Chapter 1952: The Willing Ones Take the Bait

Before Facebook, many people knew that Niklas Zengström, the founder of another popular Internet product, Skype, rushed to Silicon Valley from Denmark and immediately entered the NEXTDOOR campus non-stop.

Less than an hour later, he could not hide the disappointment on his face. Soon, many individuals and organizations knew what happened when he left NEXTDOOR Park.

This gave everyone a lot of room for imagination, because before entering NEXTDOOR, his face was filled with unabashed excitement and anticipation.

In an open park like NEXTDOOR where there are tourists, it is not difficult to find out this information.

Soon, Zenstrom’s assistant was receiving many invitations to meet and visit.

Some of these invitations are from companies that have publicly expressed interest in Skype, such as Yahoo and eBay.

There are also companies that have not publicly expressed interest in Skype before, the representative one is Amazon.

In addition, there are invitations from many institutions and individuals, including some companies and experts engaged in mergers and acquisitions, as well as media, experts and scholars who want to interview him.

However, none of these invitations were followed up. After Zengstrom arrived at the hotel with his accompanying team, he seemed to be staying behind closed doors.

Soon, word spread through the hotel that Zengstrom was holding a meeting.

He rented a hotel conference room with teleconferencing equipment and has been having meetings since arriving at the hotel.

Although only the content in the conference room could not be found out, taking it all together, at least many people had reliable guesses about the person who was going to attend the meeting.

According to information received from some venture capital companies, not surprisingly, the target of Zengstrom’s meeting should be other shareholders of his company, including these venture capital firms.

Based on this speculation, many people can naturally draw a series of conclusions. It seems that this meeting with Feng Yiping not only disappointed Zengstrom, but also put a lot of pressure on him.

But this is really good news for many people.

But then, a piece of bad news came out. Zengström and his party had already booked flights back to Denmark early tomorrow morning.

At this time, the group of people who were still waiting to watch the show immediately took action. In this case, it was no longer easy to wait any longer. It was time for them to get on the bus.

…………

In the Amazon campus in Silicon Valley, Andy Wilke, the head of Amazon's M&A department, the same guy who approached NEXTDOOR and offered $1 billion directly, and then quickly offered $1.5 billion to acquire NEXTDOOR, asked his subordinates again. , "Have you not received a reply to our invitation yet?"

"Yes," the subordinate was also a little helpless.

Now they are not just sending invitations, but going directly to invite them. As a result, their attitude is more clear, "Due to time constraints, the company's founder and CEO, Zenstrom, has no additional meeting plans."

It is this reason that makes them a little unhappy and worried, because everyone knows that time can obviously be squeezed out. If it is not available to you, it does not mean that it is not available in front of other people.

The difference may lie in whether you are a big name and whether you are important enough to others.

Obviously, the current Amazon is not a big enough brand, so generally speaking, it cannot be said to be very important to people.

Because there are obviously more merger and acquisition opportunities in Silicon Valley than in Seattle, Andy Wilke, who is based here, naturally has a deep enough understanding of this situation. They have put forward good conditions more than once before, and the result But it was stopped by other well-known companies with more favorable terms.

Apart from other things, overall, Amazon's stock, which has been losing money, is not as attractive as the stocks of some companies.

Cash plus stocks is the most common payment combination in today's mergers and acquisitions. There are only a few people like Feng Yiping who are only willing to pay cash.

The reason for this is mainly because of the hateful IRS. When they see such a large cash transaction, their eyes immediately light up. The tax bills they then issue will make many people's eyes turn white.

As for stocks, as long as they are not cashed out, the IRS obviously has no way to tax them.

The problem is that your stock must be trending well, otherwise it would be worth $1 million if you got it yesterday, but it would only be worth $997,000 today, which would make everyone even more unhappy.

Andy Wilk only cares about one thing now, "What's over there?"

His subordinates obviously knew which side the "over there" in his words was referring to. "As of now, they have also not agreed to eBay's meeting invitation."

"Oh," Andy Welker nodded, and I felt reassured.

For him, as long as eBay and he are treated the same or suffer the same fate, it will be a sunny day.

…………

On the other side, Yahoo CEO Semel was also receiving direct reports from several subordinates on the matter.

During the period after Chief Yang returned from China, Yahoo reorganized its mergers and acquisitions. As a phenomenal product, Skype ranked quite high on the list of targets that could be acquired.

