Wen | Gao Haibo
Gu Yongjun can finally attend a party.
This year's Spring Festival, Gu Yongjun met iQiyi CEO Gong Yu at a private party, "I can sit and eat a meal slowly, and he still has to rush around." In an interview with 36Kr, Gu Yongjun quipped to Gong Yu, a former competitor.
After that day's party, Gong Yu still had three more fields to catch, and Gu Yongjun could eat a meal of Japanese food with peace of mind. Both of them were in the Huaxia Alumni Association, because they had a "g" in the initials of their surnames, and the two were often arranged to sit together.
Disappeared from the public eye for nearly three years, Gu Yongjun never retired and left the market, and he made an old "investment" business again. Although no longer the chairman of Alibaba's Grand Entertainment Strategy and Investment Committee, he has focused more on unity — a name he's used since he started his business.
"Read in the morning, meet people in the afternoon, look at the project." It was a regular day for Koo Yong-jung. In three years, Gu Yongjun has focused on the field of education for more than a year and the field of health for more than a year. On the contrary, in the field of entertainment content that he is best at, Gu Yongjun does not have much action.
The day of the interview was iQIYI's World Congress, at which Gong Yu said that "in the past, the competition method based on high-priced copyright procurement was a directional error." Gu Yongjun was a little surprised, "He will say this?" In 2015, Koo publicly stated that the value of video rights was no longer as important as before. Although the two points of view are expressed in different competitive backgrounds and company situations, at least they have the same destination.
All this has little to do with Gu Yongjun, and he pays a lot less attention to the video industry. "Whether it's live, on-demand, long or short, there are basically." In Gu Yongjun's view, from the development of the PC Internet to the middle and late stages of the mobile Internet, the opportunity for platformization has disappeared.
The founder of Youku is still pursuing greater market opportunities, but in the current technical environment, it is almost impossible to have another Youku.
"Is the next generation of the Internet coming?" Gu Yongjun pointed to the mobile phone on the table, which means that the computing platform to replace the mobile phone has not appeared, and 5G and artificial intelligence are only empowering roles, and they are not really the next generation of opportunities.
The current entrepreneurial environment has been different from when Gu Yongjun started a business, the tentacles of large companies are getting bigger and bigger, medium-sized companies are either acquired by large companies such as Tencent and Ali, or invested, under the ecosystem, Youku's acquisition by Ali is the most typical case. In Gu Yongjun's view, this is a "law of nature".
"Every company has its own choices and destinations, but in the era of big data, the scale effect will become more and more obvious." Gu Yongjun said, "This is the trend of the times, and I choose to go with the trend." ”
Going with the flow and taking the initiative to change is the style of Gu Yongjun's investment and entrepreneurship for twenty years. "I see a law and a trend, I will not passively wait, nor will I wait for it to change and then adapt, I will take the initiative to do it, you go back and look at my history, it has basically been done for twenty years." 」
He said that he is an open entrepreneur, he has experienced multiple identity changes in investment, professional managers, and entrepreneurs, "Party A, Party B, and Party C have all done it", and he can understand the mentality of capital and the mentality of entrepreneurs. At the same time, years of studying in Silicon Valley in the United States make him different from most Entrepreneurs in China who regard their companies as "private property".
To some extent, Gu Yongjun has always been the one who dances with capital. On the first day of Youku's start, he knew that this was a "capital operation". "The more mature the market, the greater the demand for capital, which is inevitable." Gu Yongjun calmly analyzed. Over the course of the two-hour interview, he showed no emotion about Ali's subsequent Acquisition of Youku and always maintained his trademark smile.
Like many of the founders of acquired and merged companies, Mr. Koo has stayed away from Youku, and he is no longer at the center of the business conversation. But none of this had any effect on him personally, and it didn't matter to him whether he was at the center or in the presence, "There are different stages in life, and different things need to be done." ”
Gu Yongjun, who has entered a new stage of his life.
Although Koo's name has appeared in the ranks of film producers before, this time, his name appeared in the English subtitle proofreading of a musical humanities documentary film "Shakuhachi Ichijo". Directed by Koo's wife, Helen(聿欣), this musical documentary film tells the life of several shakuhachi players, pipe makers, and learners in China, Japan, and the United States, as well as their experiences and reflections at different stages.
The 53-year-old Gu Yongjun has already started a new stage of life, Heyi Venture Capital does not have any lp and performance pressure, its funds are personally funded by Gu Yongjun, Ali's acquisition of Youku allows Gu Yongjun to have enough funds to invest.
