Chapter 277 Cheng Wei's Desperate Struggle

With one hand in his pocket, he walked briskly.

Xie Jingxing strolled through the public office areas, attracting many eyes. Liu Qing made the public relations, strategy, and human resources departments look like her, but the specific business lines could not be changed.

Fu Qiang, general manager of the designated driver business unit, was formerly the regional director of Kuaiche, and they had a face-to-face confrontation. Liu Chen, formerly the Hangzhou regional manager and current operations director of the Kuaiche business unit, had been to Tibet together.

Every time Xie Jingxing greeted a familiar face, Liu Qing frowned a little, and finally turned around and went back to the office, trying not to see it.

"Steven, what happened today was unnecessary."

She leaned against the large office chair with an expressionless face. Zhu Jingshi subconsciously turned his head to glance at the closed office door and spread out his hands to indicate that I could say something else.

Liu Qing took a deep breath and said, "He was in the same industry as us before. You know what he wants to hear, right?"

"I tell you the future of the industry, strategic planning, and performance growth without reservation. This is my professional quality as an investment banker."

Zhu Jingshi suppressed the throbbing veins on his forehead, propped his hands on the desk and said in English: "And his response to us is that we cannot listen to any different opinions. If this is the case, what is the value of our existence? We need to express our personal strategic judgment."

"Go ahead and say it, no one is stopping you. But why do you have to talk about those data and educate him on what a high-profit business is? He joined this company earlier than you and me, and he knows better than you where those data came from and how this company should deal with investors!" Liu Qing refuted fiercely in the same English language.

Zhu Jingshi was speechless and turned to refute from another angle: "OK, we have to admit that he is capable and prestigious, but in all my years in the industry, I have never seen an investor who interferes with the internal management of the invested companies like him. It's not too late to put an end to this, starting with our next round of financing."

"Don't play dumb Steven, listen carefully, from the beginning till now today it's only you who has the say, not us!" Liu Qing stood up suddenly.

Zhu Jingshi's momentum suddenly stopped, and he looked at her in disbelief. After staring at each other for a long time, he gave in and said, "Are you serious?"

Liu Qing swung his arms, walked to the window, turned his back, and folded his hands in front of his chest, rising and falling rapidly, showing his extremely restless emotions.

So far, Didi’s equity structure has been completely shattered, especially the excessive dilution of US$140 billion in the last round of financing at a valuation of US$30 billion. Taihe + Xiyou hold a total of 13.5% of the shares and are the second largest shareholders.

The order of arrangement is the founding team, Tencent, Xiyou, and subsequent investors such as Alibaba, and their shareholding ratios are very close. However, in order to build the VIE framework, she stuffed all external investors into a BIV control level.

If other investors do not unite, Xie Jingxing will have more say than Tencent in this level of control.

So the question is, will other investors unite?

The prestige that Xie Jingxing displayed while running around the company was not only with his subordinates, but also with his superiors.

Even though Zhu Xiaohu is annoyed by the burning of money, everyone knows that no matter how Young Master Xie jumps, even if he becomes the spiritual founder of Didi, his butt is still firmly on the side of investors.

Moreover, he will have to use the previous preferential terms to participate in the new round of financing to ensure his leading shareholding ratio. In contrast, the founding team lost the 33% actual control line after this round of financing and needs the super voting rights of AB shares to continue to maintain actual control.

Finally, under such circumstances, Zhu Jingshi actually proposed to kick Xie Jingxing out through financing. The last person to do so, Zhang Xuhao, has just announced his withdrawal from Xinda E.

"We need his support, and the smart car business is an agreement between Mr. Cheng and him. Can we not discuss what we have agreed on?" Liu Qing turned around and persuaded in a softened tone.

Zhu Jingshi sat on the edge of the desk with his legs half-straddled: "So what should we do now?"

"Apologize to him. After he's finished showing off his influence, he'll take the initiative to give you a way out."

Liu Qing switched back to Mandarin: "Be patient. Although he has a background of studying abroad, he is also deeply influenced by his family. He is not completely like Wall Street business, but he is not completely unruly like traditional domestic investors. Just treat it as early adaptation. You will be fully responsible for strategic/PR-related business in the future, and you will have to spend a lot of time dealing with him."

Zhu Jingshi almost laughed out loud. He was pushing him to take the blame while promising him a rosy picture. This old colleague who he had worked with for many years had grown a lot recently. Starting a business was indeed a training ground for people.

The root cause of today's farce is not his attitude, but the attitude of Liu Qing and even Cheng Wei.

Although his words and deeds were a bit arrogant and frivolous, Xie Jingxing was able to achieve his current success, so it was unreasonable for him to respond so angrily because of such a small matter.

The real problem is that Liu Qing and Cheng Wei both knew that he did not agree with the strategy of self-operating upstream car manufacturing business, and today they added fuel to the fire and deliberately brought him out to receive and accompany them.

Zhu Jingshi was well aware of the twists and turns involved and his own calculations. If he could persuade Xie Jingxing to change his strategic decision, his position in the company would obviously rise rapidly.

No one is stupid and everyone knows what's going on. He is willing to join the game and be used as a gun, and he also uses his subjective initiative to add drama to his character.

Now that things have failed, he has to take the blame and accept defeat. There is nothing to say. Zhu Jingshi quickly adjusted his mentality and looked at Liu Qing, who seemed to be in a natural state, without showing any expression. After all, he is a descendant of a famous family, and it is ingrained in his bones that he should cherish his life while doing great things.

If Xie Jingxing was indeed as sharp and fierce as he had just shown, how could he easily give up the opportunity?
Zhu Jingshi sighed quietly, feeling quite melancholy that he was not worthy of being a strategist with. He was a master strategist and had a thorough understanding of everything, but he never expected that Liu Qing could not even last one round.

