Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

”Fifteen years, then,” Chen Yansen said without hesitation.

”Then I’ll look forward to seeing Brother Sen with a shaved head. HAHA!” Liu Qiangdong roared with laughter.

Then, Liu Qiangdong asked, ”Aren’t you even a little worried about Ah Li entering the food delivery market?”

Chen Yansen sneered inwardly. ’Liu Qiangdong is just afraid I’ll get too close to Ma Liyun. He’s brought it up twice in less than five minutes.’

”Kuai Pao isn’t afraid of competition. Whether it’s Meituan, Qian Du, or Ah Li, there’s never a shortage of rivals on this path. Taobao doesn’t even have its own traffic portal. What’s it going to use to compete with Kuai Pao?” Chen Yansen picked up the teapot, refilled Liu Qiangdong’s cup, and continued in a nonchalant tone.

Liu Qiangdong’s expression faltered. The words hit a little too close to home, because Jingdong didn’t have its own traffic portal either.

Penguin was willing to give them one, but the price was far too steep.

Ma Wenteng was even more unreasonable than the portals and video sites that sold traffic; he insisted on bundling QQ Group Buy, Paipai Network, and Yixun Network into the deal.

Assets valued at a staggering $1.5 billion!

’What was Jingdong supposed to do with all that garbage?’

Unless it was an absolute last resort, Handsome Dong couldn’t accept Ma Wenteng’s equity swap proposal.

Liu Qiangdong looked at Chen Yansen with a flash of envy. He’d heard that the primary traffic portals from WeChat and QQ had always been provided to Pinbei, Fast Taxi, and Kuai Pao for free.

What’s more, he’d heard that Ma Wenteng was the one who had chased down Chen Yansen to get the contract signed.

It’s always the comparisons that sting the most.

Ma Wenteng treated him and Chen Yansen completely differently!

”I wouldn’t be so sure,” Liu Qiangdong retorted, continuing to stir the pot. ”Whatever you say, you can’t fake Taobao’s 600 million users. Ma Liyun is just too aggressive. He’s got a perfectly good e-commerce business, but he insists on trying to steal business from Kuai Pao.”

”How about we get down to business?” Chen Yansen suggested.

He knew Ma Liyun’s underlying logic for launching a food delivery service. In terms of threat level, Taobao Delivery was nothing compared to Qian Du or Meituan. The former merely wanted to leverage the high-frequency nature of food orders to increase user stickiness and retention for Taobao. The latter were out to kill Kuai Pao.

To put it bluntly, Taobao Delivery was all thunder and no rain.

Once Ma Liyun realized the return on investment in food delivery was poor and that it might even negatively impact his core e-commerce business, he would scale back internal resources for Taobao Delivery on his own. Chen Yansen wouldn’t even have to lift a finger.

Besides, from what he knew of Ah Li, Taobao Delivery was a project Ma Liyun had forced through against popular opinion. The heads of Tmall Mall and Taobao probably loathed Taobao Delivery even more than Kuai Pao did.

After all, Taobao Delivery had been given a prime spot on the homepage without having earned its keep within the company.

In internet giants like Ah Li and Penguin, factionalism was rampant, and internal struggles were notoriously fierce.

Otherwise, Ma Wenteng wouldn’t have needed to create an entirely separate business unit when he was pushing the WeChat project.

The WeChat project team wasn’t even located in the same city as the Penguin Headquarters.

”I’d like to invite Orange Technology to join Jingdong Mall,” Liu Qiangdong said, nodding as his tone turned serious.

He deliberately avoided the word ’rejoin,’ clearly not wanting to dredge up the past.

Currently, Orange Technology’s lineup included phones, tablets, computers, power banks, smart speakers, and phone accessories. Their total online sales reached over ten billion a month.

Pinbei was a traffic magnet in its own right!

Without Orange Technology’s products, Jingdong was naturally missing out on a significant stream of traffic.

Chen Yansen lifted his gaze, looking at Liu Qiangdong with a wry, unreadable smile.

’He was the one who wanted to cooperate last year, and he was also the one who wanted to terminate the cooperation.’

’What did he take Orange Technology for?’

’Someone to be summoned and dismissed at his beck and call?’

”And what’s in it for Orange Technology?” Chen Yansen asked, his smile vanishing as his voice grew serious.