The prospect of computer specialty

The computer age is full of glory and dreams, and the myth of becoming a billionaire from scratch emerges endlessly. Steve Jobs of Apple Computer, Bill Gates of Microsoft and michael dell of Dell Computer, but they never expected that someone would step into their ranks in just two years. This is the most popular Yahoo on the Internet! Founder: Yang Zhiyuan.

"Right time, right place"

Yang Zhiyuan, a native of Taiwan Province, lost his father at the age of 2 and immigrated to California with his mother at the age of 65,438+00. Although he only knew one English word on the first day of school, he did well in his studies and successfully entered the Department of Electronic Engineering of Stanford University, which is the cradle of talents in Silicon Valley, including Hewlett-Packard, Sun, SGI, Intel, AMD and Cisco. It took Yang Zhiyuan only four years to get his bachelor's and master's degrees. However, he didn't go to work at once, because he felt that he had no experience, so he tried to stay at school. It happened that David Philo needed people for a research project, so he opened a doctoral course for two people.

David is Yang's classmate, but he is more senior. 1988 graduated from tulane university. When they were graduate students, they participated in this project together. Yang remembers that "all the procedures of the project were written by David, and I didn't do anything, so I knew I would cooperate with this guy anyway." David and Yang Zhiyuan are different types of people. Yang is good at socializing and is born to be an organization and leader. David is introverted. David is a typical gifted scholar. He can control all kinds of information on the computer and network in an orderly way, but his residence is a mess, while Yang is just the opposite. His bedroom is tidy, but his computer is a bit inferior. "Yahoo! I was founded in part because I was always half a step behind David. I wonder where he can know the ins and outs of everything. But they still have a lot in common. They have the same major, course and tutor. Yang Zhiyuan and David's dormitory are very close, and their cooperation can be called a veritable "shoulder-to-shoulder battle".

"I never thought that my hobby would become a business."

Yang Zhiyuan and David's doctoral research direction is automatic control software, but they soon found that this direction has been monopolized by several companies, and there are few development opportunities. They are very upset. Fortunately, Mosaic's first web browser appeared at this time. Web pages brought great vitality to the Internet and soon fascinated them. They made their own homepage, mainly including Yang's golf scores. And their favorite Japanese sumo sports material. They ran around the internet all night, and their doctoral research work was put aside. Fortunately, the instructor is not at home at this time. Like many people who surf the Internet, Yang and David collected their favorite websites and began to communicate with each other, first every day, then every few hours, and then at any time. More and more website materials are collected. They developed a database system to manage the data, and organized the data into a convenient table, and named it "Yang and David's WWW Guide". The list of websites is getting longer and longer. They classified websites, and soon there were too many websites of each type. They divided the classes into subclasses, Yahoo! The prototype was born, and the core is to classify the sites according to their grades, which has not changed until now.

Yang Zhiyuan and David gave the guide's address to a few friends, and it wasn't long before hundreds of people visited their guide. They didn't think of giving it to people outside the university when designing the guide, but Jerry's computer belongs to the public part of the Stanford University network, so as long as he knows the address, he can access it like David next door to Yang Zhiyuan. There are more and more visitors to the website, and they begin to expand the functions of the wizard, improve the search efficiency, and add the latest website, the coolest website and other functions.

Every time they improve, they will receive many encouraging emails, many of which also put forward suggestions for improvement. "Without these digital applause, if they are locked in the laboratory, Yahoo!" Will not appear. "

"We are Yahoo!"

It is self-evident on the Internet that the greater the traffic of a website, the better. They began to add more and better services to attract more visitors, and the name of the website was changed to Yahoo! Yahoo is from Swift

Neither of them has any business experience, and Yahoo! There is also a lack of obvious sources of income: charging users, they will run to other places; They will never pay attention to charging the website; Selling advertisements violates the original intention of the Internet (freedom, non-business), but anyway, Yahoo! The commercial value of Yahoo cannot be ignored! Thousands of tourists are received every day, and anything with a large number of loyal followers is always valuable.

