"Although when we decided to use the community traffic-funneling plan to acquire new users, I already suspected that once we used Isabella's fame to gain a certain number of users, Isabella would definitely notice us."
"After all, she understands the internet very well. You can tell at a glance that she spends a lot of time online."
"Or maybe she embraced Google because she's someone who obsessively searches her own name?"
"Maybe she goes online whenever she has nothing to do and searches for information about herself?"
"To see what the media and the public are saying about her?"
"But—"
"To be honest, I really didn't expect Isabella's gaze to fall on us this quickly."
"When did we officially implement the community traffic-funneling plan?"
"Wasn't it only last November?"
"At most, it's been three months?"
"Wow~ We didn't even last three months. That really is surprising—"
Sean Parker, the founder of Napster and Facebook's current president, let out a relaxed sigh.
At the same time, his spread-out hands revealed the helplessness in his heart.
At that moment, he looked like the perfect picture of someone who didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
As for the others in the conference room—
"Okay, stop sighing. I want to know what you all think about this."
Zuckerberg clapped his hands and said, "Do any of you have an idea for how to solve it?"
"And on that note, I should say I had insomnia last night."
"I didn't sleep the entire night because I couldn't think of a solution."
"Me too!" Before Zuckerberg could even finish speaking, Sean Parker had already raised his eyebrows.
His shamelessly frank attitude made Zuckerberg smile bitterly and made Facebook board member Peter Thiel shake his head.
"Sean, if even you don't have a solution, then all we can do now is hug each other and cry."
"Because among the three of us, you're the only one who has seen the real world."
"Your father is the chief scientist at NOAA."
"Oh, Peter, my father is my father! I am me!"
Peter Thiel's words made Sean Parker stiffen his neck as he shouted, "Besides, your connections can reach Washington too! If you don't have a solution, wouldn't I be the same?"
Uh—
That was true.
When people said Facebook had no background, that was only compared to people with truly massive backgrounds.
Compared with the real general public and the carefully selected fine stock of the Victorian era, their backgrounds were so high up that you couldn't even tell which layer of heaven they were standing on. They were proper masters.
Take Sean Parker, for example. His father was the chief scientist at NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Although it was a department under the U.S. Department of Commerce, it was connected to the Department of Defense and NASA. The U.S. Office of Commercial Space Transportation was under them as well, and SpaceX was technically under their supervision.
Because they held real authority—
When Sean Parker was fifteen, he hacked into the database of a Fortune 500 company and stole a pile of trade secrets. After receiving the report, the FBI came to arrest him that very day, but once his father revealed his identity, every attempt to pursue the matter disappeared.
Sean was not even taken away by the FBI.
Because his father called the company, and the company withdrew the case.
But even with that kind of background, Sean Parker's family was still nothing in front of real aristocrats.
When he was working on Plaxo, he was jointly driven out by Sequoia Capital and the deputy of Chad Hurley's father-in-law.
This was mentioned earlier.
Peter Thiel's situation was similar.
Right after leaving campus, while he was still in his twenties, he became an assistant to William Bennett, the U.S. Secretary of Education at the time.
He said William Bennett chose him because he was talented, brilliant, practical, and hardworking.
And that it had absolutely nothing to do with his father, who moved around in the oil sector.
About that—
Anyone who understands PayPal understands.
The moment that product appeared, Wall Street took notice.
All the financial giants felt that PayPal had the potential to revolutionize them out of existence.
And in the late 1990s, when PayPal was developing, American Express even wanted to directly feed the founding team peanuts.
So, if Peter Thiel conquered William Bennett with talent, then Peter Thiel must also have resisted acute copper poisoning with his silver tongue. Otherwise, why would American Express have let them go, right?
Fuck!
Only a ghost would believe talent matters on land ruled by a recommendation-based selection system!
Unfortunately, Peter Thiel's father only had the ability to protect his son. He had no way to help Peter Thiel keep PayPal.
Therefore, in the end, Peter Thiel sold PayPal to eBay.
eBay was not an ordinary company!
