Chapter 140 LinkedIn

  The picture tagging function of Facebook was introduced as a big killer, and it immediately captured the love of countless students.

  The new function has an electronic photo album, you can store your own photos, in addition to browsing for yourself, but also to show others.

  You can upload your own life photos, **** photos, anyway, as long as you wear photos of clothes.

  Girls like this feature very much, especially girls with beautiful faces and hot bodies, have a chance to show themselves.

  Boys are also full of praise for this feature, this wave of welfare is good!

  The function of marking friends increases the interaction between friends and quickly spreads this function like a virus.

  Online only a few days, most users have learned about this new feature of Facebook.

  In addition to bringing more page views and users' online time, Facebook's servers have also begun to tighten.

  All these money should be spent. Xia Jingxing was not stingy. With a wave of his hand, he continued to add servers. There was no major financial problem for the time being.

The new feature of   Facebook was launched, and it was naturally targeted by various competitors.

   Plagiarism is enough, and there is no need to bear any psychological burden and legal pressure.

  The image uploading function has been around for a long time, the portal website had it in that era, and the patent is not in the hands of Facebook.

  They changed the details to avoid the problem of infringement.

  …………

  …………

  Xia Jingxing drove a newly acquired second-hand BMW, riding Andrew to the east of Palo Alto.

  The more you open to the east, the fewer buildings will be.

   stopped at an office area near the airport. After parking the car, the two of them walked off.

   "Which small company? The office is so remote?"

Xia Jingxing laughed, "Don't say that. There is an old Chinese saying that goes well: the sky will come to power and be a man What!"

  Andrew was stunned for a moment, and thought hard, but couldn't remember the source of this passage.

   "You are dumbfounded, so you, a Chinese expert, still need to exercise, stop clamoring that you are proficient in Chinese culture."

  Andrew shrugged, feeling helpless.

  "The founder of this company is a member of PayPal. After PayPal was acquired by eaby last year, he became a multimillionaire..."

  Xia Jingxing introduced LinkedIn to Andrew while walking.

   "So rich, so saving?"

   Andrew remembered his grudge, and in turn ridiculed Xia Jingxing: "Dalun, you have to learn from others!"

  Xia Jingxing gave Andrew a look, "We are different!"

   Andrew: "What's the difference?"

  Xia Jingxing:……

  "The development of LinkedIn is much slower than that of us. If we don’t save a little bit, we burn out our funds and can’t get financing. We have to wait and die."

  Xia Jingxing finally did not forget to comment: “Veterans of entrepreneurship like Hoffman understand the importance of the capital chain very much.

  If there are difficulties in the future, for every little money spent today, maybe the company will be able to delay one more day. Dragging and dragging, things ushered in a turning point. "

  Andrew nodded, “That’s right, if I am an investor, I will definitely like this kind of entrepreneur.”

   gave Xia Jingxing a glance and sighed, “As for you, I feel like I’m on the thief ship and can’t get off.”

  Xia Jingxing smiled and said, "We earn a lot and spend a lot, so we can't make generalizations."

  The two joked and came to the LinkedIn company.

  Reid Hoffman stood at the door of the company to greet them like a door god.

   "My friend, you are finally here."

   Hoffman exaggeratedly shouted, as enthusiastic as he had seen an old friend whom he had not seen for many years, and stepped forward to high-five Xia Jingxing.

  Happy as a fat man over two hundred catties!

   Saying that more than two hundred catties did not wrong him, because he had a rough waist and a high belly, as if he was pregnant with Liujia.

  Hair is also very disheveled, wearing a rumpled shirt, the opening is not fastened, and two **** chest hairs ran out.

  Hoffman wearing a pair of black-framed glasses is sloppy, not like a multi-millionaire at all, but more like a dead fat house.

After    and Xia Jingxing finished high-five, Hoffman and Andrew shook hands again and introduced themselves to each other.

  Both of them are very fat, and are about the same age and educational background.

  Hoffman is 36 years old this year, graduated from Stanford and Oxford, and has worked for Apple and Fujitsu.

  Strictly speaking, LinkedIn is his third business venture.

