Chapter 284 Brother Ding's Heartfelt Conversation
"President Ding, what's in your hands is the best we've got. Want me to brew you a cup?" Zhou Xiaohui asked with a cheerful smile, twisting open a hot water bottle as she stood to the side. "Try it."
"Alright, thank you, Sister Xiaohui," Ding Lei replied with a laugh.
Zhou Xiaohui brewed tea for both of them and quietly left the office, closing the door behind her.
"Sister Xiaohui is really virtuous," Ding Lei said admiringly, pulling his gaze back from the doorway while cupping his tea.
Su Yuanshan couldn't help laughing. "Can you act a bit more serious? She's not even older than you, is she?"
"She's older than me by half a month, and one and a half months older than Pony."
"Uh... I totally forgot about that."
Su Yuanshan knew Ding Lei was 28 days older than Pony — he had seen both their files when he sent them to the Special Economic Zone — but he had never paid attention to Zhou Xiaohui's age.
After all, she was one of Yuanxin's original employees, hired by Sun Xihui shortly after she started.
Back then, Su Yuanshan hadn't even seen Zhou Xiaohui's personnel file.
After a few minutes of casual chatting and sipping tea, Ding Lei coughed and became more serious.
"President Shan, between us brothers, let's not beat around the bush."
Hearing that streetwise tone, Su Yuanshan's eyelid twitched slightly.
Ever since last year's annual meeting — when Ding Lei and Pony had pulled that stunt with the toasts — Su Yuanshan's image of Ding had shifted to that of a mischievous second brother type.
He stayed on alert.
Now even the phrase "let's not beat around the bush" was coming out…
"Go ahead, Senior Brother," Su Yuanshan said calmly.
Ding Lei stared at him, gritted his teeth, and said in a low voice, "How much more money can we really allocate to the Internet Center?"
Hearing that, Su Yuanshan immediately relaxed, but he maintained his composed smile and asked,
"How much do you need?"
Ding Lei smiled wryly. "If you let me name the number, I might as well be writing a blank check."
He took a deep breath and said seriously,
"After more than a month of research abroad, we realized that even the internet requires heavy marketing."
"We got our hands on internet user statistics. Right now, the majority of internet users are in North America. To be even more precise, the Lighthouse Country.
But after investigating in person, we found that the so-called internet user numbers are hugely inflated.
Anyone who ever dialed in with a modem — even once — counted as a user.
And most of them only use it for email.
The idea of an actual 'online life' barely exists."
Su Yuanshan nodded. "Exactly. And?"
"And our portal site — from a certain point of view — depends entirely on 'online living.'
Using the internet to get information, to communicate — its biggest advantage is convenience.
But right now, most of these so-called users don't even know the internet can be that convenient."
"Therefore, if we want to dominate, we have to throw money at it — and lots of it."
"But advertising in the West costs an insane amount," Ding Lei finished.
Pony added,
"Plus, servers and bandwidth are crazy expensive."
Su Yuanshan thought for a few seconds, then asked,
"What's your budget for this year again?"
Ding Lei and Pony exchanged a glance before Ding Lei replied,
"Eight million U.S. dollars."
"That's it?"
Ding Lei shook his head. "We have less than two million left — and you know, everything we've spent so far has been in foreign currency."
Su Yuanshan let out a long breath, crossing his fingers thoughtfully and furrowing his brow.
He knew Ding and Pony had been burning through cash rapidly these past six months — or rather, these past two months.
But he hadn't expected it to burn up this fast — three hundred million RMB, gone in a blink.
And as Ding said, it was all foreign currency.
Because of Yuanxin's unique position, they enjoyed very high flexibility with foreign exchange.
When negotiating the wafer fab last year, the foreign exchange authority had even personally checked in to ask if Yuanxin needed more.
But now that the fab was complete and major procurements were winding down, things were different.
Especially with Yuanxin's exports of YX architecture chips booming, along with phones and base stations expanding rapidly into Southeast Asia, the company had racked up a lot of tax benefits too.
The country was fully supportive of Yuanxin, offering generous export tax rebates.
But it also meant their foreign currency was now under closer supervision.
The foreign exchange office was still polite — "Your foreign currency is still yours; we're just holding it for safekeeping" — but the situation was clear.
"Spending foreign currency like this is definitely troublesome," Su Yuanshan said, pulling a face like he was constipated.
"For importing technology or equipment used domestically, no problem — one phone call and the money gets released immediately.
But burning it abroad on internet expansion?
Those treasury guys are gonna frown."
"Exactly," Ding Lei sighed heavily.
Since coming back, he had poked around and learned just how aggressively Yuanxin had expanded this year — and how fast the money was burning.
As director of the Internet Center, Ding had to think about not just projects, but the center's existence itself.
Even if Su Yuanshan told him not to worry, he still worried.
And Pony felt the same.
Among their internet ventures, only Foxmail and the enterprise email system had started turning a profit — and even landed a few international contracts.
But that revenue was nothing compared to the looming server, bandwidth, and advertising costs.
"On the way here, we thought hard about monetization strategies," Ding said seriously.
"President Shan, you're different from other bosses."
Su Yuanshan, who had been brooding over these problems, couldn't help smiling. "Oh? How so?"
"If it were any other boss — or if I were the boss — I'd be selling the dream hard to investors," Ding said with a chuckle.
"Promise them the portal and EM would be the next big thing.
But with you, it's useless.
You see farther than all of us."
"So I'll just be blunt."
"Right now, even though all the capital is rushing into internet startups,
truthfully, the internet's monetization model is still a blank slate.
Advertising revenue? That's just bait for clueless investors."
Hearing Ding's brutally honest words — after everything he'd been through, clearly thinner and more serious — Su Yuanshan was strangely moved.
This was hard, unvarnished truth.
After a few seconds of silence, Su Yuanshan laughed.
"Listening to you, it almost sounds like you're about to suggest shutting down the Internet Center."
"Not quite," Ding said with a chuckle.
"So what are you proposing?"
"If we can't find a solid revenue model," Ding said, exhaling slowly,
"I suggest we stop burning Yuanxin's money."
Su Yuanshan blinked in surprise.
"Let's burn the capitalists' money instead."
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