Author: Linjiangxian

San Jose.

Confinity Corporate Headquarters.

Confinity, founded in 1999, is no different from other startups in Silicon Valley, with only a simple idea and a small amount of capital.

Stanford graduates Peter Thiel and Max Levkin of the University of Illinois at Grand Champaign saw the growing number of users of the PalmPilot and other handheld computers and wanted to provide their users with a service that could store encrypted information on their PDAs.

But they soon realized the idea had limited commercial value and scrapped the plan.

At the same time, they found that there was a gap in effective user-to-user payment. The previous method was to write a check, but it took a long time to clear and the check might bounce.

They created Confinity, which allowed people to transfer small amounts of money to each other using PDAs, and then quickly moved to the Internet platform, allowing all network users to transfer money to each other.

The two geniuses came together, and they quickly received US$3 million in start-up capital from Nokia, and then found four like-minded partners. Together, the six of them moved forward towards their dreams and future.

They don't know now that the cause they are fighting for will be worth US$211 billion in twenty years.

It was almost noon, and Peter Thiel, who had just typed code all morning, glanced at a burger restaurant opposite the office and said to Pan Yu beside him: "What do you want to eat for lunch today?"

Pan Yu followed Peter Thiel's gaze, looked at the burger restaurant outside, and said with a smile: "Are you thinking about that super burger again? If you ask me, it's not a problem to think about it all the time. If you have to make up your mind to eat it once,

!Isn’t it just one hundred and sixty-eight dollars?”

Peter Thiel said: "Isn't that one hundred and sixty-eight dollars? Pan, you know what? A regular hamburger there only costs four to five dollars!"

Pan Yu said with a smile: "You want to eat, don't you? Besides, if you buy this hamburger set, the store will give you a bottle of red wine."

Bit Till couldn't help but swallowed, then looked away with difficulty, and said with great ambition: "If one day, our company's IPO is successful, I will definitely buy the most expensive one and try it, right?

The most delicious.”

Pan Yu from Xia Guogui Province, one of the six founders of Confinity, laughed after hearing this: "When the time comes, you should communicate with the store and change the name of that burger to IPO burger."

Peter Thiel looked like he had a headache and said: "It's difficult. Our company wants to IPO, but we don't know when it will happen. The stock market has fallen like this, and our financing has been hindered. It's good to survive."

Already."

Hearing what Peter Thiel said, Pan Yu couldn't help but sigh: "Hey, yes, our competitors are not stopping either, and the pressure on us from investors is getting bigger and bigger."

Although he is mainly responsible for technical work, after starting his business for more than a year, Pan Yu is no longer the novice who stayed in the ivory tower before. He is naturally worried about some situations in the capital market.

Although Confinity's current development momentum is good, it is not without competitors in the market.

The largest of its peers is Elon Musk’s X.com.

"How about Peter, let's discuss it with Musk and merge the two companies."

When Peter Thiel heard this, his protruding eyes widened even more, as if they were about to fall out of their sockets at any time, and his voice raised an octave: "What did you say?"

Pan Yu was startled, thinking that Peter Thiel was angry, so he quickly smiled and said: "Haha, it's nothing, I was just joking, don't take it seriously."

But Peter Thiel stretched out his hands, grabbed Pan Yu's shoulders, and said in an excited tone: "This suggestion of yours is great! If successful, it can solve most of our company's problems!"

Pan Yu: "???"

He just mentioned it casually, but he didn't expect Peter Thiel to be so excited.

Just as he was about to speak, a staff member came into the office and reported: "Boss, a young man with an oriental face came to visit our company."

When Peter Thiel heard that he had an oriental face, he said to Pan Yu: "Look for yours."

A puzzled expression appeared on Pan Yu's face: "No friend told me that he would come to see me today."

at this time.

Outside the gate of Confinity Company.

Lu Yiming is on the phone with Bill Gates.

"You are really well-informed. I just left the house..."

"Don't worry, I came to California to invest in an interesting Internet company. I didn't intend to run away, and I haven't broken any laws. If I really run away, wouldn't that be considered absconding in fear of crime?"

Hearing that Lu Yiming was not planning to run away, Bill Gates breathed a sigh of relief. After all, he had just served as the guarantor for Lu Yiming's bail. If Lu Yiming ran away, his old face would be greatly disgraced.

"Which company have you set your sights on? You even went to California. Now that technology stocks have fallen so miserably, aren't you afraid of losing money if you buy it?"

The old god Lu Yiming said on the spot: "Technology stocks plummeted because there were too many bubbles. But although most companies are garbage, there is still a lot of gold in this huge mountain of garbage. What I am interested in is a company

A company specializing in online payment services.”

He has no intention of hiding this from Bill Gates.

If you want to live in the United States, it is very important to have a good relationship with Bill Gates. After all, many things require "locals" like them to solve them.

"Pay online?"

