After chatting with Elon Musk for a while, Li Mu learned that the big shots and big companies in Silicon Valley liked to go to Taobao universities to scavenge.
The so-called Taobao scavenge was actually to search for small start-up projects or research and development projects of students in various universities. It was like an angel investment. As long as the general idea seemed right and the direction was more appealing, they would immediately invest a sum of money to buy out the project or become the controlling shareholder of the project.
Elon Musk was a technocrat to begin with, and he was particularly fond of technical matters. Therefore, according to him, he planned to visit all the top universities in the United States for the next period of time and investigate all the projects related to battery charging and discharging management, motors, transmission, and dynamic power distribution. As long as he could invest in them, he would invest in them. This was because, in his eyes, sometimes, these students who were purely passionate about research and development could burst forth with unimaginable creativity.
Li Mu agreed with Elon Musk's point of view. Many big companies in Silicon Valley actually originated from small start-up or research and development projects on university campuses. The famous Cisco was originally started by a professor and his wife at Stanford University as a small start-up project. Now, it was a giant in the Internet industry. As a company with hardware and solutions as its main business, Cisco's ability to withstand shocks in the Internet field was much stronger than ordinary Internet companies.
Thinking about the future development trend of alternative energy, Li Mu said to Elon Musk, "After returning to Silicon Valley, start the company registration. After the registration, I will immediately transfer the money to the company's account. By the way, do you have any ideas for the company's name?"
Elon Musk immediately said, "Yes! I want to name it Tesla! "
Li Mu smiled and thought that this kind of person was really persistent. If Elon Musk was given ten chances to be reborn and reset his memory each time, he would probably name the company in the field of alternative energy vehicles Tesla ten times. Li Mu felt that this guy's admiration for Tesla should have risen to the level of an idol.
However, Li Mu still pretended to be curious and asked, "Tesla? Are you talking about the American electrical inventor of the last century? "
"Yes, yes, yes!" Elon Musk said excitedly, "That's him, Nikola Tesla, my biggest idol in this life, a godlike person."
Speaking up to this point, Elon Musk looked at Li Mu and said seriously, "Li Zong, I think in a few years, my biggest idol will be you, because I believe that your future achievements will definitely be greater than Tesla's. After all, you are only in your early twenties. This is really scary. Every time I see your young and immature face, and then think of the huge industry you have created, I feel that life is really boring."
Li Mu laughed and said, "Don't flatter me just because I am your future boss. Tesla is also a great man in my eyes, so I don't accept you comparing me with him. However, if you want to name the company Tesla, I will raise both hands in agreement. Tesla himself is a genius in the field of electrical engineering, and what we are going to make is also an electric car. Strictly speaking, Tesla is our founder, and naming the company after him is also a kind of respect for him."
As he said that, Li Mu sighed softly and said, "Compared to Tesla's global fame and his contributions to the world, it is really not proportional. He is a great man who has been largely forgotten. Since we are going to make electric cars, to a certain extent, we are inheriting his legacy. Therefore, we also have the responsibility to correct his name on a global scale and let the world know more about him."
Elon Musk suddenly became excited. He put his palms together and sighed to Li Mu, "Li Zong, Hua Xia has an ancient saying that a gentleman will die for his bosom friend. You are my bosom friend!"
Li Mu smiled and said, "Since Tesla is your biggest idol, then you must do your best to make Tesla successful."
Elon Musk nodded and said, "Li Zong, I might as well resign from PayPal."
Li Mu said, "There is not much meaning in resigning from PayPal now. The core of Tesla is research and development. I suggest you continue to stay in PayPal and find a suitable place to settle Tesla's research and development team in Silicon Valley. This way, it will be closer to you."
Seeing that Elon Musk was a little confused, Li Mu explained, "Staying in PayPal can help you accumulate more industry resources. After all, PayPal is now developing like the sun in the sky. In the future, more and more companies will deal with PayPal. You will be able to get more resources from this position."