"This is also the advantage of unity, there is no need to rush to exit, and will focus on longer-term value." Gu Yongjun said.
36 Kr: This time what is considering participating in the movie "Shakuhachi Ichigo", you did the work of proofreading English subtitles.
Gu Yongjun: This originated from my wife. One day she played me a piece of music, and I learned about the shakuhachi for the first time. My wife decided to record the shakuhachi with images and make a documentary about the shakuhachi, which I thought was a meaningful thing, so I supported her, and many people at that time felt that it was a loss-making business, I said before, and I did what I liked with people I liked, and now I feel that it is more like doing meaningful things with people I like. I think doing shakuhachi is a meaningful thing.
36 Kr: Would you be worried about the box office of this movie?
Gu Yongjun: Like I just said, my wife didn't do this to make money, of course, we want to see a good box office, because this means that many people already know the shakuhachi instrument through this film, hear the sound of shakuhachi, and I believe that slowly more people will like it.
An ancient Chinese musical instrument, shakuhachi.
36Kr: For more than a year, entertainment and the wider content industry have generally been cold, and the focus of unity is not on entertainment, what is the reason?
Gu Yongjun: The development of the entertainment industry is inseparable from the development of the Internet and mobile Internet. Before the Internet, content to offline is an obstacle, but starting from the portal, including the emergence of social media, graphics, video and later live broadcast, which has changed for nearly a decade, which is actually a long time, from the pc Internet to the mobile Internet. In fact, this stage is already the middle and late stage of the mobile Internet, and the platformization process you can see is almost over, whether it is live broadcasting, on-demand, long video, short video, it has been full, and the opportunity is naturally less.
In addition, another dimension is that in the era of mobile Internet, content has matured. Maturity means that the market scale is large, the influence is strong, and the coverage is also wide, while the degree of supervision of content will become higher and higher, and the content management will become more and more stringent, which is inevitable.
Before, we needed to do a wide range of platforms, but now, the market provides content people with the possibility of doing deeper. In the early Internet era, only mass content could be done, which was determined by the income model. Because you mainly rely on advertising, if you want to sell advertising, you can only do mass content, if you do niche, big advertisers like Unilever will not pay attention to you. But now, the rise of mobile payment and social media has made it possible to verticalize and industrialize content.
36Kr: The past decade has been the most prosperous decade of venture capital in China's business history, you have experienced this cycle completely as an entrepreneur and investor, and the recent cycle is generally regarded as a downward trend, what do you think is the biggest change in China's investment environment? How do you see the venture capital market in the coming period?
Gu Yongjun: Whether from the perspective of scientific and technological development or investment, it has now entered a relatively stable or conservative stage, from a technical point of view or capital point of view, it has reached a high point, the upside is limited, and no matter how high-speed development can not be like the previous decade. From the general trend, it is now in the middle and late stages of the mobile Internet, and it is still unclear what the next generation of Internet is.
36Kr: The role of capital in the whole entrepreneurial process is getting stronger and stronger, even stronger than the role of founders, almost all of China's medium-sized Internet companies have been invested by Tencent Ali, in their system ecology, do you think this is a unique or universal situation in China?
Gu Yongjun: The business of the platform needs capital, I have been in Silicon Valley for a long time, and I have seen a lot of industry changes in the past ten years, including the choice of entrepreneurs. Personally, I am open-minded, and at the beginning of I did Youku, I said that this is a capital business. In large companies, you can achieve more synergies, in the era of big data, the scale effect is becoming more and more obvious, I remember saying this view at the 2016 Unity Conference, and I also made my choice. Not every company will choose this way, but I see this trend and I choose to go with the flow. If the founder is very convinced of one thing, he can make other choices, there is no right or wrong.
There are also those who do not enter the large company system and survive independently, but they will be more difficult, and the more they will be in the later stage, the harder they will be.
36Kr: You've been looking at the big health sector lately, what are the investment opportunities?
Gu Yongjun: From the perspective of the general trend, China's population structure has undergone great changes, the aging trend is obvious, and the population will gradually decline. At the other end, the consumption power is also gradually improving, and more people will pay attention to the fields of education and health, which is the improvement of people's basic needs. In the fields of medicine, medical equipment, and biological sciences, it has not yet been ited, and how to find the intersection between the two is also the direction I am most concerned about at present.