Bill Gates was a little surprised and didn't know why Lu Yiming was suddenly interested in this kind of thing.

However, he didn't take this matter to heart.

These days, the future of online payment is very unclear, but there are countless companies doing this stuff.

The financial industry in the United States is very developed, and the various services provided by banking institutions are very complete, so many people actually do not have a strong demand for online payments.

What's more, in the eyes of most investors, banks are the main force in this kind of payment-related business.

How can a group of pheasant Internet companies with no background or backing compete with banks?

Lu Yiming smiled and said: "Yes, how about it? Are you interested?"

Bill Gates said simply: "I'm not interested. You can play slowly. I have something to do here, so I'm hanging up."

He called just to make sure that Lu Yiming didn't run away directly, so that he wouldn't be embarrassed in the Ministry of Justice. Now that it was confirmed that Lu Yiming didn't run away, it was natural to let Lu Yiming go.

After finishing the phone call with Bill Gates, Lu Yiming briefly talked to Li Yiwen about the content of their call.

Li Yiwen said: "I think it makes sense for Bill Gates not to play. Investing in Confinity is too risky and there is really no need."

Lu Yiming raised the folder in his hand and said, "Before coming here, I thought this company was very average, but after reading the information in my hand, my mind completely changed."

When Linus Benedikt Torvalds and Lu Yiming mentioned Confinity, Lu Yiming had no impression of it. But after seeing the founders of Confinity, Lu Yiming finally knew that this company would become famous in the future.

PayPal!

With a market value of US$211 billion, it has nearly 325 million users around the world. It integrates internationally popular credit cards, debit cards, electronic checks and other payment methods. It serves more than 200 markets and supports more than 100 currencies.

In cross-border transactions, nearly 70% of online cross-border buyers use PayPal to pay for overseas purchases.

There is no doubt that this is an Internet company with huge potential!

Even though Lu Yi Mingxia's identity as a Chinese is destined to prevent him from holding PayPal shares for a long time, it is still good to make a short-term investment. In October 2002, PayPal will be sold to eBay, the world's largest online merchant company, for fifteen

Acquisition for 100 million U.S. dollars.

Invest a little money now, and you’ll be able to earn it back with interest later!

After waiting at the door of the company for a while, Lu Yiming and Li Yiwen were invited into the company, and soon met Peter Thiel and Pan Yu.

As soon as the two of them saw Lu Yiming, they immediately recognized him.

After all, the news is broadcast every day. He has single-handedly brought Silicon Valley to dust, even if he doesn't know him.

"Are you, Mr. Lu?"

Peter Thiel was a little panicked. After all, Lu Yiming now has a "bad reputation". He didn't know the purpose of Lu Yiming's sudden visit to his company.

Lu Yiming nodded slightly and said kindly: "Yes, I am."

Pan Yu smiled and shook hands with Lu Yiming and said, "I didn't expect Mr. Lu to come to our company as a guest. I'm disrespectful."

Lu Yiming said straight to the point: "I won't say any more nonsense. Let's get straight to the point, okay. I am very optimistic about Confinity and I want to invest."

Peter Thiel and Pan Yu looked at each other, but neither one spoke.

Lu Yiming knew what they were worried about. After all, because of his short selling of U.S. stocks, he was now famous, especially in Silicon Valley. He was simply worried.

But Lu Yiming is not without his advantages - he has money.

Since the two of them didn't speak, Lu Yiming continued: "Internet companies have an obvious head effect and the winner takes all. Therefore, if Confinity wants to survive in the fierce market competition, it must seize market share as soon as possible. And this requires continuous efforts.

Burning money, it just so happens that you are short of money, but I have money."

Peter Thiel fell silent after hearing this, obviously thinking about whether to agree to Lu Yiming's investment.

Taking advantage of this moment, Lu Yiming looked curiously at Pan Yu, who was also from the Xia Kingdom.

Pan Yu, who joined Confinity in 1998 and became one of the six founders, may still look like a nerdy college student, but now he has the title of senior software engineer and is responsible for preparing and implementing Paypal's first-generation flagship product.

Moreover, he has also made groundbreaking use of innovative network technologies and superb computer programming skills, and continues to find new ways to revolutionize the traffic flow of the World Wide Web, allowing Confinity users to safely and easily make payments and transfer money online.

What's this?

This is a master of technology!

The more Lu Yiming watched, the more enthusiastic he became. Instead of a marketing genius like Peter Thiel, he was more interested in a technical genius like Pan Yu.

After all, he comes from the future and is the best product manager in the world. He knows what can be made popular, but what he lacks is people who can make the products.

Seeing that the two of them had not spoken yet, Lu Yiming asked Pan Yu in Chinese: "I remember you seem to be from Xia country, right? Where is your hometown?"

Pan Yu said: "I am from Guangxi Province. I immigrated to the United States with my family. After graduating from college, I started a business with a few classmates."
To be continued...