto Town, after receiving a call from Li Jie, the real estate agent who had been contacted in China arrived at the location agreed upon by both parties not long after. The house Li Jie rented was an independent house.
This house has a long history. Although the appearance is a bit old, it has a unique internal strength. It has all kinds of facilities. Li Jie and Su Mingyu are not pretentious people. They took a general look and found nothing wrong. , and paid the balance quickly.
Everything left by the original tenant had been cleaned up, and some daily household items still needed to be purchased. The two drove to a supermarket a few miles away to make a good purchase.
After a few days of busy work, the room finally became more popular and no longer looked empty and cold.
After several years of adaptation, Su Mingyu gradually got used to life in the United States. However, when she thought that the two of them would not be able to go to school together after school started, Su Mingyu's mood became a little low as the day of school approached.
Li Jie discovered her abnormality, but he did not choose to do anything. He believed that Su Mingyu would be able to adjust herself. After all, she was still a strong girl.
The admission process went smoothly. After all, Su Mingyu was a student who had published papers in five major journals. This achievement was achieved by only a few freshmen who had entered the school several times.
In addition, the progress on Spiegel's side is also very smooth. Li Jie has initially established contact with him, and it is easy to deal with a "silly young man". In a certain conversation, Li Jie happened to mention the recent preparations. Make an app that can make the sent photos disappear automatically.
This idea coincides with Spiegel's recent thoughts. Spiegel happened to talk about similar ideas with his friends some time ago. He is preparing to transform the website he is working on into a 'burn after reading' picture sharing service.
Although Spiegel comes from a good family, his parents have divorced, and he usually likes to play with modified cars, so he is not rich.
Li Jie had no shortage of creativity, technology, and money. Spiegel could only secretly feel lucky for his friend. He originally wanted to start a business with his friend.
This is Silicon Valley. As a student at Stanford, Spiegel has heard countless cases of entrepreneurial failure. Creativity is the least valuable thing here. Countless excellent ideas are born here, but they die quickly.
There are too many such phenomena. Spiegel wants people but no one, and wants money but no money. He originally planned to trick his friends into it, but the appearance of Li Jie made him change his mind. There is a difference between closeness and distance. Compared with tricking friends, It made him feel more at ease to trick strangers.
Spiegel didn't know that his choice was actually deliberately guided by Li Jie. Not everyone has the eyes to see through the future.
The creation of Burn After Reading was not smooth sailing at the beginning. The main world was officially launched in Spiegel's father's house in September 2011. It did not even have a decent office space, and it did not attract any media attention at the time.
It wasn't until January of the following year that the first seed round of financing, US$485,000, was obtained by Burn After Reading. Without this funding, Burn After Reading's start-up team would not have been able to sustain their success.
In May of the same year, the situation of disappearing after reading improved. 25 flash photos were sent from snapchat every second, and it began to show its prominence. In November, more than 20 million flash photos were sent on the iOS side of snapchat. Send, officially ushering in the period of strength.
The excellent market performance of Burn After Reading has attracted the attention of Benchmark Capital, a venture capital company from San Francisco with precise vision and strong strength. It is a rising upstart in the investment industry.
The battle to become famous was when he invested in eBay in 1997 and exchanged 6.7 million US dollars for 12.5% of eBay's shares. A year later, before the Internet bubble of the millennium, eBay went public. Benchmark became famous in one battle. The core of this company is He implemented a firm partnership system, except for a few necessary administrative positions, and maintained a status of 5-6 partners all year round.
Benchmark’s main investment direction is technology-driven companies. In addition to eBay and Yiwu, this venture capital has also invested in Titter (foreign Weibo), Uber (Uber Travel, the originator of online ride-hailing), Instagram (global The largest photo social software), nextdoor (the largest neighborhood social APP in the United States), yelp (the largest review website in the United States, the American version of Dianping), etc.
Before 2015, the eight funds managed by Benchmark Capital brought investors a total return of US$22.6 billion. The key is that the scale of their single funds was only US$400-500 million. It is not a legend in the investment world. Too much.
"I only gave you a little money, but you made me thousands back."
The investment community calls it a benchmark miracle. The primary market is always more profitable than the secondary market.
The dividing line between the primary market and the secondary market refers to whether the company's shares are securitized. Simply put, it is whether the company is surplus.
When participating in the primary market, you must always prepare for the worst and return to zero. If the company fails to survive or cannot be listed, you must be prepared for the risk that the investment in your hand will become waste paper or cannot be realized.
VC (venture capital) and PE (private equity) are the main investors in the primary market. Venture capital is a high-risk industry. The risk is extremely high for others, but not for Li Jie. Which industries and companies will be popular in the future? To be able to stand out, all this information is stored in Li Jie's mind.
With the advantage of foresight, how could Li Jie not get involved in the primary market? The returns are much higher than those in the secondary market (stocks, etc.).
Most of the money earned during the financial crisis was used by Li Jie to set up an investment company, and hundreds of millions of funds were thrown into the primary market without even making a splash.
Don’t even think about investing in companies that are already up-and-coming or mature. Tomorrow Capital founded by Li Jie mainly makes seed and final round investments, with each investment ranging from hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions of dollars.
Occasionally, you can invest in two A rounds. As for the subsequent B, C, D and other rounds, you really can't afford to invest. However, as previous investments gradually bring returns, Tomorrow Capital, this start-up investment company, started to invest in the capital market. With his reputation, the fund size is gradually growing, and investors have begun to contact Li Jie, preparing to invest some money in Tomorrow Capital.
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