A few days ago, a symposium on the 30th anniversary of the development of China's Internet was held.
This was a united conference, Ma Huateng, Lei Jun, Lei Jun and others all went, and Zhou Hongyi also went. At this conference, Zhou Hongyi shook hands with the above-mentioned specially listed bigwigs three times, creating a lot of famous scenes of traffic carnival. The hot search also came appropriately. And each handshake is like a mirror, reflecting a magnificent past of China's Internet.
and Ma Huateng "laughed and feuded"
The first thing that came out was a short video posted by Zhou Hongyi himself, he said, "I saw my old friend Ma Huateng again, and Ma Huateng praised me for being an Internet celebrity The short video was good." This video footage of only 10 seconds shows that Zhou Hongyi took the initiative to stretch out his hand to Ma Huateng and said, "Thank you Mr. Ma for your support to me on the video account." Ma Huateng responded jokingly, now that he has become an anchor, and pointed to his red T-shirt and said, "This is the red of Internet celebrities."
The implication is that Ma Huateng knows that Zhou Hongyi has spared no effort in the past half a year: entrepreneurs must learn to be Internet celebrities. Although some people distort that Ma Huateng refers to "Hong" as "red", but this is not the most important thing, everyone knows that the two sides have a deep relationship, and this handshake can be regarded as "a smile and enmity".
The most memorable thing is the past 14 years ago, which originated from the business entanglement between Qihoo 360 and Tencent, which is called the "3Q War" in the industry.
During the Spring Festival of 2010, Qi Xiangdong, then president of 360, made an urgent call to Zhou Hongyi, who was on vacation in Hainan, and told him that the QQ doctor of Tencent's 360 security guard had begun to forcibly tie up on the PC.
Subsequently, Tencent made another raid, announcing "a difficult decision" to users across the country through QQ pop-ups: it must choose between 360 Security Guard and QQ, and Tencent QQ and 360 Security Guard are no longer compatible. At that time, QQ and 360 Security Guard were the first and second desktop client software in China, respectively. At the same time, Tencent also reported Zhou Hongyi to the Shenzhen Public Security Bureau for "sabotage of computer information systems".
Zhou Hongyi once lamented that people who do the Internet will inevitably encounter three unavoidable problems: "life", "death" and "Tencent". At that time, Tencent's style of play was closed and barbaric, but any product that was targeted would soon be copied and plagiarized, and the original product could only be replaced and died.
The situation that 360 encountered at that time, in what he later recalled, "The functions of QQ Doctor and 360 Security Guard are highly overlapping, and even the interface is very similar." If this continues, it may not take a single Lunar New Year holiday for all the security clients on all PCs to be replaced by QQ Doctor, and the business model that 360 has spent years figuring out and the users it has painstakingly accumulated through free will be ruined in a short period of time. ”
In this case, Zhou Hongyi is no longer willing to be tough with Tencent, and must take measures to deal with it. The dispute lasted for 4 years and involved hundreds of millions of Internet users. In the end, a settlement was reached under the mediation of the relevant departments, and it became the "first Internet anti-unfair competition case".
Looking back from God's perspective now, Zhou Hongyi changed Tencent with the vigorous penetration of the original "red cannon", urging Tencent to move from "closed" to "open", and finally became a company with "no dreams". This has also objectively rewritten the pattern of the Internet: 2011 is also known as the "first year of China's Internet openness", and companies such as Alibaba and Baidu have also moved towards an open ecosystem.
There is another detail in the confrontation between Ma Huateng and Zhou Hongyi: in October 2010, the "3Q war" reached the most intense juncture. On his way to work, Zhou Hongyi received a call from the company's executives, asking him to quickly avoid the limelight. Zhou Hongyi immediately flew out of Beijing when he heard the news, and he didn't even dare to attend the company's listing kick-off meeting. If it is modeled on the interpretation of Zhang Huiti's novel, that is: Ma Huateng went north to arrest people, and Zhou Hongyi went out of Beijing halfway.
This paragraph has been described in Zhou Hongyi's semi-autobiography, and the paper description is a little bland, but the thrilling reality of the business war is no less than any Hong Kong police film. When he looked back later, Zhou Hongyi said, "The real problem is not to have great dreams, but to wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night and find that the dream has become a nightmare." After shaking hands with Ma Huateng this time, Zhou Hongyi's sleep may also be more sound.
