Becoming a Russian Oligarch After Rebirth
Chapter 1032 - 915: Peerless Twins_2

Chapter 1032: Chapter 915: Peerless Twins_2

It has even started to delve into instant Internet communication, e-commerce, and so on; it could be said they do everything.

Compared to that, Facebook Inc was much simpler, focusing only on the "Facebook" service, but it also developed very rapidly and was particularly beloved by the younger generation.

With the expansion of the company’s size, the original office space became insufficient, and now Sergei was considering whether to construct a company headquarters building...

The company was not short of money now; in addition to the start-up capital provided by Wang Ye, it had gone through two rounds of financing over the past two years.

The latest round of financing valued the company at a staggering five billion US dollars!

Of course, Wang Ye participated in both rounds of financing.

But he held so many shares of Facebook Inc that he had to dilute some of his holdings, otherwise it would have been impossible to introduce new venture capital.

It is worth mentioning that Facebook Inc conducted two rounds of financing, and the "riches" did not flow into outsiders’ fields.

During the first round, Facebook’s valuation had already reached one billion US dollars!

Wang Ye brought in Khodorkovsky and A Bu, and they covered the entire quota of the financing round.

After this round of financing, the shareholding percentages in Facebook Inc were as follows: Wang Ye 60%, Sergei 15%, Khodorkovsky 12.5%, and A Bu 12.5%!

By the time of the second round of financing, which was in the second half of last year, Facebook had already swept the Russian Internet and became the hottest Internet company of 2004.

The valuation of Facebook had reached five billion US dollars!

At that time, many venture capital firms from Europe and the United States had set their sights on Facebook and wanted to invest, but they were all rejected by Wang Ye.

He did not use his own money this time; instead, he brought in several big companies with state-owned backgrounds, such as the Russian Federation Bank, Yukos Group, Natural Gas Industry Group, and CITIC Group.

These companies put together one billion US dollars and acquired twenty percent of Facebook’s shares.

The new shareholding composition of Facebook Inc was now Wang Ye 45%, Sergei 15%, Khodorkovsky 10%, A Bu 10%, and the newly joined companies collectively holding 20%.

It is apparent that in this round of financing, Wang Ye was "at a disadvantage," as he gave up the largest portion of shares, proportionally more than the other three shareholders.

However, this was proposed by Wang Ye himself.

He held too many shares and did not need that many; moreover, Sergei was the founder and CEO of the company, and his shareholding could not be too small, otherwise he would have no say in the future.

As for Khodorkovsky and A Bu, those were his own people, so it was okay for Wang Ye to suffer some loss.

After these two rounds of financing, at least within Russia, Facebook Inc did not have to worry about its rear; it was impossible for anyone to cause trouble for the company.

After all, looking at the list of shareholders of Facebook, one would assume nobody would have any thoughts...

......

In the Russian Internet sector, Facebook had no competitors and had basically reached the current stage’s limit.

So, since the second half of 2004, it began to actively expand outside, into the markets of Asia, Europe and the United States, establishing branches respectively in Shanghai, Paris, and Silicon Valley, aiming to develop these three major markets: China, European Union, and the United States.

Unfortunately, the progress was not very smooth.

Especially in China, just as the services were being launched, Sergei was shocked to discover that literally overnight, more than a dozen competitors emerged!

Except for changing the name of the website, everything else was exactly the same as Facebook!

This left him rather speechless; however, the Internet couldn’t really be discussed in terms of piracy or intellectual property theft unless someone directly stole your code and website materials.

Prosecuting such Internet infringement cases was quite troublesome, and at that time the relevant laws were also not well-established.

Mutual plagiarism was commonplace.

What it boiled down to was who could grow faster, who had more users, and whose daily, weekly, and monthly active user numbers were higher!

Within the realm of the Internet, it was a case of the big fish eating the little fish, with the winner taking all.

Once the leading company in a sector left the second and third places far behind, those in second and third place were virtually heading towards closure.

Especially in the fields of Internet communication and social networking, there is a strong sense of exclusivity!

The overseas business was not progressing smoothly, and with hesitation over whether to build the company headquarters building, so Sergei was planning to find an opportunity to meet with Mikhail and seek his opinion.

But before he had a chance to call Wang Ye’s assistant to schedule a meeting, he received a notification from Wang Ye’s office.

Wang Ye planned to convene a shareholder representatives meeting for Facebook Inc to discuss a major issue!

Of course, before the shareholder representatives meeting, Wang Ye had Sergei come to his office to discuss beforehand, which was also a sign of respect for Sergei, who was a founder of the company.

......

Arriving at Wang Ye’s Chairman Office, Sergei became somewhat restrained.

Although he was now the CEO of a big company and a billionaire in terms of net worth, he felt slightly out of place in a location like the Duma Building.

This was Sergei’s first time visiting Wang Ye’s Duma Office.

He had known before that Wang Ye was no ordinary person and a true big shot, but he had no concrete concept of how extraordinary Wang Ye was.

However, this time, after arriving at the Duma Building, and in this solemn and respectful atmosphere, he suddenly realized just how big the gap was between ordinary people like himself and someone like Wang Ye.

This was not something that could be measured by the amount of wealth.

Because power is far more precious and potent than money!

After Nova led him into Wang Ye’s office, Wang Ye came up warmly and gave Sergei a firm hug.

He laughed heartily and said, "Sergei, welcome to my office. It’s a bit modest, not as good as the office of a big company CEO like you, haha."

If one only looked at the decoration and size of the office, Wang Ye’s office indeed did not compare to those of many company executives.

But take a glance at the national flag next to Wang Ye’s desk, then look at the shiny golden double-headed eagle national emblem hanging on the wall behind!

Then probably no one would care about the size of the office or whether the decorations were luxurious...

Walking into such an office, one could feel an invisible pressure bearing down, making you inadvertently lower your voice even when speaking.

......

After the two sat down, Nova brought in coffee and then left, leaving only Wang Ye and Sergei in the office.

Wang Ye broke the silence, "I called this meeting of shareholder representatives to consider a major issue, which is to introduce a new strategic investment partner!"

Sergei was taken aback because Facebook was not short on funds. It had been less than six months since the last funding round, and the company still had a large amount of cash lying unused in its accounts.

Starting another round of financing now seemed a bit hasty, and it would likely result in a significant undervaluation!

After all, the company’s overseas expansions hadn’t been very successful in the past six months, so the valuation wouldn’t have increased much compared to the last funding round.

He hesitated for a moment and then said, "But... the company isn’t short of money."

Wang Ye smiled, "The company certainly isn’t short of money. This round of financing isn’t really about the money; it’s about attracting strategic partners, with the aim of bringing them into Facebook!

Have you ever thought about why Facebook’s overseas business hasn’t been very successful?"

Sergei’s face reddened, acknowledging his responsibility for the setbacks in the overseas business.

He didn’t make too many excuses for himself and candidly said, "That’s my fault. I oversimplified the expansion of the overseas business. As a result, Facebook’s localization in various countries has not been well executed, and we face many competitors, so the development of our overseas business has been slow.

However, please rest assured, Mr. Mikhail, I have started to take this problem seriously and will focus on the overseas branches this year."

Wang Ye waved his hand dismissively,

"No, no, you don’t need to blame yourself; you’ve actually done quite well.

However, to let Facebook quickly dominate the market, just doing that is far from enough!"