When a new tycoon appeared on the stage, it would disrupt the rhythm of everyone on the same stage. This was because no one understood the new tycoon's style of doing things. Whether he was conservative or radical, rational or paranoid. Once he made a move, it would attract everyone's close attention. No one dared to take it lightly.
For Meg Whitman, Li Mu was a new tycoon who had just appeared on the scene.
A month ago, Meg Whitman did not know who Li Mu was, let alone what the hell Makino Technology was. However, when the Hua Xia government launched the "Internet into the home" policy and personally promoted the development of the Internet industry in Hua Xia as the government, the Internet bosses in the United States heard of Li Mu's name for the first time.
When Li Mu's name first appeared in the United States media, everyone regarded Li Mu as the key to promoting the Internet market in Hua Xia. He was a key. It did not matter who he was. What was important was that the existence of this person opened a new era of vigorous development of the Internet in Hua Xia. It also gave the United States Internet companies and capitalists a huge market full of endless imagination.
However, as the Silicon Valley media dug deeper into Li Mu, the Makino Technology's software, YY, that stunned the world's elites, was dug out a corner of the iceberg. Then, YY was like a prairie fire, quickly sweeping the entire United States and the whole world.
The speed at which Li Mu rose on the world stage was so fast that he had not even left the country, but he was already famous in the entire United States Internet industry. It was precisely because of this that Meg Whitman was quite afraid of Li Mu, who she had never met before.
According to normal thinking, young and promising people would generally have a more radical style of doing things. On the one hand, it was because they were young, and on the other hand, it was because success came too fast. Therefore, they took it for granted that success was very easy.
Therefore, what Meg Whitman was most worried about was that Li Mu would take over PayPal because of his radical style. She was not afraid of Li Mu and Li Mu's Makino Technology, but she was afraid that Li Mu would indirectly affect her.
There was nothing to worry about when a stranger came to town, but once he started to get in touch with his sweetheart in town, anyone would be worried. Was he a charming gentleman or an unscrupulous devil? If it was the former, he would make his sweetheart submit to him; if it was the latter, he might defile his sweetheart in the middle of the night.
Li Mu was an entrepreneur, and he was his own boss. A failed decision would not bring disaster to him. However, for a professional manager like Meg Whitman, if she made a major mistake during her tenure, she would definitely be fired by the board of directors.
Before every high-end professional manager joined a large company, they would sign a very generous equity return agreement. However, there were many conditions to get this batch of equity. First, they had to stay in the position for a long time. Second, and more importantly, they had to bring a high enough return to the shareholders within the stipulated period.
Meg Whitman's equity incentive cycle was every three years. Now, it was already halfway through the second three-year cycle. If Meg Whitman wanted to meet the requirements of the board of directors in this three-year cycle and help the company's shareholders achieve the rate of return they wanted, she could get the next three-year contract. After the end of this three-year period, she could unfreeze and cash out a batch of shares, which were worth at least millions of dollars.
On the contrary, if Meg Whitman could not meet the requirements of the board of directors in this three-year period, not only would she lose the next three-year contract, but she would also lose the stock incentive after the three-year period.
For eBay, the acquisition of PayPal was the most important part of their current work. If they failed, it would be a huge blow to the confidence of eBay's shareholders. Therefore, Meg Whitman had to be nervous. She could not allow a young Hua Xia to take PayPal away from her.
Tom Anderson, the vice president of eBay and the person directly responsible for the acquisition of PayPal, felt no less pressure than Meg Whitman. If they missed out on PayPal, Meg Whitman, as the CEO, would at least be able to survive the contract period. However, Tom Anderson would not be so lucky. He could be used as a scapegoat by Meg Whitman at any time.
Therefore, after the meeting, Tom Anderson immediately contacted Peter Thiel. On the phone, Tom Anderson's first words were, "Peter, what are you doing? We've been talking about the acquisition of PayPal for so long, and you went to talk to Hua Xia without saying a word. Isn't that a little too much? "
Peter Thiel was not surprised to receive a call from Tom Anderson. He smiled and said to Tom Anderson, "Tom, both of us have not signed any agreement of intent. Everyone is still in a stalemate over the price. Is there any problem with us looking for other potential buyers at this time? If eBay had made some concessions on the key issues, we might have signed the contract a long time ago. "
Tom Anderson was speechless. Both parties had been talking about the acquisition for a long time. If they were to talk about it on its own merits, he indeed had no right to interfere with the other party's search for other buyers. However, the key point was that they had invested so much effort and showed enough sincerity, but the other party was like a bitch who did not know how to be grateful at all. They even ditched him and hooked up with other people. Of course, Tom Anderson was angry, but when Peter Thiel said this, he immediately felt a sense of helplessness.
