"After YouTube's explosive emergence, we seriously investigated this company. Then we discovered that the company has not even been established for a year yet, and all of its founders came from PayPal."
"They're people from Peter Thiel's side."
"When they founded YouTube, their vision was very grand. They wanted to turn YouTube into a unique internet media conglomerate. But their actual development process — in fact, it's not much different from Napster."
"YouTube is filled with a huge amount of pirated video resources."
"Theoretically speaking, this kind of company shouldn't pose a threat to our video business, but —"
"Everything changed last month."
"Because Isabella Haywood invested in YouTube."
"..."
"Her appearance may allow YouTube to obtain a massive amount of legitimate video resources at extremely low prices."
"Because right now, among the six major Hollywood copyright holders in the world, four have clear cooperative relationships with her. Among them, the legally strongest companies, Time Warner and Disney, are even her steadfast allies."
"This kind of relationship is actually very unfavorable for us."
"So — I, our department's current view is — YouTube cannot be allowed to grow."
"YouTube's development must be restricted."
At the same time.
Redmond, Washington State.
Inside the private conference room next to the CEO's office at Microsoft headquarters.
A middle-aged man wearing glasses was seriously explaining his thoughts to five colleagues present.
Although the four people beside him listened attentively, the man with glasses kept his gaze fixed on the figure at the very front, who was leaning back and staring at the ceiling.
After waiting for him to give a concluding judgment, that figure, who had been staring at the ceiling while leaning against the chair, suddenly sat upright.
Two cold beams shot from his eyes straight toward him—
"So what you're saying is, if we don't kill YouTube, our Zune might as well not even be sold. Right?"
"Uh — Mr. Ballmer, if we don't kill YouTube, our Zune will be very difficult to sell."
"How difficult?"
"If I had to describe it — it would be like MSN Music fighting against the iTunes Store."
The clear analogy plunged the spacious conference room into silence.
Although many people say that after launching Windows 3.1, Microsoft lost its innovative ability and became mediocre, turning into a company that simply waves the stick of monopoly and collects rent — the truth is not quite like that.
Microsoft's innovation was actually very strong. They had even predicted the future.
And the proof related to that was written clearly on paper:
After launching Windows 3.1, Bill Gates was just as spirited as Steve Jobs had been when embracing graphical systems. He even wrote a book called The Road Ahead.
He stated that all cutting-edge technology companies should look to his book when planning their development.
In that book, he predicted the emergence of mobile phones — computers would shrink to the point of fitting into pockets, becoming the most important portable devices for users.
He also predicted that the internet would transform finance — ordinary people would no longer be able to obtain high interest rates, because intermediaries would use the internet's efficiency to gather funds from small clients and then secure extremely high interest rates from large deposits.
Not only that, he also said that online consumption would become mainstream within ten years — consumers would compare prices across the internet and search for product reviews before placing orders.
But even though Bill Gates predicted almost everything correctly, or rather, almost all of his predictions were realized within ten years of the book's publication, Microsoft itself failed to seize any of those futures.
As for the reason —
It was simple.
Bill Gates' own path to success was not exactly clean.
From the very beginning, he used his family's influence to squeeze competitors' living space through bundled sales. Because of that, antitrust investigations related to Microsoft had already begun as early as 1990.
By July 27, 1994, the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division had already submitted an investigation report to Congress.
The antitrust lawsuit triggered by the browser wars was merely the public excuse shown to people.
It was not the beginning of Microsoft's wrongdoing.
So when the Department of Justice had already targeted Microsoft even before Windows 3.1 was released, what use was it even if Bill Gates predicted the future? No one can do research and development with a gun pointed at their head!
Not to mention that once someone has taken shortcuts and tasted the pleasure of speedrunning success, they won't want to walk the proper path anymore!
That was precisely why Microsoft predicted e-commerce, electronic payments, and smartphones — yet still missed them.
But none of that was important —
When Microsoft's monopoly moat was wider than Coca-Cola's, what was wrong with striking later but harder?
And at this moment, that was exactly what they were trying to do.
In The Road Ahead, Bill Gates once predicted that CDs and tapes would eventually be abandoned by the public, and a new model of music sales would emerge.
Apple ended up capturing that opportunity.
The success of the iTunes Store made Microsoft extremely jealous, so they quickly followed with MSN Music.
