This article is from the WeChat public account: Half Buddha (ID: banfoSB) author: semi-immortal Buddha, title figure: vision China
Everyone says that the Internet is changing the world. That’s right.
But I think the way the Internet is changing is bubbles.
Funds, resources, and talents come together because of a bunch of concepts, forming bubbles one after another, and then the bubbles burst. Most people fail. The few who can stay will become the cornerstone of the next world.
Then new bubbles are created.
The history of the Internet is the history of the rise and burst of bubbles.
One
In 1993, the White House of the United States announced the start of “online services”. The reporters present faced each other, wondering what is the difference between “online services” and “telephone services.”
Soon, the United Nations also announced the provision of “online services”. The hindsight news media suddenly realized that this might be a huge hot spot, and began to explore the meaning of “online”. The word “Internet” was passed on all at once. The United States, business, and the media have begun to watch the development of this emerging thing.
In 1995, the e-commerce giants Ebay and Amazon went online, and e-commerce began to enter the stage of history; five young people got money from Japanese businessman Sun Zhengyi and fed Yahoo, which was established in 1994;
On the other side of the ocean, Ma Yun just resigned, collected 20,000 yuan, founded the China Yellow Pages, and later went to Sun Zhengyi to make money. But the star of the year was not them, but the browser.
On August 9th of that year, Netscape Browser was listed on the NASDAQ, priced at $ 14, and it soared to $ 71 after the market opened. Within two hours, 5One million shares were snapped up and closed at $ 58.25.
Netscape Browser
This 16-month unprofitable company shocked Wall Street investors. The media spared no effort to publicize the Internet as the future, and people have exclaimed that the Internet will change the business model.
Although most of them don’t understand this thing.
This is actually as magical as Teacher Luo told you that tiger sharks will change the world.
The United States, known as the Internet Bible, published a predictive article by the magazine ’s famous editor, Kevin Kelly, which reads: “The good news is that you will become a millionaire; The bad news is that everyone will become a millionaire. ”
Twenty-five years since then, no investor has ever measured a technology company by profit. 25 years from now, it turned out to be the first bubble the Internet sent to the world.
二
In 1996, Yahoo! was officially listed on the NASDAQ. After more than a year, its stock price has increased 64 times, and its total market value has reached $ 45 billion.
Wall Street is crazy, and the whole world is shouting: The age of the Internet is here! AOL, Amazon, Craigslist, eBay, one after another Internet giants were born, enjoying the joy of wealth in the wind.
It was the most fashionable thing for American companies at that time to build a company first.
In 1999, 308 of the 457 companies listed in the United States came from the technology industry. Of the top ten companies by market capitalization, six are tech companies. Many companies are doing everything possible to smash the Internet,Add “.com” to the name of the company or “I” and “E” in the name.
A middle school student can build a webpage and become a “millionaire on the books”.
Veteran Wall Street investors frowned, wondering whether their valuations were reasonable or not, and the operating model of Internet companies far exceeded the calculation templates of traditional companies. The model may be deceiving, but soaring stocks will not be deceiving. Fanatic speculators enjoy the double profits brought by “playing new ones”, encouraging “Internet innovation companies” to enter the stock market.
In order to allow more people to connect to the network, operators even send computers for free, as long as you sign a long-term network service contract.
This enthusiasm crosses the ocean and reaches China. In those years, Sohu, Netease, and Sina were successively established, and Ali, Tencent, and one after another were born. But they were not the stars of that time, they were just newborn calves.
In 1999, China ’s No. 1 concept stock, known as China ’s No. 1 stock, climbed from $ 20 to $ 67 on the Nasdaq. This huge success encouraged a group of people in China who are sensitive to smell. In the bubble era, we must seize the dividend.
That year, a returnee named Tang Haisong founded Etang.com, and formed a “dream team” consisting of 5 Harvard MBAs and 2 University of Chicago MBAs. Then he took them from famous American investors DFG and Sevin Rosen. To a huge investment of 50 million US dollars.
At that time, all the existing businesses on the Internet, Yitang.com had to take part in it. It had also foresighted the minds of users, and defined the post-70s and 80s as the “bright yellow generation.” “Think of Yitang when you see yellow.”
