Chapter 315 Visitors From the Genting Casino King's House
Li Xiaofan knows that the current development speed of Yahoo has pressed the "fast forward button", and the biggest credit for this must be Lao Suntou of SoftBank Group!
Before Li Xiaofan left San Francisco and returned to Singapore, Son was still staying in the Bay Area. As a major shareholder, he urged the Yahoo team to work hard.
Lao Suntou is going to make a big bet on Yahoo!
If Yahoo launches the Yahoo! Mail plan on December 1, it will leave its two rivals Lycos and Excite far behind.
The current Internet browsing and search engine world is mainly dominated by three companies: Yahoo!, Lycos, and Excite.
Among them, the Excite company was founded by 1hitext, founded by six Stanford alumni of Jerry Yang. In October of this year, Architext relaunched Project Excite, a web search engine that can already index 1.5 million web pages. Excite will do more business than Yahoo, selling millions of dollars in advertising sponsorships soon after the new website goes online.
In a previous life, Excit was listed on Nasdaq a few days before Yahoo in April 1996. Revenues in 1998 exceeded $150 million. Later in March 2004, Excite was acquired by Ask-Jeeves (later Ask.) Network.
Another Lycos company's website was launched on April 13, 1995, and developed rapidly. It is now one of the more popular portals and search engines, and is Yahoo's biggest competitor.
Lycos was first born in 1994 at Carnegie Mellon University in the United States as a search project created by Dr. Mike Martin. The Lycos search engine at that time was used in the school's digital library project. "Lycos" is the abbreviation for a type of wolf spider in the family Lycosidae that is very good at catching prey.
In a previous life, the company was also listed on Nasdaq before Yahoo went public in the first quarter of 1996. In 1999, it became the most visited portal website in the world...
In fact, before investing in Yahoo, Masayoshi Son had already spent a lot of money to research the three largest online search engine projects in the current market, and finally came to the conclusion: Yahoo's technology is the most powerful!
Masayoshi Son has a famous saying that is widely circulated in the investment circle: If you don’t accept my investment, I will invest in your enemies!
In the primary market, it is a matter of "you and I" for startups to accept funds from investors. However, in SoftBank's case, it has become: In one transaction after another, Masayoshi Son asked for face-to-face communication with the entrepreneurs. They are encouraged to accept more money than needed and to "wield the checkbook" as a weapon. In the process, his growing influence unsettled his opponents.
In a previous life, in 2017 Didi founder and CEO Cheng Wei tried not to accept investment from Masayoshi Son. Cheng Wei told Son that he did not need cash because Didi had already raised US$10 billion. But Sun Zhengyi told Cheng Wei, if you don’t accept my investment, I may invest heavily in another major competitor of Didi directly. As soon as this statement came out, Cheng Wei's attitude softened and he finally accepted SoftBank's investment.
Then Masayoshi Son repeated his old tricks. He publicly warned Uber that if the deal he wanted could not be reached, he would turn to support his long-term competitor Lyft. Later, Uber also announced that it would accept a US$9 billion investment from SoftBank...
Therefore, it was originally a voluntary investment between you and me. In the eyes of startup companies, venture capital should have played the role of "Tiantian", but in SoftBank's case, it is completely an "alternative overbearing president" style: Yes, You read that right, my old grandson not only thinks highly of you and wants to give you money, but I also don’t allow you to refuse it!
The current situation is the most promising for Li Xiaofan. After he received the news about Yahoo’s free email plan, he asked Pan Zhanlong to contact the Yahoo team in the United States. After December 1, users on the Yahoo Singapore site can also Share this free email service from Yahoo USA.
In the afternoon, after Li Xiaofan listened to Wu Xiumei, the head of Mingzhou Industry and Trade Company, through an international long-distance phone call, he reported on the recent renovation of the eight-acre headquarters base on Xihe Street. Daisha knocked on the door and came into his office to report:
"Director Li, I just received a cruise company headquartered in Hong Kong. They came to handle the advertising business of the Singapore Yahoo station. After listening to my introduction, their person in charge wanted to meet you, the boss, by name. Is it convenient?”
"Oh, which cruise company is it?" Li Xiaofan asked curiously.
Daisha presented the business card in her hand: "It is a cruise company belonging to Genting Hong Kong Co., Ltd., the brand is Star Cruises..."
Li Xiaofan was surprised when he heard about Genting and Star Cruises. This is the property of the famous Genting gambling king in Southeast Asia!
"Okay, then I will go with you to the conference room to meet them now!"
Li Xiaofan tidied his clothes, picked up a few business cards and followed Daisha to the company conference room.
In the conference room, Li Xiaofan met Zhao Lixuan, director of marketing department of Singapore Star Cruises, who wanted to see him by name.
"Hello, Director Zhao, I am Li Xiaofan!" Li Xiaofan handed over his business card.
After Zhao Lixuan took Li Xiaofan's business card, she looked at Li Xiaofan and smiled, "Hello, Mr. Li. I have seen reports about you and your entrepreneurial projects in the newspapers several times. Today, I see that you are indeed a talented person!"
"Director Zhao, you are too kind. We are a small company, and your Genting Group is well-known!"
"Haha, our Genting Group is very large. However, our group is still mainly based on traditional industries. Now that we have entered the Internet era, we still have to learn from you. I hope that we will have the opportunity to work closely together!"
"No problem. It would be our honor to have the opportunity to cooperate with Genting Group and Star Cruises. I wonder if Director Zhao has any instructions?" Li Xiaofan asked with a smile.
"Director Li, do you know our Star Cruises?" Zhao Lixuan asked.
"I know a little bit, but not very clearly..."
"Okay, let me briefly introduce our Star Cruises to you. Our Genting Hong Kong Limited was established in September 1993. It operates cruise tourism business in Asia under the Star Cruises brand. Our company's chairman and president, Mr. Lim Kok Thay, previously worked for Malaysia's Genting Group..."
Hearing this, Li Xiaofan smiled: "Mr. Lim Kok Thay should be the second son of Mr. Lim Goh Tong, the founder of Malaysia's Genting Group, right?"
"Yes, that's right! It seems that Mr. Li, you know our chairman Lim Kok Thay very well. Two years ago, with the support of Mr. Lim, our chairman Lim Kok Thay invested a huge amount of US$160 million to purchase two high-end luxury cruise ships originally booked by a Swedish company, creating a new chapter in the history of Asia without luxury cruise ships before!"
In his previous life, Li Xiaofan had been to Genting Highlands in Malaysia several times and bought the book "My Autobiography" by Lim Goh Tong at the Genting Casino.
In his autobiography, Lim Goh Tong wrote: Some people say that the times create heroes, and some people say that heroes create the times. For me, it is important to be able to seize fleeting opportunities and make use of them, whether in war or peace. The reconstruction of Malaya and Singapore after World War II brought me my first breakthrough business opportunity. During the long years of developing Genting, I have been in danger many times and almost lost my life. Fortunately, I was able to turn danger into safety and escape disaster every time...
Malaysian former Prime Minister Mahathir once commented: Lim Goh Tong never bowed to difficulties. He always faced challenges with iron will and perseverance, which enabled him to successfully establish a great cause for generations to come.