In order not to dampen the enthusiasm of subordinates, Gu Zhe has always been very patient in listening to Shen Mingbo and his scientific research explanations, and also made fair comments from a purely technical perspective.

Finally, I put forward my own plan.

Gu Zhe took a sip of coffee, sorted out his ideas, and talked with grace:

"Your opinions are all very good, and this month's review has not been in vain. At present, these main performance shortcomings of resin lens materials are what we should strengthen or even surpass in the future.

However, increasing the refractive index to make thin lenses and making up for dispersion deterioration when the refractive index increases are not the angle that startups like us can make efforts.

First, these technologies have relatively large investment and a long R&D cycle. Second, even if companies like us make efforts in this direction and successfully develop new materials, they will make the product performance better, and it will still be difficult to promote the technology.

Consumers do not have an intuitive feeling of qualitative change, and the industry manufacturers will not have the motivation to follow up, and it is even more impossible to pay as much as we want as we hold it on our necks.

Therefore, we need to develop a research and development direction with obvious efficacy. I, Gu, have never made a profit and only make a profit from others' necks, and if I don't buy it, I will die. I can't do the business that I ask others to buy with kind words. I don't have the ability to sell emotional intelligence and build relationships."

Before Gu Zhe finished speaking, two guys with slightly higher emotional intelligence, Wei Yiping and Jin Can, had already shown a humble expression of being taught, and they were just right to take notes occasionally and make enlightenment.

Only Shen Mingbo, who has the lowest emotional intelligence, was just listening from beginning to end, without taking a single note. After listening, he was stunned for a few seconds, his eyes were out of focus, and it took him a while to ask:

"I don't understand why the research directions I mentioned to improve the performance of existing materials cannot force others to buy technical authorization? Will others not use good things?"

When Gu Zhe heard this, he couldn't help laughing, but he was not angry. He could see that although Shen Mingbo didn't take notes and his eyes were dull, he was really thinking seriously.

Gu Zhe said leisurely: "If you do scientific research, you should read more other books when you are free. It is okay for those who are more liberal arts and more business-oriented. You can comprehensively improve your basic qualities. Don't be too high, just have some common sense.

Peter Thiel said that technology that forces consumers and companies to renew can only be qualitative changes in order of magnitude. That is, if you improve a little bit, even if you become the world's number one, others can not buy you because the gap is not obvious, and the old overlords who already occupy the ecological niche in the circle have greater brand advantages and can easily fool consumers.

Unless you directly improve by five times or ten times, even a blind man can see that you have the technical advantages of absolute crushing, and the industry's bigwigs can't cover the lid-

But the problem is, when you make resin lenses and resin lenses, can you develop a new material that can make refractive index, dispersion resistance or other performance parameters three or five times stronger than existing materials at once? It is impossible. Even if you make it, it will be 5% or 10% of the improvements that consumers cannot see.”

Gu Zhe has a very thorough understanding of this point, after all, he has common sense of business experience in later generations for 20 years.

Many people later criticized Xiaomi for not having technical content and only knew how to make bargains, but they did not see a problem - when Xiaomi entered the industry, it was a completely zero-foundation company and entered a new field and became a catfish.

A new company and a new brand, even if you work hard to get the world's first technology in performance, as long as you surpass the world's second, it is not a crushing advantage, consumers can choose to be blind and continue to buy old brands.

For example, if a certain generation of mobile phones has 100 million pixels for Xiaomi's camera, the best other brands in the world are only 50 million, and the fruit is only 30 million, will consumers buy Xiaomi for this 100 million pixels? It's impossible.

Apple fans will continue to "minimalism and do not waste the performance of pile-ups".

Moreover, in Peter Thiel's business theory model, the default evaluation of American companies is still American companies. If it were Chinese companies, the situation would only be worse than that of American companies.

Because China Manufacturing has left people with a stereotype of cheap and inferior quality in the past forty years, domestic consumers who want to buy good goods have formed a deep-rooted admiration for foreigners and think that foreigners have high technological content.

If a Chinese company wants to face consumers directly, even if its performance is the world's first, as long as it surpasses the second, most of the people will not buy it.

It is in this environment that Xiaomi wants to enter the market with a new company, and can only do low prices and optimize the supply chain. It is actually a technical content, and this technical content is more intuitive.

Even if consumers are mentally retarded with IQ 60, they can’t understand the parameters, but they can still understand the high and cheap money.

So, at least it attracts people who want to buy cheap goods, just buy with your eyes closed and your brainlessness.

This is how new companies can only enter.

Gu Zhe’s disadvantages in branding and marketing will only be worse than Xiaomi.

Boss Lei has a decades-long position in the circle. What does Gu Zhe have? He doesn’t even have his own personal brand and personal prestige. So he can only choose a track that is 100% purely crushed by technology.

...

Gu Zhe cannot be described as Boss Lei’s example, but the truth is the same.

Anyway, if there is no source, Gu Zhe pretends to be Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel has only said one thing, Gu Zhe learns from one example by himself, just like a primary school student who is catching Lu Xun in writing an essay.

