After talking about the vital interests related to the valuation of shares, Ma Feng is quite temperamental and basically says whatever he wants when it comes to disputes over business opinions between friends.
It's not a big deal if you have different views. You can seek common ground while reserving differences.
It was precisely based on this consideration that he somewhat stayed away from Gu Kun's current approach of targeting the luxury industry, and he also felt some sincere pity for his friend.
If all this money had been invested in the Internet venture capital industry, he would have become the godfather behind the scenes of the domestic Internet industry.
Of course, Gu Kun didn't want to say that he thought there would be a bubble in the future that would burst. However, twenty years of superficial understanding of the pros and cons of the Internet was enough for him to casually mention a few serious issues to justify his wait-and-see attitude.
Gu Kun picked up the teacup and took a sip: "Old Ma, don't you think that the Internet world is a bit too chaotic now? Buffett once said, I am greedy when others are fearful, and fearful when others are greedy. Although many people laugh at Buffett
I was blinded by the Internet craze and missed the opportunity, but I think the truth behind these two maxims is correct and can be applied at any time.
Therefore, when I invest in Internet companies, I either have the endorsement of other important people, such as investing in Young Master Li’s Yingke Digital. Or the business model itself has already worked, such as investing in you. Except for these two situations, I will invest this year and next year.
I guess I won’t be very good at making a move. I won’t invest in other companies that have no revenue until the popularity subsides.”
"I remember you started investing in 1996, right? You didn't think so at that time. At that time, the Internet was not as popular as it is now." Ma Feng couldn't help but use Gu Kun's own historical records to refute and remind Gu Kun.
Gu Kun: "At this time, the total amount of money in the Internet concept circle was still relatively small. I think I can explain who they want to replace, and the target industries they dismembered can also support such a large market. But now the Internet
The world has become so arrogant that they almost think they can replace everything."
Ma Feng thought for a while and confirmed: "You always feel that the imagination space of the Internet industry is limited to replacing the communications, media and advertising and marketing industries? So, do you think that when the valuation of all companies in the Internet industry has exceeded the entire
When all the traditional communication media and advertising companies in the world are combined, is this an absolute bubble?
This is a very classic thinking of industry substitution theory. It is always felt that the total industry revenue of low-cost alternatives is lower than the total industry revenue of high-cost solutions in the old era.
But have you ever thought that after any new thing replaces the old thing and reduces the cost and improves the efficiency, the final scale of use will far exceed that of the old business. Just like you can't say that the general operation of the automobile industry just because the unit transportation cost of a car is lower
The income is lower than that of the horse-drawn carriage industry, because with the advent of cars, more people will ride in the car, and the total scale will definitely exceed that of the horse-drawn carriage industry in the past.
In the same way, after the emergence of a new generation of communication tools, even if everyone's communication cost drops by one order of magnitude, the total communication demand will increase by at least two orders of magnitude. How many calls do people make when it costs a few dollars a minute to make a call? Now there is
With Boss Wu’s PHS, the number of people making calls and the duration of individual phone calls have increased many times, and couples can chat for half an hour about anything. From this perspective, the new technology has a lot of room for imagination.”
The cost reduction brought about by each technological upgrade will induce massive new demands in areas that the ancients could not see.
Ma Feng's point of view is obviously based on this level of cognition, and it has to be said that this level of cognition is an unbreakable truth most of the time, and has been verified by the history of several generations of industrial revolution.
Reading history can tell you about the ups and downs.
It's a pity that Gu Kun had no intention of arguing with him, nor did he want to confront him head-on from this angle.
Gu Kun pointedly pointed out: "No, no, no, I don't agree with what you said, 'The advantages of the Internet over traditional media all come from the cost reduction caused by technology.' So if you use the formula of technology singing life, the premise is not completely established.
, a discount is required.
How much more convenient is the Internet than TV media? The results show that yes, you can call it anytime and anywhere, and you can also actively search, giving you more freedom in terms of time and space.
However, this kind of freedom is only a small part brought by technology. The greater part comes from the convenience of infringement and the convenience of getting rid of the legal supervision of various countries. In other words, many things done by Internet media would be illegal and infringement if compared to traditional media.
Yes, it’s just that the current Internet has no borders. Those who do piracy and share various so-called resources can be located in foreign countries, so no one can control it.
This is not a technological dividend, but a criminal dividend. I don’t think too highly of criminal dividends. I must at least realize that criminal dividends have an upper limit, which is the upper limit of the normal legal interests it infringes.
However, according to my current observations, most Internet investors in the circle are not aware of this. The valuations driven up by their enthusiasm have exceeded the sum of all infringed legitimate interests that currently have no basis for legal action.
