Chao: Subversion and balance

Summary: View the latest quotes the sense of balance in the training of a child's gymnastics is still being used by Charles Chao to deal with his balance in the business world, and we wonder how the businessman, who adheres to the secular rules of the game, has completed the latest market

in the field of social tools under the mobile wave.

The sense of balance trained by the childhood gymnastics experience is still being used by Chao to deal with his balance in the business world, and we wonder how the businessman who has complied with the secular rules of the game has accomplished the subversion of social tools in this mobile wave, and even the change of China's public opinion field. And how to reach a settlement with the most subversive social tool in China--Weibo.

New York, April 17 8:30 A.M., Weibo on the market ringing bell there is an hour, Sina chairman Cao Chao sits in a black Mercedes sedan, ready to join with all the Four Seasons Hotels in midtown Manhattan to the Nasdaq exchange on the intersection of 42 Street and Broadway. The journey was 1.3 miles long and could be reached in 6 minutes without traffic jams. After the car out of the hotel, the driver from New York City, the wrong address, the wrong way to the 6.4-mile Wall Street, nearly to the city center of the high-speed, sitting in the back of the right seat of Chao found this point, in time to remind the driver to change direction, avoid embarrassment and embarrassed to be late

The request of Charles Chao to turn in a timely manner occurred one afternoon in June 2009. In the second conference room on the 20 floor of the ideal international building, he spent two hours listening to a social product report called "Friends." Previously, the product has been invested in hundreds of engineers, research and development around two years. Beta data is not bad, the next step should be public promotion, but Chao suddenly decided to end this product, the reason is "two hours did not understand the core selling point of the product". He asked that some of the features be developed separately, which is the later microblog.

Wang Gaofei, who is now the CEO of Weibo, told the blogosphere, at the time, he also thought that "friends", although standards, but not very ideal. But to stop a big project that is nearing completion, it is particularly necessary for Sina to be bold. For a long time, the word "decision" is far more important to Sina than to other Internet companies. As a shareholder diversification of the famous company, each of Sina's leadership is subject to many aspects, have to balance.

If Sina is a moving car, it is an equally important task for Chao to prevent mistakes and find the right path, but sometimes there are contradictions. The future outcome of a company is likely to depend on some incipient risks and opportunities, while long-term decisions may affect short-term performance, triggering investor and outside criticism. After entering Sina in 1999, Cao Chao's long-term role as a migrant worker rather than an owner is to avoid a decision that is too advanced to cause investor dissatisfaction and to make decisions independently and ahead of time. He had to seek balance in multiple appeals, both as brake pads and as engines. His predecessor was troubled by the failure to achieve this balance.

Chao was trained for a long time as a master of the balance beam. He went to the diving team and gymnastics team in primary school and entered the school track and field team because of high intensity training. But he has good muscular coordination and superior physical fitness. Now he is still in good shape, which is the result of training in high school as the main basketball team. Most of his impressions are related to "reliability." His experience in foreign accounting firms has also made him appear professional and accurate, saying he is the most familiar with the running of Chinese companies listed in the CEO is not too--with a financial background he is good at a variety of skills to keep the company from the risk of safe listing, Sina's major capital operations has always been his personal fencing 2005, Grand Chen Flyover tried to maliciously acquire Sina, he throws "poison pill plan" successful sniper. He always finds the right line between conservative and radical.

Along with the accumulation of these successful capital operations, Chao also stepped out of a steady upward curve from the CFO to COO to the CEO to the Chairman. His personal characteristics of thinking about things also reinforce that feeling. The tone and speed of his speech would hardly change, and his delight and fear would not be noticed when he was rarely agitated, which meant he was not a whim, but a thoughtful, calm balancing expert.

But he is not mediocre, tough and diligent character, supporting one of the same is the physical education, just into the university, the need for physical quality of university sports, Cao Chao took a breath to do more than 40 primers up, the hands of the skin has been worn, visible in his need to insist when the stock way. These features are pieced together into a brilliant golden mean practitioner and a master of dealing with complex relationships. Sometimes you feel like he's too boring to be normal. In the geek-lined internet world, it has been a long time since people have been attracted to a normal winner. But looking back on Chao's past, we can understand the value of this charm. He does not highlight personal temperament, not experienced a great ups and downs, not like to talk about the wind and cloud. He has always made the right choice, completed his studies and his job, and made individuals and Sina move forward together. This is the unique feature of Chao. He is an "extraordinary" person, and this success is more mundane, easier to approach, but also behind the legend to support the foundation of business Development.