"finally become a leader"

Yahoo! There are also many competitors, such as WebCrawler of Washington University, Lycos of Carnegie Mellon University, and Infoseek, a charging website. These websites all provide keyword website indexes, which are established by computer programs or internet worms quickly searching online website content, and look better than Yahoo! More comprehensive, but Yahoo! Classification levels have their own advantages, and the power of index search method depends on the search coverage, which is also its fatal weakness. Every English word has appeared countless times on the internet, and its true meaning cannot be determined without context, so most of the results listed in the search are meaningless, Yahoo! On the other hand, the site is hierarchically organized. At the top are 14 categories: business, economy, entertainment, computer technology, etc. There are sub-categories under each category, such as humor, jokes, anecdotes, music and so on. Under music, there are operas, karaoke, genres, institutions and so on. Users can go all the way to the bottom according to their own needs: a website with real content, Yahoo. Coverage is wide, there are about 400,000 independent sites at the bottom, and thousands of new sites are added every week. Yahoo! Jerry and David completely replace the computer to complete the classification level, which has a lot of work, but its classification index includes the judgment and choice of Yang and David, and the content is more accurate and effective. This is Yahoo! The essence of Yahoo! Keyword search provided by other Web indexing sites is just a computer service. It is a well-structured network information building.

But Yahoo is not the only one! One company provides classified directory services, others, such as network galaxy, network virtual library and so on. But because there was no source of income, most of them soon disappeared. By the second half of 1994, Yahoo! Become the champion of classified directory service.

Success is sweet, but Jerry and David have made great efforts for it. They bury themselves in organizing endless websites every day. Their e-mail is too full to clean, and the phone keeps ringing. In the autumn of 1994, they were very excited to welcome the first Million Visits Day, which means Yahoo! With 654.38 million+visits, the resources provided by Stanford University can no longer support Yahoo! Operation, they went to ask whether the school should take over Yahoo! Or let them find a partner. The school generously said that it was their own business. Mark anderson heard about it and gave it to Yahoo! Provide cyberspace resources.

"Finding the Right Partner"

Fortunately, the business opportunities of the Internet are ripe. Netscape released the first beta browser, and pointed the button of Internet directory on the browser at Yahoo! The hotline established the first advertising website, the mass media began to report the Internet phenomenon, and venture capital poured into the network, Yahoo! This is one of the most popular websites on the Internet. Although Jerry is still unknown, a large number of investors have come to your door.

The first caller was Reuters, England. Reuters is the largest news and financial service provider in the world with a history of 150 years. John Tai Sen, Reuters's vice president in charge of marketing, came to Los Angeles from London to inspect the business opportunities on the Internet. Shortly after he arrived, he read about Yahoo! The report soon became Yahoo! Regular customers, and realize "Yahoo! In fact, it shortens the distance between information and human beings. " He began to consider adding Reuters's news business to Yahoo! In fact, when he called, he was surprised that Yang said, "If you don't call me, I will call you." As heroes think, so thought Bruce. About Yahoo! After months of thinking, Jerry finally realized "Yahoo! It is not just a network directory service provider, but a new media. " When his competitors realized this, they were already half a year behind.

Yahoo! And Reuters became friends, not partners, and Reuters wanted to provide news to Yahoo for a fee! Although Yahoo still has no income, Jerry realizes that they need business help, at least they need a business development plan. One of his old classmates is studying business management at Harvard University and helped write a five-page plan. With it, Jerry and Dave began to visit venture capitalists. At the same time, they have to sort out classified websites every day and can only sleep next to the computer in turn. They sleep less than four hours a day, and when people are exhausted, they find Sequoia Investment Company.

Sequoia is the most famous venture capital fund in Silicon Valley. Sequoia Capital has invested in hundreds of high-tech companies, including Apple, which pioneered the personal computer revolution, Addali, which pioneered the game console industry, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the most famous database company, Cisco, the network hardware giant, and now Yahoo! It's over.

Mike Moritz, a partner of Sequoia Capital, still remembers his first visit to Yahoo. Scene in the workshop, "Two Yahoo! The founder sat in a small room, the server kept emitting heat, the answering machine rang every minute, pizza boxes were piled on the floor, and dirty clothes were thrown everywhere. " But Mike doesn't care about the cleanliness of their home, but he doesn't know Yahoo! Where are the development opportunities, Yahoo! Lack of management and awkward names, Jerry summed up their model as "providing free services on the Web". Venture capital has never invested in free services or products. But Mike soon realized that Yahoo! As a new media, it has great business opportunities.

