"Entrepreneur": if Huiyuan CEO Zhu is in Silicon Valley

Imagine that the US, now in the 2001, has fallen from 5,000 to 2000. The 2.4bn software company, founded by Chinese Mr.zhu, has already fallen below the IPO price and is likely to further weigh on share prices as the economy slumps and competition intensifies. Suddenly, industry giant Microsoft (and, of course, Japan's SoftBank group or Australian News Corp) decided to buy the company and set a sky-high price of 3 times times its current market value. After thinking twice, Mr Zhu, nearly 60, finally agreed to sell the company. What happens next? 2.4bn the size of shareholders are all decided applauded. The whole of the Silicon Valley shook, but also Mr.zhu as a successful entrepreneurial hero. Major venture capital firms have invited heavily-invested Mr Zhu as partners. Business schools have 2.4bn's past and present life as teaching cases. Mr Zhu, however, did not want to jiliuyongtui immediately and started a new business plan. Of course, all this is just my fiction. But similar stories did happen repeatedly in Silicon Valley. Just take our most familiar example. In 2007, Zhu sold his ten-year WebEx to Cisco at a price of 3.2 billion dollars. Deng, who is younger than him, started his business almost at the same time, setting up a cyber-security firm, Netscreen.2004, who sold the company to Juniper, the world's second-largest maker of internet equipment, 4 billion dollars. Since then, the two have opened a new career. This is a long-standing phenomenon in Silicon Valley. 1999, at the height of the technology craze, American business writer Michael. Lewis published a book called The New New THING, which is not just a book about the big Hengim of Silicon Valley. Clark's personal biography is also seen as a perfect interpretation of Silicon Valley culture. In just more than 10 years, Clark has founded three companies SGI, Netscape (Netscape) and Yongjian (Healtheon), which have a market capitalisation of more than 1 billion dollars. Almost every time, he opted out shortly after the company went public, handing the company over to a professional manager or selling it at a high price. The rewards are partly spent on enjoying life and partly on the next new career. Clark uses an analogy to explain his business philosophy: As long as you're happy, you can grab every item like a gorilla climbing a vine, but if you're not happy, look for the next new Vine. In Silicon Valley, Clark will not be seen as a traitor to the company, a seller of brands. As a creator, Clark has done his part of the mission. As for his next choice, as long as it does not harm the interests of shareholders can. Silicon Valley culture does not fall from the sky, it represents the new stage of American capitalist business culture. In addition to encouraging innovation, tolerance failure, and the excess return on adventure, there is also respect for each individual's choice to promote benign business competition. But on the other side of the ocean, Zhu is far fromThere are Clark, Zhu their luck. Since his decision to sell Huiyuan to Coca-Cola at a price of 2.5 billion dollars, the public's saliva has almost drowned him. He is regarded as a "deserter", "coward", "national brand seller", in a mature market economy, a business logic can not be a transaction in our place has been branded with moral. Why can't Zhu be as calm and retreat as Zhu? Why can't Huiyuan choose fate like WebEx? In the past 16 years, Zhu has created an industry in China from scratch, built a Hong Kong-listed company with an annual sales of more than 2 billion yuan, and he has proved himself a very good entrepreneur. But does entrepreneurship have to be an entrepreneur? Chen, one of Silicon Valley's most successful successive entrepreneurs, once said: "Entrepreneurs always want to do something new and early, and he dares to take a lot of risks." Adventure may fail, but not risk, there is no chance of success. Conversely, when the company becomes bigger, it starts to pursue stability and no longer pursues endless adventures, which requires a mindset change. But some entrepreneurs, including me, are not accustomed to changing this mindset. "Someone asked him," you start a business so hard, not very easy to raise the enterprise, and then give others you rest assured? Chen asked: "Give the Enterprise to others may not be successful, but let me stay, it must be successful?" Not。 "Entrepreneurs are not the entrepreneur, the key is that some entrepreneurs do not want to be entrepreneurial." "Give the enterprise to others, than I continue to do, the chance of success is greater, this is the division of labor." And my value is to start again. "said Chen. In fact, only a handful of the entire Silicon Valley entrepreneurs can become a first-rate entrepreneur, such as Bill Gates, Ellison, and so on, including Apple's jobs, the board of directors who had been swept out of business, and then back to Apple. Chinese traditional business culture in the world, accustomed to the company as a family property, wish to preach the son of the sun, made into a century-old shop. Wang, founder of Wang Computer, Charles, co-founder of the CA software company, has brought the company to the big hand, and later almost destroyed it with his own hands. In the late stages of their careers, their fatuous decisions are no longer creating value for the company, but destroying value. As early as 1901, the steel Henkaneki sold all the shares of his own Carnegie Steel Company to JP Morgan to integrate the steel industry and build the dream of American Steel. Carnegie himself, by selling, was "the richest man in the world" and founded the first charitable foundation. Today, not many people in the U.S. Steel company know, but the Carnegie Foundation's influence is widely disseminated. From the Natural law of industrial development, but also from decentralization to concentration. That year's home appliance chain retail industry, attracted the number of start-ups, development today, only Gome, suning two strong. But Zhang Dazhang, Chen Xiao, Wang Jianguo and others are not losers, and