There were many coincidences and certainties in history. The concept of centralization was inevitable when the internet developed to a certain stage. However, Li Mu's domineering attitude towards Yahoo had accidentally become the one who proposed this concept.
By proposing this concept, he was recognized by the entire industry and repaid Li Mu with this concept.
When the concept of centralization was proposed, there were only two products in the market that could meet the requirements. One was YY, and the other was Microsoft's Windows.
However, Windows itself was a platform that was open to all developers. This was very different from YY. Any software developer could develop their own products on Windows and did not need to be reviewed and approved by Microsoft or Windows. However, YY was different. All the functions of its products were separated and 100% controlled by YY itself.
Take the current YY gaming platform for example. Today, Li Mu could allow other chess and card game development companies to put their small games on the YY gaming platform and then split the game revenue with the game development company. However, he could also remove the other party's game from his platform at any time. YY itself had absolute control over the YY gaming platform. In this way, it was a true centralization product.
If a YY game was like this, then the entire ecosystem of YY products was even more so.
As the only representative product of the current centralization concept, YY's popularity once again rose. This time, companies in the industry had already regarded Makino Technology as a god. They had accidentally allowed it to grow to such a large scale and such a strong influence. This made the entire internet industry gasp in amazement.
Therefore, Li Mu made a final offer to Sequoia at the negotiating table: Makino Technology's C round of financing was valued at US $33 billion, and Sequoia would purchase 10% of Makino Technology's shares with US $3.3 billion in cash. The 10% of shares would be diluted by Makino Technology's existing shareholders, but Sequoia would only own the equity, not any voting rights, and could not interfere with the daily operation of the company. At the same time, Makino Technology would take US $300 million out of the US $3.3 billion as the shareholder cash-out portion of this financing.
That was to say, 3.3 billion US dollars came in, 3 billion US dollars entered the account of Makino Technology, and the remaining 300 million US dollars were distributed by all shareholders before the dilution. When one point was diluted to 0.9 point, one could get three million US dollars in cash.
Moreover, the remaining 0.9% of the 3 million USD was still there. Based on the market value of 33 billion USD, 0.9% of the market value was almost 300 million USD!
Sequoia didn't want to sign such an agreement even if she was beaten to death.
First of all, they had just reluctantly accepted the valuation of 30 billion USD, and suddenly there was an additional 3 billion USD. This valuation increased too fast, and their hearts couldn't take it.
Secondly, they didn't want the shareholders of Makino Technology to cash out in this round. They invested 10% on the basis of the 30 billion USD valuation. After the 3 billion USD was given to Makino Technology, all of it would be used as the company's follow-up development funds. This way, they could feel more balanced in their hearts.
Li Mu's current request was basically asking Sequoia to take out an additional 300 million USD so that he could share it with everyone. The person in charge of Sequoia wanted to die. You want to reward the team and let us take an additional 300 million USD? How can you be so overbearing?
However, Li Mu insisted on being so overbearing.
He had long seen through the nature of capital. Capital is about profits. Be it angel investments or venture capital investments, they are all about profits. No matter how good an angel investor is, they will not invest in a project that will definitely fail. They look like they are shining brightly, and they will say to those poor entrepreneurs who are struggling to survive: "Come, come to me. I will give you money for you to develop."
In fact, their subtext was: "Come, let Daddy see if you have the potential to make money. If you do, hurry up and let Daddy invest in some shares at a low price."
For enterprises with a promising future but not so bright, they are willing to treat the capital as their own father, but the father of the capital may not treat it as its own son. For those enterprises with an infinitely bright future, the capital is willing to kneel down and call them father. As long as the father of the enterprise allows it to buy a part of the shares, everything else is negotiable.
Li Mu did not want to play this game with capital. Since everyone was about profit, then I will give you my final offer. If you are willing to agree, we will shake hands and sign the contract. In the future, we will be bound together. If you are not willing to agree and leave, I will use the same offer to find someone else. Sequoia was tortured by Li Mu.
Sequoia was driven crazy by Li Mu. They had already started negotiating when Muye Technology was only valued at a few billion US dollars. As they talked, they went to the United States, and YY became popular among the elites, and their valuation became more than 10 billion US dollars. Then, Li Mu stopped talking and launched a series of heavy blows in one go. "Paradise Town" gained the attention of the United States, and YY forcefully washed away a large number of users. The number of users doubled. That was not all. Li Mu went to Harvard. When he came back from New York and Hollywood, Muye Technology was already valued at 30 billion US dollars.
Sequoia had been investing for so many years, but they had never seen a player as good at setting the pace as Li Mu. Every time, they could only watch Li Mu's strategy and tactics in shock. "How can there be such a maneuver in the world?"
