Ordinary Road 2010

Then he left arrogantly, Lin Yi looked at this guy's back and complained:

"I heard that Kalanick once said that a founder and CEO must be an asshole to be successful. Regardless of whether this truth is true, his evaluation of himself is quite appropriate."

At this time, the senior sister who never talked about people behind her back also answered: "Compared to him, the Zhang Xuhao we met before is considered civilized and polite."

Lin Yi summed it up in one sentence: "After all, when it comes to arrogance and unreasonableness, we have to look at foreigners."

Chapter 441

"Hahaha, where did this idiot come from?"

It is Gu Caiwei who is laughing at Kalanick now. Because Lin Yi is going to the United States for a while, Lin Yi flew to Shanghai to meet her before going on a long trip.

Gu Caiwei's recent work is more regular and relaxed than when she ran announcements from morning to night, mainly when the company and her teammates recorded the second album after the debut of GIVE ME FIVE.

Their first debut album only had three songs. Although their popularity has risen rapidly this time, it is still not a real album. There are only six songs in total, because selling songs does not make money at all.

There is also a song sung by Gu Caiwei and Xu Yali alone. As the former is the most popular member of the group, Peng Yuchen's intention to praise Lilian is very obvious.

In short, after the official release of the album, her schedule will become busy again. She has to promote her new song and help other teammates to gain popularity.

So after Lin Yi contacted her, he decided to take advantage of this time to go to Shencheng to meet her.

Gu Caiwei didn't know much about the business of Linyi Company at first, but she was very interested in all kinds of "wonderful works" he encountered in his work, so she took the initiative to ask:

"According to you, how did a guy as arrogant as him succeed in starting a business? Are all Americans like this?"

Lin Yi replied: "I don't know if all Yankees are like this, but when it comes to Kalanick, you have reversed the cause and effect."

"He didn't succeed in starting a business because he was arrogant. On the contrary, it was because he was too successful that he became arrogant."

"You don't know how popular Uber is among venture capital investors. It's the most popular chicken in Silicon Valley in 2014!"

Gu Caiwei remembered a past event: "It's a good thing I didn't go to the United States to study, otherwise I would be crazy to meet such a guy."

Under her reminder, Lin Yi also remembered the night of the summer solstice, when he held the girl's hand at Linzhong Peak, and told her "Don't go", the past seemed like yesterday.

The two smiled at each other.

Gu Caiwei felt that the atmosphere was too ambiguous and dangerous, so she quickly changed the subject: "Then he came over so aggressively, did you give up after rejecting him?"

"of course not."

Lin Yi stretched out an index finger, and said vividly, "I can guarantee that after he left from Wanli Travel, he must have gone to find a taxi by Tudu and taxi by Kuaidu, and he must have been rejected."

Gu Caiwei asked curiously, "How do you know?"

Lin Yi swore: "Just because we have been rivals for such a long time, I still have some confidence in them."

It's hard to say about those two, but Lin Yixin said that when Cheng Wei met Kalanick, he must have scolded Kalanick in his heart as an idiot.

He thought about it, and the person most likely to have an argument with Kalanick might be Chen Weixing. He was quite looking forward to this scene, and he could help him throw out all the trash talk that he wanted to scold but couldn't because of etiquette. .

Of course, Lin Yi didn't speculate about the result out of thin air.

"There is another piece of evidence. In mid-July, Uber announced its entry into the Beijing market. This is their first domestic expansion after Shanghai Shanghai. It shows that Kalanick's acquisition strategy must have gone bankrupt."

Gu Caiwei asked again: "Doesn't that mean that in addition to Dudu and Kuaidu, you will have to deal with this Uber from the United States?"

Lin Yi patiently explained: "It can be said that, but Uber is not a serious problem."

“Uber took the high-end route when it was launched. Kalanick’s first idea was to provide a noble service, operating luxury cars, and the default customers were wealthy people like himself. The first batch of users Rich Silicon Valley geek."

"So they are doomed to survive only in big cities, and they can only start from first-tier cities in China. They have not yet had time to deploy to second-tier cities. It is unlikely that more sinking markets will set foot in the foreseeable future."

"In addition, their current slow expansion is not acclimatized on the one hand, and on the other hand, it also means that the investment in the United States is limited."

"Don't look at the VCs who are frantically throwing money into Uber, and they can't take it if they want to, but in fact Uber burns a lot of money, which is no worse than our domestic counterparts."

"And he is not without opponents in the United States and other parts of the world. In short, my main energy may still be on Dudu and Kuaidu in a short period of time."

Although he spoke seriously, Gu Caiwei couldn't understand it, so she wisely gave up the topic.

