Chapter 923: The Battle of Mount Hua
May 2, 2000, Yenching International Conference Center.
Because an Internet conference was to be held here, control was implemented here two days ago. In front of the conference center building, conference staff and volunteers came and went in an orderly manner.
It is seven o'clock in the morning and there are still two hours before the conference opens, but the conference staff and volunteers have already been busy for an hour.
Whether outside the conference center, in the courtyard, or inside the conference center, all you see are promotional materials about the Internet conference, and the conference atmosphere is very grand.
Around eight o'clock, guests attending the Internet conference arrived at the conference center by car one after another.
Jack Ma got off the car and chatted with Li Guoqing, who was in the same car, all the way. After getting off the car, the two of them continued to chat.
Li Guoqing runs an e-commerce website Dangdang.com, following Jeff Bezos's path of selling books. Last month, Dangdang.com successfully completed its first round of financing after its establishment, receiving $8 million in venture capital from investment companies such as IDG and Softbank.
So Li Guoqing is now in the limelight. Of course, Jack Ma is not bad at this time either. Both of them entered the field of e-commerce and obtained financing from foreign venture capital. If 8848 is included, these three should be regarded as the three e-commerce giants in China's Internet industry in the early 2000s.
However, above these three companies, there is a big brother, Huicong.com.
Huicong.com is a magical website. When it was first established in 1992, Jack Ma was still an English teacher, Li Guoqing was still dealing in books in Zhongguancun, and Liu Qiangdong had not yet gone to college.
But what makes Huicong.com different from today's three e-commerce giants is that it moved from offline to online. After all, in 1992, there was still the Internet in China, and too much emphasis was placed on offline. This difference is probably the reason why Huicong.com fell into decline in later times.
Jack Ma and Li Guoqing walked into the conference center chatting animatedly. As soon as they entered, they were stopped by the capable security personnel at the door for security check.
The two were slightly surprised. After checking, Li Guoqing muttered to Ma Yun: "This is quite a big deal!"
Ma Yun had a confident look on his face, "If you don't believe me, we'll just have to wait and see."
Li Guoqing complained in his heart, you are really good at pretending.
Although he found it pleasant to chat with Jack Ma, he was still very dissatisfied with Jack Ma's habit of showing off. Compared with Jack Ma, he seemed much more simple.
There is another more important reason why he is willing to chat with Jack Ma. Both of them run e-commerce websites, Jack Ma is toB and he is toC. They can learn from each other and exchange experiences!
The Yanjing International Conference Center is one of the venues in Yanjing City to undertake important conference activities. The atmosphere at the venue today is particularly grand.
Not only are the security measures at the venue extremely strict, but a quick observation will reveal many differences in today's conference.
After Li Guoqing and Jack Ma entered the venue, their seats were separated. After sitting down, Li Guoqing looked around.
The venue was decorated very grandly, but the style was still more business-like, which was very different from government conferences.
Next to him was a young man wearing glasses, who looked gentle and harmless, but Li Guoqing knew that anyone who could enter today's meeting place was definitely not an ordinary person.
He started chatting with the guy with glasses in a low voice, "Little brother, what's your name? What field are you in?"
The guy with glasses was a little shy, and he had dimples on his face when he smiled. "My last name is Ma, and I make instant messaging software."
"Instant messaging software? ICQ?" Li Guoqing asked, slapping his head, "I remember, there is a company in Pengcheng, QICQ, right?"
Ma Huateng felt even more embarrassed and said, "We are now called QQ."
"Yes, yes, yes, look at my memory. Your software is much better than ICQ. Many people in our company have used it."
Ma Huateng is helpless. Can you please stop talking about ICQ?
Li Guoqing had no idea that his words made Xiao Ma unhappy. Even if he realized it, he would not care. As the CEO of a company valued at tens of millions of dollars, he was chatting with the head of a chat software with only tens of thousands of users. Did he need to pay attention to these things?
While Li Guoqing and Ma Huateng were having an unpleasant conversation, Jack Ma was also bragging to the people around him.
"E-commerce is definitely the fastest-growing and most important area of China's Internet in the future. Mr. Lei's foray into this field is a foresight."
Lei Jun's smile was a little perfunctory. He led Kingsoft to enter the e-commerce field and knew a lot about the industry news. Alibaba, which was just established at the end of last year, received a 5 million US dollar investment from a foreign investment institution, which caused a small sensation in the domestic Internet industry.
Lei Jun recalled the news last year and couldn't help but feel envious of Jack Ma. A newly established website could actually get an investment of 5 million US dollars, which was much higher than the valuation of Joyo.com when it was first transformed.
Not only Alibaba, but also Dangdang and 8848 are the objects of Lei Jun's envy. Compared with these peers, Joyo.com's current development speed is not fast, and he has a sense of crisis in his heart.
Specifically speaking of Jack Ma who was chattering nonstop, Lei Jun did not have a good impression of him. He has always been the kind of person who practices more than he speaks. Although he only talked with Jack Ma for a few minutes, he could tell that this man was a man who conquered the world with his mouth, which was completely the opposite of him.
At this moment, Lei Jun had only one thought in his mind: When will the conference start?