Just as Xie Jingxing raised his hand and touched his belt, she instantly slid down to her knees and lay flat, righteously comforting her boyfriend, "You go and guard the door first and don't go far, otherwise he will be unhappy. In fact, I don't want to do that either. Let's be patient for now and find a way to deal with him later."

…………

"You guys continue."

Xie Jingxing walked into the conference room carrying two large bags of milk tea, and placed them next to each person in turn, then quietly found a seat in the corner. Cheng Wei nodded slightly to greet him, He Xiaofei, the newly recruited artificial intelligence scientist, was reporting on his work, and Chief Technology Officer Zhang Bo smiled and grabbed a cup of milk tea, put a straw in it and slurped it.

When Didi was first burning money and Xie Jingxing was fighting bare-handed to enter the market, it was this guy who led the team to live and eat in the office for a week to expand the server capacity, and later he also participated in the Tibet expedition.

Xie Jingxing patted him on the shoulder to show his closeness. No matter what Cheng Wei thought, he had recruited the Bing Maps team and invested money to set up an autonomous driving research institute, and his execution ability had not been compromised at all.

However, this is exactly what makes it even more puzzling. Since the overall strategy of entering the smart car market next year has been decided, why do we need to bring out Zhu Jingshi, a child with cerebral palsy, to test the waters?

"That's it for today."

The meeting ended while Xie Jingxing was lost in thought. Zhang Bo and the others chatted and laughed as they left the meeting room, closing the door considerately.

"Treat the whole company to some milk tea?"

Cheng Wei leaned his chin on his hand and looked out through the glass window: "Liu Qing sent me a message. Zhu Jingshi just came back from Wall Street and needs to adapt to the working method."

"No, I think he is too adaptable, a typical elite."

"Elites are great. We at Didi are too grassroots and need elites to improve the professionalism of our team."

"..."

Xie Jing Xing suddenly didn't know what to say. The scene of Cheng Wei praising Liu Qing last night jumped out of his mind as if it was replaying in front of him, gradually overlapping and merging with what he saw and heard in the company today.

An outrageous possibility emerged in his mind, and he whispered: "It's better to open it than to block it?"

"Dayu controlling the flood? What are you thinking about, brother? Are you stupid because of Zhu Jingshi?" Cheng Wei teased without knowing the reason.

Xie Jing Xing shook his head and looked at him, the two of them looked at each other in silence and the atmosphere became subtle.

Cheng Wei struggled for more than ten years to be able to sit in a barbecue restaurant and drink beer with him and Liu Qing, but this does not mean true equality.

His joining made it easy for Didi to take control of the battle between Didi and Kuaidi. As an investor, he was able to decide the specific marketing strategy, which was difficult for the founder to accept.

So Cheng Wei brought in Liu Qing to check and balance Didi, who also brought talents to Didi, financing and other aspects of support, and gradually gained power relatively. It's like a cup of poison that quenches thirst. If you don't drink it, you will die early at the hands of Kuaidi, and if you drink it, you will die later at the hands of capital and aristocratic families.

As expected, the company grew rapidly, and top capital such as Temasek and China Investment Corporation, and top talents such as Zhu Jingshi, flocked to it.

He and his initial grassroots team ran and chased desperately, but at best they could only keep the business line from falling behind. The binary balance was quietly broken and the poison began to take effect.

From then on, Cheng Wei's logic took a 180-degree turn. Since he couldn't defend against you, he might as well let you go completely. If the binary system doesn't work, then he'll use the triangle system.

He wanted to promote Zhu Jingshi, Liu Qing's old colleague and the talent he personally introduced, to the third position in Didi. Unfortunately, these two elite sea turtles were so direct and sharp in their offensiveness that they actually thought of targeting Xie Jingxing for a big move.

This was a godsend for Cheng Wei.

"Kill three birds with one stone, Old Cheng." Xie Jingxing nodded vigorously in appreciation to break the silence.

Cheng Wei lowered his head tiredly: "She is waiting for you to go to her office."

"Push Zhu Jingshi out, and then there will be a crack in their tacit understanding. Even if there is no crack this time, Zhu Jingshi, a master who came from the high-intensity palace fighting environment of Wall Street, will definitely not be willing to be someone else's subordinate when he sees the opportunity to start his own business."

Xie Jing Xing gave his evaluation, paused for a moment and asked: "So now, do you want to say a few good words for him and persuade me?"

"You are too smart. You always like to say everything without leaving any room for doubt."

Cheng Wei pulled up a bitter smile. In fact, he didn't need to persuade anyone, as Liu Qing would definitely push Zhu Jingshi out to take the blame.

This woman has the courage to test secretly, but it is impossible for her to confront the young commander head-on. Xie Jingxing may not be able to control Didi as well as Xin Da Hung, but it is not too easy to deal with his own all-round simplified substitute.

There is a precedent. At the beginning of the year, Uber openly attempted to alienate her, and the first reaction of the investors led by Zhu Xiaohu was to send her out of the country with courtesy.

Whether to leave or stay was just a matter of Xie Jingxing's thoughts. When they entered Tibet, they had a deep friendship, but now it has deteriorated.

"Liu Qing, a descendant of a famous family, cherishes his life when doing great things; you, born in the countryside, would sacrifice your life for a small gain."

Xie Jingxing raised three fingers with his left hand and said word by word seriously: "Actually, I don't care about the competition between you at all. Really, I just want smart cars."

Well, I didn’t make myself clear this time. If you can’t make smart cars well, you’ll all die.

Cheng Wei thought it was a good idea. He would rather Didi change its name to Xie.

(End of this chapter)