Microsoft is way richer than Yahoo.
Yahoo only started to rise this year, and it has not yet explored a stable profitability.
It mainly relies on blood transfusions from investors.
Microsoft has good hematopoietic ability.
The operating system remained a top-notch monopoly business until twenty years later.
If it hadn't lost to Google in the mobile operating system war, Microsoft would not have given up its throne as the largest technology company by market value.
Because of this, Yahoo's demand for Riot Games is more urgent.
The reason why investors are willing to give Yahoo such a high valuation is based on the premise that Yahoo will be profitable in the future.
The sooner this future materializes, the faster Yahoo's valuation will rise.
Yahoo's internal board of directors has estimated that if they successfully acquire Riot Games, their market value will increase by at least 50%.
Therefore, the price of 300 million was willing to be offered.
There is no reason why Yahoo knows things that Bill Gates doesn't know.
So he offered a higher price.
"I'm willing to sell some of my Riot Games shares to Microsoft, but not all of them.
I want to keep control of Riot Games.
I would prefer this to be an investment rather than an acquisition. "
Zhou Xin looked at the other party seriously and said that Riot Games is not important to him, but the future is not important.
From now on and for a long time to come, Riot Games will occupy a very important part of his strategic planning.
That's the payment scenario.
A payment software needs to have enough payment scenarios to occupy market share.
The reason why Paypal has become the number one payment software market share in the world is because they had the payment scene of eBay in the early days.
Relying on eBay to complete the accumulation of original users.
The payment software Zhou Xin wants to build is in direct competition with Paypal, and it is unrealistic to seize eBay's payment scenario in the early stages.
As for Amazon, Amazon itself wants to make payment software, so how can it possibly give you the payment scenario?
Therefore, for Zhou Xin, the early payment scenario he envisioned was online payment.
For transactions such as electronic games, online books, and online videos that do not require physical transactions, his payment software needs to occupy more than 90% of the market share in this market.
The reason why future generations will rely on Ali’s Kuaidi Taxi and Didi Taxi’s reliance on Gouchang will spread from first-tier cities to second-tier cities and then to third-tier cities is this:
This is the payment scenario where the two giants are competing for mobile payments.
What seems to be a taxi-hailing war is actually a war between Alipay and WeChat Pay.
As for why Zhou Xin doesn’t get involved in online shopping, it’s because the demands on people from capital to management are too high.
Zhou Xin has no motivation to compete with Amazon and Ebay in this very mature field.
In the past, he only had experience in managing about two hundred accounts. If he engaged in online shopping, it would have exceeded his upper limit from a management logic point of view.
And it doesn't matter.
After the rise of mobile Internet in later generations, there will be more opportunities for overtaking in corners.
Human energy is limited.
Bill Gates explained: “Even if Microsoft acquires Riot Games, I will hand over the entire Microsoft gaming business to you.
The last time we met we said you need to start with department heads.
It's because you have only proven that you have unique insights into certain fields before.
From a management perspective, it is the ability to solve a single problem.
And now from the perspective of the Riot Games electronic community, you have proven that your abilities are compound.
You have long-term plans for the development of the entire enterprise.
I can trust you with Microsoft games.
Of course, considering that you are too young, I will assign you a deputy with sufficient experience to assist you in management.
You only need to be responsible for the planning and considerations at the strategic level, and he will be responsible for the specific implementation. This is your strength. "
Bill Gates said with excitement: "I believe that with your joining, Microsoft Games will give the entire electronic game industry a new future.
We already have very ambitious ideas internally. "
Zhou Xin interrupted: "Do you mean making a game console similar to Sega?"
“Oh you actually guessed it.
But that’s right, you know so much about this field, it’s not surprising to guess.
Yes, we are going to make a game console.
But not in Sega's form.
We plan to make home game consoles.
Microsoft intends to rebuild the entire game industry chain.
Including the acquisition of some game studios, game publishing, and game consoles.
Before I saw the electronic community in the form of Riot Games, I always felt that we were missing a piece.
Riot Games has made up for this missing piece.
That's right, the communication part is missing from the construction of our entire game industry.
Whether it is between players or between players and game manufacturers, there is a lack of a communication platform.
So Microsoft is very sincere towards Riot Games.
Included in my price.
This will be Microsoft's largest single acquisition ever.
It’s even more expensive than the price we paid for Hotmail last year.
You know, when we acquired Hotmail last year, Hotmail had more than 8.5 million users, while Riot Games only had 200,000.
Maybe that number is now 300,000.
When I told Steve about my idea, he thought I was crazy! "
Steve Ballmer is now a Microsoft executive and will take over as Microsoft president in the future.
Hotmail was the earliest email service provider. After being acquired by Microsoft, it was merged into the MSN service, and later its name changed.
There are two different statements about this acquisition, US$400 million or US$500 million. The US$400 million statement is used here.
Zhou Xin nodded slightly: “The value of a company does not entirely depend on the number of users.
If Riot Games is willing to open free registration, its number of users will also quickly increase qualitatively.
Moreover, the number of Hotmail users refers to the number of registered users. In fact, a user is likely to register multiple accounts.
It makes no sense to use this number to value a company.
Of course sir, I am not trying to refute you, but I want to tell you that I know the value of Riot Games very well.
And I am also willing to accept investment from Microsoft or you personally.
But I can't accept an outright acquisition.
It's not that direct acquisition is bad, but I simply like the name Riot and don't want it to become a Microsoft electronics community. "
This is also an important reason why Riot Games will never accept an acquisition by Yahoo.
In a similar situation, Microsoft may accept only investing and not intervening in operations, but Yahoo will definitely not.
For Yahoo, they need to keep users on Yahoo as much as possible. This determines that after Riot Games is acquired by Yahoo, everything from name to management to users will be absorbed by Yahoo.