"What a pity. Our second album will be released this month. Otherwise, maybe I can ask Mr. Peng for leave to accompany you to the United States."

She seems to have been inspired by this sentence: "Yes, Lin Yi, now I have too many fans in China and it's easy to be recognized, but next time we avoid other people and go abroad to play, won't we be discovered ?”

Celebrities do like to go abroad for sneaky dates, but there are not a lot of them being photographed.

Lin Yi had to remind her: "There are domestic tourists everywhere now, I'm afraid it's not as easy as you think."

Gu Caiwei thought about it too, pouted her mouth unhappily.

Lin Yi thought it was interesting, but he still praised with a wink: "This just shows that you are popular now, big star Gu Caiwei!"

Gu Caiwei gave a fart emoji of "You can talk", and the little emotion just now was immediately thrown out of the blue, and continued to share:

"Haha, Jiaqi told me a few days ago that when I first debuted, when no one paid attention, she also helped me to promote it among my roommates and classmates. Unfortunately, there was not much response."

"But since I became famous on the show "Singer", those people remembered that Jia Qi once said that she was my good friend, so they came to her to ask for her autograph and gossip."

"I have already sent her signed posters and CDs twice, but they were all distributed. Jiaqi was so disturbed that she announced that she would never help her classmates to chase stars again, hahahahaha..."

Gu Caiwei was still very restrained, even when she was stunned, she didn't say that she was "popular", Lin Yi deliberately joked:

"Did Zhang Jiaqi tell you how she explained to her classmates? In fact, the most effective way is to say that after you become a big star, you don't recognize your past girlfriends, and you just broke up with her."

Gu Caiwei knew that this guy was talking nonsense on purpose, but she still waved her [-]-pound iron fist to vent her anger a few times, and protested loudly:

"Jia Qi won't, no matter what the circumstances, she won't say she's breaking up with me!"

Lin Yi looked at her serious expression, smiled and raised his hands to express his surrender, and said:

"Well, I judged the heart of a gentleman with the heart of a villain, and underestimated the great and touching friendship between you and classmate Zhang Jiaqi."

Gu Caiwei did not let him go easily, pointed at him viciously and said, "I will punish you to go to America this time, and you must bring me a satisfactory gift!"

Lin Yi naturally agreed.

Chapter 442 An acquaintance who is not an acquaintance

Lin Yi returned to the capital first, and after getting his passport and visa, he and Liu Jianni set off from Capital International Airport to San Francisco.

This flight will take up to 12 hours. Although intercontinental routes usually use larger aircraft with better comfort, it is still easy to get tired.

For this reason, Lin Yi specifically confirmed with Liu Jianni before his subordinates booked the tickets, whether it is necessary to book business or first class for her, and her reply to this was:

"It's good to follow the rules. It's not like I didn't fly the economy class when I was a kid."

It is not yet the time to be extravagant when traveling thousands of miles. It is internally stipulated that everyone on business trips must take economy class, without exception.

Very well, of course Lin Yi was just asking politely, he knew that Liu Jianni was willing to travel thousands of miles to receive a salary of several thousand dollars a month, so he didn't care about it.

Unexpectedly, when the two boarded the plane, Lin Yi met an unexpected acquaintance.

Speaking of acquaintances is not quite accurate. Strictly speaking, the two did not have any direct intersection, but since they happened to sit together and the other party clearly recognized him, Lin Yi still said hello:

"Student Shangguan."

What he met was Shangguan Yingzi, a superwoman from Lin'an Middle School, the college bully who secretly competed with Gu Caiwei in the aerobics competition, and later met once at the Beijing Alumni Association, she should be studying at P University.

Lin Yi hesitated a little in his heart and chose such a title. Shangguan Yingzi was much more generous than him, so he waved his hand directly:

"I remember they all called you Lin Yi, don't you mind if I call you that too?"

"of course."

"Are you going to San Francisco too?"

"Correct."

Lin Yi remembered that there was Liu Jianni beside him, so he briefly introduced: "We are going on a business trip to the United States, this is my colleague."

Liu Jianni's reaction was very interesting. She and Shangguan Yingzi looked at each other with a smile as a greeting, then looked at Lin Yi in a vague way, and sat in the back seat without saying anything.

She reserved the position close to Shangguan Yingzi for Lin Yi, as if it was convenient for the two of them to chat.

"I remember that the news said that Wanli Travel, which you founded, just experienced a fierce battle at the beginning of the year, and it has only eased a little in recent months. Are you going to the United States now to expand your business there?"

This is not a commercial secret, so Lin Yi briefly explained:

"No, the US market has Uber, which is much bigger than ours, and other taxi-hailing apps. Wanli Travel has not yet reached this point."

