The evening of March 29th. iQiyi The lobby on the first floor of the Innovation Building has a background board for the Nasdaq landing, and iQiyi employees lined up in twos and threes waiting to take photos.
As for the employees who hold options, the intermittent listing rumors for five years seem to have made them wait too long. On a certain workplace social platform, similar questions such as "How much would one share of iQiyi's options be worth if it were listed on the market" began to appear in 2015. A month ago, iQiyi submitted a prospectus to the U.S. SEC. Each ADS represents 7 ordinary shares, with a lock-up period of 180 days. On the evening of March 29, Beijing time, the video website finally landed on the capital market, with an opening price of 18.2 US dollars, up 1.11% from the issue price of US$18. As of the close, iQiyi's stock price was reported at US$15.55, a decrease of 13.61%. Based on the closing price, iQiyi’s market value reached US$10.95 billion.
This may also be the last Chinese video website in the traditional sense to independently enter the capital market for some time to come. At the same time as the founder of iQiyi Gong Yu, or colleagues who broke into the video website industry earlier than him have already found capital paths. Tencent Video and Sohu Video were originally derived from the listing system. Youku Tudou Belonging to Alibaba Entertainment, Mango TV is about to be injected into the Happy Gou listing system. The remaining peers have long since withered or are declining day by day. At that time, competitors such as Gu Yongqiang , Wang Wei , and Li Shanyou also gradually left the video industry. Gong Yu is left.
In the eyes of the outside world, Gong Yu has always been calm, calm, and not expressing his emotions externally. However, during the bell ringing ceremony, he was no longer the usual Dr. Gong Yu. In 8 years, iQiyi, which he led, finally went public.
Sohu video website
is ringing the bell. Gong Yu just experienced it a few months ago. In November last year, Sogou was officially listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Baidu iQiyi CEO Gong Yu also appeared at the listing site. His connection with Wang Xiaochuan - firstly, they are both from Tsinghua University; secondly, They are also Sohu old men.
In September 1999, Gong Yu founded Focus.com, a comprehensive portal website. Later, several iQiyi executives began to work with Gong Yu during this period. The timing of Gong Yu's entry was not very good, as he caught up with the Internet bubble at the beginning of the 21st century. At the most difficult time, he had to tell his employees that they would not be able to pay their salaries next month.
An interesting thing happened during this period. When Focus.com was at its most difficult to develop, Gong Yu's car was stolen. In the car were a good oil painting, a complete set of optical lenses, and daily necessities he had just bought from the supermarket. For most people, old things are simply replaced when they are lost. However, when the economic situation improved, Gong Yu bought an identical car and a set of identical lenses. He could not buy the same oil paintings again. For him, it was Big regret. "It was just a competition at that time." Gong Yu said later. This reflects Gong Yu's character to some extent. Behind the gentle appearance, there is persistence towards certain goals.
For Focus.com, the turning point occurred in 2003. Zhang Chaoyang spent US$16 million to acquire Focus.com. Wu Bo, the chairman of Focus.com, left, and later entered a group buying war a year before iQiyi was launched. Founding LaShou.com is another story, but Gong Yu chose to stay and worked at Sohu from vice president to chief operating officer.
left Sohu in 2009. Gong Yu first briefly joined the life information service platform Wuxunqi, and then was appointed to establish the video website business of Baidu . Coincidentally, when Gong Yu started to build a video website, among the most competitive video websites on the market, Gu Yongqiang, the founder of Youku and , served as CFO, COO, and Sohu at Sohu from 1999 to 2005. Li Shanyou, president and founder of ku6, served as director of human resources, editor-in-chief of the news center, vice president, and senior vice president at Sohu from 1999 to 2005.
Even Li Shanyou left Sohu and asked Gong Yu for his opinion. Gong Yu also strongly recommended him to do online videos. First, he was interested in the industry, and second, the industry had potential. After a few years, Gong Yu also came to this industry. industry. “I hope to surpass all the video websites created by Sohu people."Before the launch of iQiyi, Gong Yu said in an interview with Sina Technology.
A steady balance
and acquisition expansion and independent listing were included in Gong Yu's planning before iQiyi was officially launched. .
On the December 2, 2012 issue of the "Boss Hall" program, Bao Fan, the founder of China Renaissance who has known Gong Yu for many years, said, "Don't be fooled by (Gong Yu's) appearance. He used the process of Gong Yu being selected as the head of the video website established by Baidu and Providence Capital to refute, "Former vice president of Baidu Ren Xuyang interviewed hundreds of people, but the elegant Gong Yu was selected. He He has his own wolf nature.