Although in the past year MSN Music's market share had been miserable and completely unable to compete with the iTunes Store, Microsoft did not abandon the project.
Instead, they wanted to give it an epic upgrade.
Because MP4 technology had matured, and consumer-level handheld devices could now play video.
So while the iTunes Store was only selling music, couldn't Microsoft's music market also sell music videos together with it?
And if music videos could be sold, why not build a massive entertainment plaza?
Add movies, television, variety shows, and everything interesting into it!
Thus, Zune was born.
Like Apple's approach, Zune would also be a combination of hardware and software.
The hardware was Zune.
The software was called Zune Marketplace.
And Microsoft had already finished most of the work. They were preparing to launch it in the third quarter of this year.
However, just as they were sharpening their knives against Apple —
A completely new video website had already appeared on the market, and it could gain twenty million users overnight?
That—
Made it very hard for them to stay calm.
Admittedly, the current YouTube was different from the Zune they wanted to build. From YouTube's current presentation, it was simply a video-sharing website filled with pirated videos, while Zune would sell legitimate music, films, TV series, and variety shows.
But —
When YouTube's investor was Isabella Haywood, the situation became completely different, right?
Because everyone in the circle knew that Isabella Haywood could turn YouTube into a video sales platform in minutes.
Right now, she could easily obtain copyrights from Time Warner, Disney, DreamWorks, Paramount, and Sony.
She could even —
Not obtain the copyrights at all.
The logic here was very simple.
As long as pirated films and TV shows uploaded to YouTube were not excessive, those Hollywood companies that had already made huge profits from Isabella would not take her to court.
If things were handled that way, YouTube could even find a profit model first and obtain the copyrights later.
Princess privilege!
So—
"Okay, I understand."
After hearing his subordinate's analysis, Steve Ballmer fell into deep thought.
After a while, he nodded.
Slapping his thigh, he said, "You all go back first. I'll talk to William about this matter."
No one objected.
Because everyone inside Microsoft knew that Microsoft entering the internet entertainment industry was Bill Gates' will.
Since the day Bill Gates debuted, he had never beaten Steve Jobs even once.
So now, Steve Jobs had used Bill Gates' own inspiration to save Apple?
Then Bill Gates would make Apple die again.
Just as Microsoft was troubled by the appearance of YouTube—
Mountain View, California.
Google's CEO Eric Schmidt was also scratching his head inside a conference room.
"So you mean YouTube's appearance will affect our Google Video?"
"A serious impact?"
"Yeah—"
The Google executives in the conference room nodded repeatedly.
The whack-a-mole-like scene made Eric Schmidt narrow his eyes and purse his lips.
Google Video was essentially Google's own version of YouTube.
Right.
As the internet transitioned from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, any normal company could see the value of video.
So Google built its own video website.
Its launch date was even earlier than YouTube's.
That was January 25, 2005.
However, the development of Google Video did not meet Google's expectations.
In Google's vision, video would become the next major traffic gateway after search.
The logic behind this was very simple:
Images will always be more attractive than text.
But the problem was that after Google Video launched, it did not bring immediate traffic to Google.
Instead, because of video copyright issues, it was repeatedly warned by copyright holders and received piles of legal letters.
Google was also hosting pirated videos.
And their method was even more brutal than YouTube's.
They simply used crawlers to scrape the videos directly.
They even skipped the step of allowing users to upload videos in order to avoid legal risks.
When copyright fees demanded by rights holders remained high while Google Video's traffic stayed pitifully low, there were times when Google itself began to doubt whether the idea behind Google Video was wrong.
Just as they were considering whether to abandon video—
Someone in the market had already built a video portal???
That—
The emergence of YouTube shocked them.
What shocked them even more was that YouTube did not seem like a casual project.
Because its investor could easily reach the largest copyright conglomerates in the world, and—
The investor possessed bandwidth.
This was truly a bizarre situation.
"What did Sequoia say?"
After pausing for two seconds, Eric Schmidt looked back at the executives beside the table.
His puzzled gaze swept across everyone's faces through his glasses.
This situation prompted a subordinate to quickly report:
"Michael Moritz said Isabella was very determined when she took YouTube shares from him."
"She even brought up Steve Jobs."