In 2009, when Chao entered the 10 anniversary of Sina, he and Sina Management managed to achieve the management stake, although not as a major shareholder, but this change of identity apparently affected his mentality. In an email to all employees, Chao wrote: "From today on, we will transform our roles and confront our future with an entrepreneurial mindset." ”

Later he summed up the "blog World": In making a major decision, the founder and professional managers will have a subtle psychological difference, the founder will always be bolder and more emboldened.

Charles Chao, who is familiar with the system of American professional managers, said to the world of blogs the Chinese business community is currently thinking of the company like the United States in the 1920 's, and in the future more mature business society, "a company without the founder itself is not a big problem, because the founder will be at a certain stage away." ”

But he admits that Sina shares are fragmented and has been hoping not to be tied to the reality. When the management has not yet completed the ownership of ownership, failed to acquire the mentality of the master, Chao decided to decide the online micro-blog. At the time, he had to be determined enough to experiment with an uncertain prospect of innovation.

　　

On the day of the
Weibo listing, Chao, in Times Square, outside the Nasdaq exchange, celebrated his microblog IPO with a hand in his senior high school daughter in Boston, USA. Chao's older daughter is graduating from high school this year and will go to Wharton for an undergraduate course. The ceremony was attended by Weibo Queen Chen Yao and Chinese star Wang Leehom. Figure/Linhai Sound

It's not a mess.

The Eastern Time April 17 9:30 A.M., Cao Chao appeared on the Nasdaq exchange on time, he is medium, stature medium, the facial features are round, appearance has no obvious characteristic. He is not as noticeable as the guests who come to the ceremony, such as Chen Yao, a 68.57 million-fan, and Wang Leehom, who has sparked a microblogging issue. In China's most influential social media platform-Weibo, Chao has 1.47 million fans, which is a very unusual number, not too much, not too few, it is hard to believe that the impact of the whole China Weibo is his creation.

After a subversive impact on the Chinese public opinion field, Cao Chao finally started the IPO with Weibo and the environment was fraught with crisis.

At home, Chao began to "notice the micro-letter" and felt some pressure. He had hoped that Weibo would have more social networking attributes, "but when it's hard to develop social networking attributes, we're more focused on developing social media attributes." "said Chao.

U.S. capital markets are also not optimistic about China's technology stocks, the first quarter of 2014, the U.S. listing of the Chinese stock market is bleak: April 3 The listed on the next day to fall below the IPO price, the April 9-listed AI-Kang ambassador on the shoulder to four days later also fell below the IPO price. In early March, the Nasdaq Composite index fell more than 5%, and Twitter, a similar company in the United States, fell 17%.

In a microblog prospectus released on April 5, the price per share was $17 to $19 trillion, which, according to the pricing range, was valued at nearly $3.9 billion trillion, a 20% drop from the previously expected median of $5 billion trillion.

The Tiger Fund team, which has a good personal relationship with Mr. Chao, warmly received the Chao and Weibo listing team before the microblogging market. Tiger funds have made a profit from Sina's stock. Some Sina investors believe that Weibo independent listing will affect Sina's performance and then affect their earnings, Chao, before heading to Nasdaq, also told Weibo CEO Wang Gaofei, the previous investors to buy Sina shares will be their biggest resistance, those who bought Sina stock investors are likely not to buy micro-blog shares. The result, as Chao predicted, was that two days before the IPO, when Goldman Sachs, the microblog's underwriter, called Tiger funds to ask if they had any intention to buy Weibo shares, the Tiger fund changed its hospitality and responded with a cold tone: "What's the joke?" What market are you asking me to buy stocks? Wang Gaofei said that, like many fund investors at the time, the fund manager of the Tiger fund believed that Weibo would break on the first day of the IPO, waiting to be bought at a low price and making a big profit when prices rebounded.

This is the capital market, people on the one hand polite, get along well, but on the other hand to maintain a proper distance, so that the business can be accurate calculation, not because of friendship.