PayPal's recent development was indeed very amazing. The main reason was that all of Makino Technology's overseas value-added services were basically paid through PayPal, which brought huge revenue and profits to PayPal. Li Mu didn't have a foundation in overseas payments, and Makino Technology was already a shareholder of PayPal. Therefore, Li Mu didn't plan to open another overseas payment channel. This way, PayPal would benefit greatly from Makino Technology.
In the future, PayPal's position in the Internet industry would get higher and higher. In this case, Elon Musk would also be highly sought after in the industry. Also, the payment channel had a very big advantage: it was closer to the offline world than other online products. This was because it did not connect to the user's computer, but to the user's wallet. This way, in the rapid development of e-commerce in the future, the real economy would become more and more dependent on PayPal.
Tesla was going to be in the renewable energy vehicle manufacturing industry. In the future, it would have to deal with many parts suppliers around the world. If Elon Musk still had the PayPal name, he would be able to get more concessions in the process of bargaining with these suppliers. If he resigned now and focused on Tesla, he would not be able to help much in the pure technology development phase. On the other hand, he would also lose a lot of resources.
Elon Musk understood Li Mu's intention. Although he wanted to pour his passion into Tesla, Li Mu was more pragmatic. Tesla did not need him to be a full-time CEO, at least not in the near future.
Then, Elon Musk said to Li Mu, "Li Zong, then I will continue to work at PayPal. Then, I will set up Tesla in Silicon Valley and start to focus on Tesla's battery and motor research."
Li Mu nodded and asked, "If you develop the battery and motor yourself, where will you get the car platform technology?"
People often say that the essence of a car is the power, transmission, and chassis. Tesla can solve the power and transmission, but the chassis technology is not something that can be solved by itself.
Moreover, Li Mu felt that the three major components were not the most important. The production platform was the most important. Only an enterprise that had the ability to build a production platform could be called an automobile manufacturer in the real sense.
Elon Musk had a different view from Li Mu. He said, "Li Zong, I think we don't need to think about the platform so early. What we really lack now is the chassis technology. We can choose a car manufacturer and buy their chassis technology. We can even ask them to build the chassis. We can even ask other companies to build the chassis. This way, we only need to build our own assembly line, and we can start mass production."
Li Mu shook his head.
No wonder Tesla has a hard time delivering goods all the time and incurs huge losses. If you build cars with this kind of thinking, you will lose a lot of money.
Seeing Li Mu shake his head and sigh, Elon Musk asked anxiously, "Li Zong, is there anything wrong with what I said?"
Li Mu sighed again, looked at him, and said seriously, "Elon, I believe that under your leadership, Tesla can design and produce the best electric car in the world, but …"
At this point, Li Mu's tone became a lot more serious. He paused and continued, "But! Under your leadership, Tesla will not become the most successful electric car manufacturer in the world. I even suspect that if you don't change your thinking in time, Tesla will go bankrupt in your hands one day. "
"Why …" Elon Musk was confused, but Li Mu made it sound so serious that it made him panic.
There were very few people who could make Elon Musk panic with just one sentence, and the young Li Mu might be the only one.
Seeing that Elon Musk was panicking, Li Mu explained to him, "The Internet is indeed very advanced, and the environmental protection is also very advanced, but it doesn't mean that you will be able to find the right direction if you use these two kinds of thinking to do the physical industry."
With that, Li Mu picked up a Zippo lighter on the coffee table and asked him, "How many types of lighters does Zippo have?"
Elon Musk said, "I don't know, there are too many."
Li Mu asked again, "Will Zippo build a production line for each type of lighter?"
Elon Musk hurriedly said, "Of course not."
Li Mu nodded and said, "If Zippo wants to produce thousands of different products, then its production line must be designed to be very compatible. At least 80% of the models must be produced on the same production line. Am I right?"
Elon Musk agreed and said, "I believe that must be the case."
Li Mu said, "Then you are not going to build a real car production platform, only an assembly line. Are you going to let Tesla only produce one model in the future?"
Elon Musk was embarrassed, and he said without confidence, "Li Zong, to be honest, to a certain extent, I do think so. I think Tesla will only release one classic model at each stage, so we don't need to build a universal platform. We only need to build a production line for this model."
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