Ten years ago, after resigning after rejecting Microsoft's offer to buy Yahoo at a high price, Mr. Yang has rarely appeared and given media interviews.
However, not long ago, he appeared rarely in the 996 Podcast of The GGV English Podcast platform of Jiyuan Capital. We recorded some of his thoughts.
<h1>Yang Zhiyuan talked about Sun Zhengyi</h1>
Speaking about the Son Justice and Vision Fund, which is on the rise of the American world, Yang said:
"I think Son Zhengyi is like the first day I met him, he is the most stubborn, tireless, constantly spurring himself and the people around him. He also likes to bet, and it's a big bet. Yahoo was fortunate to be one of his early successful investments, but he also had a lot of failed investments, but he wouldn't let those failures get in the way, he would just start over and try harder. I think what the Vision Fund has done is for him to achieve what he's always wanted to do, which is to 'be an influential investor.'" Investors are passive, we can pat the table, but entrepreneurs can't listen, but Son Zhengyi because of his check, platform, he wants to build a very clear platform around AI, IOT, cloud, he thinks he can use the power of his capital to build the next generation of corporate platform. I think Son Zhengyi doesn't just want to be a passive investor, he has a clear goal, the companies he invests in grow and then sell, he wants to have an impact on those companies, he wants to lead the way, this is a very bold bet, but this is Son Zhengyi. ”
Compared with most people in the U.S. venture capital circle, Yang May know Son more.
This is because SoftBank was once a Yahoo shareholder, and Yang also worked with Son Zhengyi on Yahoo Japan.
According to Yang Jerry, Son Zhengyi was a late investor before Yahoo's IPO, at that time, Son Zhengyi's investment condition was to let Yang Start Yahoo in Japan, but Yang did not want to, because Yahoo was still small at that time, and the US market was already busy enough for him.
"But Son was very persistent and powerful, and in the end we agreed." Yang said: "After that, Son Zhengyi gave us some outstanding executives and even sent his brother to help. So we actually launched Yahoo Japan a year before we met Jack Ma (1996), but the process was really difficult, but it was also through Yahoo Japan that we saw this opportunity and success in entering the market first. ”
A year after launching Yahoo Japan with Son, in 1997, Mr. Yang met Jack Ma.
<h1>Son Zhengyi talks about Ma Yun and Zhou Hongyi</h1>
According to Yang Jerry: At that time, he thought Ma Yun was very interesting and was attracted by Ma Yun's strong curiosity about the Internet, and Ma Yun spoke English fluently, but people had never been abroad, which made Yang Feel very unusual. He believes that Ma Yun's inner state in 1997 is already clearly an entrepreneur.
He then talked about Zhou Hongyi and a story that had almost been forgotten by the Chinese internet, "Yahoo China"
Here, we need to go back to history and look at it first:
At its peak, Yahoo had done global expansion, but outside the United States, only Japan and Taiwan succeeded, and Chinese mainland including South Korea, did not develop well. Because of the success of the Taiwan model, In 2004 Mr. Yang wanted to buy a mainland company to boost performance. He chose 3721, and in 2003, Yahoo acquired 3721, and Zhou Hongyi took the position of head of Yahoo China.
According to Jerry Yang recalled:
"The challenge we had in China at the time was that if we met with government officials, the answer was that we weren't quite sure if Yahoo would continue to operate, and we might even say, 'You know we're going to have this rule next year, and you could break it.'" "They advised us not to do media and information business in China. And if we're going to quit, we want to work with the kind of people we think are going to be winners, and that's 3721. ”
"In China, there was a particular need for someone who knew how to operate locally, so we acquired 3721 and acquired the entire management team by acquiring Hongyi next week. Of course, Zhou Hongyi is very bold and aggressive, and he really thinks that he is a maverick. (That was pretty much a decade ago, though.) He's really a maverick guy, so I'd say I had this experience with him, and I was kind of challenged by his point of view, which is that as a subsidiary of a big American company... some of his play on the Chinese market, he really can disrupt the market, and he did. I learned a lot from him. ”
To be sure, Zhou Hongyi did a good job at Yahoo, and Zhou Hongyi's localization strategy has put Yahoo's search business ahead of Google in China. At that time, Yahoo and Baidu were only a few percentage points apart in terms of market share in the search field.
But later, why did Zhou Hongyi leave? After that, there were many versions in the Chinese Internet circle and the press, such as the original 3721 team believing that Yahoo China was too restricted by Yahoo's US headquarters in terms of business decision-making power and use of funds, and missed the opportunity to catch up with Baidu to compete for the boss of the Chinese search market.
