1999 is known as the craziest year for the internet.

Starting from the end of February, various websites under the Wujiang Group successively announced successful financing, with an interval of almost less than 10 days.

Each successful round of financing caused a sensation around the world.

Countless people are envious and jealous of this; one round of financing can yield at least a billion US dollars, and a simple cash-out can achieve financial freedom!

Spurred by this, more and more people flocked to the internet industry like madmen, causing the internet bubble to inflate ever larger.

In Silicon Valley, even supermarket clerks and sanitation workers talk about starting their own businesses, developing websites, and then seeking investment to get rich overnight.

The dazzling array of ideas is overwhelming. In the US, thousands of investment companies, large and small, have been blinded by this false bubble. Many people have only an idea and haven't even written a single line of code, yet investment companies still dare to invest in them.

It's hard to imagine that almost 99.99% of websites are constantly losing money, yet they are still highly favored by investment companies.

In the words of the investment company, they are optimistic about the website's future development and are not currently considering profitability. As long as the traffic is high, they will be able to monetize the traffic sooner or later.

This seems to be a tacit consensus in the internet industry and investment field.

It is precisely because of this "excuse" that... investment companies don't care whether your website can make money or not; they only look at traffic. If there is traffic, they will invest. And website companies, in order to get money from investment companies, will keep advertising, because advertising will increase traffic, and then they can continue to ask investment companies for money.

Many websites have to keep burning money in order to gain traffic, which has almost created a vicious cycle.

Wujiang Group's various websites have repeatedly broken revenue records.

Because Wujiang Group controls internet traffic entry points, such as portal websites, browsers, navigation websites, e-commerce platforms, social media, search engines, and gaming platforms, other websites that want to advertise will first contact Wujiang Group.

The better the websites under the Wujiang Group perform, the more investment companies and people will enter the internet industry, thus inflating the bubble even further.

Until the bubble bursts, countless websites go bankrupt and close down, and Wujiang Group's websites lose a large number of users, they will also be brought back to reality.

By May, more than a dozen websites under the Wujiang Group, including Alibaba, Amazon, Taobao, Pandora Music, Rotten Tomatoes, and Netflix, had successfully secured funding, raising a total of more than $20 billion.

They had just completed the financing and immediately began the IPO process, determined to get all these websites listed on NASDAQ before 2000.

By early 2000, major internet companies worldwide would be releasing their financial statements, and good heavens, these statements would be absolutely appalling. A single misstep could cause the dot-com bubble to burst. The dot-com bubble of the previous era burst largely for this very reason.

The current dot-com bubble is far more severe than it was in the past.

However, no one would be foolish enough to release news that is detrimental to themselves this year. In short, they should try to hold on for one year at a time and take the opportunity to scam some investment.

...

...

Wujiang Building.

Conference room at the headquarters of Wujiang Group.

Zhao Ye called a meeting with all the key personnel from the internet companies.

After everyone had arrived, Zhao Ye took his seat at the head of the table and began to speak: "So far, our financing plan has been completed, and the next step is to launch the IPO. Right now, the internet bubble is extremely serious. I predict that when major internet companies release their financial statements early next year, they will be disastrous, which may lead to the bursting of the internet bubble! Therefore, everyone should be mentally prepared for an internet winter!"

As soon as Zhao Ye finished speaking, no one was surprised.

It is a consensus that the internet industry has created a huge bubble, which could burst at any time.

Zhao Ye continued calmly, "Therefore, before 2000, all the major internet companies under the Wujiang Group must complete their IPO plans. As long as we have money on hand, even if the dot-com bubble bursts, we can still persevere!"

"However, starting this year, everyone should consciously stop blindly expanding in order to reduce the losses caused by the bursting of the internet bubble."

"Yes, Chairman Zhao!!!" Everyone nodded in response.

Zhao Ye added, "When the internet winter arrives, the strong will weed out the weak, and most websites will be eliminated. After the winter, the internet industry will eventually see the dawn!"

"Chairman Zhao, the company has so much cash on its books, what should we do now?" someone asked.

Zhao Ye laughed upon hearing this, "Blind expansion is not advisable, but we can spend money on technology development! Many project developments are quite expensive, so feel free to spend money like crazy in this regard! I hope that when we release our financial statements at the beginning of 2000, they will be just as disastrous as those of other companies..."

After a pause, Zhao Ye added, "Ahem, the worse the better. This will definitely cause the stock price to plummet, which will benefit the company in repurchasing shares on the stock market!"

When it comes to being miserable, who can be more miserable than me?

Isn't it normal for us to spend hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars on scientific research?

Artificial intelligence and machine learning, cloud computing, blockchain technology, edge computing, deep learning, virtual reality, augmented reality...

Zhao Ye had originally planned to develop these cutting-edge technologies, so he simply took this opportunity to spend the funds he had raised, deliberately causing the company to suffer serious losses, and then repurchase the shares at a low price.

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