Li Mu was like a super e-sports master. He just went into the jungle for a stroll and came out in the blink of an eye. He was already dressed in super godly equipment.
Li Mu made everything impossible possible, and he was also making Makino Technology's valuation of 33 billion US dollars possible.
Because Li Mu's attitude was extremely tough and left no room for negotiation, Sequoia finally announced after struggling for two days that they would accept Li Mu's financing conditions and officially start the due diligence work before the financing.
They did not expect that Sequoia, which had finally settled down, would be attacked by Li Mu again.
Li Mu replied to Sequoia directly in his own name and through the company level in the form of an official letter. The core content was: "Why are you wasting time with us? At a time like this, who has the time to accompany you on the financing due diligence? Before signing the contract, I can first open the company's general revenue data to you. Once the contract is signed, I will open the financial account information to you. If you have no problems with it, pay immediately. After the payment, everyone will officially complete the financing. I will accept your regular audit of the accounts. That's all. If you want to withdraw in the middle, you can do so before the financing or IPO. If you don't want to withdraw, you can make your own decision in the stock market after the IPO next year or the year after. "
At the end of the official letter, Li Mu's request was: "Think about it as soon as possible and reply. I don't have too much time to waste waiting."
Sequoia did not know whether to laugh or cry.
Li Mu was really a rare hegemonic corporation. He could even raise the financing in such a domineering manner. This Hua Xia was really not a normal person. The key thing was that Sequoia could not afford to lose her temper at all. Who told them to grow so fast, and the speed at which their valuation was updated was too fast. Who knew what would happen the next day, and they would not even agree to the thirty-three billion.
Actually, Li Mu still had a magic weapon in his hands that could increase the valuation of Makino Technology. This magic weapon was the game that he had magically modified into a social network game, Plants vs Zombies. After the game went through closed beta, everyone in the game development team felt that this game could not be any more fun, and they were going crazy from playing it. If it wasn't for the big boss keeping an eye on it, the entire department would have been wasted on this game.
After Li Mu's magically modified Plants vs Zombies, it was almost like Plants vs Zombies Online. Furthermore, it placed a lot of emphasis on the interaction and cooperation between friends. For users who had played the original Plants vs Zombies, they might not be used to it, but in this era, for those who had never played Plants vs Zombies, or even a proper tower defense game, this game was simply too fun!
If this game was released now, and promoted through YY, which had a huge number of users, it would probably take the world by storm in a few days. However, Li Mu had his own difficulties.
First of all, Paradise Town's two huge events were being pushed forward, and it was unparalleled in the gaming industry, and no one could beat it. If Plants vs Zombies were released at this time, it would directly steal the limelight from these two events. In the end, no one could beat Paradise Town, and Li Mu beat it with his own new product. This was considered internal friction, and not desirable.
Secondly, Plants vs Zombies was an online game, which meant that it needed server bandwidth to support it.
If it was only able to support a few hundred or a few thousand players, then the server bandwidth was nothing to Makino Technology.
However, Li Mu knew the magic of Plants vs Zombies. If this game became popular, it would be faster than Uncle Bird's horse-riding dance. It could become popular all over the world in a single night. If that happened, Plants vs Zombies' server would have to support the massive demand of tens of millions of players playing at the same time.
Moreover, the overall pace of this game was much faster than games like Paradise Town. Paradise Town was a business game. Harvesting corn in the fields, feeding the chickens in the chicken coop, handing in quests in the NPG. Even if there was a lag or lag in the processing of data, it was fine. Not only could the users tolerate it, but they might not even notice it at times.
However, if Plants vs Zombies had lag or lag in battle with friends, that would be terrible. If you were about to plant peashooters, but got stuck, and by the time you reacted, you would have already been pushed by zombies. That kind of user experience would be terrible. In the end, if the server wasn't able to support it, and the user's online experience was too bad, and they switched to single player mode, then the purpose of the game would be completely wasted.
In order to support tens or even hundreds of millions of players in Plants vs Zombies Online, Li Mu really needed to build at least five or six large data processing centers around the world, or else he wouldn't be able to release the game.
Therefore, Li Mu couldn't release Plants vs Zombies Online to raise its valuation. He could only finance it first, then invest in the data processing centers, and only release Plants vs Zombies Online after the data processing centers were built.
In the online gaming industry, when most games were designed and developed, they were influenced and restricted by geography and culture. Therefore, it was common for games to be popular in China, but weak overseas. Apart from outliers like World of Warcraft, there weren't many online games that could take the world by storm.
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