Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

The next day, February 21st, Lashou Network was officially renamed Qian Du Group Buy. Together with Qian Du Delivery, it formed the protective moat for the Qian Du LBS Department.

iResearch Data followed shortly after, releasing its 2012 list of the top 100 internet companies, which were comprehensively evaluated based on active user count, revenue, and industry influence.

Penguin ranked first!

Qian Du second!

Ah Li third!

Pinbei fourth!

NetEase fifth!

Shanda sixth!

What came as a surprise was Orange Pay breaking into ninth place, with Today Technology ranking tenth.

Among the top ten on the list, three were holding subsidiaries under Senlian Capital.

Some netizens even commented that if you included Orange Technology, Senlian Capital would account for 40% of the spots.

Kuai Pao and Fast Taxi were ranked seventeenth and nineteenth, respectively, while Gaode Map was thirty-first, and Byte Technology was thirty-eighth.

As soon as the list was released, it shot to the top of the trending topics.

It couldn’t be helped. Senlian Capital had too many subsidiaries on the list; it was hard not to attract attention.

But in less than half an hour, the trending topic was pushed down.

This was because the paparazzi exposed a video of Dong Jie and Wang Dazhi’s secret meeting in Haikou, causing Weibo’s servers to lag almost instantly.

A scandal erupted between two people who seemed completely unrelated.

At first, netizens didn’t believe it. But then the paparazzi released a cringey photo of the two making out, which immediately crashed Weibo.

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「Zhuxianzhuang Science and Technology Park, Building 9.」

”Boss, the functional and timing verification for the Celestial Craft T100 is complete. Its power consumption is 0.4mW in standby mode and 500mW under a full load. It has 0.5 TOPS (500 billion operations per second) of local AI computing power, capable of handling lightweight AI tasks. I recommend using a 40nm process, which would effectively reduce tape-out costs.”

Mike, the chief engineer of the chip design department, began to explain slowly.

”For audio processing, it uses a 6-mic array and integrates a 24-bit audio codec that supports Dolby stereo decoding...” Wu Shengyu, who was sitting beside him, added.

”This is the company’s first chip product, and also the first AI chip to use the Orange Z1 instruction set. Excellent work, you two!”

Chen Yansen leaned against his desk and offered words of encouragement to Mike and Wu Shengyu.

’The AI chip is just the beginning,’ he thought. His next plan was to build the chip design department into another Hisilicon, or even the next MediaTek or Qualcomm.

’You have to eat your meal one bite at a time and walk your path one step at a time.’

”Boss, I’m actually more skilled in designing mobile phone processors,” Mike said, taking the opportunity.

”I know. That’s why the project proposal for the Celestial Craft A100 is already in both of your inboxes.”

Chen Yansen said with a smile.

”The Celestial Craft A100?” Wu Shengyu’s eyes lit up.

He and Mike had felt that the Celestial Craft T100 wasn’t technically challenging enough to truly showcase their talents.

Chen Yansen hadn’t spent a fortune just for a mere AI chip. Mobile phone chips were his real goal.

”OK,” Mike’s reply was simple and direct.

In his view, the Celestial Craft T100 was just a warm-up. The Celestial Craft A100 was the first real R&D project he’d tackle since joining Senlian Capital.

Next, they had to find a chip foundry.

While ensuring a good yield rate, the lower the price, the better.

After the meeting, Chen Yansen returned to his office.

Twenty-four hours had passed since Ma Liyun’s last call, but he wasn’t worried. ’Worst case, I’ll just go head-to-head with Ah Li,’ he thought.

If even Wang Xin could pull it off, there was no reason he couldn’t.

Besides, the Ali Baba of 2013 was far from its peak strength. Other than having more capital than Meituan and a slightly better ground promotion team than Qian Du, it held no significant advantages.

Meanwhile, Kuai Pao, boosted by traffic from Pinbei, Gaode, the Orange Application Mall, WeChat, and QQ, held a dominant, breakaway lead in the industry.

Even if Ah Li acquired Meituan and consolidated the group buy market’s resources, it would be difficult to stop Kuai Pao’s expansion.

「Meanwhile.」

At an electric vehicle factory in Xicheng, the owner, Wang Zhixiang, couldn’t help but break into a joyful expression after hanging up the phone.

’Someone’s finally taking over the factory!’