Because of the large scale, the guests all entered the venue in advance. They are all practitioners in the same industry, so they had to communicate with each other when they sat together. Although everyone spoke quietly, there were so many people talking that the venue was filled with low-frequency buzzing sounds, and there was no solemn atmosphere at all.
Finally, when it was almost nine o'clock, the host's prompt sounded in the venue, and everyone fell silent. The voice sounded a little familiar.
When someone came on stage, everyone found out that it was Luo Jing, the announcer of CCTV's "News Broadcast". As soon as he opened his mouth, everyone immediately felt that the opening ceremony of the conference had become grand.
After Luo Jing’s opening remarks, he invited out the top leaders attending the Internet conference today, and there was thunderous applause from the audience.
At the same time, many people were looking forward. The conference venue covered an area of over a thousand square meters. Because there were so many participating guests, they were seated in nearly a dozen rows, with a distance of more than 20 meters between the front and the back.
Hearing the leader's name, everyone stretched their necks to look at the stage. Li Guoqing thought of what Jack Ma had said just now. This guy may be a bit boastful, but he is really well-informed about the inside information. A big leader really is attending the event.
The expensive screen on the stage displayed the large words "The First China Internet Conference", and below it were several rows of small characters for the various sponsors, organizers and co-organizers. The least noticeable of them was Sohu, a US-listed company.
Seeing the name "Sohu" put together with so many brilliant names, even if it was just a co-organizer, many colleagues in the audience were envious and their eyes turned red.
Unlike attending political activities, the leader's speech today was full of affinity.
“Comrade Weimin insisted on inviting me to address the conference, arguing that the Internet industry is an emerging industry with huge potential, which will profoundly affect the direction of China’s economic development and greatly change people’s lifestyles.
I agree with his idea.
Since China connected to the Internet in 1995, our country's Internet industry has ushered in a booming development, hundreds of Internet companies have been born, and have made a significant contribution to the domestic economic development.
I joked with him, since the Internet industry is so important, why not hold it in the People's Hall?
Then he thought seriously and told me that our Internet conference should be held as an industry conference with international influence. The People's Hall is too old-fashioned and does not fit the style of the new Internet.
I said, then you shouldn’t invite an old man like me…”
The leader's speech caused laughter from the audience. Everyone was impressed by his approachable manner and were also surprised at his familiarity with Lin Weimin, and that they would actually joke in such an occasion.
Everyone knows that Guowen Group is one of the organizers of this Internet conference, and they have also speculated that they are the initiators of the Internet conference. Now through Zhu Xiang’s speech, it is basically confirmed.
After the leader's speech, the representative of the organizer spoke was the leader of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Although there are rumors in the country that the management rights of Internet companies will be transferred, it has not been transferred after all, so this arrangement is reasonable.
This was followed by speeches from foreign institutions that were invited to attend the conference. Many of the foreign institutions attending the conference were invited by the government.
When it came to the last speaker, the conference scheduled someone to speak: Bill Gates.
As a leading figure in the U.S. technology industry and currently the world's richest man, Bill Gates' appearance on stage immediately aroused enthusiastic response from the audience.
Just now, one of the most powerful people in China came up on the stage, and now one of the richest people in the world has come up on the stage. Together, they have set the standard for this Internet conference.
Many Chinese Internet entrepreneurs who attended the conference were shocked and full of confidence in the future development of the domestic Internet industry.
The Prime Minister and the world's richest man jointly appearing at the Internet Conference represents an endorsement, and represents the importance and support that the country and foreign capital place on China's Internet industry.
As a part of it, everyone present felt honored.
At this point in the conference, the atmosphere reached its climax.
“Finally, I would like to thank Lin for inviting me. He is an outstanding writer and also a visionary and talented entrepreneur. This time when I came to China, I saw that this ancient country is bursting with new vitality, and the emerging industry of the Internet will surely bring a new chapter to China's development.
I sincerely hope that this China Internet Conference will be a success. At the same time, Microsoft and I hope to cooperate with potential Chinese Internet companies to bring new momentum to the development of the world."
Gates' speech was in line with local customs. It lacked the usual passion that Mike Pompeo usually displayed when he gave speeches, and seemed quite conventional.
At the very end, he did not forget to CUE Lin Weimin.
Lin Weimin was sitting in the audience. He did not speak on stage today, but was willing to be a behind-the-scenes hero. Unfortunately, both Zhu Xiang and Gates mentioned him in their speeches, which immediately made him the focus of attention at the opening ceremony.
In fact, even if Zhu Xiang and Gates did not mention him, he would still be an unavoidable topic at this conference.
Anyone with a discerning eye can see that this Internet conference is basically equivalent to the "Swordsmanship Contest on Mount Huashan" in martial arts novels.
Guowen Group is the organizer and initiator of the Internet Conference. It is no exaggeration to say that it will go down in history.
Lin Weimin is the helmsman of Guowen Group and has made great contributions to the convening of the Internet Conference.
Although there are several organizers of this conference, each one of higher level than the other, the role of Guowen Group is irreplaceable.
Without their contributions, there would be no grand Internet Conference today. The greater the influence of the Internet Conference, the deeper the mark left by Guowen Group and Lin Weimin in the history of China's Internet.
At this moment today, the names of the three are deeply linked together, like the bond of fate that is difficult to break.
(End of this chapter)
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