Today, it is no exaggeration to describe it as the information age. Communication technology can cover most areas of the world.
In 2020, the Wuzhen Summit was held through remote video conference.
But why has technology become more developed in the past few years? The brain-computer connection VR developed by Kechuang Biotechnology, Goose Factory, and Dami has already realized people's primary fantasies about the metaverse.
Today, with more advanced technology, do we still need to communicate through offline exhibitions?
This is because there are differences between online and offline communication, and offline communication between people is more warm.
The Global Internet Conference held in China every year is not only a summit for exchanges, but also a summit for project signing.
Of course, it is purely a dream to sign a contract within three days for a large project. The decision to cooperate must have gone through lengthy exchanges and negotiations beforehand.
Just put the time and place of signing the cooperation at the Global Internet Conference.
In recent years, the total investment amount signed at the Wuzhen Summit every year has exceeded RMB 50 billion. Naturally, they had negotiated in advance and deliberately arranged the signing in Wuzhen in these few days.
But the exchanges between enterprises at the Wuzhen Summit can create cooperation intentions.
It is difficult for you to communicate directly face-to-face with first-class investors such as Shen Nanpeng, Zhang Lei, and Guo Yihong on other occasions.
But you can at the Wuzhen Summit.
Maybe a random person you see around you is an angel investor.
Many investors value people more than projects.
Take the Luckin project as an example. If the actual founder behind the operation had not been Lu Zhengyao, it would have never been so favored by capital.
Lu Zhengyao is the founder of China Private Car, which was listed in Xiangjiang in 2014.
Luckin’s A-round investment was entirely based on relationships. The angel round investment was from Joy Capital and Lu Zhengyao himself.
Behind Joy Capital is Liu Erhai. When Liu Erhai was still leading TMT and innovative consumer investment at Legend Capital, he participated in the angel investment of China Car Rental.
Trivia: Legend Capital was formerly known as Legend Investment. Lu Zhengyao’s first entrepreneurial project was the United Automobile Club. After its failure, he switched to China Car Rental.
Lenovo's capital has always been loyal to Lu Zhengyao, or to the car rental industry.
There was China Car Rental before and then Didi Taxi. Coincidentally, Liu Qing officially joined Didi before China Car Rental was launched.
This is another story line, so I won’t go into it here.
If Luckin’s angel round relied on Lu Zhengyao’s connections to attract investment, the A round also relied mainly on Lu Zhengyao’s connections.
A round of financing, mainly from Dazheng Capital, Joy Capital and Legend Capital.
Among them, the name Dazheng Capital may sound a bit unfamiliar. China Car Rental also wanted to be listed on Nasdaq, but after the failure, its cash flow was in jeopardy.
Lu Zhengyao found Li Hui, and Li Hui gave Lu Zhengyao 200 million yuan without saying a word. It was the largest single equity investment ever obtained in the domestic car rental industry at that time.
Later, Luckin’s financing received investment from a series of top investment institutions such as CICC and BlackRock Capital.
If Lu Zhengyao hadn’t relied on his own connections to bring in the initial investment, Luckin’s project would never have been possible if someone else had done it.
Especially when Ruixing was exposed for financial fraud, the major shareholders behind it, Dacheng Capital and Joy Capital, not only did not pursue the case, but instead increased a financing amount of 250 million yuan.
He even promised to invest another 150 million yuan if necessary in the future.
From the perspective of this project, it is obvious that people are more important than the project. If it were not for Lu Zhengyao, this project would not have survived to this day.
Of course, Lu Zhengyao later broke up with Li Hui, and Li Hui drove Lu Zhengyao and his team away from Luckin's board of directors.
Dazheng Capital became the actual controller of Ruixing, and Lu Zhengyao started a new round of entrepreneurship.
That's another story.
In equity investments, in the early stages of a project, people are more important than the project. After the project is launched, the project itself is more important than the people.
Zhu Xiaohu first worked as a consultant at McKinsey, and later joined GSR Capital and became an investor. He has invested in projects such as Ele.me, Didi, and ofo.
The biggest project he missed was ByteDance. When he had the opportunity to invest in ByteDance, Zhu Xiaohu gave up after talking to Zhang Yiming.
