Chapter 51: An Age Where Creativity Can Be Used as Money
In the conference room.
Facing the negotiation team led by Wendy, they insisted that Yahoo had not yet been profitable.
Milo could see that David Ferro and Jerry Yang's faces had turned noticeably ugly.
Now is not the future.
After the millennium, it was natural for all Internet companies on the planet to lose money.
As long as market share can increase, as long as there are users.
Even if the company loses hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars a year, there are still a lot of people investing money.
But now, a company has been established for almost two years, but still does not have a penny of profit.
It's a bit hard to justify.
After all, before this, there was only one successful example: Netscape.
This is also the real reason why Yahoo is currently unable to stand up straight.
Milo continued to remain silent. The process was not long. It seemed that after the fierce argument at the beginning, everyone's emotions calmed down.
People on both sides also understand that everyone has a bottom line in negotiations, but no one wants to make a compromise first.
Finally, it comes to the issue of dry shares.
Jerry Yang and David Filo did not get the nod from Milo as they did from Sequoia Capital.
Milo did not compromise.
30% is 30%, and David Filo and Jerry Young's hopes of getting more shares were dashed.
"Don't make such a face."
Looking at the two people with gloomy faces, Milo smiled and said: "I will show you some of my ideas. I believe that after you have seen them, you will no longer cling to this small share. It is obvious that Yahoo has a very bright future."
After saying that, Milo signaled Wendy to have someone hand over part of the two prepared creative documents.
Show it to Jerry Young and David Filo.
A few minutes later.
"Oh my god, Milo, you shouldn't be a writer or a director. You should come to our company as a creative director. You have an amazing brain!"
David Ferro looked up, couldn't help but look at Milo excitedly, and exclaimed loudly.
Milo curled his lips in his heart. He invested in Yahoo just for profit.
After Yahoo goes public and its market value reaches its peak, he will sell his Yahoo shares one after another.
Portal websites were indeed very important in the early days of the Internet.
But after most netizens have learned how to use the Internet and search engines have matured.
Few people will continue to use search directory-type portals as their main base for surfing the Internet.
The times are moving forward, and science and technology are becoming more and more advanced.
Today, portal websites are the most advanced things on the Internet.
But in two years it will become a search engine, and in another two years it will become various instant social applications.
Then the era of mobile Internet will come, and even if Yahoo does not fail in various investments, its market value will definitely continue to fall.
Unless...Milo takes over Yahoo and develops Yahoo as his main business.
"Haha, thank you for the compliment. To be honest, no one knows more about creativity than me! However, I prefer to live and work freely and don't want to be confined to one company."
Milo paused for a moment before continuing, "The document mentions an entertainment application, which I call a web game. I have already formed a design team, and it is not difficult to realize it technically. After all, it is just the interaction of some pictures and text content."
"I think, David and Jerry, you should be able to see its value. I don't need to say anything more. I also brought the person in charge of the development team of this web game here today. As long as you can pay the price to impress me, everything in that folder will belong to Yahoo!"
"Oh, by the way, what you got is just a part, the complete version is in the folder."
The entertainment applications and web games that Milo mentioned were actually his own personal products that he wanted to put into Yahoo's website.
He wanted Yahoo to promote a gaming company he had just established.
Yahoo is the world's number one portal website and the website with the most daily visits in the world.
What Milo wanted Yahoo to promote was an online web game called Galactic Empire.
Broadly speaking, online games actually appeared very early.
As early as August 1978, Richard Bartell, a professor at the University of Essex in the UK, and his student Roy Dubshaw, created the earliest delivery game, namely MUD.
However, there was no Internet at that time, and MUD was only accessible to some high-level intellectuals with good conditions.
The golden age of online games did not really appear until 1990-2010 when the Internet became popular.
But before that, stand-alone games were already doing very well.
For example, Blizzard, one of the world's largest gaming IPs, which changed its name from Silicon & Synapses to Blizzard last year, has already launched its "Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness".
The foundation of PC gaming was already developed before the Internet.
This is the real future foundation for the emergence of the online gaming era.
"Of course, you can refuse."
Seeing their faces becoming increasingly ugly, Milo waved his hand nonchalantly, "Then I can give part of it to Microsoft's Surfer. I think Gates III should agree to my investment in terms of ideas and funds."
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When they heard his last words, David Filo and Jerry Yang both looked as if they had eaten shit.
David Ferro, who was responsible for communicating with Milo, kept opening and closing his lips.
Milo knew that this guy was probably cursing himself in his heart.
But he was not angry at all. He still waited patiently with a smile on his face for the Yahoo duo to make a decision.
"Alright! You win... Damn it, we'll talk to Sequoia."
Finally, after David Filo and Jerry Yang discussed in a low voice, the former looked like a duck with its neck pinched, his face flushed slightly, and he said unwillingly:
“But I can’t guarantee success, and I can’t guarantee that Sequoia Capital will agree.”
"It's OK. It doesn't matter if Sequoia Capital doesn't agree. There are so many startups in Silicon Valley now. I don't think pure technical problems are a problem at all. I think what the Internet needs most is creativity and the ability to realize creativity."
Milo smiled: "I think, as long as you explain this clearly, Sequoia Capital will make a wise choice."
In the negotiation just now, Milo requested that if Yahoo wanted to use the ideas given by Milo.
Then Milo demanded that he must be given an appropriate amount of shares.
Of course, Milo has to pay, but the valuation will be based on the valuation when he invested before, not the current super exaggerated valuation of 500 million.
On this basis, the negotiating teams of both sides started a fierce argument again.
This time the quarrel was a bit heated.
Everyone was arguing over a few tenths of a cent of interest, and both sides refused to give in, and there was a tendency for the situation to fall into a stalemate.
As for David Filo and Jerry Young, they have already begun to work with the head of Milo's game company to explore the feasibility of embedding a game section on the Yahoo website.
Milo's creative document proposed embedding games in the website. When the game customer base is large enough, some paid items can be added appropriately.
This is Yahoo's second visible source of profit besides advertising fees.
If this can be realized, Yahoo's listing will no longer be a dream.
The two are no longer indifferent to the issue of share distribution.
Because that's the negotiation team's business.
Jerry Young and David Filo are now eager to start gathering a team to write the code for those creative ideas.
Unfortunately, those ideas don't belong to Yahoo yet.
Finally, the negotiation results were discussed.
If Sequoia Capital agrees, then we will raise funds again in the future.
Yahoo's share ratio will become 60% held by Sequoia Capital and the two founders.
Milo alone accounts for 40%.
An increase of 5% from the original 35%.
(End of this chapter)