"I came to San Francisco about a year and a half ago. At that time, I only had a total of US$10,000, of which US$10,000 was provided to me by a Chinese company called New Oriental.
If they hadn't given me 100,000 RMB, and then I converted the 100,000 RMB into US dollars, then I would have had no money at all when I came to Amerikan.
One year has passed, and relying on the market’s recognition of Riot Games’ market value after its listing, my net worth should be tens of billions of dollars. I don’t know the exact number of tens of billions. Anyway, Gates is not rich yet.
Many entrepreneurs will talk about how difficult it was for them at the celebration dinner after the company went public. I don’t like to say this. My life is not easy, but my entrepreneurial process has been very smooth.
It went so well that after I finished the Riot game, Bill and Jerry were vying to give me money. As for why I chose Bill instead of Jerry, it's not because I like Microsoft better, but because Bill only pays but doesn't ask for anything, and I can't meet Jerry's demands.
He hopes that Riot Games will be merged into Yahoo as a whole. I still have a lot of affection for the first company I founded, and I don’t want to sell myself to Yahoo. Of course, the price offered by Yahoo is not high enough.
If Yahoo offered the same price as Time Warner, I don't think I would be able to refuse. After the sale of Quora, Bill complained to me, asking why I wanted to sell to Time Warner. The price of 70 billion U.S. dollars was something he could give even if he fought for it on the Microsoft board of directors.
I told Bill that it was mainly because I was a layman and had never seen so much money. I was afraid that I would regret it if I agreed to Time Warner one second too late.
Including Jerry also complained about me. If I accept the share swap and promote the merger of Quora and Yahoo, I can become Yahoo's largest shareholder.
At that time, I was thinking that if I had known better, I would have agreed to Time Warner later and listened to the offers from Yahoo and Microsoft.
Being the largest shareholder of a company listed on the U.S. stock market was something I had never imagined when I was studying at Yenching University in China more than a year ago.
What I didn’t expect was that not long after Quora was sold to Time Warner, Riot Games’ successful IPO made me the largest shareholder of a US-listed company. "
On the day after Riot Games went public, its stock price soared 30%, and its market value exceeded US$20 billion, which is higher than the total market value of all offline game distribution channel companies listed on the US stock market.
At the celebration dinner that day, Riot Games’ early employees, management team, Goldman Sachs team, law firm executives responsible for the listing process and other people involved in the listing gathered together.
Zhou Xin delivered a celebratory speech as the founder, and his humorous remarks made everyone present smile.
Especially employees who have knowledge about Riot Games’ early financing.
For Zhou Xin, the company he founded has indeed never been listed on Nasdaq.
The main reason is that he encountered an accident just after completing the B-round financing. If he can successfully obtain the technology transferred from Samsung to small and medium-sized enterprises, it is estimated that it will take up to a year and after completing another round of financing, Xinxin Technology can be listed on the GEM.
It was unrealistic to list on Nasdaq in the environment at that time, and Amerikan had no shortage of semiconductor companies.
"Of course, I was still short of money in the early days. I got the initial capital to establish Riot Games by making Angry Birds. There were also Angry Birds dolls on the scene. Without this game, I wouldn't be where I am now. fist game.
The creative sources of the Riot Online Game Store and NewPay also came from Stephen, Ashley, and I. We tried our best to sell Angry Birds.
We thought it was a good game. At that time, we talked to an offline channel, and they said they would charge at least 70% of the fee, which was unacceptable to us at the time.
That’s why we decided to release Angry Birds ourselves and market it by sending mass emails to players.
Fortunately, the game itself is very good. Stephen and Ashley are excellent game developers and designers, and I am the game planner. It is our cooperation that makes this game good enough to rely entirely on word of mouth. achieved success.
At the same time, it made me realize the potential of online gaming channels, and that’s how Riot Games came into being. If it were not for the unwillingness to compromise with offline game channels at that time, we would not be successful today.
At that time, we were short of money, because Riot Electronics Community was very popular, and Riot Electronics Community was a very interesting online forum with more and more users.
Relying on the money from selling Angry Birds to buy servers and bandwidth, I can no longer hold on.
I was hoping to get financing at the time. I was lucky because Riot Games was good enough and many people wanted to invest money in me. Bill didn't ask any questions and bought 40% of the shares from me at a valuation of US$500 million.
At the same time, we invested a total of 200 million US dollars in Riot Games. As a result, Riot Games has completely come back to life, and it is still alive and well today.
Bill, you valued Riot at US$500 million at the time. Now its market value is US$20 billion. You made a lot of money! How many drinks should you have today! "
Bill Gates held up a glass of red wine in the audience to indicate that it was okay.
Zhou Xin continued: “Before this IPO, I told our management that we need to raise more money this time because we have too much to do.
We need to upgrade our servers and bandwidth, open branches in Europe and Asia, and revamp and upgrade the Riot Games store and community.
The Riot Games team only has 200 people. In the Silicon Valley headquarters alone, I hope to increase it to at least 500 people.
So I came to Nasdaq with the purpose of asking for more money. Fortunately, the investors were very generous and raised a total of US$2.5 billion for me.
It should be enough in the short term.
Thanks! Thank you so much! Today we have received not only money, but more importantly, trust and responsibility.
I've been asking myself a question: what makes Riot Games. When I founded Riot Games more than a year ago, I knew that one day we would be here and listed on Nasdaq.
Because what we do has subverted the entire video game industry and changed the model of game sales. We have brought value to players and we have brought value to game development companies. If Riot Games cannot be listed, then what other companies are there? Can it be listed?