In his original words, he could not feel the aggression in Zhang Yiming.
This is early thinking, people are more important than projects.
Shen Nanpeng and Sequoia Capital behind him reduced their holdings in Meituan and increased their positions in Shein. You must know that Shein’s market value at the time of its F-round investment was 100 billion yuan.
This is when the project develops to a later stage, and the project becomes more important than the people.
One more thing, Shen Nanpeng also rejected Zhang Yiming back then.
Therefore, the significance of offline summits lies in this, allowing entrepreneurs to have a channel to meet investors offline.
If you know an investor who is optimistic about you and your project, you can get angel investment or a life-saving fund.
If Lu Zhengyao had not obtained 200 million yuan in financing from Li Hui, China Private Car would not have been able to return to the Hong Kong stock market that day.
Of course, maybe Lenovo will save him.
State-owned enterprises will be subject to many constraints when making equity investments. Private capital has innate initiative in angel rounds and early-stage financing.
At that time, Kechuang Biotechnology was able to obtain Series B financing from BoCom Capital because its business model and business path were so clear.
"Zheng Li can't tell that you are not nervous at all and you are doing well.
I was prepared for you to be nervous. "After Zheng Li's opening speech, Li Miaomiao joked.
At this time, the work in Geneva has ended, and Zheng Li can focus on Wuzhen.
Now that he has canceled the takeover of artificial intelligence, Zheng Li replied: "What's so stressful about reading from the script?"
Li Miaomiao: "Then why do you speak via remote video every year at the annual meeting?
Since you won’t be nervous, it’s better to come directly to the annual meeting.
I thought you had social fears, so that's why you never came to the annual meeting. "
Zheng Li replied: "Because it's not necessary. The annual meeting is a relaxing occasion. If I were there, you would feel uncomfortable."
Li Miaomiao said helplessly: "Okay, you are the boss, you can do whatever you want."
"What I just said was very good, and the response from the audience below was also very enthusiastic. I heard Ma Huateng next to me saying that you are pragmatic."
"Now you can go back and take a rest. Let's have a conversation this afternoon, between you and Musk."
When Zheng Li started his business, he was praised by overseas media as the Iron Man of China. Later, as the influence of Science and Technology Biotechnology grew, similar statements were rarely mentioned again.
But both parties are still regarded as the most dazzling entrepreneurs in China and America in this era.
It is rare for both people to attend this Wuzhen Summit.
Therefore, the organizer planned to hold a peak dialogue after soliciting opinions from both parties on the afternoon of the first day.
Considering that if the atmosphere is very sharp, a softener is needed to calm down the atmosphere at that time, so the organizer specially invited a well-known female host from China to host.
No host can refuse a conversation of this level.
...
"Dear guests, friends, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon.
Welcome to the Internet Leaders Summit Dialogue at the World Internet Conference.
I am the host** this time.
I am very happy that we are gathered here today. Everyone here should feel the same way that the Internet has changed our lives.
The industrial Internet has developed at an alarming rate in the past few years. More and more Internet companies have gone deep into the manufacturing industry to empower our manufacturing industry.
China and even the world are undergoing the transformation of industrial intelligence.
First of all, please allow me to introduce to you the guests of this Internet Leaders Summit Dialogue, Mr. Zheng Li, Chairman of Kechuang Biotechnology, and Mr. Musk, CEO of Tesla and Space Exploration Technology Company.
We sincerely welcome the arrival of these two outstanding entrepreneurs.
I also hope that during the dialogue later, the two of you can express your opinions and fully exchange your views on the industrial Internet.
In the process of communication, sparks of wisdom emerge. "
A similar leadership summit has been held before, and it was 2014.
That leadership summit was attended by Ali Ma, Robin Li, Zhang Chaoyang, Dongzi and Lei Jun.
American is the chairman of Qualcomm, Thomson Reuters, and LinkedIn, as well as the vice president of Apple.
From the conversations at that time, it was obvious that Robin Li was the slowest to mobile Internet.
Even Zhang Chaoyang was more sensitive than him. At that time, Sohu’s news mobile app was already developing a news push mechanism similar to Toutiao.
