"No, No...Xu, your proposal is terrible." White waved his hands repeatedly, "The formal process of a startup company is to set up an option pool before venture capital comes in."
"Mr. White is right, we are the "official" venture capital of Green Company, and you original shareholders can be regarded as the "founders".
The setting up of the option pool must be settled by you first."
Hamilton was also extremely determined. He calculated that after this round of financing, the option pool would be diluted to only 3.2%.
At this time, the option pool was replenished to 10%, and their shareholding in Uber would be reduced by 7.456% from 8%, resulting in a loss of US$6.8 million.
It has to be said that these Silicon Valley investors are all smarter than monkeys, and they immediately noticed the shortcomings of the option pool.
Howard was also very happy in his heart. The option pool was replenished to 10%. Even if it was diluted to 8% after the Series A financing, based on the post-money valuation of 1.25 billion, there would still be an additional US$60 million in options.
He, the CEO, has also benefited immensely!
However, Howard's facial expression was very restrained. He knew that it was not appropriate for him to express his position at the moment and he had to be more modest.
After I came to work at Green, I knew that in order to have a good relationship with Zhang Yida, the Chinese boss, I had to learn Chinese and Chinese culture well.
He has "read a lot" of Chinese historical classics and knows that there is a cultural custom in China, which is "when others give you gifts, you have to be humble over and over again, and then others will still give you the gifts resolutely."
He also watched the Chinese New Year video. When someone gives you a red envelope, you must show a strong refusal, and then the other person will forcefully stuff the red envelope into your pocket.
Howard was thinking, when they set up the option pool later, would he have to pretend to decline?
Xu Xiaoming also tried his best, but White and Hamilton, two foreigners, refused to dilute their shares to set up an option pool.
Xu Xiaoming looked at the other investors and hinted that they should speak! I am the only one who will fight hard, but you will just sit on the Diaoyutai?
"It stands to reason that this option pool should be set up by the founder!"
Some investors have set their sights on Huang Xiaofeng, Zhang Yida’s representative.
Huang Xiaofeng was very determined, "Didn't Mr. Hamilton just say that? Our original shareholders of Huimin Travel can be regarded as the founders.
If we want to replenish the option pool, everyone should do it together, why should Mr. Zhang do it alone?"
"Yes, we have nearly twenty investors together, and if one party is diluted a little, it will be enough."
Xu Xiaoming also came out to lend his support, "How could it be possible for Yida to be the one to take out the shares? With a full 6% of the shares, it would be unfair for one party to take out the shares.
Under the leadership of Yida, Huimin Travel has developed so smoothly in recent years, and everyone’s book returns are pretty good, right?
In this case, apart from rewarding the founders, I have never heard of anyone asking the founders to fill the gap.”
“6% is not much, let’s all share it proportionally!
It’s not too early. Let’s settle this matter earlier so that Green’s Series A financing can be successfully concluded.
Don’t worry! Green is favored by so many investors and will definitely give everyone a good return in the future.”
Shen Beipeng also spoke, setting the tone in one fell swoop.
Other investors no longer objected and nodded in support.
In this way, the original investors diluted part of their equity proportionally and contributed 10% to the option pool.
Zhang Yida held the largest shareholding and made the greatest sacrifice, with his shareholding ratio reduced from 35.74% to 33.6%.
Then Green raised $250 million in Series A financing, and its equity was again diluted by 20%, with Zhang Yida's personal shareholding falling to 26.88%.
Because there are 20 voting rights per B share, the voting rights of the shares held by Zhang Yida are still very high, a full 88.03%.
After completing the financing, Huang Xiaofeng made an overseas phone call to Zhang Yida and reported the process and results of the financing.
Zhang Yida was a little surprised by the option pool incident. He really didn't consider this issue.
Zhang Yida still supports the idea of replenishing the option pool to 10%. For some high-level talents, in addition to high wages, they must also be given a large number of options.
Without a "dream of wealth and freedom", you can't attract the golden phoenix.
Especially with the existence of options, it can also save part of the salary in disguise, making the company's cash flow more abundant.
The matter of the option pool diluted the shares by about two points, which was just a drop in the bucket for Zhang Yida. What he cared about most was the stability of the company's structure.
Subsequently, Howard also called Zhang Yida and reported to him, the chairman, on the situation of Series A financing and the establishment of the option pool.
"Mr. Zhang, this option pool is really not what I want. I reluctantly agreed to it only after the investors of Google and Uber strongly requested it and other shareholders agreed."
Howard really played the trick of humility in front of Zhang Yida.
Zhang Yida was a little surprised when he heard this. What kind of operation is this? Do Europeans and Americans still have such virtues?
"Howard, do your best, you deserve this." Zhang Yida asked again: "What are your plans for the next step?"
"Open up the European market," Howard said confidently, "no one can stop Green from entering the global market."
"It's a good thing that you have such confidence." Zhang Yida praised him and then asked: "I heard that Lime and Bird are starting to seek financing and plan to launch products?"