After listening to it, Shen Mingbo and others changed their attitudes and became more convinced by Gu Zhe's scientific research tone. They knew that Boss Gu was not only a scientist, but also had such a business acumen and foresight.

Shen Mingbo was stunned for a while before he remembered a question popped up: "By the way... Who is Peter Thiel?"

Gu Zhe was speechless: "If you are engaged in PAYPAL, you will understand it as the Mi version of Alipay. Well, Alipay is an application that the boss of Alima is still developing. I am familiar with him, so I know."

Historically, Alipay will not be launched until around October 2004. However, this thing is not technically difficult. If Alibaba wants to develop it, it can still be developed quickly. The key lies in the guarantee risk of fund guarantee, as well as the authorization and supervision of the domestic online banking system.

Now the development of Taobao platform is much faster than the same period in history, and the cold start is smoother, so the demand for Alipay has emerged half a year earlier.

However, considering that the policies of the banking regulatory authorities are generally formulated in years, it is still impossible to get Alipay online by the end of 2003.

Boss Ma also talked about it when he was having dinner with Gu Zhe. He planned to wait for the New Year and the Lantern Festival in 2004, and it would be nice to go online secretly in March.

This actually made Alipay appear 7 months earlier than the same period in history. The initial Alipay and Alibaba did not split the company, so this matter had nothing to do with Gu Zhe, who had no interest in financial speculation.

After Shen Mingbo understood and digested the example given by Gu Che, he thought about it and integrated it. Then he asked a question: "Since Peter Thiel said that technological improvements must be significantly multiplied and crushed on the order of magnitude, so that consumers and practitioners have to follow up quickly.

Then you don’t plan to improve the performance parameters of resin lenses, but instead study how to reduce costs. Don’t you have to make a breakthrough in qualitative change to achieve ‘force people to follow up’? If you only reduce the production cost by 10% or 20%, others will still consume you, say that your things are counterfeit products, and sacrifice quality in exchange for cutting corners.”

Gu Zhe was not angry at this issue at all. He admitted very frankly: "That's right, the cost reduction must be reduced, and we must follow the above rule from 0 to 1, and only 1, 20% to 30%, and it is still possible that people will be criticized for cutting corners and getting what you pay for.

So we can't just drop 10% or 20%, we want to drop 70% or 80% or 90% or 90% or 10% or 10% or 10% or 10% or 10% or 10% or 10% or 10% or 10% or 10% or 10% or 10% or 10% or 10% or 10% or 10% or 10% or 1

For me, halving the original technology cost is only considered a failure! Cutting to the kneecap is considered a passing grade! Cutting to the ankle is considered an excellent! This is what Peter Thiel said, either if you don’t make progress, you will make five or ten times more progress!"

While Gu Che said this, in fact, those doctors had a premonition when they heard it halfway through, and knew that the boss would definitely be a madman again.

But even though they were mentally prepared, they were still shocked when they finally heard Gu Zhe's goal.

Can it still be copied repeatedly if the cost of an industry is broken? After destroying one line, destroying another line?

"Then... how can we achieve such a drastic cost reduction?" Shen Mingbo asked eagerly.

"This is not something that can be explained clearly at once." Gu Zhe made a move first, and he didn't plan to tell all the plans out in one go.

Although these doctors have signed strict confidentiality agreements with him, their salary and liquidated damages are also considerable - of course, the penalty for breach of contract is definitely more than an order of magnitude, especially when it comes to commercial secret theft.

But even so, Gu Zhe did not intend to let the people below understand his overall ideas from the beginning.

The technology that Gu Zhe knows is very complex. Compared with the traditional research and development ideas of resin lens materials, it can be divided into several mutually cooperative departments, so it just happens to be done separately, both time and people must be divided to ensure that no party can threaten Gu Zhe.

Be careful to sail for ten thousand years. Even if there is legal guarantee, you still have to set limits where you can set limits - of course, only these research directions that require Gu Zhe’s personal wisdom.

If Shen Mingbo can rely on his own research to improve the refractive index, resist dispersion, and produce new materials, Gu Zhe will definitely delegate power. He will not be able to do anything that is hard to do in his mind.

At present, Gu Zhe only needs to deploy the first step:

"I think the biggest problem with the current resin lens materials is that the resin solidification reaction process is not fast and stable enough, which makes it difficult to release mold. The surface is prone to sticking and scratching, and it needs to be repolished before it can be officially sold and used.

Some advanced companies, such as Yishilu, are still trying to harden the coating after polishing and increasing transparency to improve life and performance.

The reason why the reaction process is unstable and not fast is related to the current reaction mechanism. Mainstream materials need to use triple coagulation reactions such as diallyl terephthalate, dipropylene diethylene dicarbonate, and dihydroxytriphenoxypropyl acrylate.

If the types of reaction materials can be reduced, such as from three-system coagulation to two-system coagulation, and some external catalytic means that make the reaction process more stable and controllable, then the time required for the reaction will be more accurate and controllable, and the material properties during demolding can also be controlled..."

