During this period, Pierre was not the only person who had critical opinions, including Goldman Sachs Vice President Jarrell, who was also the sponsor of Riot Games’ listing.
He tried his best to persuade Zhou Xin to put the money in Goldman Sachs, and Goldman Sachs would manage the money on his behalf.
Of course, in addition to Jarrell, there were also various Wall Street tycoons who contacted Zhou Xin. Among them, the one who impressed Zhou Xin the most was Bernard Madoff.
Madoff has an asset management company under his own name. As the former chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market, he attracted a large number of investors to hand over money to his asset management company.
Because Zhou Xin was deeply impressed by the financial crisis of 2008. In addition to the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the famous event after the outbreak of the financial crisis was the collapse of Madoff's Ponzi scheme.
After just two contacts, Zhou Xin deeply felt that Madoff was a talented person with perfect social attributes and could always praise him just right.
Financial professionals on Wall Street who do well will definitely have good social skills, but this was the first time Zhou Xin had seen Madoff with such skillful social skills.
Compared with Madoff, Jerrel's eloquence is no different from that of a recent law school graduate.
But even if Zhou Xin didn't know that the other party was a liar, he wouldn't let him take care of the money.
“Boss, I still don’t understand why you want to sell Quora. Aren’t we running very well?
If Riot Games can go public, so can Quora. The market value of Quora's listing will definitely be higher than it is now. asked Jimmy Wells.
He and Larry Sanger had not yet prospered, and their identities and visions were quite limited.
Although they can vaguely feel that something is wrong from the increasing valuation of Internet companies, they lack the ability to detect the essence of the problem like Pierre.
According to the original trajectory, the two will gradually transform into investors after becoming successful in Wikipedia.
In other words, almost all successful early entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley will become angel investors.
Jimmy’s question was also Sanger’s question, “Boss, I can’t understand it either.
Quora has already achieved profitability. Even if we do not pursue an IPO in the short term, Quora’s valuation will only increase as the number of users increases. "
There is also dissatisfaction behind their questions. The point of dissatisfaction is that Zhou Xin’s sale of Quora will affect their interests.
Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wells collectively hold 10% of the shares. The 10% shares are not divided equally, but are distributed according to the proportion of Nupedia's shares.
Zhou Xin chose to package and sell all his shares, which means that Internet companies in Silicon Valley will only consider acquiring shares from Zhou Xin.
Because even if you get 10% of what they have, it won't have any effect.
Unless Zhou Xin is willing to split the shares, either split them and sell them, or keep part of them and sell part of them, then their 10% voting rights will be meaningful.
Now the value of their 10% shares is still huge, but they cannot enjoy the premium.
Especially after Quora was acquired, the listing was completely beyond their control.
Now that Quora wants to go public, it only needs to convince Zhou Xin. But if Quora is sold to Yahoo or Microsoft, and then wants to go public, it needs a board of directors resolution.
If the people who least want Quora to be sold are the two of them.
Zhou Xin: “The success Quora brought me has come to an end. It is a very successful and perfect product.
It's also difficult for me to optimize on this basis.
I am a product manager. I build a perfect product and then sell it. Isn’t this a natural thing?
Our product has one last feature that is about to be launched soon. Once this feature is introduced to the market, Quora will be completely complete. "
“Congratulations on becoming a lucky user, Quora now invites you to attend the Quora product launch conference to be held on June 6. Newman”
Rex ultimately failed to pass the Quora registration exam. He finally bought a trial account registration verification code from EBay, which cost him a full fifty dollars.
Later, the price went up all the way, and now it costs at least $130 to buy it again.
After Rex opened the Quora page and entered his account and password, he received a homepage pop-up window.
Because the news that Quora was to be sold spread throughout Silicon Valley, Rex, as an Internet practitioner in Silicon Valley, naturally heard the news.
Thanks to media publicity, the world knew that Newman was selling Quora.
After deciding to sell, Quora held a press conference, and the name was Zhou Xin, which Rex found strange.
Because it seems to the outside world that Zhou Xin doesn't like to show off. Compared with other Internet companies that hold product launches at every turn, Zhou Xin has never held a product launch.
Moreover, Quora is already a product with very complete functions. Zhou Xin is about to sell Quora. At this time, there is no need for a product launch.
Rex felt strange.
“What do you think of Newman’s plans to hold a Quora product launch conference?”
This question quickly became a hot topic on the Internet, with a large number of users discussing their opinions below.
"Thank you for the invitation. I am the editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine. We have just received a notice from Quora. They are going to hold a press conference this time, and Newman himself will give a speech on stage.