  The second time I started my business was PayPal, and the last time I founded the social networking company Socialnet in 1997, a website that provides online dating and online friend-seeking services, where users can find golf friends and roommates and so on.

  The entrepreneurial thinking is quite advanced, and the business thinking is deviated, which eventually leads to the failure of the entrepreneurship.

  But Hoffman is convinced that social networks contain huge energy waiting to explode, so he founded LinkedIn, and at the same time, he has always been obsessed with investing in Facebook.

   "Let's go, the others are still waiting inside."

  Hoffman led Xia Jingxing into the office.

  After entering the office, Xia Jingxing took a few random glances. The area is small, the decoration is very simple and messy, and the environment is worse than the Facebook office at the incubator base.

  Someone came in, and the three programmers looked up and continued to work.

  At this time, LinkedIn is very small, and there are 8 people in total, including the five founders.

  In other words, 5 bosses, 3 employees...

  Followed Hoffman into the conference room, eight or nine people were already sitting in it, their eyes focused on Xia Jingxing who was walking behind.

   "Let me introduce, this is Darren, the founder and CEO of Facebook."

After introducing Xia Jingxing with a laugh, Hoffman introduced a kind-faced middle-aged man with silver hair and mixed hair beside him, "This is Mr. Josh Kopelman, the managing director of the first round of capital."

  Xia Jingxing is looking at the other side, and the other side is also looking at him.

  "Very good founder, nice to meet you. Recently, I have often heard the names of you and Facebook in Silicon Valley media reports."

  Kopeelman looked kind, smiled and shook hands with Xia Jingxing.

  "It’s also nice to meet you, Mr. Kopelman. I’ve heard of the Infonautics encyclopedia website you founded. It’s been online nine years earlier than Wikipedia."

   was scratched to the itch, and the smile on Copelman's face grew by three points.

  The reason why Xia Jingxing knows the other party is indeed because the other party is very famous. It is not an exaggeration to say that the Internet trend of the last century is too much.

  Founded the profit-seeking encyclopedia Infonautics in 1992, and went public in 1996;

The e-commerce website Half.com established by    was acquired by eaby for 350 million US dollars in 2000;

TurnTide, an anti-spam company founded by   , was acquired by the network security giant Symantec for $28 million in just six months after its establishment.

  Successful entrepreneurship for many times, the transformation to become an investor is also prosperous, and it has repeatedly ranked among the best XX people in global venture capital.

  "This is Mr. Michael Moritz, a partner of Sequoia Capital."

  Another middle-aged white man with glasses, bald hair, and Jobs’s hairstyle stood up with a friendly smile on his face, shook hands with Xia Jingxing, and smiled: “Are you still studying at Stanford?”

   "Yes, Mr. Moritz!"

  "Stanford is a good university. It has come out of a large number of successful Internet entrepreneurs such as Jerry Young and Larry Page."

  After finishing speaking, Moritz looked at Xia Jingxing a few more times, and said with a smile: "When I invested in Jerry, he was 27 years old. You are younger than him, and I look forward to your greater achievements."

  Although Xia Jingxing often brags to surpass Yang Zhiyuan in front of Andrew and others, he is relatively modest in front of outsiders.

   "It's too good, Mr. Moritz."

  Xia Jingxing looked at the legendary investor in front of him with a smile. He was the second-generation head of Sequoia Capital. He was born in history and majored in non-finance/economics. He has been a reporter and writer for Time magazine.

  In 1986, at the age of 32, he joined Sequoia Capital and devoted himself to venture capital, investing in a series of well-known companies such as Yahoo, Google, PayPal, and YouTube.

  The reason why I missed Facebook is entirely because Xiao Mazi ran away.

  Zuckerberg helped his partner and another shareholder Sean Parker to vent his anger. He was deliberately late for a meeting, dressed in pajamas, and played the "Ten Reasons You Shouldn't Invest" PPT.

   After obtaining Sequoia’s investment, he voluntarily gave up, deliberately humiliating Sequoia Capital.

  This is not only the same hairstyle as Jobs, but he was also a friend. Because he wrote a biography of Jobs, he broke the news that Jobs had an illegitimate child when he was in high school.

