In the "Lenovo Incident", we can most often hear such a statement: "If the Liu family wins, it must be that the power of capital is too strong, which is really sad!"
Maybe that makes sense! But from another point of view, if Sima Daxia and Professor Zhang Jie win, will the people and the masses win? Wouldn't it be the same triumph of capital? Logically, the answer is likely to be the same: it's all a triumph of capital!
Oh, so I guess there are a lot of people who want to scold it!?
Don't get excited, it's just a reasonable speculation that is theoretically quite possible. Let's change the perspective and first study what the essence of capital is, black or white? Is it good or evil? Then go to "association", maybe there will be a different perception.
What is capital? Is there a distinction between black and white, good and evil in capital?
Looking at the definition of capital, it is varied to stand on different positions. Let's use the most common way of saying it now: capital is the principal or property used for investment to obtain profits, and it is a general term for the various socio-economic resources of human beings to create material and spiritual wealth. From here we can see the main characteristics of capital: first, capital is the general term for various resources, including money; secondly, capital is to invest in the creation of wealth, which determines the characteristics of capital's profit-seeking.
If this definition is considered good, it is obvious that capital is neither black nor white, neither good nor evil. Therefore, to say that "capital has triumphed" should itself not be tinged with any praise or disparagement. If there is, I am afraid it is not a question of capital, but a problem of people standing behind capital!
In a sense, people hate capital a lot because of a lack of capital, or because they are swayed by capital and are powerless.
No matter what position you stand on, you usually need the help of capital. No one who wants to succeed can ignore capital and avoid capital, because it can lift you up in an instant or engulf you at any time.
For many ordinary people who lack capital, it is easy to see negative things from capital, for example, some capital manipulates the market to obtain huge profits. But even entrepreneurs who have successfully reached the top often feel great pressure from capital. For example, when I mention "barbarians", I am afraid that many people will think of the "Battle of Baowan".
In 2015, the stock market was turbulent and depressed. Yao Zhenhua, a Baoneng Group that started with various "universal insurances", went against the current, and he continued to hold up Vanke. By the end of 2015, Baoneng Group had held 20.08% of Vanke's shares, becoming the second largest shareholder of Vanke, approaching the largest shareholder, China Resources Group. The other protagonist, Mr. Wang Shi of Vanke, realized Yao Zhenhua's intentions at this time and understood that he was a "barbarian" who wanted to acquire Vanke in bad faith, and the Baowan dispute began. I will not elaborate on the process, after about two years of offensive and defensive battles between the two sides, wang Shi finally invited the state-owned Shenzhen subway as a "white knight" and successfully forced Yao Zhenhua to retreat. However, Wang Shi himself had to quit Vanke and retire early.
In fact, Wang Shi does not reject capital, such as China Resources, the largest shareholder in the early stage, and the deep railway that entered the ownership later, all entered in the form of capital. These capitals are not too involved in Vanke's management, but more through long-term holding of Vanke shares, to obtain benefits from the steady growth of the company. The background of these capitals (all state-owned assets) is to make Wang Shi feel at ease and down-to-earth, let's call it "white capital". And Yao Zhenhua's rapid accumulation of capital by relying on "universal insurance" and the sudden purchase of a large number of shares have brought him a strong sense of insecurity, and such capital has shown obvious speculative and profit-seeking characteristics, and he has regarded him as a "barbarian", and we are also temporarily called "black capital". Here we see that the so-called "black and white" is not directed at capital itself, but at its owners and how they are profitable. Later, when Dong Mingzhu led Gree Electric Appliances faced Baoneng, it also treated Baoneng as a "barbarian".
After the "Baowan Dispute", many Chinese entrepreneurs felt the powerful power and threat of capital and began to prepare their own moats in capital to reduce the risk of hostile acquisitions in the future.
Another event that may be more familiar to ordinary people, the "Li Ziqi" trademark dispute, is also a classic case of the game between capital and entrepreneurs. I won't go into that.
It should be conceivable that in these cases, public opinion is mostly on the side of entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs. In line with the rules of the market, the core goal of capital to pursue profits is not a big problem in itself. However, many times there are still some gray areas in the market rules, leaving room for some capital to use unfair means to obtain huge profits. This can be a big toll on entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs who are really reaping the benefits of continued efforts to create value. Some people metaphorically say: product operation is to climb stairs, capital operation is to do elevators. The former gets rich in one generation, the latter gets rich overnight. This may not be accurate, but it is still closer to the cognition of the common people.
Entrepreneurs are usually not opposed to capital; on the contrary, in most cases they welcome capital. But when capital is completely for the purpose of pursuing profits, there will often be irreconcilable contradictions with the founder team. Here, by the way, one of the important criteria for distinguishing capitalists and entrepreneurs can also be viewed from this point of view: that is, to take the pursuit of profit as the core purpose, or to create more social value as the core purpose.
So in the end, when we talk about the black and white, good and evil of capital, we must study who is standing behind this capital, and see whether it is black or white. Is it good or evil?
Is Lenovo's capital operation not doing the right thing?
If you see the case mentioned above, it should be very easy to understand that the enterprise should engage in some capital operation, which in itself has nothing to blame. The first is to add a capital moat to your own enterprise to prevent it from being attacked by malicious capital in the future. Second, using capital to create capital, accumulate capital, and then invest in the industry you want to do can also achieve the effect of doubling the results with half the effort.
Of course, if you only use capital to pursue profits, I am afraid that it will inevitably be questioned by the public. Now let's take a look at what Lenovo has invested in.
