Chapter 175 New Directions

A little over two hours later.

Su Yehao left, feeling refreshed.

Conversely, Jiang Yu had to hold onto the wall when going down the stairs, feigning a guilty conscience as she claimed to have twisted her ankle.

Linda Yun, acting as both a personal secretary and assistant, smiled knowingly. Aware of Jiang Yu's self-deception and shyness, she refrained from teasing her, only reminding her that her sweater seemed to be on backward.

Jiang Yu instantly blushed... no wonder she felt an invisible force constricting her neck. She hurried upstairs to change her clothes.

Hong Kong in December.

The weather had been a bit chilly these past few days. No one was swimming at the beach anymore, with the temperature only around eighteen degrees Celsius.

Jiang Yu wore a thin gray sweater with a white denim jacket over it. Su Yehao, on the other hand, wore casual pants and a sweatshirt, prioritizing comfort. He personally drove the blue Ferrari his aunt had given him, first dropping her off at Sweet Fish Entertainment.

As for Su Yehao himself, he made a turn in Central and headed straight for the Sihai International Building.

In the past two years, Hong Kong's economy had taken a severe hit, and the unemployment rate remained high. Several tenants in the Sihai International Building in Central had chosen to terminate their leases. He took the opportunity to move both the KOKO Venture Capital headquarters and his assistant's office there, saving on rent.

The future plan was to house all these companies in the office buildings at the Kai Tak Digital Hub. However, the design work wasn't fully completed yet, and the bidding conference was scheduled for ten days later.

Even after the designs were done, it would probably take three or four years to complete construction, so he'd be temporarily using his dad's office building for a few years.

His own building.

Su Yehao parked the car directly in front of the office building entrance. The security guard's face lit up with a smile, and he quickly used plastic cones to block off the car, preventing anyone from scratching or bumping into it.

After leisurely heading upstairs, he first visited the KOKO Venture Capital headquarters, asking if there were any new projects worth paying attention to.

The internet was still in a boom period. Although there were already many rumors of a "bull market peak," the growth rate of internet users was still high, stimulating the sector to continue to rise.

This led to funds continuing to pour in, and entrepreneurs were highly enthusiastic. Whether in the mainland or the United States, a batch of excellent startups were emerging one after another.

Currently, in Silicon Valley, there were more than twenty privately held internet companies with valuations exceeding $500 million. It couldn't be said that they were all overvalued; it was simply a vast ocean.

After someone delivered the documents.

Su Yehao flipped through them while drinking coffee, and unexpectedly discovered a company called "loveline." He said in surprise:

"Huh? Isn't this the project co-founded by Uncle Qiu's son, Qiu Yaohao, and He Shaofan's cousin, He Shaolin? It's already valued at $200 million?"

The information in front of him stated that the company already had 1.7 million active users, and the number of users was continuously growing.

Since Nong Qingying had focused on developing SK2, the head of KOKO Venture Capital headquarters had been replaced by a middle-aged man named Mai Wenjia, who had previously worked at Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers, possessing extensive experience in the field of venture capital.

At that moment.

Sitting across from him, Mai Wenjia stretched his neck to take a look after hearing this, and replied with a smile:

"Yes, I heard that several Hong Kong tycoons have decided to invest in it. The Li family and He family foundations are both in contact with it. However, I don't recommend that you invest in it, young master, because it involves social networking and plans to develop online chat services, which overlaps with your Yanwenzi Group."

Since Su Yehao became famous, many local businessmen had approached him.

For example, a few days ago during Google's financing, several well-known Hong Kong tycoons asked people to say hello to him, directly expressing their desire to join in.

Su Yehao didn't stop them and gave them a portion of the shares, accounting for about 6% of the total share capital.

Part of the reason for Google's external financing was to find strong allies. He had already made friends with a group of local Hong Kong businessmen because of the Kai Tak Digital Hub. This was a good opportunity to consolidate relationships and deepen cooperation in terms of interests.

Yahoo's market value had already broken the $70 billion mark.

In recent months, Yahoo hadn't held back in suppressing Google. While acquiring third-party companies to optimize the accuracy of search results, adjusting advertising strategies, and paying more attention to user experience, it had also spent heavily on offline promotions to expand its market share.

Even on buses in San Francisco, Yahoo's advertisements could be seen. Moreover, they were quite generous when poaching talent, with headhunters even reaching out to Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

Of course.

Sergey Brin would definitely not agree. He had a written agreement with Su Yehao that if he voluntarily chose to leave the company before Google went public, the previously promised shares would be void. The value of that equity was far higher than the price offered by Yahoo.

Moreover, Yahoo didn't really need him that badly, it was simply using petty tricks to try to divide the tacit understanding between Google's management.

After a series of moves, Google's development fell into difficulties, the user growth rate declined, and coupled with the lack of improvement in revenue, the valuation during external financing was only $1.5 billion.

Seventy billion dollars versus one and a half billion dollars.

Su Yehao knew that Yahoo's business was expanding too much. Everything was fine now while things were smooth, but it would be difficult to endure when the market entered a cold period. Therefore, even if he allowed Google to raise external funds now, he wasn't worried about harming his carefully selected allies.

Crossing his legs, Su Yehao shook his head and said to Mai Wenjia:

"I didn't plan to invest anyway. It's just an online dating website. The social connections aren't strong, and users will only think of it when their hormones are surging. Moreover, the competition in this industry isn't small. The main reason why Loveline has been able to develop is that the two co-founders are willing to spend money. It seems like the situation is good now, but I always feel like it doesn't have much of a future."

After thinking it over, Mai Wenjia smiled and said:

"Indeed, those who use Yanwenzi Group's products are all friends and acquaintances. This product only has strangers. It's likely that after everyone gets to know each other through it, they will choose to use iCQ or TVT to contact each other. It's very similar to the 'People Nearby' feature you launched, young master."

"That's about the idea. The valuations of these companies are really high now, and there's a lot of froth. It's too difficult to pick some suitable new projects."

Su Yehao closed the folder, continued to savor the authentic Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, and added: "Next, you guys should change your thinking and only be responsible for collecting information on the internet industry. Shift your attention to new fields and pay more attention to new technologies in mobile terminal devices, such as LCD screens, touch screens, batteries, operating systems, and so on."

After the business transformation to the present, all the large projects have taken shape, and with the internet quietly entering a bottleneck, Su Yehao's business is in a period of precipitation.

Although he previously sold Yahoo's shares, he was still profiting from it through leveraged option investments.

This allowed Su Yehao to hold huge amounts of capital, and still have extra funds to pay attention to new opportunities, so he asked Mai Wenjia to collect relevant information in advance.