Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

Users have very little patience. Most will uninstall an app immediately after just one bad experience.

When it came to competing on products, services, and after-sales support, Meituan, Lashou, and Dianping were no match at all.

This was because Kuai Pao’s mid-to-senior level managers not only had to experience the delivery process themselves but also had to take shifts in the Customer Service Department. They were intimately familiar with the problems users encountered and knew exactly how to solve them.

Meanwhile, people like Wang Xin and Zhang Tao still only had a superficial understanding of the work emails sent from their own customer service departments.

They kept a tight grip on the merchant side of things but didn’t really understand the user-end situation.

To put it bluntly, they weren’t down-to-earth enough.

Not until dusk settled and the cool moonlight reflected on the glass window did Chen Yansen finally close his laptop and push the door open to leave.

Zhou Shouzhi, Ye Qiuping, and Yu Chendong were still waiting downstairs. He had to at least make an appearance at the dinner party tonight.

DING!

The elevator doors slowly slid open.

Just as Chen Yansen reached the first-floor lobby, he saw Zhou Shouzhi and Yu Chendong walking out of a conference room near the lounge area.

"President Chen, long time no see! You’ve gotten even taller and more handsome since the last time we met." Yu Chendong quickened his pace by a couple of steps, approaching with a wide grin.

Chen Yansen wore a look of disdain and cursed inwardly, ’Yu the Big Mouth’s flattery is so clumsy and stiff. Absolutely no class.’

"President Yu, you’re always joking. So, what’s the maximum score?" Chen Yansen shook Yu Chendong’s hand and teased with a smile.

"It has to be out of ten."

Yu Chendong said, his eyes narrowing.

With Huawei’s capabilities, they could certainly develop their own smart interactive engine development system, but its performance and market appeal would be questionable.

Everyone has their own specialty.

Just because Huawei had a strong technological foundation in the telecommunications industry didn’t mean they could develop an outstanding product in the field of voice recognition.

In fact, over a decade later, Huawei would launch a smart voice assistant called "Xiaoyi (Xiao E)," but its reception was mediocre, not even gaining as much fame as 360’s smart assistant.

"President Yu, it’s rare for you to visit Xucheng. Tonight is the first round, and there’s a second round tomorrow," Chen Yansen invited warmly.

"Business first. Let’s get the contract signed, and then we can talk," Yu Chendong said with a grin.

He was all smiles on the surface, but his mind was extremely calm.

He could see clearly that Chen Yansen’s warmth was just superficial and couldn’t be taken seriously.

"Boss, President Yu, this way, please!"

Just then, the driver pulled the car up to the entrance, and Zhou Shouzhi gestured with his hand.

Ye Qiuping, having received the message, also hurried over.

The group split into four cars and slowly drove out of the Science and Technology Park, then sped off toward the Sky Garden.

At this moment, Yu Chendong, sitting in the car, finally let his smile fade, a glint of coldness flashing in his eyes.

The doubts that had been swirling in his mind were instantly resolved after his conversation with Zhou Shouzhi.

Orange Technology’s licensing fee for their Yuxi development tool was a one-time patent usage fee of 20 million, plus an additional 2 yuan royalty for every download or installation.

Frankly, the royalty percentage wasn’t even that high.

But the entry fee was 20 million!

Whether or not Huawei could independently develop a semantic core after obtaining the development kit, they still had to pay the 20 million.

The entire way, Yu Chendong pondered the strategic importance of a smart voice assistant for Huawei’s phones.

Finally, a thought occurred to him, ’Could we really let 360, NetEase, and even Aliyun Phones have smart voice assistants while Huawei has nothing?’

Having a smart voice assistant on their phones might not become a new growth point for their performance, but if everyone else had one and they didn’t, it would become a disadvantage for Huawei.

Yu Chendong thought to himself, ’Compared to Xiaomi, Huawei is already a step behind. We can’t fall another step behind the likes of Coolpad, Lenovo, and ZTE.’

At the dinner, glasses clinked and toasts were made, and soon everyone was red-faced from drinking.

After thinking it through, Yu Chendong decided right there at the dinner table that he would go to Orange Technology’s headquarters tomorrow to sign the licensing agreement.

As for the 20 million, to Huawei, it was just a drop in the bucket.

Chen Yansen leaned back in his chair, a faint smile on his face, letting Zhou Shouzhi and Yu Chendong discuss the details of their collaboration.

Ye Qiuping sat beside him, a soft little hand constantly wandering along the edge of President Chen’s thigh.

"Behave." Chen Yansen gave Ye Qiuping a light slap and warned in a low voice.

Ye Qiuping yelped in feigned pain, letting out a delicate cry and subconsciously rubbing her rear.

Outside the window, the night was deep, and the city lights were brilliant, much like Ye Qiuping’s sparkling, watery eyes.

...

...

