Recently, Zhang Chaoyang's advice to young people not to work too hard has gone viral on the Internet. Zhang Chaoyang's original words are like this: It is not easy for young people, that is, do not try to try too hard. If you fight too hard, it hurts, and it may not work, nor may it have a chance. It has to be realistic that the world is unfair.
Seeing this, some readers may ask, who is Zhang Chaoyang?
Baidu founder because of his return to China, Ma Huateng was infected by his infection to start a business, ma Yun who came to apply for a job was rejected by him, this person is known as the "godfather of China's Internet era" Zhang Chaoyang. He went to Tsinghua at the age of 17, sent to MIT at the age of 22, and started a business at the age of 31, from getting the first financing to the NASDAQ listing, less than 4 years ago. Four times the listing bell rings, and it has three listed companies in the United States. His founding of Sohu ushered in China's Internet era, and Sohu was known as the Whampoa Military Academy of the Chinese Internet.
From the Godfather of the Internet who went to the United States to the prodigal son of the world who squandered on pleasure, to the former CEO who advocated altruism and gave lectures on live selling goods, Zhang Chaoyang's glory was far earlier than the current Internet gangsters, but does it mean the arrival of twilight after the glory?
01
Young chivalrous, befriending the five capitals
In 1964, Zhang Chaoyang was born in the family home of a factory in the eastern suburbs of the ancient capital of Xi'an. His father was the vice president of the hospital, and his mother was a pediatrician, which was a well-off family.
Zhang Chaoyang was the eldest in the family, at the age of 17, Zhang was admitted to Tsinghua University as a college entrance examination winner, and at the age of 22, he was admitted to MIT with a scholarship and obtained a doctorate with the 39th place in the country, and then engaged in postdoctoral research in MIT.
In November 1999, Zhang Chaoyang said in an interview with Hunan Satellite TV's "New Youth" column, "People who study physics are very pure, so competition is particularly cruel." To keep comparing, who completed the homework first, who studied the longest, the whole small society only offers you one possibility, so my grades have always been in the top three. When you can't get the first place, you go to winter swimming, the water is really cold. Running around the Yuanmingyuan for five or six kilometers every day is also to prove that I can. ”
The academic dream of becoming a physicist slowly faded into the days in the United States, "In the late postdoctoral period, I already obviously felt that the United States was not suitable for me, and even sometimes felt uncomfortable. Sometimes when I go back to China on a business trip, I feel like the fish is back in the water, free. ”
At the same time, he is ambitious to make a big career, and the open Internet entrepreneurial environment in the United States has ignited the torch in Zhang Chaoyang's heart. At that time in China, Peking University, Tsinghua University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences had just connected to the Internet with the support of the World Bank, and the domestic Internet market could be said to be a blank. Therefore, he decided to return to China to start a business and make a big fist.
In 1996, Zhang Chaoyang returned to China and founded Everland (the predecessor of Sohu).
When he first returned to China, Zhang Chaoyang was the chief representative of the ISI (Institute for Scientific Information) in China, and his main job was to collect and publish economic information in China, to serve Wall Street, and the salary was 1/10, or even 1/20 of those who worked at McKinsey in the United States.
There was no deposit, the only credit card was still in debt, and every day he ate and stayed in the 24-square-meter house. When he founded Sohu's predecessor, Edsin, he was still in a bad situation, with no house or car in China, no so-called high-level relationships, and the disconnection of contacts left him without a source of funds.
"Looking at the round moon outside the cabin window, all thoughts are gray, and I ask myself repeatedly, human beings can lift such a large plane into the sky, why can't I succeed?"
The Internet has just risen in China, he is looking for investment everywhere, in the United States, China and many places, busy every day.
From Nigolo Ponty, director of the MIT Media Lab, and Edward Robert of the Sloan School of Management, he received a $225,000 (actually 170,000)surrogate investment and then registered Atessaint.
At that time, Zhang Shuxin, the first generation of Chinese Internet "martyrs", had registered Beijing Technology Co., Ltd. (the predecessor of Yinghaiwei) in May 1995, because Yinghaiwei was established earlier than "Aitesin", so it is generally believed that China's first Internet company should be Yinghaiwei that disappeared after 2001, but Zhang Chaoyang stressed on many occasions that "China's Internet was opened by Sohu". Zhang Chaoyang felt that Yinghaiwei was "not Internet enough" and not open enough, so he decided to make a website for the final netizens and provide information services for netizens.