This looks good, it should not be regarded as an unprofessional business, it seems to want to make up for the lack of core technology that has been widely criticized. Of course, it still depends on whether it can eventually be converted into its own leading core technology.
The "association" triggered by capital
After reviewing some of the basic concepts of capital and their main features together, we finally come back to "association"!
In fact, behind the vast majority of hot spots in today's society, there will usually be various capitals standing, including some popular Internet celebrities, who also rely on the power of capital to continue to maintain heat and traffic.
Go research and study what capital stands behind the voices you support, or your opposition, and who is behind the capital? You will often find a lot of "surprises"! It also often triggers various "associations"!
For example, Mr. Sima's fans are very keen to find that there is Lenovo's capital behind a company to which the emotional and vocal experts belong! Lenovo's capital was also found behind the company run by Mr. Liu's son-in-law!
Of course, everyone may pay more attention to the fact that Lenovo and Didi are standing behind a very suspicious American capital! Goldman!
Let's study what the color of this American capital that helped Lenovo acquire IBM and recently assisted Didi to go public in the United States is.
Goldman Sachs was founded in 1869 by German immigrant Marcus Goldman. In 2020, Goldman Sachs ranked 47th on the 2020 Forbes Global 2000 list. Goldman Sachs started in the 1970s for seizing a special big business opportunity. In that era of rampant capital, which can also be said to be a barbaric growth, many speculative capitals were generated, which bought shares of some potential companies that were undervalued by the market through a large amount of money, quickly achieved control, and further obtained huge profits through capital operation (the American prototype of the "Baowan Controversy"). Goldman Sachs spearheaded the banner of "anti-takeover advisor" to help companies that suffered hostile takeovers snipe hostile acquirers. Goldman Sachs suddenly became the so-called white knight. So this capital looks like white?
Without further ado, let's see what Goldman Sachs has done in China. A brief look up:
Goldman Sachs' first specialty is the financing of Chinese companies' overseas and Hong Kong listings: In 1997, China Mobile was listed on the New York Stock Exchange and raised US$4.2 billion; In 2000, PetroChina was listed on the New York Stock Exchange and raised US$2.9 billion; ping An Insurance was listed in Hong Kong in 2004. Raised US$1.84 billion; ZTE raised US$400 million in Hong Kong in the same year; Bank of Communications of China was listed in Hong Kong in 2005 to raise US$2.2 billion; CNOOC's US$1.98 billion rapid filing project in 2006 and Bank of China's US$11.19 billion H-share initial public offering. Of course, there is also the recently noisy Didi U.S. listing.
In addition, Goldman Sachs is the only international investment bank that has participated as the lead underwriter in each overseas offering of sovereign dollar debt by the Chinese government. Large transactions of more than US$1 billion were completed in 1998, 2001, 2003 and October 2004.
And, of course, some of the international M&A cases that we're looking at. TCL's acquisition of Thomson; Lenovo's acquisition of IBM's personal computer division; PetroChina's acquisition of Kazakhstan Petroleum Company and CNOOC's acquisition of oil assets in Nigeria were all planned by Goldman Sachs.
Is such capital black or white? Some experts have analyzed that Chinese companies have suffered big losses in the TCL and IBM acquisitions, especially the TCL acquisition of Thomson, which is a trap set by Goldman Sachs for TCL. In addition, Didi's listing in the United States is obviously very negative! The merits of this, to be honest, if you don't know the inside story, it is difficult to evaluate. However, from the perspective of goldman Sachs' participation in these projects in China, including assisting the government in issuing overseas bonds, it should be of great positive significance.
Well, a brief look at the capital associated with Lenovo, then is there any capital behind Mr. Sima Nan? Some netizens pointed out that the capital behind Mr. Sima Nan is Rao Jinshi - Zhongyi Nette, Nanjing Lisi, April Huawen, which is also the operator behind Li Yi and Jin Canrong. This statement was later inadvertently confirmed by another important behind-the-scenes adviser of Mr. Sima Nan and Li Su of the Junshi clan.
In addition, Editor Hu retired, some people noticed that Hu Editor's account operation was Shanghai Deji Culture Communication Co., Ltd., and some people noticed that Shanghai Washu was behind the Observer Network (the operating company of Chen Ping and Zhang Weiwei), and then some people noticed that their founders were all Chinese-American Li Shimo (is this also American?). ）。 Some netizens who pay special attention to history will find that Li Shimo invested 10 million US dollars in Rao's April network that year. Well, combing through the following with capital, how can it seem that the people who can't beat the eight rods end up looking like a family? As for what the attributes of Rao Jin's capital and Li Shimo's capital are, I have not studied it in depth, and I will not make any evaluations, but leave it to my friends who care about this issue to study and discover.
Frankly speaking, whether it is the capital behind Lenovo or the capital behind Mr. Sima Nan, the above mentioned is only what ordinary netizens can see. In terms of the depth of the mutual penetration of modern social capital, I am afraid that those are only a dime.
We should certainly like the capital that serves the people more, the capital that we can think of as good. And those capitals that only aim at profit, or even those who do not hesitate to harm the fair competition rights of others, will inevitably be spurned, and we can also call them evil capitals. But in fact, capital has no good or evil, the world of capital operates according to its internal laws, and any capital that obeys the rules should be respected.
The Lenovo incident has brought everyone a lot of thoughts, among which the power of capital is also a theme of great concern to everyone. The so-called "triumph of capital" should be a reasonable result in the final analysis, because the penetration of capital into modern society has reached the level of almost every pore. There is no need to blame this, but we should really pay attention to what kind of attribute forces are behind different capitals, and what is their main purpose? Is it black or white? Is it good or evil?