"NewPay has given me a lot of inspiration in terms of security. I have used NewPay. In terms of user experience and overall interface, NewPay is indeed better than Confinity now.
But what really stood out to me was the security measures NewPay took. The combination of a six-digit password and SMS verification code can almost completely avoid security risks caused by improper software levels.
Our initial attention was focused on ensuring information security during hardware data transmission, and we completely ignored the security issues at the software level.
Users only need the other party's account number and amount to complete the transfer. Fortunately, Confinity has not yet launched it on a large scale. Once it is promoted on a large scale and a scandal breaks out in which user account balances are stolen, it will be difficult for Confinity to turn around. land.
We still have time to remedy the situation, and at the same time we hope to obtain patent authorization for SMS verification codes to further improve user account security. "
Peter Thiel sincerely admires the idea of SMS verification codes. The application scenarios of this idea are too wide.
Part of the reason why Goldman Sachs and Morgan invested in NewPay is because the patent rights for SMS verification codes are in the hands of NewPay. If the Federal Reserve and the Federal Treasury Department issue new regulations on banks, they will require banks to bind their mobile phone numbers when opening cards for customers.
The SMS verification code patent alone is worth a billion dollars.
Zhou Xin didn’t know much about Confinity, but he knew more about what became Paypal.
After chatting with Peter and Max, he found that Musk had not joined them yet.
Zhou Xin did not underestimate Confinity because of this, but from the perspective of his future generations, he was absolutely confident that he could win the final victory in the field of electronic payment.
"I am not responsible for the specific operations of NewPay. I will give you the email address of the person in charge of our patent licensing team, and you can contact him directly when the time comes."
The situation abroad is different from that at home. The credit card system abroad is very developed, so even in the mobile Internet era, electronic payment is only a supplement to credit cards.
There is no credit card system in China. Even in 2020, the people who are familiar with the credit card system are mainly white-collar workers in first- and second-tier cities.
In other words, the electronic payment system in China occupies the position of credit cards, and credit cards become a supplement.
Electronic payments, led by WeChat Pay and Alipay, have actually eaten up the profits that originally belonged to the credit card system.
This has also led to extremely fierce competition in electronic payments in China, which is incomparable between foreign countries and China.
Various means are emerging one after another. In order to occupy enough payment scenarios, they are willing to spend high prices to invest in companies that make no money at all and have no hope of achieving breakeven.
In the past few years when the domestic electronic payment war was raging, when Zhou Xin was studying for a Ph.D. abroad, PayPal seemed to have a monopoly without any controversy.
None of the giants at the time, including Amazon, Google and Facebook, wanted to compete with him.
Even if Amazon launched Amazon payment, it was only as a supplement to its own e-shopping system, without any thought of competing with PayPal.
Apple has thought about it, but the difference is that Apple's Apple Pay wants to replace the status of credit cards, not Paypal.
“Newman, Max and I started our business entirely in the field of electronic payments, while your business scope ranged from online communities to game distributors to video game production companies and trivia communities.
I'm curious how you come up with so many genius ideas.
Quora is really a genius idea. I also registered an account on it. Maybe it’s because there are relatively few competitors in the field of philosophy. In addition, when I was teaching at Stanford, my students and friends in the department helped me canvass votes. I successfully became that person. The number of likes ranked first, and you got the permission to ask questions.
I think this high threshold approach is correct. The knowledge question and answer community needs to ensure the purity of the community, and it is inevitable to make a trade-off between the quantity and quality of users. "
Peter Thiel was not complimenting Zhou Xin, this was his true inner thought. He was shocked after seeing Quora, especially after the user registration exam came out.
In his opinion, Quora is the only community so far that has requirements for user quality.
“I have my own needs, and then I will consider whether my needs are universal needs or personalized needs.
If it is a universal need and everyone will have similar needs, then I will think about how to meet this need through Internet services.
All my Internet products are based on this logic.
The only thing that is special is the game. Of course, the game is not made by me alone. I just make something that I find interesting and share it with everyone.
At that time, I was developing "Angry Birds" when I was an intern at Microsoft. In fact, I didn't know whether this game would be liked by players.
Looking at it now, I'm pretty lucky. "
Max said little.
After complimenting each other, Zhou Xin asked: “Have you ever thought about selling Confinity to me.
NewPay's current efforts are focused on the personal computer field, while Confinity's electronic payment products are mainly focused on handheld computers. We can form a relatively good complementarity.
At the same time, Confinity can also further improve NewPay’s security system in the security field. "
Before Zhou Xin came, he asked someone what patents Confinity had.
From a purely patent perspective, Confinity's most valuable patent is the security token, which you can understand as the U-shield adopted by later Chinese banks.
U-Shield is a type of security token. Currently, apart from Confinity, only RSA and Vodafone have security token patents.
To acquire this technology, acquiring Confinity is the fastest way.
Not to mention being able to land top talent like Peter Thiel.
Peter Thiel and Max Levchin looked at each other. NewPay wanted to acquire Confinity, which was what they were considering.
"We are very willing to be acquired by NewPay, but we do not want cash. We hope to exchange it through NewPay's shares." Peter Thiel said.
Marks continued: "Yes, in our view NewPay is worth much more than the money, including Nokia Investment Fund and Deutsche Bank, I think they also hope that they can get NewPay shares instead of cash."
Zhou Xin wouldn't mind giving them some shares if they could convince Peter Thiel to join.
"Do you know that NewPay's angel round financing is based on an A/B share structure? In other words, the same shares have different rights. Each A share has 1 voting right, while B shares have 10 voting rights.
I can’t give you all B shares. I will give you most A shares and a small part B shares. Can you accept this approach? "
Peter Thiel was very shocked. He knew that Goldman Sachs and Morgan had participated in Series A investment and the valuation was as high as one billion US dollars, but he did not expect that these two top investment banks would even accept such conditions.
