After Zhang Yi arrived in the United States, he immediately met with the three expert consultants arranged by Goldman Sachs.
One is former Federal Trade Commission official Maureen Ochhausen, who previously worked for the department that issued the fine against Musical.ly this time.
The work of this department is mainly to prevent behavior that may cause harm to consumers.
The FTC also provides relevant information when Congress, executive agencies, other independent agencies, and state and local governments discuss policy needs.
One is Microsoft's chief intellectual property lawyer, Erich Anderson, who is responsible for leading lawyers, engineers and other professionals to manage Microsoft's intellectual property, including development, analysis, engineering and business development, licensing and policy analysis, etc.
Another is Roland Cloutier, who has more than 30 years of experience in cybersecurity and law enforcement, including a total of more than 10 years in the U.S. Air Force, Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs.
In addition to serving the military and government departments, he has also served as a private consultant and senior corporate executive in the science and technology departments of various units.
These three people are all typical old white men and belong to the upper class of America.
In order to maintain the US market, Ruixiang also spent a lot of money and prepared to find a group of "American compradors".
Just as the European and American colonists were so tyrannical in the past, they still had to find a bunch of compradors when they arrived in China.
As long as Ruixiang gave me enough green dollars, the Americans would still be willing to help with something.
In a manor in the suburbs of New York, Zhang Yida met the three of them one by one.
The main reason why we meet separately is to keep some information confidential.
Especially Erich Andersen, who has not yet resigned from Microsoft.
It was Goldman Sachs who helped spread the word and impressed the other party with the title of Musical.ly's global general counsel and generous salary, so Anderson agreed to meet and chat with Zhang Yida.
Roland Cloutier, Musical.ly plans to hire him as chief information security officer, using his rich experience to help Musical.ly resolve some user privacy and information security issues.
The difficulties Musical.ly encountered this time regarding the "Children's Privacy Plan" can also be classified as information security.
Anderson and Cloutier are both people who need to do something practical, and they need to join Musical.ly.
Maureen Ochhausen is different. After all, she is a former senior official of an important U.S. department.
Moreover, this department has just issued a sky-high fine to Musical.ly, but it still has to avoid a few things.
Although Maureen Ochhausen is only in her sixties, her face is wrinkled and very old due to her European and American ethnicity. A glimmer of light flashes from time to time in her pair of cloudy eyes.
After listening to Zhang Yida's description of Musical.ly's current difficulties and possible obstacles to its future development, he nodded and said, "Mr. Zhang, your concerns are not meaningless.
I can tell you for sure that they will become a reality."
Zhang Yida was not frightened by Ochhausen's words. The most serious result he had just deduced was that Musical.ly was completely blocked by the U.S. federal government and withdrew from the U.S. market.
If that day comes, he will face it calmly.
Although it may be implicated in the friction between the country and the United States!
But don’t forget, without the Chinese market, Ruixiang would not be where it is today.
Even today, apart from games, 90% or even 95% of Ruixiang's revenue is provided by the domestic market.
If you were born in Africa or the Middle East, you might die of starvation or illness without even knowing it, let alone become the richest man in Asia.
You shouldn't complain, but you should use your ingenuity to survive in the American market skillfully and make money from the Yankees.
Use this money to promote the progress of the country's Internet infrastructure, cultivate industry talents, and promote domestic scientific and technological progress.
Therefore, there is no need to feel humiliated or even angry because of suppression by foreign governments. Instead, be positive and optimistic and learn from Hua Wei.
Ochhausen was a little surprised when he saw Zhang Yida's unmoved expression.
According to his rough analysis, the U.S. market has a potential value of at least billions of dollars for the Musical.ly application.
He knew that Zhang Yida was very rich, with a paper wealth of hundreds of billions of dollars.
But because we have money, can we ignore the loss of the US market?
I'm afraid not!
Ochhausen believed that the young technology tycoon in front of him probably took his words as alarmist.
He decided to add more fire!
“Are you aware of the FTC’s charges against Facebook?”
Zhang Yida nodded, this was something caused by Cambridge Analytica last year.
Because of this, he even made a little joke with Xiao Mazi at the Davos Forum.
Ochhausen continued: “It’s the Donkey Party lawmakers who are now holding Zuckerberg personally accountable for the company’s privacy violations.
However, the Elephant Party headed by Trump is on Zuckerberg’s side.
Even if someone in Congress speaks for Zuckerberg, he still faces a sky-high settlement fee of US$5 billion.
Zuckerberg is an American, and Facebook is a truly American company.
But the big shots in the White House don't care about this, they just want to do it to death.
Think about it, you are a Chinese technology company.
In the future, it is normal to fine you one billion or eighty million just like ZTE.
If you refuse to pay the fine, Musical.ly may be included in the sanctioned entity list, refuse to allow the three major record companies to authorize Musical.ly’s music copyright, and require Google and Apple stores to stop listing Ruixiang’s applications.
With such a combination of punches, Ruixiang is likely to lose all markets except China."
What Ochhausen said is a bit bluffing, but if you think about it carefully, it is not impossible.
Ruixiang has cooperated with many American technology companies when going overseas. For example, in Europe and America, it also uses Google Cloud.
This is not the first time that the United States has gone shirtless against a company.
Although Musical.ly is not engaged in hard-core technology, it is just an Internet application, and the underlying architecture technology is still in the hands of Americans.
The Americans are acting like hooligans, but I don't care about you.
"Mr. Ochhausen, what do you think we should do to avoid the terrible situation you describe?"
Zhang Yida didn't want to waste money, so he decided to let this old white man come up with some ideas.
If you can really put forward constructive suggestions, the treatment can be negotiated.
Ochhausen smiled slightly, looking confident.
He slowly said: "I won't talk about the proposal of directly splitting Musical.ly into a US company. I believe that Ruixiang has a lot of talents inside and has discussed the feasibility of it.
My suggestion is that Musical.ly should make itself more international, such as recruiting senior officials from large American technology companies to serve as Musical.ly's global lobbying level and image in front of American regulatory agencies.
Secondly, to build a data isolation wall, it is not enough to build a data center in the United States. The data permissions of Chinese employees to access overseas products and services should be tightened, and a real isolation wall should be built between Chinese business and overseas business.
In this way, Chinese employees are responsible for China's products and business, and overseas employees are responsible for overseas products and business. The only intersection between the two parties is that they have common shareholders.
Then, adjust the global organizational structure so that everyone does not always think that Musical.ly is headquartered in China. This will easily create some bad associations and make it easy for those legislators to find fault.
Finally, the financing structure is internationalized.
As far as I know, many of Ruixiang's important shareholders are Chinese state-owned enterprises. I understand that there may be compromises involved.
The more correct thing you did was to invite Wall Street giants such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to invest in the company.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t be sitting here meeting you today.”
Zhang Yida listened to these pretentious words with a smile, while Ochhausen laughed and continued: "In the next financing, I suggest bringing more American investment institutions on board.
The deeper the binding, the more significant the interests, and the more they will help Musical.ly change.
If possible, it would be best for Ruixiang to choose to list on the New York Stock Exchange!"