Lei Jun did not make an appointment, nor did he send a car
The most interesting thing is the handshake between Zhou Hongyi and Lei Jun. According to him, communicate with his old friend Lei Jun. Mr. Lei asked, are all the people who come down from the 360th floor to deliver the car lined up, and are they dazzled? Zhou Hongyi said that they are all supported by friends and old friends in the car circle, and everyone is learning marketing from Xiaomi. After the two Hubei fellows finished greetings, Zhou Hongyi asked the key question: Xiaomi SU7 is so popular, do you want to give me a copy to experience?
Here I need to explain the background, in the past six months, Zhou Hongyi, who can't drive, has been racing on the Internet celebrity road. Before the symposium, he posted a video claiming that he would sell his Maybach and replace it with a domestic new energy vehicle. Tang Chen has seen this car that has been with Zhou Hongyi for 9 years and is now waiting for the price, with a shiny body and a spacious back seat, which is very suitable for him to beat eggs and shoot short videos.
As soon as this topic came out, it was like dropping a traffic bomb in the car circle. The boss wants to change cars, and 360 is located downstairs in the headquarters of Jiuxianqiao 798, which is full of star models from major manufacturers. Xpeng X9 arrived the fastest to hear the news, and successively more than 20 new energy vehicle brands such as Weilai, Huawei Wenjie, Xiaopeng, Zeekr, AVATAR, Mengshi, Nezha, Kia, etc., the car arrived to the person, and the car was also handed over if it did not arrive.
In particular, the ideal MEGA, which has a mixed reputation, sent two cars with a generous attitude, one gray and one red, parked neatly. all want Zhou Hongyi's wave of traffic to fall on their own products. Subsequently, Internet celebrities of all sizes also came. The scene is lively, enough to be included in the "360 special" before the Beijing Auto Show, also known as the "798 Auto Show".
Zhou Hongyi's sense of smell is never bad, and 360 has one more Xiaomi SU7 parked downstairs, which can be called another layer of plug-ins to consolidate his status as an Internet celebrity. But Lei Jun politely refused. He said that you can't drive, you will only sit in the back seat, which is not suitable. The Xiaomi SU7 is designed for users who are looking for driving pleasure. For a while, Xiaomi SU7 was complained that the backseat space was too small. The shrewd Lei Jun will naturally not give people a handle on this issue anymore. He also pushed his next-generation products by the way, and said to Zhou Hongyi that he would recommend it when Xiaomi made the SUV version.
In fact, the atmosphere of communication between Zhou Hongyi and Lei Jun is not always so friendly, and the "grievances" between the two are only a few points weaker than that of him and Ma Huateng's Liangzi. In 2012, Xiaomi mobile phones are becoming popular. In May of that year, Zhou Hongyi posted 8 Weibo posts in a row to question the hype of the Xiaomi mobile phone water army, and said that the hardware configuration of the 1999 yuan Xiaomi mobile phone was not as good as the 1499 mobile phone of 360, which opened a "small 3" war.
During that time, Weibo became the main battlefield of the struggle between the two sides. According to media statistics, as of June 26, 2012, Lei Junlian had posted a total of 34 Weibo posts, and 29 of them had the words "Mr. Zhou" or "Boss Zhou", while Zhou Hongyi's 35 Weibo posts were almost all related to Lei Jun or Xiaomi. Among them, Lei Jun compared Zhou Hongyi to "undefeated in the East", accusing Zhou Hongyi of hype and using plagiarism to make smartphones.
The war of words between the two sides even led to a paragraph of "Zhou Hongyi's appointment with Lei Jun". Zhou Hongyi shouted to Lei Jun, ask you to meet and talk, and see you at the gate of Chaoyang Park at ten o'clock next Monday morning. Xiaomi's first authorized biography "Indomitable" is recorded as follows: Lei Jun not only personally faced the battle on Weibo, but also deployed the appointment incident, stepped on the point, and carefully explored the position and evacuation route. In Lei Jun's heart, he is really ready to do a big job. But in the end, the appointment couldn't be settled.
Zhou Hongyi and Lei Jun are well versed in the way of taking advantage of marketing, and "making appointments" are all for business. Zhou Hongyi later also said that he was very emotional in doing things, and he was very involved after scolding, "It's true that everyone is in a hurry, and some things are said more ruthlessly." At the 2015 Wuzhen Internet Conference, a photo unexpectedly became popular, it was Lei Jun "staring" at Zhou Hongyi, who was napping, and his eyes were full of stories.
This time, after Zhou Hongyi "failed to ask for a car" for Lei Jun, some netizens urged Lei Jun to send a car to Zhou Hongyi, and the delivery location must be at Gate 5 East of Chaoyang Park. The "old stalks" are mentioned again, and their hands are clenched, which are two scenes, but their "good show" in the new energy vehicle track is being staged.
