Tian Cloud Base: Accumulated investment of 700 million yuan to find technical talent

At the age of 45, Tian suffered a mid-life crisis.

At that moment, the founder of the letter, the former CEO of China Netcom, the chairman of the broadband capital, and so on a series of titles, meaningless.

It has been a Tian for years to spend a month or two in Silicon Valley, absorbing new technology in depth. However, 4 years ago, in Los Angeles, the old friend Ming (Trend Technology Chairman) home, two of the already successful middle-aged men are rather confused: what new technology can make each other glow youth?

"We think that WiFi talk for a long time, still did not find a business model," Tian to the "talent" reporter recalls that half a year, two people are considering whether to retire.

6 months later, Zhang Ming is dialing Tian a telephone, the common tacit understanding and the question comes from: "Cloud, is this matter really?" "That summer, the two people visited Silicon Valley's innovative SMEs, the answer is:" That ' s it. Later, Tian found old friend Jerry Yang, and Yahoo, Google and Amazon technology cattle chat, further identified: "Cloud computing, not only the future is ambitious, but also unprecedented opportunities in China."

4 years later, December 12, 2011, when Microsoft Greater China Region Chairman and CEO Leung, Intel China Region President Yang, Ufida Chairman and CEO Wang Wenjing and Zhang Ming are gathering together, around the "cloud world" to start a dialogue, Tian has "cloud base" built in Beijing also Zhuang development zone.

"The cloud of the homeland"

Attending the MasterCard board, Tian found a note in Winston Churchill's house: in January 1912, when the British fleet was looking for power sources, it disagreed with native coal or new oil. At that time, the Navy Minister Churchill Lipaizhongyi, the election of oil as a driving force, eventually led to the Royal fleet to dominate the sea. Tian immediately the story into a text message, sent to the domestic "cloud base" colleagues, and attached: Today's ocean is data information, cloud computing will be the oil power of this era?

"The boss is full of passion, like the whole country and the fate of mankind thinking, willing to talk about science and technology to serve and ideals," Gu Hongwen, an old broadband capital employee of "excellence" reporter said.

"In the past, China's it has no ' heart ', no ' soul '", Tian regrets, the chip can not do, the operating system can not do.

In chatting, Jerry Yang gave him an example: Previously, the operating system can only manage a machine, when the cloud appears, the operating system can manage dozens of units, hundreds of thousands of machines. After virtualization, computing and storage resources become distributed and are very inexpensive. In other words, in the era of cloud computing, the chips changed, the operating system changed, the storage changed, and the value of computing changed. In fact, cloud computing first originated from Yahoo Hadoop, Tian was inspired by Jerry Yang very much.

So, Jerry Yang, Ming, Tian 3 "middle-aged men" came together. Tian said, "Hale and hearty, we want to be a" home of the cloud.

1987 Tian study, parents told him to take on the unexpectedly is a handful Chinese loess, after returning from overseas study, in the northwest worked for 30 years, will devote the youth to the desert research, these events and industry to serve the country's feelings, has been stirring in Tian heart.

But Tian is not an IT-tech background, and even a ph. D. degree is ecology. "I would like to be a student of Ming, Jerry Yang and Ding," he said, excited and curious to see the new technology.

Ding, a technical genius with Tian, Tian said that Ding would not be able to take a joke on the technology: Could you spell the TCP/IP shorthand? However, Ding said, Tian has the ability to put some esoteric technology and knowledge, speech so that we all admire.

Today, Tian Yang, Zhang Ming, as well as Quanta Computer founder Limberi, Granville Electronics founder Chen and other it bosses into investment partners, the establishment of broadband capital. Among them, in the cloud base project, accumulated investment of 7 total 700 million yuan, is the most important investment.

"In fact, from the Internet to broadband to cloud computing, there is a little change in the changes: it is to reduce information costs." The internet allows email to be unblocked, broadband allows information to be transmitted faster, and cloud computing will make the future ' end ' cost as cheap as a book, but with the library's supercomputer capabilities. He pointed out the implied industrial logic to the Journalist of excellence.

In the clouds, a bright picture slowly unfold, but, how to create a "dream Team"?

Diversity combination

More than one IT industry predicts that it is China and the US that have a lot to do with cloud computing, because there is a big market behind it. However, the gap between China and America cloud power is very obvious.

"Innovation and the United States for three or four years, the four big ' clouds ' in the United States, Apple Cloud, Amazon Cloud, Facebook cloud and Google Cloud have not entered China," Tian bluntly.

Of course, this is where cloud computing is in China. Unlike the traditional VC and PE, the Broadband capital choice will be the entire cloud computing industry chain gathered, the participation of the 7 companies, with eating and living with the labor.

"Base plus funds, hardware and software together, create together, and independent, like a nursery," Tian said.

This approach, unlike Angel investment, is not entirely an industry incubator, as companies that have cooperated are already on the market. However, all companies on the cloud base can share platform resources such as capital, financial management services, corporate culture, human resources management, and strategic sharing.

In fact, after a few years of private enterprise and state-owned enterprises, Tian has been familiar with the communication context of various circles, in the entrepreneurial experience, and the government, operators how to deal with, he can be called "entrepreneurial mentor."

In the cloud base building, there are about 1100 people, 9 companies settled in, some with broadband capital has formed a property relationship, and some are in negotiations. 9 companies that lay out the various nodes of the cloud computing industry chain, including software, hardware, system integration and services.

"Yunmeng" of the big, from such a portfolio can be seen. However, in this industry chain, the investment order is exquisite. "You should start with the hardware, then the software, and then the solution and system integration, each step of the business model must be defined well." It's particularly important that companies have cash flow on their first day, "Tian said.

In fact, looking back on the history of Assyria, Tian and Ding have suffered in cash flow. Early asiainfo in signing the contract, the customer pays only 20% deposit, the rest by the Asian letter advance, in the project is small, still can turn around, the company scale the bigger cash flow is tighter. The experience of the netcom is similar, also need to invest upfront, investment returns long.

Tian was evidently unwilling to old-fashioned. Cloud base investment case, the first choice for a quick-impact cloud computing products, and the United States Ultra Micro (SUPERMICRO) Company joint venture set up a world of cloud, flagship cloud server. Once introduced, these products will enable enterprises to gain benefits in a short period of time, into a virtuous circle of break-even. In conjunction with, and then layout Friends of the system, cloud box data center and cloud technology and other software and solutions companies.

Today, Tian is constantly looking for "the next ding-style technology genius", exploring technologies that can transform into cloud architectures, and finding gaps in the cloud's value chain for chips, servers, storage, network switching, software and thin terminals. Every Tuesday night, Tian and the technical backbone of the cloud base to eat, chat, shine. Investing in an industrial mindset makes Tian look like investors.

Of course, the cloud base model challenges remain, because it does not have any reference, and the base of the company, there are holding companies, joint ventures, there are equity companies, the company form, culture, sources are also different. As Tian in his internal statement, this diversity is good enough to form a force; this diversity is a conflict. (Sun)

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)