This conversation was later considered by Gong Yu as an event that had a profound impact on iQiyi. “Ren Xuyang came to talk to me and said that the United States has a new model that does not do UGC, but only makes long videos and sells advertisements. These five minutes established the scale of iQiyi as a company, affecting China’s online entertainment and China’s entertainment structure. "And this technical doctor even remembered the specific time of this conversation - September 27, 2009. In a media interview on the seventh anniversary of iQiyi in 2017, he mentioned that focus and resilience were his guiding principles. Gong Yu ranked in the top two. "I have seen too many peers who are much smarter than me, much richer than me, much younger than me, and much more resilient than me. But these few key factors Taken together, there are people better than me, but not many. "Since the product
was launched in April 2010, Gong Yu has started a long-distance race to catch up with the mountains of video websites. In those years, Gong Yu made two decisions that still seem far-sighted, focusing on creating a pure version of the film and television drama content library. Spend a lot of money to buy copyright; the pure advertising model only sells brand advertising, not effect advertising. "When we were preparing for establishment at the end of 2009, we analyzed this market. Since we are five years later than other companies, if you don't put your resources and energy into At one point, it's almost impossible to surpass other players. "
In the first two or three years after the establishment of iQiyi, iQiyi's product level basically focused on one thing - smooth, clear, and user-friendly, concentrating all manpower and funds to improve the user experience, and carrying out the initial user accumulation. In 2011, the iQiyi mobile terminal was officially launched. Gong Yu chose Android and iOS systems, which were not yet mainstream at the time, and gave up the Symbian system.
But there were moments of stagnation in those years. In 2011, When iQiyi started selling memberships, the annual KPI was only a few hundred thousand people, but in the end only less than 20% was completed. “The whole team was dejected. "Gong Yu recalled. But the task was still not completed in the second and third years.
Gong Yu has always maintained a steady balance between gentleness and wolfishness. This coincides with a passage from Gong Yu in 2014 - —Build up your true strength and start waiting, not for the opportunity to counterattack, but for your competitors to make mistakes. In a large-scale industry, the opportunity to surpass the front from behind is really not created by you, but by your competitors. Created - the second year after this sentence was said, iQiyi became the number one in the industry.
An entertainment company managed by technicians
Many times, when seeing that the manager of an entertainment company is a technical doctor, it is inevitable that It may feel a little inconsistent, especially since this company is increasingly entering the self-produced field, producing self-produced variety shows and self-produced dramas, and becoming half a film and television company. He can still lead this company to run at a fast pace. This lies in the mechanism. And this is what Gong Yu is good at.
According to iQiyi’s previously submitted prospectus, in 2017, iQiyi’s total revenue was 17.378 billion yuan, of which membership service revenue was 6.536 billion yuan and online advertising revenue was 8.159 billion yuan. But at the same time, it also faced huge losses and expansion of scale. In 2015, 2016, and 2017, iQiyi's net losses were 2.575 billion, 3.074 billion, and 3.7369 billion respectively. However, the net loss rate declined, and the net loss rates were - 48%, -27%, -22%.
Relatively speaking, Gong Yu is also more concerned about this growth mechanism, a stable ecosystem - like an advanced, high-speed train moving on the right track and moving forward, with A stable system without any worries about its direction and momentum.
This is an embarrassment faced by all competitors in the content entertainment market. When investment is reduced, or innovation is reduced, or competitors become stronger, they will face a decline in market share or influence.
html In mid-March, iQiyi announced in its prospectus that as of the end of February 2018, its number of paid members had reached 60.1 million. Then the next day, Tencent Video announced that as of February 28, 2018, its number of paid members had reached 60.1 million. Reaching 62.59 million. At least in terms of membership payment, iQiyi has lagged behind.On April 21 last year, Gong Yu said in a sharing to internal employees that iQiyi’s emphasis is not always on ranking first, but more on the mechanism - a mechanism for achieving overtake after being overtaken by opponents; The mechanism that allows iQiyi to rank first most of the time. "This is an oligopoly industry, not a dominant industry. We will not dream of one dominant player, at least under the current market model."
iQiyi has already landed in the capital market, and in addition to its In addition to its own significance, the huge content investment costs have long dragged down Baidu's financial reports, which is also a relief for the major shareholder Baidu.
Gong Yu and Robin Li seem to be the same type of technical men. "In the past 8 years, there has been no inconsistency. Robin Li believes in my judgment and it is all in accordance with the rules and the spirit of the contract. I don't remember any serious conflicts. More It is a rational analysis and decision-making in business." Before the IPO, Gong Yu said. The
video industry has come to this day. It is responsible for the layout of the three giant BAT companies in the entertainment industry. In a sense, the same is true for iQiyi. When entering the capital market, this video veteran who is good at balancing needs to find a new balance between share and loss, between innovation and financial reporting.
Source: Sina Technology Author: Tan Xiaohan