02
The flag of the prime of the year embraces the ten thousand men
In 1998, Zhang Chaoyang was able to reach the pinnacle of China's Internet. His company changed its name to Sohu, and in the same year, bill Gates was selected as one of the world's top ten digital heroes, and listed in the United States 2 years later, but then fell into the shareholder game, but soon won the victory and took the initiative through the transformation of the board.
After Zhang Chaoyang succeeded in China, he returned to the United States to persuade many Chinese students with dreams to return to their homeland to start a business, and a young man returned, his name was Robin Li, and after his return he founded Baidu.
In 1998, after Zhang Chaoyang's Sohu was listed, Zhang Chaoyang Chunfeng triumphantly went to Shenzhen to give a speech, the audience was infected by Zhang Chaoyang's enthusiasm for the Internet and passion for entrepreneurship, many young people were excited, decided to do a lot of work, a young man under the stage was encouraged by his words, and went back to do something called OCQ communication software, this young man is Ma Huateng.
In 1999, when the 35-year-old Ma Yun was not successful in Beijing, he deliberately took the opportunity of the interview to meet Zhang Chaoyang once, and Ma Yun was defeated, and Zhang Chaoyang chose another candidate, Gu Yongjun, who became the second executive of Sohu besides Zhang Chaoyang, who was the president and chief operating officer of Sohu.
In 2002, just as China's Internet industry was in a downturn, Sohu took the lead in turning a profit.
In terms of innovation awareness and business capabilities, Sohu's position in the Internet industry at that time was comparable to today's BAT.
03
At that time, the young spring shirt was thin
After that, Zhang Chaoyang has become a representative of the golden bachelor. He only works eight or nine hours a day, luxury houses and yachts, sings at night, goes to bars to sing and attend parties whenever he has time, and frequently appears on various red carpets.
In 2005, he led Sun Nan, Li Bingbing, Gao Yuanyuan and other beautiful women to climb Qizi Peak under the name of "Sogou Beauty Beast Mountaineering Team".
From the network @ invasion and deletion
In 2007, Zhang Chaoyang disappeared from public view, and later explained himself that during that time he had been studying Indian philosophy and studying Krishnamurti.
Many troubled people have tried to seek answers from philosophy, and Hegel has a metaphor for philosophy: philosophy never easily reveals the truth to the world, like the owl of Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, who always loves to wait until the end of an era before quietly appearing in the twilight, shaking its flexible wings. What happened to Charles before 2007? Hurt by work.
"I was a very ambitious person who had studied well since I was a child, and I was at the top of my class and went to the best university in the United States." I read books very well, I am very smart, I can learn,' this is my basic understanding of myself. Of course, after going to the United States, I will also doubt myself in the state of sending people under the fence. This state of affairs during the student years lasted for 10 years. For the past 10 years, I have been seeking to know, prove and affirm myself, until later, when I no longer need affirmation and proof, I entered a state of detachment. ”
Since 2008, Zhang Chaoyang has spent most of his time seeking the "meaning of life", singing night and night, handing over the company to executives to manage, dancing, singing, drinking, climbing, and mixing with entertainment stars, trying to relax himself and believe that he can live to 150 years old. These became his focus, from an entrepreneur to an entertaining figure.
"The problem is that I don't make it my purpose to make a great business, I don't care." In December 2010, Zhang Chaoyang was interviewed by the media and said this when answering whether Sohu could become a great company.
2012, in Zhang Chaoyang's words, was his "saddest" year. Anxiety, depression, and spirit are often in a state of fear that outsiders cannot understand. Zhang Chaoyang believes that the pursuit of the media has made him have some problems with the management after success, and after more than a year of retreat, he has picked himself up again, which also gives him the opportunity to re-examine everything in front of him.
04
The mountain has not been lifted
Zhang Chaoyang, who has a beautiful scenery, first built the Sohu Building in Zhongguancun, Beijing, and then conveniently swam his own game company to the NASDAQ.