A few years later, another company fulfilled this ideal. Unfortunately, this color is called “Meituanhuang”. When the yellow was on the street, no one remembered Yitang.
Eng Tang’s spirited times were costly. Just declareThe transfer fee was 20 million, and a proxy server was built, burning a lot of bandwidth to help domestic netizens at that time to browse foreign web pages. Yitang’s team is extravagant, living in high-end apartments and enjoying special treatment. It is said that the barbecue grill of Yitang Company always kept the temperature that let the barbecue smelt, that was 20 years ago.
There was another company that year, called eGuo, which was an e-commerce company. If it weren’t for their bragging force, maybe Internet e-commerce will leave it for a while.
The founder of e-country Zhang Yongqing is also a returnee. After experiencing the rapid development of the Internet in the United States, he realized that the American model can be replicated in China, decisively returned to China and established an e-commerce website.
In 2000, e-country launched a service called “e-country one hour”, claiming that as long as you are in Beijing, I will deliver it to you free of charge one hour after you place your order. In an era when various infrastructures have just been established, this is undoubtedly a groundbreaking feat. It’s too expensive.
The e-game is not completely unfounded. After all, Zhang Yongqing has stayed abroad. He refers to the US retail website Kozmo.com. This website is like the current Meituan takeaway. As long as you want to buy, I I’ll give it to you for free. It is a pity that Zhang Yongqing returned home too early. He saw their business model and did not see the follow-up data. In 1999, Kozmo earned $ 3.5 million and lost $ 26.3 million.
If you go back to 2000 and saw a courier wearing a red vest and riding a bicycle on the streets of Beijing, don’t feel that the courier brother has also crossed, it is just that the country e is too far ahead of its efforts.
Time is never a good-natured person. If you come early or late, you will be beaten by him.
Three
In 2000, the peak of the Internet bubble, the Nasdaq index peaked at 5,132 points.
In a frenzy, there were three major events that directly led to the eradication of the Internet bubble.
The first is the Microsoft Monopoly Case.
The Netscape browser, which once opened the Internet bubble era, exited under Microsoft’s siege. At the same time, Netscape launched a final revenge against Microsoft.
In 1998, the Ministry of Justice announced a lawsuit against Microsoft.
Microsoft’s investigation into monopoly is already routine, so at the timeNo one cares, but in April 2000, Federal Judge Thomas Jackson announced that Microsoft had established a monopoly, and Microsoft had to split up, which instantly shocked the world.
People suddenly discovered that giant Internet companies may not be as reliable as they thought. The verdict was reached, the Nasdaq index plummeted, and people have sold Microsoft shares.
Later, Microsoft appealed successfully and escaped the fate of monopoly, but people’s doubts about the Internet can’t stop.
The second thing is a report on Burning Up-Burn Out.
What did you burn?
It’s the investor’s money, of course.
In March 2000, the stock market was at its highest point. This report was published by Barron’s. According to a research report on 207 Internet companies, there will be 51 Internet companies, and cash flows will be exhausted. All Companies can’t last 12 months, and Amazon is no exception.
Furthermore, with the decline of stock prices + executive cashing + rising investment risk aversion + market capital shrinkage + cooling of the refinancing market, combined with multiple effects, these companies are unlikely to refinance, and will eventually face a major reshuffle in the industry. Bankruptcy plus restructuring.
This report completely destroyed people’s confidence, the Nasdaq index began to shake, and immediately became panic after the Microsoft monopoly case fell.
In one year, the Nasdaq has fallen by 80%, and countless “millions on the books” have become nothing. This fluctuation directly affected the domestic bubble at the time, and foreign gas companies that burned investor money also began to lose their names. Without the support of foreign capital, Internet companies were instantly brought back to their original shape.
Yitang was unable to make a profit, could not continue financing, and finally silently disappeared into the ocean of the times.
Country E loses financing and cannot support investment. It can only reduce business, raise prices, and eventually decline.
In the cycle of the rise of the bubble, companies that do not make money all die.