After hesitating for a moment, Tom Anderson said to Peter Thiel, "If you have any objections to the key issues, both of us can sit down and continue to talk. As long as everyone is sincere, we can definitely reach a final agreement."
For Peter Thiel, he had already been moved by Li Mu's proposal. What he and Elon Musk were looking forward to the most was to be able to cash out part of the PayPal shares in their hands. Then, they would hold another part of the shares and wait for the value of the shares to rise. If they were to be fully acquired by eBay, the profit margin would be unimaginable.
To them, PayPal was equivalent to a piece of land in the heart of Manhattan. If they developed it themselves, it would at most be a multi-story building with less than ten stories. If eBay bought it and developed it, it might be a 100-story skyscraper. Originally, eBay's request was: I pay, the land belongs to me, you take the money and scram. How I play in the future has nothing to do with you.
Now, Li Mu gave them a new option: You and I can work together to force eBay to let us invest. You can sell half of your land for money to improve your life. This amount of money is enough for you to buy a car, buy a house, show off, pick up girls, manage your finances, and invest in investments.
As for the other half of the land, you can use it with me to invest in this skyscraper that will have more than 100 floors in the future. Once this skyscraper is built, at least 20 floors will be yours. Isn't that much more than the money you get from selling the land? If I work together with eBay to strengthen the foundation, when this skyscraper is built with 200 stories, you will have at least 40 stories.
However, you are not strong enough. If you want to play this game with eBay without me, you will not be able to balance a huge company like eBay. Therefore, if you want to participate, you can only use the strategy of working with Qi and Chu.
If you want to work with Qi and Chu, you must first have both the State of Qi and the State of Chu. If you only have eBay, you can directly go against eBay.
Only by bringing Makino Technology in and letting Makino Technology and eBay become the State of Qi and the State of Chu in the future PayPal landscape can the original team of PayPal become the State of Teng sandwiched between the two countries. Only in this way, the balance of the game can be ensured.
However, Peter Thiel and Elon Musk did not completely trust Li Mu. At first, they used Li Mu as a tool to balance eBay and seek the greatest benefits. However, with this goal in mind, they were suddenly attracted by Li Mu's better plan. If Li Mu's plan worked, it would naturally be great. However, if this plan did not work, they would return to their original plan and use Li Mu to force eBay to increase the price.
Because of this plan, Peter Thiel still wanted to leave some leeway for Tom Andrewson. Therefore, he said to Tom Andrewson, "Tom, the reason we met with Li Mu is actually to give ourselves a way out. This is also a normal business practice. You don't have to be so sensitive. We will continue to negotiate with eBay, and we will definitely continue with full sincerity. Like you said, if we can reach a consensus, we will naturally sign the contract without hesitation."
Tom Andrewson asked him, "Then what are your requirements for the acquisition now? If it's convenient, you can give me a rough idea first. Or tomorrow, we can directly bring out the team responsible for the acquisition and talk face to face. "
Peter Thiel said, "Then let's meet tomorrow and talk. There's no need to bring out the whole team. Let's meet alone and talk."
…
The next day, at 9: 30 am New York time, NASDAQ opened.
At this moment, it was just 6: 30 am on the West Coast.
The news that Elon Musk went to Hua Xia to talk with Li Mu and jointly announced to the media that Makino Technology planned to control PayPal had spread throughout the United States since last night.
Whether it was the American Internet industry or the capital market, they all thought that there was a high chance that eBay would miss out on PayPal. Even if they eventually won the hearts of the PayPal team and successfully acquired PayPal, the price would probably be much higher than the previous 1.5 billion US dollars.
Therefore, this was really bad news for eBay's stock price.
EBay's opening price was 50.55 US dollars. Compared to the previous closing price of 52.88 US dollars, it had fallen by nearly 5%!
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