This is too dangerous.
Many people think that the Internet is free, with zero marginal cost, so there is unlimited room for imagination. However, in fact, it is not free, but an illegal transaction that is not fully valued yet.
For example, I was on a personal website today and read a pirated novel uploaded by the webmaster. Can you say that it is free? No, in fact, users sell their cookie traces in many ways.
They have lost their rights to privacy, the right to have their behavior measured, the right not to see advertisements or the right not to be disturbed, etc., in exchange for reading novels in vain.
In the future, Internet technology will definitely continue to develop further, and more and more human rights will be sold. However, these rights are not allowed to be traded, priced, or sold in the traditional technology era. The free Internet is based on giving you one hand.
Looking at piracy, it is based on the one-hand transfer of rights. If you do not see this one-hand transfer of rights, then the upper limit of investors' imagination of the Internet industry will exceed the total price of the above rights that all mankind can sell, and then the bubble is definitely
It’s going to collapse.”
The reason is very simple. Under traditional laws and business models, many people's rights cannot be dealt with. Therefore, committing suicide is illegal, and selling one's own organs is also illegal. If it is not illegal, it will increase the degree of abuse of the weak by the powerful.
Exploitation, for example, will lead to the rampant organ and human trafficking industries.
Therefore, even if a person is about to starve to death, under modern law, he still cannot sell his body for human trafficking. Modern civilization does not allow slave trading.
In the same way, a considerable part of the benefits of piracy on the Internet is that people who cannot sell their dignity, privacy, and personality under traditional technological and legal environments have a trading channel to exchange their privacy, dignity, and personality for nothing.
The most straightforward example is that the essay questions of later judicial examinations were also tested: "Talking about the whole body" is neither a crime of prostitution nor a crime of disseminating obscure materials (if it is not recorded, it does not exist in the form of streaming media.
If it is saved and copied for sale, then
It's just like selling cat movies, but it's still the crime of "distributing obscure items for profit" because the definition of "items" in this article must be storable and reproducible. After the one-on-one chat, the data is lost.
If it's gone, it doesn't count as an item.
This is the most classic magic touch in subject four of the judicial examination in a certain year. As a law student, you have to answer the Internet professional technical terms "streaming media does not have the storability and replicability of objects" in order to get all the answers.
points. Pure liberal arts students who only knew the law but no technical knowledge were basically wiped out at this point.)
It can be seen that with the Internet, many things that were originally illegal and cannot be sold can be sold on a marginal basis, although there are still rules.
Therefore, this imaginary space cannot exceed the total price after the personality rights and privacy rights of all human beings are fully valued.
It's just that investors during the Internet craze in 1998 and 1999 had no chance to calculate how much money could be sold for all human beings who voluntarily sold their dignity and privacy, and the negative emotions of envy and jealousy of others. They felt that this number
is infinite.
But of course Gu Kun knew.
Because the total size of the pirated industry in later generations will mean how much the total value of human rights to privacy and dignity will be.
When those industries become genuine one after another, the critical point will be reached.
"Can the account be calculated like this? The so-called free is actually just a 'hand over the right to see things for nothing, and the other hand to pay for the right to privacy and respect'? This, this, this... this vision is really shocking, why does it sound like it's not free?
reason……"
After Ma Feng's understanding was refreshed by these words, he suddenly felt astonished.
What the hell kind of idea is this?
But if you think about it carefully, the technology of pricing and quantitative analysis of human rights that cannot be traded can definitely be developed. As long as the benefits are large enough, data refinement and deep mining are inevitable trends in history.
Gu Kun picked up the teacup and took a final sip: "What do you think? That's why I only invest in Internet companies like yours that charge membership fees and have traditional and simple business models. I won't invest in companies that are purely free.
They are free just because they are too rough and unprofessional for the time being. We should not be proud of being unprofessional.
Moreover, after all, I am a Lanfang native, and I want to be known in the Chinese world for my luxury and style. Giving in free things for others would be detrimental to my style. A gentleman does what he does and what he does not do, so
, even if I can make quick money by doing those free things for the time being, I still have to consider my lifelong reputation and personality."
Even in 2020, Gu Kun is still in his 40s. He is still growing up, and he cannot do things like giving money to others.
You need to take a long-term view, and don't rush in like a fly when it sees something profitable.
To take the simplest example, Gu Kun would never touch a business like Bibi Taxi, which is a sleazy business. He would avoid it as much as he would avoid getting feces. Because if he touches it, he will get hurt.
If your whole personality becomes cheap, you will never come back.