Its founder, Pierre Omidyar, was very impressive!
This guy was the grandson of Mahmoud Mir-Jalali, the father of Iran's national defense. Since Mahmoud rose to power in Europe, eBay's early development fed entirely on the resources of the European military-industrial complex.
In eBay's early days, all those strange auction items on the website were private collections belonging to European aristocrats.
Then again, America had become independent. It was no longer a colony. So, in order to better integrate into America, Pierre Omidyar invited Meg Whitman to eBay in 1998 and asked her to serve as eBay's CEO.
He also gave her a pile of shares.
On the Chinese internet, she was called Auntie Whitman.
But on the English-language internet—
Her great-great-grandfather was Henry Huidekoper, Lincoln's deputy, a Medal of Honor recipient in the American Civil War, someone who suppressed the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, compiled the U.S. Army's Manual of Service, and once controlled telephone, telegraph, and Bell Telephone interests.
She was also one of the Celestial Dragons~
Why did Wall Street stop targeting PayPal after eBay acquired it?
Wasn't it because Peter Thiel had handed PayPal over to the state?
Haha~
Precisely because Peter Thiel, Sean Parker, and the others had directly faced America's true masters, when they showed extreme resistance toward the invitation letter sent by Isabella, as if they had seen a summons from the King of Hell—
The final result of the entire game was already crystal clear.
Of course, this result referred specifically to the result after playing the game normally.
If they played the game abnormally—
"In other words, we have to go find Microsoft now?"
Their words made Zuckerberg sigh.
He was the only person in the entire American tech circle with no background.
If Zuckerberg had even a little background, he would not have encountered that congressional hearing. Under normal circumstances, that kind of attitude was used against TikTok. He also would not have been roasted like a dog when attending the tech dinner hosted by Trump.
His words made Peter Thiel and Sean Parker put away the smiles on their faces. They looked at each other, and then Peter Thiel said, "What was the plan we made before again? Uh—I mean, how is that plan being executed?"
"Is there any chance Isabella has discovered it?"
"Oh—pretty good."
Zuckerberg replied, "The plan we made is being executed very well. I believe Isabella has only noticed us for now. She probably hasn't discovered our real method, because if she had discovered our real plan—"
"The three of us might already be dead."
"But—"
"We can't let her keep watching us."
"Because if she keeps watching us, she will definitely discover what we're doing."
On the surface, Facebook was currently using Isabella's influence and derivative fan creations based on her works to funnel traffic toward itself.
Because Facebook was the first-release platform for many fan creations based on Isabella's works.
But as long as someone was normal, as long as they had read a few books, they would probably feel that Facebook's operation had a problem. The way it presented itself publicly had a problem.
If Facebook could absorb Isabella's traffic just by relying on a few Isabella-related memes, then—
Isabella's fans would be far too easy to fool.
Right?
So the Isabella-related fan creations displayed on Facebook were only the visible result after Facebook had successfully absorbed traffic. They were not the method Facebook used to absorb that traffic.
The real process of absorbing traffic was actually happening offline.
The logic was as follows:
Facebook's main selling point was real social networking. Before it loosened its registration threshold for the second time last year, Facebook's promotion had always been achieved by entering university campuses. In other words, it relied on offline promotion. Even after Facebook opened registration last year, it still required users to provide valid email addresses. Since the "real identity" label still existed, Facebook's expansion was actually still following the offline-promotion route.
If you didn't fill in real-world coordinates, you couldn't register.
Since Facebook was still using offline promotion to absorb users, since the users it currently needed were young users, and since these young people generally had decent family backgrounds because everyone who could register had a valid email address, didn't the user base they needed perfectly overlap with Isabella's fanbase?
HP fans were also young people with decent family backgrounds and valid email addresses.
Books were very expensive in Europe and America!
So, since what Facebook wanted perfectly overlapped with what Isabella had, wouldn't it be enough for Facebook, which was still following the offline-promotion route, to go offline and "kidnap" people, "trick" them into joining Facebook?
Thus, Facebook created a shell company specifically dedicated to making Isabella-related fan creations.