Zhang Yida heard this news from Huang Xiaofeng, who also heard White mention it at the financing meeting.
"Yes, there are investors in Silicon Valley who have shown interest in them."
Howard looked unconcerned and added: "After all, they are cheap, and you can invest millions of dollars. There are always investors with a gambler-like mentality of "taking small to gain big" to finance them."
"Is there any investment institution investing in them?"
Zhang Yida was thinking quickly. These two companies are not just ordinary people. They have achieved good results in their previous lives, forming a two-power structure similar to the little yellow car and the little orange car in the United States.
“Yes, not long after we received Series A financing, they also announced that they had received financing ranging from several million US dollars.
It’s just that the valuation and financing amount are dozens of times smaller than ours!”
"Howard, you don't have this kind of mentality. We can't underestimate any opponent."
Zhang Yida felt that Howard was a little inflated and decided to give him a beating.
"Boss, don't worry, I'm always keeping an eye on them."
Howard heard the dissatisfaction in Zhang Yida's tone and quickly explained: "Although we will enter the European market next, we will not relax in the American market.
The lobbying team is still expanding, and before the end of the year, we will strive to have Green cover the top 100 cities in the United States."
"I wonder if you know about my shared bike war in China?"
Howard quickly replied: "I have learned that rapid occupation of the market relies on speed and scale creates barriers to competition.
I heard that there are tens of millions of Huimin bicycles in China, accounting for 80% of the entire Chinese shared bicycle market.
This is amazing, Boss, you have achieved this achievement when the barriers to competition are so low. This can definitely be selected as a business competition case among top business schools."
Zhang Yida smiled, and his ability to flatter people was quite good. If he could put this thought into work, he would not worry about the fierce competition that shared electric scooters are about to face.
"Well, I hope you can replicate Huimin Bicycle's efficient launch speed in North America and Europe, quickly occupy the market, expand scale and refinance."
Howard responded confidently: "Don't worry, Boss, I will do my best!"
…
After ten o'clock at night, a young man in an office building in Beijing smiled silly at the computer screen. He was also wearing a work badge with the dikko music symbol logo printed on his chest.
The colleague sitting at the workstation next to him stretched his head over and asked: "Ronald, what are you looking at? You are smiling so happily."
When my colleague saw the content on the screen, he said directly, "Damn, it's so exciting!"
A little girl of five or six years old was performing cat-meowing movements in front of the camera, which was very cute.
"Let's meow together, meow, act like a baby in front of you, and meow, meow, meow..."
This is "Learning to Meow" that has just become popular on TikTok. Users can capture this segment as background music when taking TikTok videos.
At the same time, TikTok has also introduced "cat ears" special effects. For example, the little girl in the video Ronaldinho and his colleagues are watching now has two special effects ears on her head.
What's so fun about children's performances?
The two focused their attention on the bathroom behind the little girl, where a young woman wearing nothing was taking a bath...
The camera lens of the mobile phone held by this child happened to be facing the bathroom, and the bathroom door happened to be open.
This 15-second short video was shot like this and uploaded to TikTok.
The two watched the video several times before reluctantly cutting it off. A colleague suddenly asked Ronaldinho: "Ronaldo, have you blocked this video?"
"Do you still need to teach me?" Xiao Luo raised his head, "The first time I found out, this video was blocked in the background, and users outside could no longer see it.
After all, after looking at other people’s bodies, I still have to take responsibility!”
A colleague gave Ronaldinho a middle finger and said: "How many views are there?"
"It was discovered early, there were only 216 cases, and it did not spread to a large area."
Ronaldinho sighed, "This kid is really ignorant. I wonder if her mother will beat her to death if she finds out."
"You can't blame the child! Who told her to take a bath without closing the door?"
The colleague returned to his workstation and replied while reviewing the background video.
"What good stuff did you discover again?" Seeing that Ronaldinho had made a "major discovery," other colleagues also asked at their respective workstations.
“I found a woman taking a shower without closing the door, and her child filmed it and uploaded it.”
"Awesome, I thought the one that ran so fast last time was considered the fiercest one? It seems that there is no fiercest one, only more fierce ones!"
A colleague said that their DouYu content review team is like factory assembly line workers working two shifts.
I’m bored when I work the night shift. If I find any “interesting” videos, I share them with each other. It’s fun in the midst of hardship!
"You say, this forest is so big, there are 1.3 billion people there for everyone?"
"That's for sure! If everyone obeys the rules, what else do we need to do?"
"I heard that the technology department is developing AI monitoring. When the product comes out, we are afraid we will lose our jobs, right?"
"It's nonsense. Now we can use artificial intelligence to monitor text, titles, pictures and videos. Who knows what users have posted? Manual review is unavoidable."
"That's right! This job is so hard! I stay up late every day and my salary hasn't been increased!"
"Aren't you satisfied with watching movies for free? You still want a salary, so I'll confiscate your seed fee."
"I can't go on like this. I have to buy a bottle of Nutritional Express to replenish my body!"