"So right now he doesn't know whether investing in YouTube is Isabella's personal decision, or another attempt by companies like Time Warner and Disney to explore the internet. Or — whether Isabella is holding the shares on behalf of someone else."
"For example, Apple."
"In short, Michael says the current situation has him very confused as well."
The half-hidden intelligence made Eric Schmidt's brows tighten.
Google's early operating funds came from Sequoia Capital.
Therefore, when Sequoia Capital invested in YouTube —
Specifically what the situation is, they could find out with a single phone call.
But all of the above were just the most normal responses.
The abnormal response was what was happening right now.
When even Sequoia Capital didn't know why Isabella was making YouTube, it became difficult for Google to evaluate YouTube. Was it an enemy? A friend? They couldn't figure that out for the moment.
However, there was one thing Eric Schmidt was very certain about —
The video gateway was something Google absolutely had to obtain.
"Alright, I understand the situation. You can go back first."
"I'll talk with Sergey Brin about YouTube."
"And before we come up with a concrete strategy, you need to make Google Video better."
"If necessary —"
"We can learn from YouTube's advanced experience."
The group CEO's words made everyone nod.
Just as they were leaving—
Seattle, Washington.
Inside the conference room at Amazon's headquarters, Jeff Bezos was grinding his teeth.
"When can our Amazon Unbox go online?"
"At the earliest, the end of the third quarter."
"How's the copyright acquisition going?"
"Except for Disney, we've already obtained the digital film and television sales rights from Warner, Universal, Sony, Fox, MGM, and Paramount. And negotiations with DreamWorks are ongoing—"
"Why can't we get Disney?"
"Because Robert Iger refuses to sell. He said that if video is the future, Disney will only build its own website."
"Alright then, what about the exclusivity agreements—"
"Microsoft has already obtained the online digital film and television sales rights from the other six companies except Disney."
Jeff Bezos fell silent.
Yes.
When Microsoft and Google could see the future, how could Amazon possibly not see it?
And just like Microsoft, they also wanted to do it all in one step and directly create a massive entertainment platform.
At the moment, the name they had given their product was "Amazon Unbox."
Which was essentially the Prime Video of the streaming era.
When making this business decision, Amazon originally believed their only competitor was Microsoft.
Because in this world only a few tech companies had the ability to buy up all the copyrights on the market in one go and build a website capable of transmitting massive amounts of video.
But no one expected, absolutely no one expected, that YouTube would suddenly appear out of nowhere.
Yes!
At the moment, YouTube indeed had no intention of selling legitimate videos!
The path they seemed to be taking was vlogs!
Video blogs!
But when even Microsoft could reach the conclusion that YouTube's investor could mutate YouTube in a second, Amazon would have to have its head kicked by a donkey to calmly watch YouTube develop.
So—
"You can all go back."
"I'll figure out how to deal with this myself."
The boss's words made everyone quickly agree and nod repeatedly.
After they left, Jeff Bezos took out his phone and dialed Google founder Sergey Brin.
Well—
Jeff Bezos was an investor in Google.
He was even an angel investor.
That should be common knowledge, right?
As for who Amazon's angel investors were—
After confirming that Google also had no information about YouTube, Jeff Bezos directly called Robert Iger. After greeting him, he went straight to the point and asked:
"Was YouTube your idea?"
"No." Robert Iger answered decisively.
"You're sure?" Jeff Bezos didn't quite believe it. "You didn't even license Disney's film and TV rights to us!"
"That's because Roy Disney refused to sell!"
Robert Iger sounded somewhat helpless. "I still don't fully control Disney yet, okay?"
"Otherwise, given our relationship, why wouldn't we license it to you?"
Right.
As early as 1994, Jeff Bezos had already presented the idea of Amazon to Warren Buffett.
Because his boss was the king of quantitative trading on Wall Street, David Shaw.
The reason Jeff Bezos invested in Google was also because David Shaw asked him to put some money into one of his people's projects.
David Shaw came from Stanford.
The first company he founded was even called Stanford Systems Corporation.
And Google founder Sergey Brin's father-in-law was named Stanley Wojcicki.
This man was a senior researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the National Science Foundation, and CERN; the head of the U.S. Department of Energy's High Energy Physics Advisory Panel; a designer of the Superconducting Super Collider; and the chairman of Stanford University's physics department.
David Shaw was his student.