On the surface, Sohu is still brilliant; but in fact, in the fiercely competitive Internet environment, Sohu's growth has gradually slowed down and lost its competitiveness.
Sina Weibo turned out to be a world and quickly seized the market, although Sohu heard the sound and moved, but because of the shot a little late, in the end can only look at its back.
In 2008, Sohu became an Internet sponsor of the Beijing A Games, and the whole country watched the advertisement of Sohu on the A-luck, Zhang Chaoyang ushered in a highlight moment, but then he found that after the freedom of wealth, he was too miserable, once suffered from depression, and even ran to his brother's Temple of Famen.
In 2011, Google announced its withdrawal from the Chinese market, Baidu successfully took over the market, all the way up, and Sogou due to strategic prediction errors, the layout was one step slower, and it missed a big piece of fat meat alive.
Seeing himself being overtaken by others, Zhang Chaoyang was depressed again. In 2011, he decided to close for more than a year.
One year in Guanzhong, great changes outside The Guan.
WeChat turned out to be a social user, and Weibo has completely become sina's world.
"WeChat and Weibo, like two slaps to the left and right."
Zhang Chaoyang believes that he has missed at least two big outlets, the first of which is the search engine.
"At that time, keyword searches had not yet appeared, and I was under the pressure of both profitability and board, fully engaged in making portals, and did not realize that category navigation would go to search engines. So Robin Li found me to ask for traffic, and I directed the traffic to Baidu. Give him the traffic, and as a result, give him the opportunity to search for keywords. ”
The second big outlet is social networking.
"I realized that the Internet must be many-to-many, so I paid special attention to the BBS community and bought ChinaRen for $30 million, and as a result, my belief in the community made me focus on blogs and not think carefully about the Twitter and Facebook models. The opportunity for blogs to link to Weibo was eventually given up to Sina. ”
Missed two outlets in a row, what about the sunrise game industry?
Relying on only one "Tianlong Eight Parts" to eat more than ten years of old books, it was crushed by Tencent and NetEase 360 degrees without dead ends. Sohu has also gradually gone into decline since then.
Nowadays, when we look back, let's look at the business empire that Zhang Chaoyang once single-handedly built.
The earliest involved in the news APP, once relying on mobile phone pre-installation to get the first share of the market, but then Tencent made a force, today's headlines suddenly emerged, NetEase and Sina chased after the poor, Sohu fell out of the top three.
In the field of video, Sohu created a precedent for video self-made dramas, but fled halfway with "burning money is not a long-term solution", and now, iQiyi, Youku, and Tencent Video are standing on three feet.
Once Changyou, as the first subsidiary of Sohu to split and list, the market value once fell from $17.5 billion to $500 million, and was finally privatized by Sohu.
Sohu's own market value is now only a fraction of Tencent's.
05
The wind is always blown away by the rain and the wind
Wilde said: "There are two major tragedies in life: not getting what you want, and getting what you want."
For Zhang Chaoyang, he had at least got it.
There is no godfather in the jianghu, and there is no godfather in the jianghu.
Missing the outlet, Sohu's decline, more than a sigh.
"2012 was a stage, and I was still doing a lot of activities at that time. But I'm not serious enough from my bones, a bit of a game life. Doing things requires strong values, but at that time I really did not establish values, it was my fault. ”
"I have crossed several generations: fierce exams in middle school, brutal competition in college, the formation of a spirit of boredom, and the loneliness of foreign subcultures in the United States... I have not always had a strong value, I have experienced a lot of changes and collapses, and people of our time are particularly difficult. ”
For a while, Zhang Chaoyang was also very anxious, so he also suffered from depression, and finally adjusted after a period of retreat. Now Zhang Chaoyang's biggest wish is that he hopes that Sohu will not fall and can pay employees.
Zhang Chaoyang is still that Zhang Chaoyang, and the Internet jianghu is no longer that jianghu. Zhang Chaoyang, can you still eat?
About the Author: Mr.K., the author of the headline "Technology Leadership", went from an ordinary programmer to a unicorn company technology executive. He has published many best-selling books and served as the CTO of many large factories. Sharing: industry trends, workplace experience, team management, business literacy and other topics.
Follow me to see more professional experience and personal growth dry goods.