The venue is the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. "
The Moscone Convention Center is located at the intersection of Fourth Street and Howard Street in downtown San Francisco, very close to the San Francisco International Airport.
In the exciting 1990s, many large technology giants held press conferences here, such as Apple, Oracle, Microsoft, etc.
“Almost all technology media in Silicon Valley have received invitations, including Information World Magazine, Red Herring Magazine, the San Jose Mercury News, etc. As for the specific functions, we don’t know.
At the same time, the latest news I heard from Yahoo executives is that Newman has not given up on selling Quora. So now everyone is curious about what products Newman will release at the product launch conference.
You must know that even for an epoch-making Internet product form such as paid Q&A, Newman has not held a product launch conference.
This product launch is Newman's first product launch. Q friends and I are equally curious about what Newman has to say. "
A week before the press conference, no one except Quora staff knew what Zhou Xin was going to say.
At the same time, all Internet companies are very nervous, and everyone is afraid that Quora will make another big move.
You must know that there was no such big battle before Quora launched paid Q&A. As soon as paid Q&A came out, the Q&A community that Yahoo spent a lot of effort to develop and promote suddenly became a has-been Internet celebrity.
Only the billboards that have not been removed from the roads in the entire San Francisco Bay Area are informing the passing vehicles. The Yahoo Answers community has only been launched recently. We have more than ten Nobel Prize winners as a strong shield.
There is also an interesting thing about these 13 Nobel Prize winners, that is, Joseph Taylor, the winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics, complained in an email to a friend:
“I already regret taking Yahoo’s $100,000 invitation reward. For this reason, I also signed an exclusivity agreement and cannot register an account on any similar community. I would rather return the $100,000 to Yahoo and hope to be able to use Quora normally. "
The screenshot of this paragraph in the email was posted in Quora's answer to the question "What do you think of the Yahoo Q&A community?"
This screenshot was later used to repeatedly mock Yahoo's opponents.
Zhou Xin stood in the background and took a deep breath. To be honest, he had never experienced anything like this before. In previous investment promotions, only a dozen or so people listened.
When ZTE's plenipotentiary representative attended the inquiry meeting in Washington, there were only a few hundred people.
Now, he felt that there were close to 20,000 people in the entire venue, almost filling the entire North Hall of the Moscone Center.
Moscone Center consists of three main halls, now only the North Hall and the West Hall. The North Hall can accommodate up to 20,000 people.
Therefore, Quora sent a total of 15,000 invitations to Quora's official users, and also sent 2,000 invitations to the media.
The sense of oppression brought by 20,000 people is completely incomparable to that of hundreds of people. Even though the hundreds of people before were all his enemies, now the 20,000 people in the audience are all his friends.
Rex also came to the scene. He didn't come by plane, but drove himself. Silicon Valley is very close to San Francisco.
When checking the tickets on the spot, he complained in his heart and saw the verification code again. It really looked like Newman.
Yes, entry is verified through the verification code and Quora account.
Zhou Xin took a deep breath in the audience, and Aimo gave him a hug before Zhou Xin came on stage.
Zhou Xin felt calm after smelling a smell similar to sandalwood.
This little scene, no matter how bad it is, is just saying "are you ok" at the press conference and then being repeatedly made into a ghost video.
The lights on the stage came on, and Zhou Xin strode onto the stage and waved to the surrounding people:
"Hello everyone, this is Quora and my first press conference."
Six-digit verification codes began to appear quickly one after another on the big screen behind them, covering the entire screen.
Then the verification codes light up one after another, that is, there will be a brightness gap between the verification codes.
"Very good. Next is the press conference. Tickets will be distributed to all users through Quora. I know everyone will complain in their hearts. Newman must use the verification code no matter what the occasion.
Yes, the verification code that lights up on the back means that it has been verified at the entrance. We have issued a total of 15,000 verification codes.
Now I estimate that 80% of them will light up. Let me look at the specific data on the teleprompter board. 11,402 lights up, which is about the same as my estimate of 12,000. "
Bill Gates and Jerry Yang were also invited to attend the product launch, sitting in the front row.
Potential buyers of Quora are invited.
Both Bill Gates and Jerry Yang were extremely shocked that so many users came to the scene. This number fully proves the user stickiness of Quora.
You should know that not all users live near San Francisco. They have to come to attend the conference, and some even need to take a long-distance flight.
Bill Gates thought to himself: "This is a miracle."
Yesterday, a reader said that he was shocked over and over again. The main thing is that I do what I do when I write, and it becomes even worse when I don’t write these things. . . And there was actually quite little shock.
(End of chapter)
