The Millennium Semiconductor Survival Guide

If it weren't for the fear of being targeted by Wall Street, Zhou Xin would have launched Yu'E Bao long ago.

The earliest X.com was actually a financial consulting website that provided users with financial product recommendations, which was somewhat similar to the later Alipay financial management module.

Therefore, Internet financial product sales channels are nothing new. Company homepages run by various types of financial companies also have similar functions.

But there has never been anything similar to Yu'e Bao before, and no one realized that traffic = money. Because of the previous online sales channels for financial products, there were thick barriers between leading Internet companies and financial companies.

Investment institutions only invest in Internet companies and will not interfere with the actual operations of Internet companies, let alone realize that financial products can achieve rapid fission with the help of traffic.

This is a knowledge blind spot.

To be honest, when the number of NewPay users exceeded 10 million, Zhou Xin thought he would be able to launch Yu'E Bao.

Just considering that the launch of Yu'e Bao at that time was a cake that directly affected Wall Street. His relationship with Washington was very ordinary. If he offended Wall Street, his long-term supporter, Zhou Xin was afraid of personal danger.

Yes, Wall Street and Silicon Valley have been Zhou Xin’s die-hard supporters since he became famous.

Whether it is Quora, Riot Games or later NewPay, financial institutions on Wall Street have made a lot of money. Nasdaq's emergence from depression and re-entering a strong recovery stage is also closely related to NewPay and Mphone.

The combination of Mphone and NewPay has broken down the barriers between online and offline, making capital realize that the Internet can do far more than information exchange, and rekindling the market's confidence in Internet companies.

As for Washington, Zhou Xin's failure to take a stand and not take sides gave him a bad reputation in Washington. In addition, his public refutation of Bush's remarks and his refusal to be courted by the Donkey Party at a charity gala made Zhou Xin not favored by Washington. Politicians are welcome.

Now that he has returned to China, Zhou Xin does not expect to go abroad again in his lifetime. Warren Johnson serves as his plenipotentiary representative on the boards of directors of foreign companies.

Zhou Xindu handed over the only position of CEO of Riot Games to a professional manager before returning to China.

Only after returning to China completely and without personal danger did Zhou Xin dare to launch Yu'E Bao.

Why products like Yu'E Bao are a big killer is because it will completely change the original pattern. In the past, Internet companies relied on financial institutions, but after Yu'E Bao, financial institutions became dependent on Internet companies.

And this trend will become stronger and stronger. Internet companies have the right to distribute information, and they can decide what users see and what they cannot see.

For financial companies, if the public cannot see your products, how can they generate desire to buy them?

This was the extremely obvious platform economic monopoly effect in China later. Until the rise of Douyin, Alibaba and Tencent controlled the vast majority of Internet traffic, and they frequently attacked in all fields.

The result of the power of these two platforms is that the profits of the entire chain from manufacturing to consumers have been eaten up by Alibaba and Tencent. And they are not just satisfied with this. They have begun to launch their own bank, Alibaba's online merchant bank. , Tencent's WeBank, they want everything from physical to financial.

Don’t our colleagues in Silicon Valley envy the two giants in China?

Don’t Facebook and Amazon, which are benchmarking against Tencent and Alibaba, not want to do financial business? How can public cloud and Yuan Universe make money quickly and easily by using traffic for financial services?

Obviously not, foreign capital is not any more noble than domestic capital. Foreign Internet giants also want to make this money, especially foreign Internet giants that develop globally and have greater traffic advantages.

The reason is not as mentioned in a random article on the Internet. Foreign Internet giants think that Internet finance is the business of banks, and they want to study technology more. Huang Qifan once revealed this secret at the China Economic Forum:

“According to international rules, Internet platform companies cannot monopolize across borders or engage in finance.”

To put it more bluntly, since the 2008 financial crisis, both Americen and the EU have tightened their supervision of financial services. Especially for companies like Google, Amazon and Facebook, if they want to enter the financial industry fields, they need to face extremely stringent scrutiny.

When Facebook tried to launch a digital currency called Libra in 2019, Zuckerberg needed to go to Washington in person to attend a hearing to face questioning, which was even sharper and more stringent than what Tik Tok Global President Zhou Shouzi faced. Question.