they have also received stunning returns by selling companies. But the competition is not over, the networkE-commerce is starting to breed new challengers. The jungle of the African prairie, although it seems cruel, is the most consistent with the natural law of the fittest. In a healthy business environment, with the disappearance of old companies and the decline of older industries, there will always be new companies to create and grow, new industries to be born and prosper. This place is really where the young dream begins. Suppose, if the early Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are still holding their own company, the government and public opinion always sympathize with the protection of the weak, to prevent all to eat small behavior, then the most likely is a group of small companies are still disorderly fight, we are copying each other, there is no incentive to innovate. The industry does not do much, investors are not rewarded, and do not dare to intervene. Such a situation can be seen in many industries in China today. Zhu wanted to sell the company. There are two reasons to be blunt. One is the peak of their own state has passed, and children have no intention of succession. The following professional managers do not have a particularly suitable candidate; second, the industry has become the "Red Sea", the Giants enter, Huiyuan, if placed in the global beverage market, is not a leader. Brand, capital, sales capacity is not its director. Of course, he can choose to continue to carry the red flag, stick to it. But the more successful a person is, the lower his risk tolerance. Like Sisyphus in the Greek fable, the process of pushing the boulder up is extremely hard and dangerous. Some say he's losing money? I think no one is more aware of Huiyuan than Zhu, he is the biggest shareholder of the company, how could he allow "own assets" to be lost? Measuring risk and reward is an entrepreneurial instinct. The bid of HK $12.2 per share is already 49 times times that of the Huiyuan ratio. Someone accused him of not selling to foreigners? First, the domestic market has not created enough level of buyers (who should be blamed?). Can afford such a high price. In addition to the big state-owned enterprises such as COFCO, it is a bunch of private enterprises that are weaker than Huiyuan's strength (if the price is so high, will there be suspicion of loss of state-owned assets?) ）。 Second, Coca-Cola is not only the global beverage industry's boss, itself is already an international public company. If Zhu is willing, it can be as much a shareholder of Coca-Cola as it is to buy Blackstone shares with foreign exchange. A lot of people sigh, another national brand dies. But in the beginning, these people in addition to make the award line Wanli Circle of money, but also did what business. To tell you the truth, the Panda is dead, the nurse is dead, robust is dying. We can see the street, the past ten years, our side of the national brand in the end is reduced? Or does it increase? We lost the panda, but we have nice, Bai Cao set, overlord, robust, and Wahaha, Farmer Spring, Wanglaoji, Mengniu ... Foreign acquisitions of the south-Fu Battery, the wife of the chicken essence, excellent network is not now also developed very well! The Americans could sell Anheuser-Busch to Belgian beers, sell Colombian films to Sony in Japan, and sell Chrysler to Germany's Daimler-Benz, sold MySpace to News Corp in Australia, and turned to create Starbucks, Apple, Pixar, Google and Facebook. Do the Chinese have this confidence? Protection does not protect the national brand, only competition can promote business prosperity. Some people vote against the Internet. But I have always felt that public opinion is very questionable in China. The real need for public participation is that there is no public opinion to speak of, not the need for public opinion, but a large group of carcase to impassioned. How many people come to vote on one thing depends on how many direct stakeholders are involved. If a small country wants to join the EU, it must be a referendum, because it is related to everyone's interests. Can a company's sale require a netizen referendum? These netizens just click the mouse and they know how much the Huiyuan knows. I think the decision rests with the big and small shareholders, the creditors, and perhaps the unions and the government. In fact, whether listed or sold, is essentially an entrepreneur to exit, the difference is the degree of withdrawal. If the entrepreneur can not put years of hard work to cash into the real gold and silver, can not enjoy the results, always only on the road, then how many people will have entrepreneurial power? How can there be a new round of venture capital? It's like you go to a casino and become one of the lucky ones, on the premise of sheer strength and luck. Whether you really want to get out of the field, but as long as the casino said to you, not to cash, you have to continue to gamble until you are exhausted. Do you think the game is interesting? One reason why China's best private companies are listed overseas is that only the United States and Hong Kong have the most complete exit routes. In the A-share market, the past is basically not open to private enterprises. Now open the door, but the "non-tradable" reduction to today is still a problem. A long time ago, a lonely girl in a village, self-reliance, humiliation, and finally the completion of a lingling big girl. At this time, a neighboring village of a rich man fell in love with him, just when the two people agree with each other, the village blew open the pot, said our village young bachelor still many, although want money no money, to look no appearance, can also not cheap outside people. But the girl refused to remarry the village, the village aunt family look anxious, find the village head, simply a plaque down: "Chastity chastity." The rich are scared away, but the girl is getting out of the way. Occasionally, the village officials were drunk and ran over to wipe the bottle. Please respect an entrepreneur's personal choice.