At the same time, I also feel the pressure, because there are more people. With our original team of two hundred people, we can achieve profitability.
In the future, there will be 500 people. With the addition of people from European and Asian branches, it is expected to exceed 1,000 people.
The salary and operating costs of a thousand people, in order to achieve profitability, have higher requirements for Riot Games.
But I can’t stand that Riot Games is a money-losing company.
I can stand here on behalf of Riot Games precisely because of the trust of investors. I need to reward investors with good performance instead of constantly burning money.
We are not in the expansion stage now, we are the leader in the entire industry, and we occupy more than 80% of the market share of online game distribution.
I can tolerate the loss of money by branches in Europe and Asia. This is a necessary process to open up new markets.
But I cannot accept that we are losing money in the Amerikan market. In the future, I will have a series of plans to make Riot Games profitable. It will also tell the market through profits that Riot Games is taking the right path.
I am very grateful to my team, which pushed Riot to go public today. Without them, I would not be able to stand here and speak today. When Riot Games was first established in 1998, I told our founding team that we would do something different in the field of video games, and we would completely change the landscape of video games.
None of them thought I was crazy, but told me, Newman, that I believed you could do it.
We are very lucky. In just one year, I led them, they assisted me, and we got here together.
In the future, let us witness together that there is still a lot that Riot can do. "
Zhou Xin is still very emotional. It is not difficult for him to go public because he has memories of the future. What is emotional is that this is a feeling he has never had before.
In terms of difficulty in the future, it will be the most difficult for a company to be listed on the Big A, even more difficult than listing on the US stock market.
What we are talking about here is difficulty. It does not mean that Big A is better than US stocks. It is precisely because of the imperfect mechanism of Big A that it is difficult to list and delist.
At the celebration dinner, Zhou Xin could clearly feel that everyone around him who came to celebrate with him acted very sincerely.
He can also clearly feel that the team is more cohesive.
Everyone has allotted shares, and listing means a sudden increase in wealth. It is strange that there is no cohesion.
This kind of experience, which he had never had before in his previous life, made Zhou Xin more aware of this era.
A world with easy mode turned on, for a highly intelligent science and engineering man like Zhou Xin, it is easy to regard it as a virtual world.
But when he has more and more experiences that he has never had in his previous life, Zhou Xin will have a deeper understanding of this real world.
He will also realize that when he reaches this era, he may really be able to change the difficulties that China will encounter in the semiconductor field in future generations.
"Newman, doesn't this feel great? The day Microsoft went public was the most wonderful day in my life. Going public means the biggest reward for an entrepreneur in the previous stage.
I have talked with many entrepreneur friends, and they all said that the day they went public was their happiest day.
Of course, this may not be true for you. The amount acquired by Time Warner is much higher than the market value of Riot Games.
But what I want to say is that for a company with a certain monopoly like Riot Games, going public is only the first step, and there is still a long way to go in the future.
My vote is definitely on your side, and I welcome you selling Riot Games to me. "Bill Gates walked up to Zhou Xin and said holding a red wine glass.
Riot Games does not adopt an A/B share model, so after issuing 50 million shares, Zhou Xin lost his controlling interest.
Due to Zhou Xin's reputation and status as a founder, the vast majority of investors will side with him.
However, this kind of founder bonus period is limited, and there are many cases of foreign founders being driven away by corporate boards of directors.
The most famous one is that Apple's board of directors drove Steve Jobs away.
If the company's operating conditions are not good during your tenure and the stock price keeps falling, you will easily be kicked out by the board of directors.
After Zhou Xin bumped into Bill Gates, he said: "I am Chinese, and what Chinese people are best at is to take one step and see three steps.
I’m not worried about the development of Riot Games in the short term. Instead, we have to worry about whether Riot Games’ dominance will trigger a federal monopoly investigation. "
During Zhou Xin's rise, he brought a lot of profits to Wall Street and even American. Although he also took the biggest piece of the cake, Wall Street and the American government got a big share.
Tens of billions were paid in taxes alone.
Although the wool comes from the sheep, without Quora, investors would not pay.
In the short term, Zhou Xin will be of great value to both China and America.
However, this does not prevent American from conducting investigations on the grounds of Riot Games’ monopoly, or even forcing a breakup.
Even giant companies like Microsoft have encountered more than one similar breakup crisis.
NewPay also occupies the majority of the market share, but the form of electronic payment determines that this market will not lack players.
Even if NewPay occupies 90% of the market share, there will still be a steady stream of players wanting to enter this market.
This is just like WeChat and Alipay in later generations, which occupied more than 90% of the market share at their peak, but Union Quick Pass still relied on subsidies to survive.
Online game stores are different. This one belongs to other companies who find that they can’t play with you, so they stop playing.
Because the strong player effect is so obvious in this field, companies with a high market share can take the initiative in communicating with game developers and obtain the right to launch more good games.
It can also stabilize the 30% share ratio.
For enterprises with only a few users, the average operating cost per customer is very high.
Therefore, Zhou Xin is only worried that Riot Games will be investigated by antitrust, NewPay will lose the only payment scenario he can control, and then the electronic payment market will be slowly eroded.
Finally, it had no choice but to be acquired.
Instead of selling NewPay at a good price at its peak, as he envisioned.
Bill Gates said: “At least for now, don’t worry.
No one knows what will happen in the future, and the federal Antitrust Investigation Bureau still looks down upon Riot’s current size. "
A big chapter of 3.8k, and today’s two chapters add up to 6k!
(End of chapter)