Then they handed these fan creations to Facebook's offline promotion team.
After receiving those derivative fan creations, the offline promotion teams went directly to the corresponding clubs in middle and elementary schools under the names of HP support groups and Isabella fan clubs, preaching to them one by one. For example, when introducing themselves, they would say, "I'm a member of the Isabella Fan Club in XX City. Our club has now opened a Facebook account—"
"There are a lot of fan works made by local fans on it. Anyone interested can follow us and chat there—"
That was it.
Yes!
Directly poaching people offline was Facebook's real method of stealing users at the moment!
Uh—
Don't ask why Facebook was doing things in such an exhausting way.
If you asked, it was because Facebook had acted too pretentious at the start.
In Facebook's early days, Zuckerberg said Facebook would only serve college students.
When Zuckerberg looked down on everyone outside universities, the general public naturally had no interest in Facebook!
This matter might have looked very abstract before 2026, but from the perspective of 2026, it was no longer abstract.
Precisely because of this, Zuckerberg failed to win even the first bet.
Relying on his Jewish background, he had never looked people straight in the eye, and even the teachers and students at his own school found him annoying.
This was also why Facebook's development was so twisted, and why registration opened up in waves.
YouTube could serve tens of millions of video users at the same time in 2007. Are you telling me Facebook couldn't even handle text?
Stop bullshitting!
The only reason they did not open registration completely was that if they opened it and Facebook's user count did not explode, Zuckerberg would be abandoned by capital. At that point, he would only be able to turn into slime.
Facebook's external financing agreement stated very clearly that once something happened to the company, he would bear unlimited joint liability.
So, when Facebook's traffic-riding involved directly using the names of HP and Isabella to scam people offline, if Isabella found out about this—
She would not even need to make a move herself. The three people present would all be thrown into the Pacific to feed the fish.
Because HP's global operating rights were in Warner's hands.
And before Warner bought the operating rights, the fan sites spontaneously created by HP fans had all been absorbed by Warner once Warner took control.
Now Facebook was using the HP name to absorb users offline?
Heh. If Barry Meyer did not slap Zuckerberg to death on the spot, then he would not deserve to have lived until now!
It was precisely because Zuckerberg knew exactly what he was doing that, when Isabella's current attempt at communication was still very gentle, he understood that their secret scheme had not been discovered by Isabella.
As for this—
"How much longer will it take us to reach one hundred million users?" Peter Thiel asked.
"Judging from the current situation, the fastest would still be next year," Sean Parker answered.
"Next year?" Peter Thiel's brows furrowed tightly. He was very dissatisfied with that result.
"Then we can't wait until then." He made a clean and decisive decision. "Since that's the case, we'll contact Microsoft immediately. Hopefully, they'll be interested in us."
In the eyes of Facebook's three decision-makers, the best time to bring in outside support was after the user count broke one hundred million.
Because before reaching one hundred million users, no matter how high Facebook's valuation was, it could not go too high.
And since Facebook's operations did not burn too much money, they could completely plug the holes with their own ability.
Therefore, developing the company first with their own money, then raising the butcher's knife later to harvest everything, was the ideal outcome.
But now?
Now that they had already attracted the attention of Isabella the Great Demon King, they no longer had the chance to keep their heads down and develop, nor the time to grit their teeth and hold on. They could only embrace Microsoft, bleed a little, cut off a piece of flesh, and seek protection.
Peter Thiel's thinking was extremely practical, neither Sean Parker nor Zuckerberg had any intention of objecting. At the same time, Sean Parker raised another question. "Are we going to contact Microsoft directly? We're not communicating with Isabella anymore?"
"If we do this, won't it draw Isabella's special attention?"
Peter Thiel understood what Sean Parker meant.
What this guy was saying was this: if Isabella learned that after receiving her invitation letter, Facebook had decisively gone looking for Microsoft, then Isabella would most likely find their behavior very strange.
Then—
Once her X-ray vision turned on.
A dimensional strike.
Although Sean Parker's concern was not unreasonable, Peter Thiel knew very clearly that they could not give Isabella any response right now.