At the same time, other investors include MCI, Microsoft and Netscape. Also found Yahoo! AOL is the most attractive one. AOL is the largest online service company in the United States. They need an online information index to access the Internet. If Yahoo! Sell them, and Jerry and Dave will soon become millionaires. If they don't sell, they threaten Yahoo! Will face confrontation with AOL, this is not a bluff, AOL has enough financial resources to set up its own Yahoo, of course, he can also buy a Yahoo! Our competitors. Netscape also provided them with good conditions to send shares. Netscape's stock will be listed soon, which is more valuable than Aol's stock. After careful consideration, Jerry and Dave refused them. The main reason is "Yahoo! This is our own business. " Finally, in April of 1995, it was decided that Sequoia was against Yahoo! The valuation is $4 million.

"Yahoo! "the transformation.

With funds, Yahoo! Jerry and David hired the first batch of engineers, and they finally got rid of the tedious sorting work. They realized that if they wanted to put Yahoo! To grow and develop, management talents are indispensable. After several months of hard work, Tim Kugel was invited to be the CEO. Tim also graduated from the Department of Electronic Engineering of Stanford University and served as the general manager of Motorola Canada. Jerry and David are very happy to hand over the management to Tim. David continues to be in charge of the technical team, while Jerry focuses on corporate development strategy and public-private relations.

Tim's first instruction after taking office was that the company should generate income, and banner advertisements were put on every page. The listing of Netscape in August has shown that whoever wins the Internet will be the big winner. The competition between directory service and search engine is becoming more and more fierce. AOL bought WebCrawler, and Microsoft and Netscape also joined in.

The news service that provides Reuters is Yahoo! An important strategy for development, Yahoo! It only provides content indexes of other sites, and now it directly provides service content on its own site, which expands the source of advertising revenue, because the advertising layout is calculated by page. News service is only the first step. The weather forecast began in June 5438+065438+ 10. 1996 spring, stock and securities information can be used, and a series of new services were launched in summer and autumn. By constantly increasing service items, Yahoo! Enter the daily life of users, Yahoo! Relocate yourself successfully: it is no longer the gateway of the network, but the synthesis of various information services.

Yahoo! The purpose of "providing free services on the Internet" has been proved to be correct. Evaluating the commercial value of a site on the Web lies in the traffic. The more traffic, the more traffic will increase. Yahoo! Very successful at this point, visiting Yahoo for the first time! Some users will find it convenient and practical to find useful information and will come back. A stable customer base is the guarantee of traffic, Yahoo! There are millions of stable users, providing a very good place to provide information services. The more services, the greater the traffic. "This is a positive feedback. The more information we provide, the more users we have. The more users we have, the more advertisers and the more information we have. " Yang concluded.

"It has increased by 10 times in 7 months"

By August 1995, Yahoo! Yahoo's transformation! Has been basically completed, with the expansion of business and capital expansion, it is necessary. In fact, Yahoo! It will be profitable after starting advertising, but it needs more capital injection to strive for greater development, Yahoo! Starting to plan the second round of financing, Jerry and the management asked the company to value 40 million dollars, which seems incredible. After all, the company's valuation was only $4 million seven months ago, but investors agreed without hesitation. Yang said regretfully, "We can become taller." This time, the investor is Softbank of Japan.

Softbank was founded on 198 1 by a Korean from Japan. It is the largest software marketer in Japan, accounting for 50% of the Japanese software market. It just bought Ziff-Davis for $2 1 billion, becoming the largest computer publisher in the world. Son heard about Yahoo from a partner of Sequoia! . Yang Zhiyuan is very satisfied with Softbank's investment, while Yahoo and I are talking about co-publishing magazines with ZD. Secondly, the number of Japanese netizens has increased dramatically, and Yahoo Japan was established! This is a perfect time. Yang always thought that Yahoo! It's a kind of media and a kind of culture. He thinks there is only a localized Yahoo! In order to succeed. Softbank bought 5% of the shares, and the two companies soon announced the establishment of Yahoo Japan! Soon, Yahoo magazine published by ZD appeared on the newsstand! Journal of online life.

Yahoo! The second round of financing has brought new development. The company hired a group of experienced managers, and soon they faced a severe test. /kloc-In February, Netscape announced that the button connection site of the Internet directory on its browser pointed to Excite. It turns out that this button points to Yahoo! Yes, according to the calculation, Yahoo! 20% of the traffic comes from here, and by January Yahoo! Although the traffic dropped by 10%, it is still the largest website on the network. This is due to the dependence on Netscape and Yahoo. Continue to develop rapidly.