The subsequent result was that Facebook abandoned the original Libra virtual currency and directly shelved the project.

And before 19 years ago, there was no shortage of money in the market. For the Internet giants in Silicon Valley, they could make a lot of money and enjoy excess returns without engaging in Internet finance. After the stock era, even in the face of extremely strong supervision, the Internet giants in Silicon Valley are still trying their best to squeeze into the Internet financial field.

Zhou Xin didn't know why the Silicon Valley giants in the original time and space didn't engage in Internet finance. He only knew that at this point in time, Amerikan's regulatory agencies had almost zero supervision over Internet giants' involvement in financial businesses.

This is a blue ocean market, and it is extremely imaginative and can almost replicate all future ant businesses.

As for being hit by regulation? NewPay is also backed by Wall Street capital, but only top-tier capital can get tickets for NewPay.

After these institutions see the benefits, they will only want to ensure their share in NewPay and compete for more shares, but will not think about preventing NewPay from doing this business.

"Y'E Bao? Do you understand this thing?" Schulman asked.

Musk shook his head: "There is a high probability that it is a new thing created by Newman. I don't understand it and I don't want to understand it. I have withdrawn from the board of directors of X.com. I am no longer the CEO of X.com. I never want to engage in electronic payment industry."

Schulman is Musk's successor. Musk sold most of his X.com shares to other institutions and individual investors. The value of the remaining shares in his hands was not enough according to the valuation of X.com at this time. With ten million US dollars, it can be said that he got away with nothing.

Schulman was previously an executive at a large financial institution and was selected to take on the position of CEO of X.com. Since it was a cross-border job, the job handover was not that quick.

At the same time, because Schulman and Musk have no direct competitive relationship, Schulman really wants to have a good relationship with Musk and want to know more information.

Financial reports are just the tip of the iceberg of a company's information, and as a former CEO, Musk must know a lot of secret information, and information has its own value.

NewPay is not only the biggest competitor of X.com, but also a competitor of all electronic payment platforms on the market. NewPay's simultaneous online and offline attacks and large-scale advertising of Yu'e Bao have made competitors nervous.

Before, people didn’t pay much attention to WeChat red envelopes. It didn’t take long for WeChat’s flower delivery function to give all electronic payment companies a hard blow. WeChat took a big bite out of the whole cake with the help of WeChat’s flower delivery function.

Schulman was helpless. Before coming to X.com, he had guessed that this would be an unprecedented challenge in his career, leading X.com to challenge an opponent that had never failed before, Newman.

The company is NewPay, and the essence behind it is Zhou Xin, which has never failed in Silicon Valley.

The reason why Schulman was chosen was, firstly, because the salary was really good. If the options were included, he had worked in a financial institution for five years before one year at X.com was worth it. Secondly, because nothing would happen if he failed. , it is normal to be unable to defeat Zhou Xin, everyone cannot do it. Once successful, even if it is just to shorten the gap, it will be a record worth bragging about.

Who would have expected that NewPay would encounter unprecedented big moves just after taking office. As the absolute dominant party in the market, the last time NewPay made such a big move was when it distributed cash in Christmas patterns.

Schulman said: "Looking at the product itself, users originally stored their money in a virtual wallet, but now there is an additional financial product that can be redeemed, and users can save it in their financial account to purchase that financial product."

Musk's resignation as CEO does not mean he is leaving Silicon Valley. His newly established company is still in Silicon Valley. At the same time, because of the handover, he is still serving as a strategic advisor to X.com at this time.

Musk is an old rival of NewPay, and he has been abused for many years and has developed feelings: “A product that looks very simple only gives users a second choice.

The products launched by NewPay will never be so simple, or indeed very simple, but the effect is huge.

In my opinion, the most important thing about Yu’E Bao is that it visualizes the income.

Before Yu'e Bao, users had to go to offline institutions to check the income from purchasing financial products, and the frequency was at least once a month.

Later, after financial institutions launched their homepages, they could be viewed on a weekly basis through the homepage, because financial institutions needed to calculate product returns and perform batch processing.

