Chapter 276 Say No
"I plan to step down as director and Su He will take over."

After taking a bite of the meat skewers and a bite of shallots and gulping down the ice-cold beer, Xie Jingxing's forehead broke out in sweat and he burped heartily.

Cheng Wei was stunned for a moment, looked at him and then looked at Liu Qing; the latter repeated the similar action, and they both suddenly laughed softly.

"In March after the new year, we will raise a round of funding of US$1 billion."

"So fast?" Now it was Xie Jingxing's turn to be surprised.

Liu Qing raised his eyebrows: "Mr. Cheng always keeps his word. I will unconditionally and fully cooperate with your gentleman's agreement."

When Xie Jingxing came to Beijing in July, Cheng Wei was determined to develop the smart car business next year, and immediately planned a huge round of financing with a guaranteed minimum of US$20 billion led by China Investment Corporation and BAIC Group, and expected to transfer 12-15% of the shares.

As a result, Liu Qing finally negotiated this round of financing with a valuation of US$140 billion, financing US$30 billion and giving up 22% of the shares. China Investment Corporation, BAIC Group and Ping An were newly entered into the game, and Tencent, Alibaba and Temasek, three early investors, followed suit.

Since then, Didi has completed seven rounds of financing, and has also completed two rounds of internal financing during the period of rapid mergers and acquisitions, with financing as a supplementary transaction method.

The nine rounds of financing totaled US$42.5 billion. As cash reserves exploded, the equity structure also exploded.

From this perspective, Xie Jingxing's voluntary resignation from the board of directors is a timely help, but it is not enough.

Liu Qing revealed that the next round of financing plan will mention the smart car business again, which is a further hope that Taihe will completely give up the board seats representing several small shareholders of early investors.

"If the board structure remains unchanged and Taihe transfers its seats to the new round of investors, the seats of the management and Xiyou will be guaranteed."

Xie Jingxing could naturally understand what she meant, and laid out the conditions for exchange: "Then for the new round of financing, Xiyou needs to use the terms and follow up on part of the financing amount."

"No problem, Mr. Xie is welcome to visit the company tomorrow. It just so happens that you haven't been here since we moved to the new office."

Liu Qing was already prepared and agreed straightforwardly. Cheng Wei, who was sitting beside him with a rosy face, just held the beer cup with a simple smile.

The smart car strategy was proposed by Xie Jingxing. If Xiyou does not increase its investment in subsequent rounds and take risks, there is no reason for everyone to have the confidence to make a bet together. Besides, Xiyou's follow-up investment will prevent its equity share from being diluted, which is also a good thing for itself.

Although it is unclear why he took the initiative to resign as a director, as if he had suddenly realized that power is like a floating cloud to him, Liu Qing really doesn't believe that he has let it go.

In this regard, Cheng Wei trusts his partner's judgment very much. After all, in his heart, Xie and Liu are the same person, but the former is an all-round enhanced version.

"That's it for today, we'll talk at the company tomorrow."

Xie Jingxing pondered the valuation and investment amount of the new round of financing, and was the first to say goodbye and go back to the hotel to rest.

After a while, the snowflakes in the night sky grew bigger and bigger, and a thin layer of frost formed on the window gaps. Liu Qing reminded them to drink less and be careful on the road, and then left.

The gathering ended happily, leaving Cheng Wei alone, leaning back in his chair to relax, his hands behind his head, looking up in a daze.

"311, just give 300."

The owner of the small shop comes to settle the bill in person. His old and returning customers are big bosses, and he feels honored every time he talks to them.

Cheng Wei looked away, scanned the code to pay the bill, and joked, "With your business, why don't you open a branch in our cafeteria?"

"I can't do it. I'm too old to work. I'll support my son until he graduates from college and then pack up and retire back home. When the time comes, let my kid go to your company, and my craft can be passed on."

The shop owner joked that his son was studying computer science at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications and had interned at Didi.

I witnessed with my own eyes that an acquaintance who used to smoke and chat with my father at the door of the store started a business that was valued at hundreds of billions of dollars after a few years of business. I didn't want to work for others anymore and said that I would start my own business even if it meant inheriting the barbecue restaurant.

"Children nowadays are so noisy and ignorant that they only see the thief eating meat instead of the thief getting beaten. Everyone thinks he is Xie Jingxing. As a father, I can't raise a child like Mr. Xie. Don't you agree?" The shop owner sat down and smoked a cigarette to catch his breath.

