Because he would have to return to China sooner or later, and from the perspective of future generations, Quora was far less important than NewPay, so Zhou Xin planned to cash out Quora and leave at the peak of the bubble.
As for whether to sell it to Microsoft, Yahoo, or AOL, it depends on who offers the higher price.
Ninety percent of Quora's shares are owned by Zhou Xin. He originally planned to find investment funds from several universities and transfer a small amount of shares to these university investment funds to establish relationships in advance.
Zhang Lei returned to China to found Hillhouse Capital, and his first US$20 million in start-up capital came from Yale University’s investment fund.
Not to mention that Zhou Xin plans to invest some of his funds in the direction of integrated circuits. He will use the investment funds from Americus University to help with some subsequent technical issues and the introduction of integrated circuit talents, including establishing R&D centers overseas. There will also be more channels to help matchmaking.
For this reason, he would rather let American University make a small profit on the Quora project.
Zhou Xin is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Berkeley, so he immediately planned to find the relevant person in charge at Berkeley. When he was a student at Berkeley, the total assets of the UC Berkeley Foundation had exceeded US$1.5 billion.
What he didn't expect was that there is currently no school-owned investment fund at Berkeley.
Only a few universities have their own angel investment funds, such as Stanford, MIT, Harvard, etc.
Zhou Xin didn't have any connections in these universities, so after thinking about it, he decided to forget it. There would be opportunities later.
The meeting with Jerry Yang in the evening was far less formal and more like a conversation between friends.
Although Zhou Xin rejected Yang Zhiyuan many times and invested in Google and Baidu, Yang Zhiyuan did not regard the other party as an enemy. Jerry Yang has always believed that competitors can also be friends, because there is also the possibility of cooperation in commercial competitive relationships.
The competitive relationship is only temporary.
Not to mention the personal relationship between Jerry Yang and Hu Zhengming, plus he is happy to see Chinese voices in Silicon Valley.
During his tenure at Yahoo, he sought cooperation with Google on many occasions, including cooperation with Google in the fields of search and advertising. In addition, he worked with Microsoft executives to make Bing the back-end technology for Yahoo search.
"Jerry, long time no see. Every time I see you, I feel very friendly." Zhou Xinzi didn't know how to start. In fact, he wanted to go directly to the topic. Quora can sell it, but not now. Just prepare the money and be done. .
Yang Zhiyuan stood up and shook hands with Zhou Xin: "Every time I see you, I want to pay you so much.
Whether it’s Riot Games, NewPay or now Quora, they all make me want to acquire them.
Really, even if I were the CEO of Yahoo, after I experienced your product, I would have the urge that Yahoo is not cool.
We acquired GEOCities not long ago. As a result, users began to boycott Yahoo, and you launched Quora.
Quora is a very amazing product. If I were not the CEO of Yahoo, I would definitely register an account on it. "
In fact, Internet companies today are no different from Internet companies twenty years later. Once listed, they will face performance pressure, and the operation of the entire company needs to be profit-oriented.
This is especially true for companies like Yahoo, which enjoy high valuations but have never achieved breakeven. They also suffered a net loss of US$17.7 million last year.
Therefore, after Yahoo acquired GEOCities, it began to increase the number of advertisements, limit page size, and restrict users' free creation. Restricting user creation means that users can create freely by paying to become a member.
As a result, the original users of GEOCities collectively boycotted, and then Yahoo hastily canceled many measures.
Now that Yahoo has just fallen into the quagmire of GEOcities, Jerry Yang looks a little haggard.
Zhou Xin wears a variety of plaid shirts most of the time. It is not easy to go wrong with this kind of clothing. He is not able to accept the popular style of Amerika: "I am willing to sell Quora, but not now."
After Zhou Xin said these words, the blue plaid shirt he was wearing made Yang Zhiyuan's eyes a little dazed: "What did you say?"
"I said I would sell Quora, just not now."
Jerry Yang asked: "Make a price."
Zhou Xin shook his head: "It's too early now. You and I both know the value of Quora. There are only over 100,000 users now, but the number of views is already among the top five in the United States.
He has great potential, but the price he is selling now is too high for the Yahoo board to accept, and too low for me to accept.
So I will negotiate with you again after Quora fully proves its value.
You don’t have to worry about what kind of business strategy I am telling you that Quora will choose to sell it so that you will not be Yahoo’s knowledge question and answer community.
Because Quora will definitely be sold to the highest bidder, and Yahoo may not be able to win, so Yahoo can completely build its own knowledge question and answer community. "
Zhou Xin showed a confident smile: "Just wait until you start your own knowledge Q&A community, and you will have a better understanding of the value of Quora."
Jerry Yang asked: "So confident? Aren't you afraid that Yahoo will do better than Quora, and the value you expect will not only fail to be realized, but will cause Quora to lose its original value?"
Zhou Xin: “If I didn’t have this confidence, I would have sold Riot Games directly to you before.”
...
"Recently, Riot Games CEO Newman met with Microsoft's Bill Gates and Yahoo's Jerry Yang respectively in San Francisco. It is reported that Newman intends to sell Quora, and Microsoft and Yahoo are potential buyers..."
Whether Zhou Xin was meeting with Bill Gates or Jerry Yang, he did not find any high-end restaurant with good privacy. Especially when he met with Bill Gates, he was in a very popular chain coffee shop.
This also caused the media in Silicon Valley to quickly report the news of his meeting with Bill Gates and Jerry Yang, and then compiled various shocking headlines.
While the media's attention focused on Zhou Xin's meeting with Bill Gates and Jerry Yang, Quora launched a new user registration mechanism.
As an Internet practitioner in Silicon Valley, Rex has been paying attention to Quora since it was launched online.
As the content of Quora has been precipitated, it has gradually become popular, and some colleagues around me have also received account registration verification codes one after another. The discussion about Quora has become more and more intense.
After personal experience, he believes that this product is more in-depth than the Riot Electronics Community. He is not as interesting as the Riot Electronics Community, but the depth of discussion on professional issues is far beyond the Riot Electronics Community.
So he was desperate to get an account, he wasn't too keen on asking questions, Rex wanted to answer questions and he always loved that feeling.
Especially the like and follow functions.
However, Quora has never opened the registration function. A colleague around me obtained a registration verification code, which is also a secondary registration verification code, that is, a verification code that can only register an account by yourself.
This left Rex without an account.
He knew that Quora, like Riot Electronics Community, was Newman's industry, so he joined forces with a group of users in Riot Electronics Community and frequently attacked, posting some posts hoping that Quora would open registration.
On the day "Quora opens registration rights", the official account of Riot Electronics Community posted such a notice-type post.