Yahoo also values ​​Skype's rapidly growing number of users.

This is an era in which even China's state-owned enterprises don't have too many users. Although Yahoo has many problems with large companies, it certainly doesn't have them.

In addition, as for the reason for acquiring Skype, there is another one that Yahoo executives are happy to see: "It will effectively promote the company's expansion in the social field."

Skype is an Internet-based calling software.

Since it is a phone call, it is naturally related to social interaction.

Think about the person who made the chief come back from defeat this time. How good is his Facebook's development momentum now?

This is strong evidence that now is a good time to return to the social sphere.

In this regard, Yahoo is no longer a newcomer. In 1999, they spent US$3.65 billion to acquire the early social networking site GeoCities. Of course, that was also an untimely merger.

GeoCities did not survive the explosion of social networking sites today - in fact, when the Internet bubble burst, Yahoo gave up on transforming it.

"You still declined our invitation?" Semel stood at the window with his hands folded, "What do you think?"

This is also Yahoo's tradition. In order to reduce conflicts, their senior management pursues the concept of "letting subordinates make more decisions". Later results can naturally prove the fallacy of this concept, but Semel and others do not think so at this time.

"I think it is a good opportunity to talk to Zengstrom face to face now, but even if we don't get such an opportunity, I don't think it matters much, because first of all, at least Zengstrom personally, It has shown a willingness to sell; secondly, the final decision-making power for such mergers and acquisitions is mainly in the hands of the board of directors," said an executive.

It means that even if you can't meet Zengstrom this time, it won't have any impact.

"I believe that if they ignore even our invitation, then all other invitations must be rejected," another executive said.

The reason and pride in these words are self-evident. We, Yahoo, are a great Internet company. Since Zengstrom can’t even meet us, how can he still meet you?

"Well," Semel hesitated for a moment, then put forward a suggestion of his own, "even on the board of directors, Zengstrom must have a lot of influence, so no matter what, this is always a good opportunity. , if we can, we still have to try our best, okay?”

He is still willing to adhere to the principles he has always adhered to. The reason why he broke the principles he has always adhered to and directly made such a suggestion is because, as the CEO of the company, he knows more things than the senior executives under him.

Chief Yang is not only unhappy with Alibaba's mergers and acquisitions this time.

That Mr. Feng successfully launched two mergers and acquisitions in a short period of time, while Chief Yang suffered two blows in a short period of time.

After the merger and investment in Alibaba failed, he immediately re-examined the merger and acquisition strategy in the Chinese market. This time, Sina, which they had also been interested in before, was put on the agenda again.

But just when Chief Yang successfully obtained the authorization from the board of directors and was about to launch this merger and acquisition immediately, an unexpected incident completely ruined their plan: another Chinese company, China's largest online game operator, Shanda suddenly announced a few days ago that it had acquired 19.5% of Sina's issued common shares and intended to continue to expand the number of shares acquired - that is, to acquire Sina.

These 19.5 shares were all acquired by Shanda from the open market with cash. It can be seen that they have been preparing for more than a day or two...

That is to say, if you want to acquire Sina now, in addition to the original Sina, you also have to deal with Shanda, which seems to be determined to win Sina and has become Sina's largest shareholder. This difficulty and complexity have increased more than a little.

After weighing the situation, Chief Yang had to give up the merger intention once again.

Semel felt that if possible, Chief Yang, who has been experiencing many disasters recently, should hear some good news.

Subordinates, you look at me and I look at you, "Okay, we will continue to fight for it,"

…………

On eBay, Whitman, whose dark circles were bigger and more obvious than Feng Yiping's, looked quite ugly at this time.

"He is in Silicon Valley, and we also know that he personally supports the sale. Under such circumstances, you will not get the chance to meet with him. Are you sure you are qualified for your job at the moment?"

This is clearly a CEO who is not afraid of conflicts with his subordinates.

Of course, later eBay did not develop well. It can be seen that there is really no one-size-fits-all rule for this so-called management, or corporate governance.

"Whitman, we've tried everything we could, more than any other company, and they still won't agree to meet, so we think this should really be our efforts and not the one thing that can change the outcome,"

"Are you sure you've done everything you can to try?" Whitman stared at the executive who spoke.

"yes, I'm sure,"

"So, do you know which restaurant he's going to dine at tonight?"