Cheng Wei tapped the greasy table with his fingers: "That's the truth."

"But then again, people from all walks of life are sitting at the same table with you, eating and drinking. You are the role model for young people who want to succeed." The shop owner, who was recognized, returned the favor.

Cheng Wei shook his head and laughed: "I'm not good enough yet."

"That's too modest. If you can't do it now, what will it take to become capable?"

"As for me, if I continue to work hard for another ten years based on my current foundation, I can say yes to him."

Cheng Wei looked at the empty beer cup across the table with a serious expression, and completed the second half of the sentence in his mind - it was in front of Xie Jingxing today.

The shop owner just took it as a joke and laughed in agreement, saying that my son wouldn't be able to work hard until retirement.

If you count the time from graduating from university to retirement as forty years, and if everything goes well and he becomes a department-level official, a billionaire in business, or a dean of a university, then your son will have the opportunity to press the brim of the cup to the lowest and perform the "gulp" performance in front of Xie Jingxing today.

How can this be considered a no?

This is great. Cheng Wei pulled his coat tightly together and stepped on the falling snow, making a dull crunching sound as he walked into the dark night.

…………

Didi’s new office has moved to Zhongguancun. It is very large and has a tea room, leisure and entertainment room, and the overall style is simple American industrial.

Liu Qing said that he planned to buy a piece of land in this area to build a headquarters office building next year or the year after, so as to accommodate core departments such as the research institute. Cheng Wei was busy with other work and did not come out to receive them. The other executives who accompanied him were all new faces. Xie Jingxing could not help but add a few more worries. Early co-founder and seed investor Wang Gang retired, and the new executive Zhu Jingshi took over his management position and even attended the board of directors.

He was the person Liu Qing brought in, and so were many other senior executives from departments including strategy and finance.

"Everyone go and do your work, I'll just take a look."

Strolling to the office floor with the nameplate of "Xiaoju Car Service", Xie Jingxing sent everyone away.

This is an internal business department that will be formally submitted to the board of directors for establishment early next year. For now, there are only a few of them, and the administrative team has just entered the preparatory stage.

It will be responsible for the upstream industry chain of online ride-hailing, including car manufacturing, rental, maintenance, insurance, refueling and charging. Didi's smart car strategy will start here.

"As of this month, our number of registered users has exceeded 2.6 million, and the number of registered drivers has reached 1000 million. We expect the total transaction volume for the whole year to reach 8 million."

Zhu Jingshi accompanied him to explain the situation: "According to our statistics, the penetration rate of the entire online car-hailing industry in the country is around 40% in first-tier cities, while in second-tier cities it has dropped to 14%, and third-tier cities can be ignored for the time being."

"In stark contrast to the market penetration rate, the average annual user growth rate in the online car-hailing industry is as high as 13%."

He concluded: "We have achieved tens of millions of drivers and hundreds of millions of users in a small part of the market, and the overall market size has grown significantly. Therefore, we have a lot of strategic initiative in radiating the upstream car manufacturing industry chain."

"for example?"

Xie Jingxing remained calm, perhaps out of instinctive concern for Didi's internal management team. For some reason, he didn't like this guy.

All these gorgeous and eye-catching data were obtained by Cheng leading the team in a fierce battle with Uber, while Liu Qing was looking for money everywhere, resulting in a net loss of US$800 million for the whole year.

You're just a new member of the gang, and you're so casual and you're acting like you have a plan when you first meet someone?!

Zhu Jingshi did not get a response from the teacher, so he explained in detail: "We have a huge customer base and can fully integrate upstream car companies to create an industrial alliance from auto parts production to assembly and final sales."

"We estimate that in the next three years, we can drive the use of 200-350 million cars. In fact, after the introduction of industry regulatory policies, we have initially carried out experimental work to provide full-time drivers with value-added financial services of 'rent-to-buy'."

Liu Qing observed the driver's expression and added: "The driver may not have the money to buy a car directly, so we can buy the car and rent it to the driver. The driver only needs to pay the monthly rental fee, and after a certain period of time, the ownership of the car will belong to him."

"That's right. Value-added financial services like this are reflected in car rentals, insurance and other areas. In fact, in my personal opinion, we don't need to build cars at all. We can provide the upstream car companies with car sales orders, and we have the ability to optimize market channels." Zhu Jingshi expressed his insightful views as if he had eaten a smart bean.

