Chapter 60: Direction

As Zhao Min and Xiaoyu just stepped through the reception room door, a man stood up from the sofa.

He was Yu Chengnan, the Consumer CEO of Huawei Terminal Company, and he was one of the prominent figures in the tech circle.

“General Manager Yu, hello.”

Zhao Min reached out and shook Yu Chengnan’s hand, then sat down in the seat opposite him: “General Manager Yu coming here in person really honors us.”

“No need for formalities, I prefer being direct.” Yu Chengnan shook his head at Zhao Min with a smile.

“I like being direct too.” Zhao Min smiled: “General Manager Yu, are you here to discuss cooperation?”

Yu Chengnan straightened his posture.

“General Manager Zhao, is your company planning to sell shares? Our company can acquire some shares of your company. A strong alliance, one plus one, definitely greater than two.”

“Not planning to. Let me put it this way, these past few days, I’ve already seen off people from IDG, Alibaba, Jiuding, Sequoia, and Tencent. General Manager Yu, do you think we are still short of money now, needing to raise funds or sell shares?” Zhao Min said.

“Not exactly, but there are some rumors in the circle that the shares of Legion Ant Company are only held by your Chairman. This piece of meat is too fatty, he can’t swallow it all, and some people want him to spit a little out. I came this time also hoping to cooperate with you.” Yu Chengnan said without hesitation.

“Make him spit some out?” Zhao Min shook her head with a laugh.

Having known Chen Mo for so long, she had some understanding of his character.

Although this Chairman was usually very calm, easy to talk to, and liked to joke around, at necessary times, he was absolutely a strong-willed person. Wanting to take shares of Legion Ant Company from his hands was simply impossible.

Right now, the main products of Legion Ant Company all came from him. The wealth he created himself would not be given away to others for free.

“General Manager Yu, you don’t need to worry about us. The company went through a difficult time before and pulled through then. Going through another one is no big deal.” Zhao Min said.

“Could I have a chat with your company’s Chairman?” Yu Chengnan asked with a smile.

“Xiaoyu, go notify the Chairman to come down and chat with General Manager Yu.” Zhao Min said to Xiaoyu beside her.

“Okay.”

Xiaoyu nodded and left the reception room. After a few minutes, Xiaoyu returned, but now she had Chen Mo with her.

“This is our Chairman, Chen Mo.” After Chen Mo entered with Xiaoyu, Zhao Min introduced him.

“Hello, Chairman Chen.”

Yu Chengnan looked at Chen Mo, his eyes showing surprise.

There were no photos of Chen Mo exposed online, but he knew the Chairman of Legion Ant Company was a young man. However, seeing him in person, he realized he was excessively young.

If Chen Mo wasn’t standing right in front of him, he would never believe such a young person was the true power holder of Legion Ant Company.

“Hello, General Manager Yu, I’ve long heard of you.” Chen Mo reached out and shook Yu Chengnan’s hand.

“I’ll skip the pleasantries. This time I came for two matters. One is about taking shares in Legion Ant Company, the second is about some cooperation matters. Originally, these things aren’t what I should be doing, but I happened to be in the area this time, so I came by.” Yu Chengnan said.

Chen Mo sat down opposite Yu Chengnan: “Then I’m afraid General Manager Yu will be disappointed. I currently have no plans to sell shares, but we can discuss cooperation matters in detail.”

“Regarding the shares, is there no room for discussion?” Yu Chengnan asked.

“None. Our company currently isn’t short of money, and we don’t need to adjust the company’s shareholding structure.” Chen Mo said without hesitation.

“Alright then, let’s talk about cooperation.”

Yu Chengnan didn’t dwell on that issue. Chen Mo had made it very clear; insisting on it would only cause annoyance.

“How does General Manager Yu want to cooperate?” Chen Mo asked.

“Patent sharing. Our two companies can sign a patent sharing agreement, sharing some patents.” Yu Chengnan said.

“Our company hasn’t been established long, we don’t have many patents in total.”

“This is just a cooperation memorandum for now, there will be plenty of opportunities later. Of course, if you are willing to share the Smart Assistant technology for mutual patent access, we can authorize many of our technologies to you.”

Yu Chengnan looked directly at Chen Mo. Chen Mo was hard for him to figure out; he was the most confident young person he had ever met.

“The Smart Assistant is not planned for licensing.” Chen Mo said unhurriedly: “But signing a cooperation memorandum is possible. After all, this is an open era; cooperation leads to win-win.”

“Chairman Chen is indeed straightforward. Since we have time today, let’s discuss the general direction of cooperation first.”

As a giant among domestic tech companies, Huawei had exceptionally strong capabilities. Legion Ant was like a rising star. But Chen Mo was confident that surpassing Huawei was no problem for Legion Ant Company, so during the cooperation talks, both sides were on equal footing.

During this time, Chen Mo also asked Huawei to upgrade their servers. Recently, the number of Smart Assistant users was growing very fast, and the speed of server upgrades couldn’t keep up. This was a good opportunity to have Huawei’s people help.

Both sides were willing to cooperate, so the discussion about cooperation matters proceeded quickly. After finishing the talks, Zhao Min took the group for a simple meal for business entertainment, then saw Yu Chengnan off.

“Chairman, the impact of this Smart Assistant is huge. I’m afraid someone might try to cause trouble from behind the scenes again. The interests are too great; many people are watching. It’s even more troublesome than the last time with the Army Ant System.” Zhao Min said on the way back to the company, sitting in the business vehicle.

Zhao Min understood very clearly that there were many alternative options for mobile phone systems, plus they were closed-source, so the outside world’s reaction wasn’t as big as imagined.

But the Smart Assistant market was different. Currently, there were no alternative products; they had a monopoly. In any market, once it reaches a monopoly level, the profits are terrifyingly huge, no matter what is being sold.

Before releasing the Smart Assistant, she had this worry, but they couldn’t abandon the Smart Assistant release because of it. Right now, nothing major had happened at the company, but she felt a storm was brewing.

“Don’t worry, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. The company now is not the same as before.”

“If you’re this optimistic, what can I say?” Zhao Min said helplessly.

“How is the planning for the company headquarters going?”

“People are working on the design, and I have someone following up. The drawings should be ready soon. We are also preparing to open bidding for the construction.” Zhao Min said.

“Tell me about the direction you plan to develop next, so I can prepare and avoid being flustered later. This time you suddenly threw the Smart Assistant at me; such sudden things can disrupt many plans.”

“Mm.” Chen Mo nodded: “Next, we’ll move into manufacturing. I’m researching battery materials. You go acquire a few factories first, for battery production and parts processing.”

“Full ownership or share acquisition?” Zhao Min asked.

“Full ownership.”

“Alright, anyway, the company’s money is yours. If there’s nowhere to spend it, we can only listen to you.” Zhao Min said: “One more thing, I plan to acquire an advertising company. In the future, our product promotions will have our own channels and planning. Besides, we have a platform and can take on quite a lot of advertising business.”

“Okay.” Chen Mo nodded.

After the group returned to the company, Chen Mo went straight into his office area and continued his experiments.