"It's a pleasure to meet Mr. Zheng. We have hoped to meet Mr. Zheng many times before.
In the past two years, I wanted to make an appointment with Mr. Zheng through Tesla, but I never had the chance. "
Musk has always had a close relationship with China. Tesla’s Shenhai Gigafactory has an annual output of close to one million units.
This is roughly the total of Tesla’s global deliveries in 2021.
Later, Tesla established another super factory in the Yangtze River Delta region.
Musk also attended the previous Wuzhen Summit.
At the World New Energy Vehicle Conference held in China, Mike also delivered a speech via remote video conference.
“It’s a rare opportunity to meet Mr. Zheng today, and I have a few questions I’d like to ask.
My company and Mr. Zheng’s company both compete and can cooperate.
The first is how do you see the development of brain-computer connection technology in the future? "
In fact, Musk has always been worried about Kechuang Biotechnology's far lead in brain-computer connection technology.
If Kechuang Biotechnology had not made brain-computer connection technology so mature, he could still have been hyping related concepts for many years.
Instead of him hyping up brain-computer connection related technologies, netizens would use science and technology to suppress him.
For example, Musk publicly claimed that he had uploaded his brain to the cloud while talking to a virtual version of himself.
Comments from netizens are: If you are so powerful, why haven't you developed a brain-computer connection to your mobile phone? My brain is still using Kechuang Biotech’s brain-computer connection technology to control the phone.
This was in 2022, when neuralink's brain-computer-connected mobile phone had not yet come out.
In fact, Musk's so-called uploading the brain to the cloud is nothing more than uploading EEG signal data.
Then I have a conversation with the virtual version of myself, and the technical content is not as high as the media renders.
It's nothing more than cultivating an AI personality through natural language processing technology and deep learning, using Musk's public speeches.
Microsoft's Xiaoice is much more valuable than Musk's own virtual version.
It’s just that Musk is well versed in the art of hype and knows what the media and netizens like to see.
But with Zheng Li and Kechuang Biotechnology, it would be impossible for him to hype up brain-computer connection technology.
With benchmarking companies, you will be subject to many restrictions when you speculate.
Zheng Li replied: “Brain-computer connection technology is a tool for connecting humans and the world in the future.
In the earliest days, we connected with the world through computers, and later through mobile phones.
In the not-too-distant future, we will directly connect our brains to everything in the world through brain-computer connection technology.
I think in the future the brain will be able to connect to a variety of devices and sensors in our offices, homes, and individuals.
Brain-computer connection devices are increasingly becoming a part of people and becoming your best assistant.
Various smart devices have been very popular over the years.
Whether it is VR or AR, there was previously a lack of a key connection point that could satisfy one small application scenario after another and achieve penetrating breakthroughs.
For example, AR glasses. Previous AR glasses relied on eye-catching technology to achieve control. In this case, the operation error rate would be very high.
And if you use the brain-computer connection technology of Kechuang Biotech, AR glasses will be much more convenient.
In the second half of this year, the brain-computer-connected ar glasses we cooperate with Apple, Huawei and Dami will be released.
Everyone can look forward to it.
Brain-computer connection technology will penetrate into more fields, not just consumer electronics.
Including the industrial VR we are cooperating with Huawei this year, and the industrial VR we are cooperating with Dami will soon be launched at the factory of Dami Auto.
What will be carried out soon is CNNA's second moon landing this year. The robot they brought up will also use our brain-computer connection technology.
Astronauts use brain-computer connection technology to directly use their brains to control robots, explore the moon and perform some basic work.
In the future, brain-computer connection technology will become more and more popular.
We have plans to release a mid-to-low-end brain-computer connected VR this year to drive down the price of brain-computer connected VR.
Let more consumers enjoy the happiness brought by brain-computer connection technology.
At the same time, we will use brain-computer connection technology to deeply integrate with manufacturing.
If the entrepreneurs here have good ideas, you can communicate with our relevant staff. "
Musk didn't give the host a chance to speak at all. He directly continued to ask:
"Mr. Zheng, I agree with you very much.
Neuralink, my brain-computer connection company, has always been aiming to enable people to directly connect to machines.
I think there are many areas where we can collaborate.
The next question may be a little abrupt. "