The internet industry had indeed created many wealth myths, but those who survived until the end all had powerful backers.
Otherwise—
Why wouldn't those pirates who rob constantly target someone like you, who has no background?
You can't seriously claim they suddenly became kind-hearted, right?
If the emergence of YouTube only shocked Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, then gaining seventeen million users in two days made Fox's blood pressure shoot into the universe like an arrow released from a bow.
There was no way around it. Right now, Myspace was only gaining 200,000 new users per day.
To gain 17 million users, they would need 85 days.
This brutal comparison meant that a single sentence from Isabella could wipe out several months of their efforts!
But the more brutal part wasn't even that.
The truly brutal part was that even though Myspace had already become the world's largest social network, their total user base was only 90 million.
So looking at it from another angle, did Isabella make YouTube gain 17 million users with a single video?
No, no, no—
With a single video, Isabella created a blockbuster internet company!
By herself, she equaled twenty percent of Myspace's users!
To put it bluntly—
When a comparison like this appears—
In the future, investors might never believe internet companies again.
Previously, when internet companies raised funds, they exaggerated the importance of ideas to the heavens. They would tell investors how amazing their ideas were, how many users they could attract—
Investors believed them and happily poured in money.
But now?
You say your idea is good?
What the hell is a good idea worth!
In the world of capital, ideas are the one thing that is never lacking!
At any given moment on Earth, many people can have the exact same idea!
Take Facebook for example. Wasn't their idea copied?
What capital truly values is how quickly and effectively you can sell that idea to users!
And—
On the surface, everything related to fundraising had nothing to do with Fox or Myspace right now.
Because they didn't need funding.
They already had a wealthy father backing them.
So if future startups found it harder to raise money?
What the hell did that have to do with them?
But—
"Can someone please tell me if I just spent 570 million dollars to buy a pile of garbage?"
"Before this, you people kept telling me the internet was the future, users were the future. I believed you."
"I followed your advice and bought Myspace for 570 million."
"But now?"
"One sentence from Isabella equals 114 million of mine?"
"Mother—Fk!!!"
"My words aren't even worth that much!!!!!!"
The sudden roar sounded like it could flip the entire News Corporation headquarters building.
The furious shouting made the Fox executives standing in front of Rupert Murdoch tremble.
Yes.
Myspace had been acquired by Fox.
Just like Michael Eisner and others had thought, they also believed the internet was the future.
And as for social networking—
Anyone in media understood this clearly: control social interaction, and you control everything.
So in July last year, they submitted a report to Rupert Murdoch and bought Myspace.
In their vision, it would be a great beginning.
Because judging by Myspace's user growth rate, by 2007 at the latest it would replace Yahoo and become the world's largest website.
At that point, its value could even reach 12 billion dollars.
But—
All those fantasies turned into bubbles on January 1, 2006.
From the current situation, it would take YouTube at most half a year to crush Myspace.
Regarding that—
"Mr. Murdoch, this really was an accident."
After a long pause, once the tension in the office faded slightly, Fox's vice president of investments finally spoke.
"Because no one expected Isabella Haywood would suddenly invest in an internet company."
"And I want to say that it's actually normal for Isabella to have this kind of traffic."
"Because we all know that HP has more than thirty million online fans."
Yes.
In 2006, there were only about one billion internet users worldwide, yet HP already had more than 30 million registered fans.
Previously, when Warner ran HP promotions online, every time they released an event—like answering questions related to HP to win premiere tickets—the interactive registration codes requiring real users were distributed in the millions per event, often over several rounds.
HP's traffic made everyone drool with envy.
But so far, only two people had truly benefited from it.
One was J.K. Rowling—
Her personal website got overwhelmed, and her novels sold out offline.
The other was Isabella Haywood—
Saying she had one hundred million fans might be exaggerated, but thirty million fans was definitely real.
So—
Running into someone like that?
You could only consider yourself unlucky.
"Mother—Fk!!!"
"Isabella again! Isabella again! Why does this woman keep haunting me like a ghost and going against me???"
After hearing the name Isabella Haywood, Rupert Murdoch felt his chest fill with rage.
Slamming the table, he shouted:
"All of you get the hell back and come up with solutions!"
"I want YouTube dead!!"
"If you can't do it, then I'll have you dead!!!"
"I'll have your entire families dead!!!!"