  The most interesting thing is that this legendary investor called for Silicon Valley to learn from Chinese Internet companies.

  Learn 996, learn to respect women, learn to be frugal...

After shaking hands with the two investors, Xia Jingxing shook hands with their entourage one by one.

  Hoffman introduced Xia Jingxing to his four partners: Alan Blue, Constantine Gullick, Li Xien and Joao Luke Velente.

  These four people are all his former colleagues or classmates, who were pulled by Hoffman to start a business together.

   LinkedIn’s entrepreneurial ideas and initial funding were provided by Hoffman, so Hoffman is the CEO and largest shareholder, and the other four do not occupy the company’s decision-making power.

   LinkedIn itself is also like an international fan company. Among the five founders, there are two Americans, one Chinese American, one French and one German.

  Li Xien is the Chinese American. He has studied at Stanford and MIT. He is Hoffman’s Stanford classmate.

  In 1996, Li Xien founded a website dedicated to building customer relationships for Fortune 500 companies, and sold it to a NASDAQ listed company four years later.

  Compared to Hoffman, these four co-founders are much less famous, and Xia Jingxing doesn’t know much about it, so he sat down after greeting.

  As Xia Jingxing’s lawyer, Andrew shook hands with these people and briefly introduced himself.

  After a while, everyone sat down at the long table in the conference room.

   Hoffman swaggered across the long table and played the PPT.

  I have to say that Hoffman is well versed in the essence of PPT financing, from the pages to the fonts, they are beautifully made.

  It can be seen that this fat man is only rough on the surface, but he is actually very delicate on the inside.

  Because it is a round of financing and the product has been launched, Hoffman no longer talks about various concepts, but talks about data and business models.

   "Sixty thousand members!"

Hoffman generously showed the total number of LinkedIn users, and said with a smile: "As of now, there are only so many registered users on LinkedIn. Don’t think that this data is small. We are still exploring user growth in the early stage. The way, the right way has now been found."

  Xia Jingxing glanced at Kopelman and Baelz, both of them were very calm, their faces were as usual, and they did not express any disagreement.

  Compared to the cold data, it clearly recognizes Hoffman and LinkedIn’s business model.

  Xia Jingxing's previous life has also heard about the user growth dilemma in the early stage of LinkedIn's entrepreneurship. At the end of 2003, when the A round of financing had been obtained, the total number of users was only 78,000.

  Break through one million users, you will have to wait 16 months after going online.

  So, starting a business from zero to one, this step is the most difficult.

  "In order not to affect our judgment on LinkedIn, please tell us what is the correct way to grow users?"

  Baelz spoke, with a faint smile on his face.

  "Wait a minute, please sign this confidentiality agreement."

  Hoffman is a veteran entrepreneur and has extremely rich experience. With a wave of his hand, a co-founder began to distribute non-disclosure agreements to everyone.

  Xia Jingxing took the agreement and showed it to Andrew. The content is not complicated, mainly for investors involved in financing negotiations to keep business secrets for LinkedIn.

   LinkedIn is the disclosing party, and Xia Jingxing and two other investment institutions are the receivers.

  The receiving party shall not directly or indirectly divulge any confidential information by divulging, informing, publishing, publishing, publishing, imparting, transferring or any other means, or using it for purposes other than the proposed cooperation.

  Even if it is an interview with the media, the recipient cannot divulge LinkedIn’s business information at will, unless it has been agreed in writing by LinkedIn.

  If the final financing is not successfully negotiated, the recipient still needs to return all kinds of written or electronic information, materials, and data provided by LinkedIn.

  In addition to these, there are also many provisions, which are classified as confidential, the rights and obligations of both parties have been shown and divided, including the liability for breach of contract, the validity period of confidentiality, etc., which are very detailed.

  This is mainly to prevent financing from failing to talk about success. Instead, the company’s core commercial competitiveness has been revealed.

  Especially in the hands of competitors, that would be too bad.

After everyone signed the non-disclosure agreement, Hoffman calmly began to talk about the topic.

  (End of this chapter)