"listing, a beautiful day"

Through 1996, Yahoo! Considering the public listing of the company's shares, the successful listing of Netscape proves how enthusiastic the investing public is, and even blindly pursues Internet high-tech companies. () Before the listing plan, Masayoshi Son suggested that more Yahoo is needed! Shares, he wants to be a partner, not an investor. This limit is 30% of the shares. Yang and David accepted it painfully. "It's like giving away their children. No one believes me, but that's the feeling." Yang recalled. Because they know that Sun is Yahoo! This leader has a great influence on Japan and Chiff Davis, but neither of them wants to sell their shares. As a result, the three companies reached a deal on an equal footing. The final share distribution is that Softbank accounts for 37%, Sequoia accounts for 17%, Jerry and David each account for 15%, and Softbank pays 60 million dollars for this.

Yahoo! 1April 1996 12 successfully listed, two Yahoo! Competitors Lycos and Excite are at Yahoo! It went public a few days ago, but it didn't affect the interest of investors in Yahoo! Enthusiasm, listing price 13 USD per share, opening price of 24.5 yuan, highest 43 yuan, closing price of the day in 33 yuan, Yahoo! Its market value reached $850 million, 200 times that of Sequoia a a year ago. It was a beautiful day. Both Yang and David are worth more than 1 billion dollars.

"You Yahoo brand campaign!"

After the frenzy of investing in the public, although Yahoo! Yahoo's share price! It has declined, but it is still the most dazzling star compared with its competitor Yahoo. By the summer of 1996, the company's trade volume has reached 8 times the expected income of 1998, while his competitor is only 1 2 times. Wall Street analysts attribute this to Yahoo! For example, Ziv Davis added online life magazine to Yahoo! After the name, sales doubled in the month. . Yahoo! Our management has realized that the success of the Internet market depends not only on traffic, but also on brands. "Yahoo! Cool, it is not a technology company, but a brand and a culture, which makes Yahoo! Extremely cool. " Analysts commented. Yahoo! Cool mainly because Jerry and David are cool. The legend of their self-made billionaire is the focus of countless media attention, Yahoo! It was built according to their wishes: independence, youth, creativity and humility.

Yahoo! It is the first Internet company to advertise on TV, and Karen Edwards is in charge of marketing planning. She was in charge of propaganda at 20th Century Fox Film Company, "You Yahoo!" She put forward the slogan, which can be compared with Nike's "Let's do it!" Comparable, advertising language has been added to all Yahoo! In advertising, the goal of marketing planning is to make Yahoo! Become a brand of popular culture, not just online, and let half of Americans know about Yahoo! The name of. For potential Internet users, Yahoo! We have done a lot of publicity in radio stations, TV stations, magazines, newspapers and various printed materials, and at the same time, we have invested heavily in adding Yahoo to the browsers of Microsoft and Netscape! And Yahoo! On thousands of websites. Whether you surf the Internet or not, you can see Yahoo! A striking sign.

"Become the most powerful media in the world"

Yahoo! The marketing campaign has been a great success, but Yahoo! The real power comes from Yahoo! Classification level of. Yahoo! A team of more than 50 people finished the work of Jerry and David. Every week, everyone should visit thousands of websites, ask to join and put them at an appropriate level, Yahoo! There is no political or moral point of view in site selection. This is a great project to manually classify websites. A team of 50 people is Yahoo! The richest people, they are all young and have college degrees, Yahoo! All kinds of website materials provided to other media come from their patient and meticulous work, which makes Yahoo! The content is very accurate and detailed, and it is difficult for competitors to imitate this unless they hire more than Yahoo! More teams. Most of these sites are searched by algorithms, but the accuracy of searching sites by algorithms cannot be compared with manual browsing. After all, computers are not intelligent. So there are generally only two or three floors, and Yahoo! There are usually more than a dozen floors, and users will get lost in the huge ocean of information when surfing the Internet. There are nearly one million websites of all kinds, and they are still growing at a high speed. Yahoo! The detailed classified index provided can help users quickly find related sites, which is Yahoo! The secret of high flow is carefully crafted for thousands of years.