Of course, professionals such as Shen Mingbo sounded unobstructed by Gu Che's words. But if there were laymen, they would definitely be confused and had to explain it a little.

Many ordinary novices in later generations should have seen Douyin short videos of "resin lens production process" on the Internet. Generally, a person holds a cylindrical mold with two transparent sides, hollow in the middle, and small holes on the top, and then pour a transparent liquid into it. After the liquid solidifies, the lenses are ready.

The reason why bloggers who shot these videos selected this way was obviously to attract traffic, which made the lay audience feel that "it turned out that the production process of glasses was so easy! I was so embarrassed to sell me so much money!" In this way, there were more people who resonated in my heart, and the traffic came.

But in fact, these videos are still vicious in order to attract traffic because they deliberately omit the most technical links and only show the simplest links of "infusing".

The key is not the infusion step, but the process of configuring the colloid before and subsequent solidification and mold release. That is technical content.

If you have a little brain to watch these videos, it is not difficult to think of some questions: If the infused rubber is a naturally solidified liquid, then if it is infused earlier and later, will it cause it to solidify directly in the original container before it has been infused? Or it cannot solidify for a long time after infusing, and it is still soft at the time?

Therefore, after the 2010s, the mold casting and solidification of this colloid was mainly caused by ultraviolet radiation at specific wavelengths to catalyze the reaction.

Generally, two types of alkenyl ester esters are used in the materials. After being fully mixed at room temperature and pressure, they will naturally not condense. Therefore, they will not react directly in the original container and undergo chemical changes after being left for a long time.

The original container is generally completely opaque and can even be strengthened by radiation-proof lead interlayers. No light or rays will affect the raw material. After injection into the transparent mold, rays will be used to illuminate it.

But it is only 2003. After the two-phase materials are mixed, the idea of ​​ultraviolet catalytic solidification has not yet been used in the field of resin lens materials.

Nowadays, the three-phase mixing method is commonly used, using three olefinic alcohol ester olefinic acid ester to mix, and then the catalyst is left to stand for about half a day (the reaction time is different in different formulas). When the reaction slowly occurs, the liquid material solidifies and hardens.

How to say, this process is a bit like producing tofu. Soy milk is originally liquid, and it will be liquid for no matter how long it is left. However, after adding brine or gypsum, stir and put it for a while, the soy milk solidifies into tofu.

Isn’t this the case in gel production? Strictly speaking, tofu is also a kind of gel.

Therefore, the "exposed industry videos" on Douyin in later generations were equivalent to showing people the action of filling soy milk, but how to match soy milk and gypsum, and how to remove the tofu in the end and not take pictures, it looks very profitable and simple.

What Gu Zhe needs to do is to completely change the idea, turning the chemical reaction process that "requires mixing three esters and naturally solidifies" into a chemical reaction process that only requires two esters and adds specific ultraviolet radiation to solidify.

The latter uses fewer materials, so the process of mixing raw materials is more sufficient and the process is controllable. Whether the final product is mixed well, will the "tofu" be "old and tender" when demolding is released, and will not "break and scratch the surface of the tofu" when demolding.

Following this idea, you can produce lenses that are more efficient after demolding and can even be used directly without polishing.

When tofu is old, you can still sell old tofu. When tofu is thin, you can sell tofu brains. When tofu is hard, you can sell dried tofu. When tofu is rotten, you can sell stinky tofu.

Glasses are not good. Those that are old, tender, thin, and smelly are all scraps.

Of course, it is definitely impossible for Shen Mingbo and others to understand this idea alone.

Once they embark on the "ultraviolet radiation method" to catalyze the reaction and change the properties of polyester, they will find that there are continuous new problems that need to be solved later-

For example, when the three-phase reaction was previously reacted, no ray intervention was required, so the mold could be completely light-impermeable, and even a material with the best surface non-viscosity to the final product was selected to make the mold.

However, now that the factor of ultraviolet catalysis has been introduced, the mold material must also be redeveloped. If you make a transparent mold, you can let the ultraviolet ray penetrate the mold and irradiate it. You can't use ordinary glass as a mold, because a simple glass window can block most of the ultraviolet rays.

Therefore, even if you don’t need to make the molds that are only needed in lithography machines, which specializes in transmitting extreme ultraviolet light, you can’t be too outrageous. The specific ultraviolet transmittance is definitely a very important mold material index.

After meeting the radiation selectivity transmittance requirements of the mold, whether this mold material will stick to the solidified lens formed by the final reaction, resulting in the introduction of secondary scratches during demoulding will become a new problem that must be solved.

Historically, this type of ultraviolet catalytic two-phase reaction technology must be combined with a "laser demolding" step to ensure that the lens is perfectly demolded and does not scratch the deformed surface during demolding.

What frequency band wavelength lasers are used to occur, how much laser power should be, how to irradiate them... are a series of new questions.
To be continued...