Yu'e Bao can be viewed in real time. Schulman, you may have noticed that the Yu'ebao interface has the principal on the left and the income on the right. The income can be viewed in real time. This kind of real-time feedback should be the biggest selling point of Yu'ebao. "

"No, looking at the income is only the most intuitive. Compared with other financial products, borrowing and repaying at any time and the reputation NewPay has accumulated over the past five years are the most critical advantages." Peter Thiel said at an internal promotion meeting .

"We need to constantly instill experience in users. Putting money in a virtual wallet is the same as putting it in Yu'e Bao. Our underlying logic is a monetary fund, which is related to short-term to long-term U.S. debt, and the main focus is a quota. Flexible, borrow and return anytime.”

Monetary funds are generally highly tied to the yields of mainstream national bonds. The yield curve of Yu'E Bao is highly consistent with the 3-month and 6-month treasury bond yields.

The underlying asset of the Yu'E Bao now launched by NewPay is U.S. debt, which matures in 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, one year, 5 years and 10 years. A portfolio of U.S. debt products.

This tests the liquidity management capabilities of the management agency. If you face a large run after converting cash into U.S. bonds and you cannot withdraw so much cash, you will run the risk of bankruptcy. If you prepare too much cash, you will face returns. The problem of too low rate.

In the second half of 2004, the one-month U.S. bond yield fluctuated between 1.8% and 2%, the three-month U.S. bond yield was around 2.2%, and the six-month U.S. bond yield was between 2.4% and 2.6%. fluctuate between.

Institutions with strong liquidity management capabilities can reach the upper limit, which is the 6-month yield, or even higher, while those with weak liquidity management can reach the upper limit of the 3-month U.S. Treasury yield.

Of course, the 5-year U.S. bond yield is around 3.6%, and the 10-year U.S. bond yield is as high as 4.3%. If Yu’e Bao lasts long enough, it is entirely possible that the yield will be higher than the 6-month U.S. bond yield.

NewPay is Zhou Xin's fundamentals. All he needs to do is to maintain stability, so that other electronic payment software can't help but be tempted when they see this piece of cake, and then start a Ponzi scheme.

Zhou Xin had a hunch that the old guy Madoff would definitely be tempted to secretly control an electronic payment institution, or even directly become a financial product platform for the electronic payment institution.

“The video ads we place online emphasize that it’s no problem to visualize the income, that the income is received in real time, reflected in real time, and that it can be withdrawn at any time.

Because this is the highlight, this is the key to attracting users to click on the Yu'e Bao interface to see it.

But in elevator advertisements, billboards in shopping malls, and roadside advertising columns, the emphasis in these places should be safety, stability, and reliability.

You will see Yu'e Bao advertisements in these places, and what we want more is to reassure them and dispel their doubts. ” Peter Thiel repeatedly emphasized.

On the first day of Yu'E Bao's launch, with the help of more than 50 million users of the NewPay mobile application, the purchase volume exceeded the 100 million yuan mark. Of course, this is due to the contributions of NewPay executives and the shareholders behind NewPay.

But this number is still astonishing, because according to NewPay’s internal statistics, more than 10 million users have tried the Yu’E Bao function.

NewPay’s official website released the numbers on the same day. It created a real-time data dashboard on the official website. You can see the total number of Yu’e Bao purchases and the total number of users, using it to stimulate the fragile nerves of friends and merchants.

100 million US dollars and 10 million users not only stimulated financial institutions, but also stimulated Internet companies.

Everyone knew that there was a breakthrough in the field of electronic payment. What we thought before was that this thing is a tool, and with it, we have more say. Now it seems that this thing is not only a tool, but also a cornucopia. Can directly create revenue.

"It's obvious, isn't it? NewPay's advantages are so obvious that we can't even copy their methods." Musk is used to this dilemma, which has appeared countless times in his management of X.com in the past .

Now he is not the one who has to solve this problem. Musk felt relieved when he thought of this. If possible, who would be willing to play the big talker in public?

When NewPay was advertising, Musk discussed Yu'e Bao with Schulman in this office. Now that Yu'e Bao is officially on sale, Schulman invited him over again. Musk is doing things with money and has hired a strategic consultant. money.

Musk looked at Schulman, who felt vaguely older, and felt a little happy in his heart.