Are you familiar with the scene? In fact, we have gone through many times. In a sea of blood, Sina, Netease, and Sohu, the three giant portals, were listed at the last minute and qualified to survive.
That year, a young man named Li Bin was watching. He looked at the huge bubble across the ocean and produced a lot of lofty sentiments. He shouted, “It’s too late to start a business again!” Resolutely jumped into the Internet world and established Yi Car network.
In 2015, Meituan and Hungry started a takeaway battle. O2O business is difficult to make a profit, and takeaway has become an important growth point.
Are you hungry for the first chance, and you can’t bear the hardships you laid down? At that time, college students and white-collar workers lived happily. Five dollars, four dishes, one soup, and ten dollars filled the full table. In order to compete for the market, the two sides had already lost their eyes.
The scale of this take-out war is larger than people think, and several companies that did not know whether to participate in the war were quickly sanctioned and eliminated.
Oh, by the way, Teacher Li Yanhong jumped in again. Baidu took away a lot of money and was beaten by the speed of light. Finally, it was packaged and sold to hungry. It seems that everyone does not think there is any problem with such crazy subsidies. It seems that the end of all price wars can be recovered by slaughtering users after a monopoly. In the end, the US regiment turned to Tencent. Immediately after, Ali resumed his word of mouth and injected funds to hungry, and continued the war. The two sides have a pair of eyes and a familiar taste. Both sides halted their war and gave up their ambition to dominate the market.
Life after the bubble has entered an era of takeaway.
When seeing takeaway brothers dressed in yellow and blue crossing the street and rushing for the final delivery time, few people realize that there were a group of takeaway brothers wearing red vests. Across the lane, this is just “innovation” that someone has done 15 years ago.
A bubble is a bubble because it is false. But falsehood is not just because some people brag, maybe because the time is not up.
Six
At the height of the O2O war, the development of mobile Internet did not stop there, and many different industries ran wild in their respective fields.
In 2012, Mr. Luo founded Hammer Technology. Mr. Luo Yonghao is the real industry disruptor in China so far. He can always push the bicycle to kill the others when the aircraft cannons are hot, claiming to disrupt the industry. From English training, to blog sites, to mobile phones, to e-cigarettes, to antibacterial materials, others do what they love, and they love what they do. The cell phone is not a bubble, but Mr. Luo himself is a bubble.
The biggest bubble at that time was called Internet thinking. It seems that anything messy can become innocent as long as it is affected by Internet thinking.
This year, Tang Jun, 25, took Shi Yuzhu’s “astronomical lunch” with a huge sum of 2.13 million yuan. One year later, his group loan network received a 100 million yuan round of funding from Shi Yuzhu Giant Venture Capital.
The Internet finance bubble is beginning to swell.
Before 2012, there were 50 online loan platforms, up to 200 in 2012, 800 in 2013, 2575 in 2014, and 1,619 in April 2015. Turnover increased from 3.1 billion yuan before 2012 to 252.8 billion yuan.
Huge posters were changed one after another in the subway station. One big star after another began to endorse software with “loans” in various names. The P2P platform became a new favorite, with a large amount of capital inflow, subsidies, and marketing You sing me on stage, and someone sings: The age of mutual gold is here!
It’s 2020, and P2P is already out there.
2015 is an important year. In that year, the battlefield of the Internet was full of swords and swords.
The battle for takeaway platforms has become red-eyed, but the new concept is still being heated up. The hottest year was called Big Data. In 2015, no matter what three cats, four dogs, can talk to you about big data. Not only Internet companies, but almost every industry is surrounded by this concept bubble: catering companies need big data, clothing companies need big data, transportation companies need big data, and even big movies are watched.
Big data seems to be a panacea for all things. It works better with Internet thinking. Those were the hottest years of traffic stars, and it was an age that only looked at data and didn’t ask about the real. Entrepreneurs from all walks of life are immersed in the sense of control brought about by big data. They use “technology” and “professionalism” to think of themselves, just like novice drivers watching navigation and driving but not caring about road conditions.
In the field of machine learning, Professor Michael Jordan (not the basketball player), one of the most respected experts in the world, has warned the world that, in his opinion, big data is far from being available.