"Sean, have you thought about one thing?"
Peter Thiel stared sharply at Sean Parker and said, "If we reply to Isabella and say we have no intention of embracing her, then when she later learns that Microsoft invested in us, what will she think? She will definitely feel that we played her!"
"Yes!"
"Microsoft can protect us!"
"But—"
"How long can Microsoft protect us?"
"One month? One year? Ten years? Or a lifetime?"
"No one knows that, right?"
"But there is one thing we do know!"
"Harvey Weinstein and Bob Weinstein are in prison right now."
"Eminem has completely disappeared from the public eye on the grounds of poor health."
"Doug Morris is a little better off, but even Edgar Bronfman Jr. couldn't protect him. He has now officially retired and is at home taking care of his grandson, teaching him math every day."
"And then, Rupert Murdoch—"
"Cough, cough, cough!"
Before Peter Thiel could finish speaking, Sean Parker began coughing violently.
Since Isabella's record was available for the entire internet to see, Sean Parker understood the price of playing with Isabella.
Before she had even truly risen, her methods were already like those of someone from a Celestial Dragon family. Those who obeyed her prospered, and those who opposed her perished. Then, after she had her own power and clearly revealed her cards—
"I support Peter's idea."
Just as Facebook's conference room had been rendered completely silent by Peter Thiel's chanting, the ultimate lizardman Zuckerberg suddenly spoke. "Right now, we really shouldn't give Isabella's invitation any kind of formal reply."
"But we also can't simply ignore it."
"So—"
"Since we can't answer yes or no, we'll give them a third answer."
"We'll tell Chad Hurley that the company's management can't gather together for the time being, that everyone has things to handle, so we temporarily can't discuss the question they raised. What do you think of that reply?"
"Then, during this process, we need to quickly reach an agreement with Microsoft."
"And secure Microsoft's investment."
"As long as Microsoft invests in us, even if they have questions in the future, we can say Microsoft came first."
"Of course, if Microsoft is unwilling to invest in us, then—"
At this point, Zuckerberg deliberately drew out his voice and stopped speaking.
"Then we might be in serious trouble."
Peter Thiel smiled and shrugged, ending the topic by picking up where he had left off.
Since Facebook's actual controller had already made a decision about the company's future direction, acting according to that decision was inevitable.
Then, on March 1, 2007, Isabella had just finished filming when she heard Margot Robbie's report of the "rejection."
In Isabella's eyes, Facebook's behavior was simply playing dead.
As for this—
"As expected, something's going on." Isabella licked her lips with a smile that did not reach her eyes.
"What do we do now?" Margot asked cautiously.
"Since they want to play hide-and-seek with us, let them hide for a while first."
Isabella said to Margot in an indifferent tone, "Call Chad Hurley."
"Tell him I already know about it."
"Then have him estimate Facebook's value and send it to me after he's done."
"We'll wait one week before asking again."
Isabella's thinking was simple: courtesy first, force later.
Since Facebook had indeed violated her rights and interests, she, occupying the moral high ground, could slowly deal with them.
Facebook said they had no time to talk right now?
No problem.
I'll wait.
I can wait one week, two weeks, three weeks, even one month.
You can't possibly be busy every single day of the year, right?
So—
As soon as you're not busy, I'll come collect the debt.
If one had to describe it—
Opening fire first whenever there was uncertainty was Trump's style.
Setting up the gun, aiming at the target, and slowly pulling the trigger was Biden's style.
Isabella had already tasted the beauty of the Katyusha. Now, playing a game of cat and mouse could be considered a change of flavor.
However, just as Margot called Chad Hurley according to her instructions—
Washington State.
Redmond.
Steve Ballmer, who had been working at his desk, suddenly raised his head with a "Whoa—" after hearing his subordinate's report.
"What did you say?"
"Facebook wants to receive our investment?"
He looked at his secretary with a strange expression.
"Yeah." The male secretary nodded decisively. "Sean Parker is waiting for you in the reception room."
"So, Boss, do you want to meet him?"