Xie Jingxing nodded repeatedly. It sounded very reasonable at first glance.

The conventional way of selling cars is nothing more than manufacturer-dealer-consumer terminal. Didi is in a superposition state of dealer and consumer terminal, covering all profit methods of renting a car, self-operation, sales, insurance and maintenance.

In other words, Didi can provide upstream manufacturers with higher profits and better sales channels, thereby forcing the manufacturers to obey and dominate the entire upstream and downstream.

"But, isn't this still an intermediary business?" Xie Jingxing tilted his head and looked at Liu Qing.

Zhu Jingshi coughed lightly and answered first: "I think the definition of intermediary is too thin. In fact, we can create a shared economic ecosystem in the entire automotive field. The smart transportation technology we master in the future will be our ecological barrier. No matter what industry, technology is the truth of high premium and high growth."

"I heard that when you were a colleague of Liu Qing at Goldman Sachs, you were particularly good at negotiating with investors?" Xie Jingxing did not comment and changed the subject.

Liu Qing managed to keep smiling: "Yes, in fact, Steven (Zhu Jingshi) gave us a lot of help in our last round of financing, and he is also making the specific plan for the new round of financing."

Zhu Jingshi was not a fool, but he couldn't help but complain about how such a good opportunity to perform had turned out. Marshal Xie's reputation as a genius was well-known, and he thought it would be a case of heroes appreciating heroes and a good minister meeting a wise ruler.

He immediately stood there, pushed up his glasses and lowered his head, pretending not to hear anything and secretly mocking others.

To be fair, Zhu Jingshi's trick of painting a rosy picture for investors is very good. It is obvious that he is a master who is very charismatic and can debate with many people at the financing roadshow.

But Xie Jingxing thinks that Didi has come a long way from the initial money-burning battle in Shanghai to the self-driving business in Tibet and even the merger and acquisition of Kuaidi. Are you trying to follow my lead?

"If you were the head of a car manufacturer, what would be your biggest wish?"

He gave his answer without waiting for a response: "I think your biggest wish should be to sell cars to the 60 billion people in the world, and everyone buys a car."

"As the head of Didi's corporate strategy department, what is your wish? I think it should be that 60 billion people around the world are integrated into the so-called car-sharing economy ecosystem."

Xie Jingxing shrugged: "Isn't this contradictory? If more than 60 billion people have cars, how can there be a car sharing economy? Everyone exchanges cars with each other?"

"So if I were the head of a car manufacturer, I would report under my real name that an industry alliance organized by an online car-hailing company that has not yet monopolized the entire market is committing fraud. They have betrayed the shared economy concept they promised to investors."

The words were too harsh. Liu Qing was about to say something with an unchanging expression, but when he felt Xie Jingxing's cold glance at him, he endured it again and again and finally just pursed his lips.

"We have acquired the Microsoft Bing Maps team and a group of scientists to develop autonomous driving technologies such as navigation and artificial intelligence. Our car manufacturing business is on the agenda. But I personally think that in our next round of financing, we need to give investors more intuitive and visible performance growth expectations. Our competition with Uber is very intense."

Zhu Jingshi was filled with anger, but he maintained the utmost dignity in front of Liu Qing and calmly changed his words in response.

There is no point in arguing about right or wrong at this moment. Only a child who is unhappy will yell and let the whole world see that he is unhappy. What about an investor who can't even control his emotions?
He sneered inwardly with disdain, thinking that the more he vented his emotions, the more the difference in status would be highlighted. He only needed to remain calm and he would get more points from Liu Qing later on.

"Ok, you are now an outstanding financing expert, you have the right to insist on the countless cool ideas you think. And as the investor in the next round, I have the right to say no~, what you think is not true." Xie Jingxing switched to English and announced frivolously, then turned and left.

Zhu Jingshi was slightly stunned, and then wanted to give a bitter smile that showed surprise, disappointment, helplessness, and tolerance, but unexpectedly Liu Qing did not stay there to comfort him, but chased after the boy in a depressed manner.

Damn it, what's going on? Are all other investors in the world dead? He just says NO and that's it? !
Zhu Jingshi could no longer hold it in. He was so angry that he stood there with his hands on his hips and jumped up and down. He really wanted to chase after Liu Qing and ask him which side he was on. He had resources on Wall Street!
(End of this chapter)