Compete with Zhang Chaoyang for the first Internet celebrity?
Zhou Hongyi also posted a photo of shaking hands with Zhang Chaoyang, and the greetings of the big guy were also unpretentious, joking or gagging, no different from ordinary people. Zhang Chaoyang is a well-known and good person in the Internet circle, but the "gap" between Sohu and 360 is not small. One of the biggest thunder points is Wang Xiaochuan and Sogou.
In 2010, Google withdrew from China, and the domestic search market ushered in a new round of reshuffle. At the critical juncture of the negotiation of 360's purchase of Sogou, Wang Xiaochuan went directly to Hangzhou and pulled $15 million in investment from Ma Yun, and Sogou was separated from Sohu and became an independent company. Wang Xiaochuan followed the three-stage rocket mode of "input method + browser + search" to open up the living space for Sogou. This trick was later reused by Zhou Hongyi, which was very good.
Three years later, Zhou Hongyi planned to acquire Sogou again, and Zhang Chaoyang was moved. Some media mentioned that in order to prevent the recurrence of Wang Xiaochuan's old tricks, Zhang Chaoyang called him to return to the company immediately. On the way back to the company, Wang Xiaochuan called Ma Huateng. The two talked for more than 40 minutes on Wang's way back to the company, and Wang Xiaochuan persuaded Ma Huateng. As a result, Tencent invested $448 million in Sogou and transferred Tencent's Sosou business and some other assets to Sogou. This also laid the groundwork for Tencent's acquisition of Sogou.
Zhou Hongyi missed Sogou twice, and also thwarted his dream of single-handedly competing with Baidu in the search market. As for the later "3SB War", it is another chapter in the process of Zhou Hongyi and Zhang Chaoyang. In this process, Zhou Hongyi left a sentence: "Only then did I know that Sogou's surname is Wang and not Zhang." Murder and heart.
The borderless war of the Internet bigwigs has never gone beyond the script. But these all came to an end with Sogou being eaten by Ma Huateng, digested, Wang Xiaochuan was out, and only Sogou input method was left. But the duel between Wang Xiaochuan and Zhou Hongyi has once again opened up on the large-scale model track.
Don't mention the old things, at present, Zhou Hongyi and Zhang Chaoyang are still good friends. But the new story of the two may be the "battle for the first Internet celebrity": needless to say, Zhou Hongyi's current traffic aura is bleaker than Lei Jun's. In the past two years, Zhang Chaoyang has lived more transparently, lecturing, running, live broadcasting, and continuing to move forward with Sohu on the Internet celebrity road. At present, "Zhang Chaoyang's Physics Lesson" has been broadcast live for more than 200 episodes, which not only popularizes physics knowledge, but also drives the rise of knowledge live broadcast.
In the latest series of interviews "30 Years of China's Internet in the Eyes of Zhang Chaoyang", Zhang Chaoyang said that I am the first Internet celebrity in China. He also said that at that time, my fame surpassed the Internet, and among the fame of the whole people at that time, my fame was already quite big. In today's words, Zhang Chaoyang is also the first person to go out of the circle on the Internet in China.
The traffic on the Internet is large enough to accommodate two super influencers. But for the duo, they re-entered the same river after many years. The four words that the outside world often describes Zhang Chaoyang are also applicable to today's Zhou Hongyi, that is: live transparently
Hao Daxing of Planet Business Review said that for the hot search incident on Zhou Hongyi's online car sales, everyone generally commented that he and the car company had achieved a win-win situation. I can't imagine what you can win by giving so many cars to a boss who doesn't know how to drive without a driver's license.
Hao Daxing is still small. Zhou Hongyi recently sighed: "(I) am getting better in my temper, people are getting older, hormone levels are declining, and I obviously look at people a lot softer now, and many things are transparent." Earlier, he also said that the most important thing for people is to keep up with the times.
In Tang Chen's view, Zhou Hongyi, who knows the destiny of heaven, used the car as a medium, and through three handshakes, he used the traffic to wash the former enemies into "old friends", which naturally included Wang Xiaochuan, Fu Sheng and Li Yanhong and other bigwigs. The tough "red-coated cannon" also stayed in the past, and this was the best reconciliation he had with himself. On the other hand, there are no permanent enemies in the business world, and they can all be friends in the face of time.
I'm Tang Chen, and I'm interested in Internet technology and business stories. Original content, without permission, please do not reprint.
"Tang Chen Dougaku"
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