At 8:30 that night, an interview program on Mango TV went viral and shot to the top of the trending list right after it aired.

"Nine out of ten bald men are millionaires! Why do all the tycoons love shaving their heads?"

"Ali Baba’s Sect Leader Ma Liyun makes his first public appearance with a shaved head."

"Ma Liyun shaves his head! Has he seen through the vanity of the material world and is preparing to become a monk?"

Netizens completely lost it when they saw the photo of Ma Liyun’s bald head.

A few witty commenters in the comment section started spinning a tale: "The reason Ma Liyun shaved his head is that he lost a bet to Chen Yansen. The story goes that when Ali invested in Kuai Pao, Chen Yansen said Kuai Pao would become number one in the industry. Ma Liyun didn’t believe him! So they bet their hair on it—whoever lost had to shave their head."

In reality, when Kuai Pao accepted funding from Ali, it hadn’t even entered the Group Buy industry yet. This ridiculous story couldn’t stand up to the slightest scrutiny, but most netizens believed it anyway.

After all, the person told the story so vividly and even tied it to their business partnership.

"If Chen Yansen had lost, I can’t even imagine what he’d look like with a shaved head."

"Definitely better than Ma Liyun!"

"Duh! Ma Liyun was never competing in the looks department. That guy wins purely with his cash."

"Boys, the pic is here! I Photoshopped a bald picture of President Chen. @Chen Yansen President Chen, you don’t mind, do you?"

"Saved! Quick, delete it! Watch out for a cease and desist letter from Senlian Capital!"

Before long, some troll Photoshopped Ma Liyun’s and Chen Yansen’s bald heads together, and the topic’s popularity exploded.

While Chen Yansen was still at his business dinner, the Weibo servers actually crashed.

The culprit was a single Photoshopped image!

It showed Chen Yansen and Ma Liyun facing each other, both with shaved heads, creating a highly comical scene.

"This thing can crash the Weibo servers?"

Liu Qiangdong was speechless.

But he was green with envy. Although the two of them were being memed by netizens, as the founders of Ali and Pinbei, this trending topic also brought a huge amount of traffic to their respective products.

Handsome Dong hesitated. Should he jump on the bandwagon and shave his head too?

But before he could decide, the netizens made the decision for him. They took one of his photos without permission, Photoshopped him bald, and put him next to Ma Liyun and Chen Yansen.

When Weibo’s service returned to normal, Liu Qiangdong was stunned to find that he and Jingdong were also trending.

The good news was, he finally got a piece of all that traffic.

The bad news was, some people were blatantly lying, insisting that Liu Qiangdong’s bald picture was the ugliest.

This infuriated Handsome Dong so much that he cursed out loud, "What the hell? There’s no way I’m not at least number two, right?"

...

...

「Xucheng, in front of the Sky Garden Hotel.」

Chen Yansen waved goodbye to Yu Chendong and then settled into the back seat of the Gusteau.

"Boss, you’re trending," Ye Qiuping said, biting her lip to hold back a mischievous smile.

"Trending? I don’t think I posted on Weibo today."

Chen Yansen took out his phone as he spoke.

After opening Weibo, the first trending search term was "E-commerce’s Big Three Bald Photos."

Chen Yansen raised an eyebrow, glanced up at Ye Qiuping, and then tapped on it.

He saw himself sitting side-by-side with Ma Liyun and Liu Qiangdong. Everything below the neck was normal, but where the hell was his hair?

Chen Yansen’s face darkened, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

"Boss, do you need the branding and legal departments to step in?" Ye Qiuping asked tentatively, covering her mouth to hide a small laugh.

"Forget it. It’s not like I’m losing out on anything. I can take a little joke."

Chen Yansen flatly rejected Ye Qiuping’s suggestion.

Ma Liyun and Liu Qiangdong had a similar mindset. Lao Ma had originally shaved his head to celebrate the successful completion of his equity buyback plan, symbolizing a fresh start and the rebirth of Ali Baba.

But free traffic that landed in your lap? It would be foolish not to take it!

So, when the bald photos of the three men spread to every corner of the internet, netizens never received the cease and desist letters they expected from Pinbei, Ali, or Jingdong.

Over the next few days, the heads of various phone manufacturers—like NetEase Ding Lei, Oppo Chen Yongming, Meizu Huang Zhang, Coolpad, and ZTE—either communicated online or visited in person. Their purpose was all the same: to acquire the patent license for the Yuxi development tool.

On December 3rd, a black Maybach with Yanjing license plates, flanked by two Audis, drove into the Zhuxianzhuang Science and Technology Park.

’Pinbei is in this dump?’

Liu Qiangdong lowered the car window, looked at the surroundings, and couldn’t help but smile bitterly. He had lost far too miserably.

In terms of technology and talent pool, how could Xucheng possibly compare to Yanjing?

As the car turned at an intersection, he saw Chen Yansen not far away, watching him with a smile.