"This trip to the US is mainly to discuss financing, because the domestic venture capital market is too small, and American investors are very optimistic about the ride-hailing software industry as a whole, giving them high valuations."

After Lin Yi talked for a while, he remembered that Gu Caiwei had always been ignorant of these things and was not very interested, and he didn't know if the person in front of him could understand.

Facts have proved that Shangguan Yingzi's knowledge structure is quite comprehensive, and she immediately asked: "So this time you are going to Silicon Valley?"

Silicon Valley is located in the south of San Francisco Bay. It was first known for its research and production of silicon-based semiconductor chips, and then it was given such a name.

Later, on the basis of these electronics industries, a thriving Internet industry was developed relying on local and strong scientific research forces from all over the United States, or the ICT industry on a larger scale.

In addition to a large number of technology companies with famous names all over the world, there are also many venture capital companies gathered with the prosperity of entrepreneurial culture.

Shangguan Yingzi's ability to think of this shows that she knows a lot, and Lin Yi didn't hide it: "Maybe I will go to the east coast again."

As we all know, the thirteen states that are the land of prosperity in the United States are on the east coast, and now they are the gathering places of all "old money", including New York, the world's financial center.

Lin Yi flew here this time to make money, so he had to go there at least once.

Shangguan Yingzi was still a student after all, and she could only chat a few words about work matters. Lin Yi quickly asked casually:

"So you also paid attention to the news about my entrepreneurship?"

Shangguan Yingzi laughed when she heard the sound: "Student Lin Yi, it seems that you really haven't interacted with your old classmates for too long."

"When your last entrepreneurial project sold for 2000 million US dollars, everyone knew about it, and the subsidy war that Wanli Travel participated in this time was even reported by passers-by."

"You are now a big celebrity among the 12th graduates. Every class reunion will definitely talk about you. Unless I am a house girl who doesn't listen to things outside the window, it is impossible not to know."

"When I returned to Linzhong some time ago, I heard from the teachers that Mr. Zhao in your class had invited you back to school to give a speech, but you never attended the appointment."

Shangguan Yingzi actually had an impression of this boy from the high school aerobics competition, because he was Gu Caiwei's partner at that time, but she didn't mention this relationship.

Lin Yi was very surprised after hearing this. He really didn't know about these things that happened out of his sight.

Because since I started my first business, I have almost completely given up my personal life, and I have no time to spend the money I earn, let alone this kind of social activities.

However, Lin thought about it as soon as he substituted in. If other students made such a big commotion, it seems reasonable to have such a reaction, right?

He still defended himself with a few words: "It's not that I'm too arrogant to ask for it. Entrepreneurship is really complicated and I can't get away from it all the time."

Shangguan Yingzi didn't make things difficult for him, because the two were not in the same class, she just said half-jokingly: "You should explain this to your head teacher."

She lightly touched the topic, and then looked at this unfamiliar guy and asked curiously: "Actually, I've always been curious, why did you think of starting a business right after college?"

Many people asked this question when I started my business for the first time, but it seems that everyone no longer cares about it when I start my business for the second time.

Lin subconsciously glanced at Liu Jianni on the other side, and found that she had put on the blindfold at some point and was leaning on the seat as if she was resting.

This action does not necessarily mean sleeping on the plane, but at least it is "do not disturb".

Lin Yi thought for a while and explained this way: "Because I actually taught myself programming skills in high school, and I didn't want to be too boring in college, so I planned to practice it, and luckily I was lucky."

Shangguan Yingzi's first reaction was: "Have you participated in the IOI?"

IOI refers to the International Informatics Olympiad. There are many students who participate in the competition in Linzhong, and they have won many times in international competitions.

But if this year's students get results in IOI, I should not be unimpressed, so Shangguan Yingzi asked this question.

"No."

Sure enough, Shangguan Yingzi knew that things should not be that simple, but the two of them were not very familiar, so it was normal for Lin Yi to have some reservations, so she didn't ask further.

Chapter 443 Real 20 Years Old

"What are you going to America for?"

The topic of the two quickly switched to Shangguan Yingzi, and the other party replied straightforwardly: "I applied to be an exchange student for half a year."

"which school?"

"Stanford."

"I should have thought that only HYPSM is worth applying for a college bully like you, and it happens to be in San Francisco."

HYPSM refers to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and MIT, representing the highest universities in the United States at the T0 level.

In the early years, the more popular concept in China was called the Ivy League. In fact, this was originally a sports league, and later developed into a university alliance among eight prestigious private universities in the Northeast of the United States.

However, the enrollment policies or entry thresholds of these schools are different. As the number of international students they enroll and graduate from here and return to China increases, the quality of admission becomes more and more insufficient.