Yang Jerry Himself recalled it like this:
"Because Yahoo has a 100 percent stake (which is not in line with China policy), we know we have to leave, and the debate is: if we leave, we're going to turn our assets into something else, so we chose that at that time' Investing in this path, and at that time, we have reconnected with Jack Ma, and more importantly: e-commerce is not like the information industry, the latter is a foreign investor in China, it will be restricted, so we think that if we can turn our business in China into investment, or a small number of investments, it will not be a big problem, and e-commerce is also a small problem area. That's how we ended, at least, that's how we achieved our goals. ”
In 2005, Yahoo and Zhou Hongyi broke up. A sensational marriage staring at by the global media was born: whether it is "Yahoo acquired 40% of Alibaba's shares" by foreign media, or "Ali acquired Yahoo China to enter the search" said by domestic media, it is just a different part of a complete story, and readers who have experienced this marriage in the background should remember this Chinese Internet event, which will not be discussed in detail here.
Years later, Jerry Yang himself recalled:
"I know a lot of people will say: It's a good decision or the right decision for you to exit China, but you really haven't thought about all the difficulties, it's a huge investment for Yahoo, and we're betting a lot of money on the valuation of the market." There are several obvious road signs, one of which is the successful experience in Japan. In Japan, we do both portals and e-commerce, and see a successful model of "betting leaders", without too many technical factors, but a lot of market dynamics have begun to take effect. Second, at that time, whether it was operated through Zhou Hongyi's team or our own team, we tried to use our operation manual in Japan to build an e-commerce business, but it was always beaten by Taobao, we know how fierce, smart and strategic these tactics in this country are, and the tactical level, Ma Yun and his team are also great, we began to become very respectful of Ma Yun's ability, and competing with Ma Yun, is a shocking experience. That's why we invested in Alibaba later, and I think Jack Ma and Alibaba also profited from the deal. This money really helped him (Jack Ma) become a leading figure in China's Internet companies. This collaboration happened at the right time. ”
To add the background to the event:
At that time, through the transaction, Ali received a huge amount of cash and Yahoo search technology, and after Ma Yun promised Taobao "three years free" in 2003, he announced in October 2005 that he would invest another 1 billion yuan to let Taobao continue to be free for three years, and called on eBay to give up the fee. On the other hand, Yahoo, yahoo has been in the United States for a decade, but this investment it has made at Ali has become Yahoo's most valuable investment.
Yang said:
"Obviously, from the results, investing in Alibaba is the best decision, but people have also said: this is the worst decision." I think a lot of times, the hardest decision you make is precisely the decision that people will think you made the best or the worst decision, and only time will give you the answer. ”
<h1>Yang Zhiyuan talked about investment</h1>
After leaving Yahoo, Mr. Yang is currently investing primarily in Silicon Valley, owning AME Cloud Ventures, which also makes a lot of angel investments and often co-invests with GGV.
Yang also talked about some of his views on the current investment world.
"I think we may have entered an era where investing is more of a loss, because the size is much bigger and who will be the winner in the next big field is a big question." Most investors think that the good side is that the next BAT appears in the project, but the bad side is that the company may also be sold to one of the BAT. As investors, we have all stood at such a crossroads, we can raise more money, or sell a company or more companies, whether the entrepreneur wants to sell or not, many investors will choose to buy. I don't think most startups are victims, I'm thinking about the investment circle, big companies are now more savvy, capital is not only from traditional VCs, but also a lot of corporate capital, the two are mixed. So the masters of wealth start to play a role, because they must be rewarded. It's a lot more complicated than simply saying that startups are "victims," and I think investors are driving some kind of outcome a lot of the time, so it's been a long time since it's been hard to find that kind of irrational company, and maybe a company like Magic Leap can do it. ”
Jerry Yang also said:
Compared to five years ago, there are now significantly fewer acquisitions by large U.S. companies. China will go through the same stage at some point, which is actually a cycle. In a sense, startups are a more rational thing to do in Silicon Valley right now, and you can't expect to be acquired two years after you start a business, you have to come up with something sustainable. And big companies are building everything, like Google, from self-driving to solving aging problems. So ten years ago, startups had a lot to do, but now startups have to come up with things that big companies wouldn't do. It's also a shift, and to solve problems that big companies don't want to solve, it's a completely different challenge.
Yang also talked about the Chinese entrepreneurs he admired:
In China, I think Cheng Wei impressed me, as well as Liu Qing, and their combination makes Didi immeasurable. Cheng Wei is one of the most strategic and down-to-earth entrepreneurs I have ever met. It's not surprising that he's here, and I think he's probably working likely 12x12x7, which is remarkable. A lot of people say he doesn't speak English, but I think he knows English completely because of such an intuitive strategy, which is remarkable.