According to Yahoo! Amazing development speed, maybe Yahoo! It will become the most influential media in the world. At present, the most influential news magazine in the United States has a circulation of 4 million copies, with an annual growth rate of about 2%. At 1995, Yahoo! The daily average number of visits is 3 million pages, exceeding100000 in autumn of 1996, and reaching 65 million by the end of 1997. Moreover, users can say that they have read the contents of every page, because they have actively selected information, which is completely different from traditional media and is also the main feature of future media: users actively select information instead of passively accepting it. Another difference is Yahoo! Users can be accurately positioned through the way they obtain information, which is very attractive to advertisers.

My Yahoo! It is a long-term innovative design of Yahoo! Users provide convenient services, and users choose information content of personal interest, such as stock information purchased by individuals, latest sports news, some news, My Yahoo! Users can organize them all without looking around, which is very convenient. Of course, Yahoo! Therefore, users' interests and hobbies can be better understood, and the title advertisement positioning for users' background is more accurate and effective. One obvious advantage is that it can improve my Yahoo! The price of the advertisement.

"continuous innovation, a new generation of media"

Yahoo! To become the most powerful media, of course, it cannot be limited to the United States. The first overseas company, Yahoo Japan! Founded in April, 1996, followed by France, Germany, Canada, Britain, South Korea, etc. Yahoo! Branches, all branches use local languages, of course, they use the same classification level, and most branches are Yahoo! Establish in cooperation with local enterprises. Yahoo! A series of branches have been set up in major cities in the United States, with San Francisco ranking first in June, 1996, followed by new york, Chicago, Washington, and Boston. Local branches mainly provide various local information, such as traffic, recruitment, sports and entertainment information.

Yahoo! Series provides various new services, including telephone yellow pages and explanatory maps, which can be downloaded from Yahoo! Look up the phone number and address of any company in the United States, as well as the company address road map, it is difficult to estimate how much income this project can get, but Yahoo! The policy adopted is that as long as it is attractive to users, the annual sales of telephone yellow pages in the United States is $654.38+000 billion. It is foreseeable that the benefits of this project will be considerable in the future.

Yahoo! The most meaningful items in this series are classified advertisements, including real estate information, cars, recruitment and personal information, Yahoo! You don't need a piece of paper to provide all kinds of lists, and the income from classified advertisements will be very considerable. Four months after its establishment, San Francisco Company attracted 450 advertisers, almost all of whom were advertisers of San Francisco News. Classified advertisements are no longer simple words, but can be based on images, sounds and videos. Users can also accurately obtain the information they want according to their own needs, such as price range, model, etc. Online shopping has also become a big business. 1997, we cooperated with VISA to open an online shopping mall, and achieved very good results. Yahoo! The profit of 1997 is $674 10000, which is 242% higher than that of 1996. News, telephone yellow pages, classified ads, online mall, Yahoo! A series of new services have created a new generation of media.

"Don't give up your dream"

Yang thinks it is difficult to predict the future development, but he believes that the Internet will still develop rapidly. He thinks: "Yahoo! The next decade will remain at the forefront, and the question is just how successful it will be. I like my present job. What excites me most is that I can integrate the traditional world into the new media. David and I, as well as Mark from Netscape, were the first people to do this, but we did more, Yahoo! Is a consumer brand, and our success depends entirely on consumers. Run Yahoo! I feel like I was thrown from a helicopter. I was the first person to ski on the mountain. I don't know where there are trees and cliffs, as if landing on the moon. In short, it is very exciting and safe. Because I won't lose anything, I start from scratch, even if my hands are empty. Because I had a wonderful time, I have an excellent team, and no one has left Yahoo so far! "

Yang Zhiyuan is still overworked. Although he no longer only sleeps for four hours, he works from 7: 00 in the morning to 10 in the evening, and flies in the air two or three days a week.

Yang attributed his success to being at the forefront of the market at the right time and finding the right partner. "I never thought that David and my hobby would become a business. If there is dedication, there will be no Yahoo now! " My advice to others is' Don't give up your dreams'.

Others:

Yang Zhiyuan's title is Yahoo! Leader (Chief Yahoo! )

Appreciators: Bill Gates, a business tycoon, and Albert Einstein, a physicist, appreciate Einstein's words "Make everything as simple as possible" and "We should simplify the Internet".

Yang and David donated $2 million to the Department of Electronic Engineering of Stanford University, becoming the youngest professor at Stanford University.