The pace of technological development hadn't kept up.

Netflix's shareholders could only see its potential in the rental market at this point. It was perfectly normal for them to sell if they thought the price was right.

People often like to retrospectively analyze how successful companies achieved their success, which can easily lead to the mistaken perception of survivorship bias.

At least in 2001, when forty percent of Silicon Valley startups were failing, someone willing to pay a high price to take over was a rare stroke of luck for Netflix shareholders. Many more companies didn't survive the winter, nor were they fortunate enough to be spotted by a big investor. Without even making a splash, they closed their doors or ran away to avoid debt.

It's hard to keep secrets in Silicon Valley.

The same day the contract with Netflix was signed, countless hopeful entrepreneurs were already scouring Silicon Valley for Su Yehao.

He was besieged when he went out for coffee, besieged when he went to Yanwenzi Group to discuss business, and even when he took Jiang Yu out for dinner, he encountered young entrepreneurs stuffing documents in his hands, clamoring that their projects were bound to succeed.

In the past year or so, Silicon Valley had changed so much.

In the beginning, most people thought they were chosen ones, but life was too ruthless and taught them what reality was in a matter of minutes.

Elon Musk was the same.

He actually thought PayPal had a chance of succeeding, but that was all it was – just a chance. He didn't have control of the company; the venture capital firms had long taken over the decision-making power through financing and mergers.

Upon learning that many people were pitching projects to Su Yehao, PayPal's shareholders worried that Su might find a better option. So they closed the conference room door and quickly discussed whether to choose a sale or financing plan.

Considering PayPal's current rate of burning through $10 million in funding each month, they had to consider what to do next.

In fact, two venture capital firms among the shareholders were quite powerful, but they were essentially one company. To control risk, they couldn't invest too much capital in one project unless they saw a high probability of winning.

PayPal's current performance could only be described as decent. Whether it could beat other competitors was still unknown. After the Series B financing, it could only last another three or four months, and the revenue and user growth data were not optimistic.

Competition between startups is even fiercer than that between large companies. Whoever gets more development funds can stay ahead of the competition. Losers are ignored and receive no funding.

This is also normal.

It's like betting at a racetrack. Since you've already seen a horse far in the lead, even if the odds are slightly lower, the probability of winning the race is high. Why bet on other high-risk projects?

With Su Yehao setting his sights on the online payment tool sector, the situation was very different.

Although he couldn't compete with Microsoft for the time being, he had more than enough influence to impact some emerging industries. As long as the news spread that Su Yehao was optimistic about this industry, even if the market was as depressed as it was now, it would likely attract others to follow suit.

For example, any listed company that Buffett sets his sights on will generally see a wave of price increases in the short term.

Super-rich people ranked at the top of the Forbes list inherently have a halo, especially someone like Su Yehao who has truly made a huge name for himself through investment. Many people still remember how he shorted and reaped the Nasdaq index last year, making a profit of two to three billion dollars in just two months, as if divinely aided.

As CEO, Musk was distracted, lost in thought. He only held 16% of the company's shares, and the people from the venture capital firms didn't care about his ideas.

In a bad environment, people instinctively think of the worst.

After more than an hour of intense discussion, the shareholders who chose to cash out finally gained the upper hand, with over 72% of the voting rights. They immediately voted and passed the sale plan.

First, they decided to sell PayPal, but they thought they should try to negotiate further to see if they could get a price of $350 million.

Elon Musk had dealt with many venture capitalists. Only after the vote was completed did he say:

"Okay, do whatever you want. I remember Su said yesterday that if anyone wants to keep their shares, they can continue to hold them. Is anyone willing to stay? I will stay in the company and only sell half of my shares."

With that, he raised his hand first.

Two other shareholders also raised their hands, accounting for about 21% of the total shares. The remaining two small shareholders abstained.

One of the middle-aged white men said:

"I think with the channels of Yanwenzi Group, our PayPal can develop very quickly. But even if we sell the shares, the company account still doesn't have enough funds, which means we may still need to raise funds, further diluting our shares?"

Another shareholder who chose to sell his shares was very satisfied with the result of reaping more than double the profit in just over half a year. He smiled and said:

"Everyone, Silicon Valley is not short of projects now, but of funds. We can completely start from scratch and choose some new projects. We used to think that the best outcome for PayPal was to be acquired by an online shopping company, but Amazon has its own payment system, and eBay also has a similar transaction system. Since we started charging fees, our user growth has slowed down significantly."

"It may have potential, but it can only truly be realized in the hands of an online shopping company. Yanwenzi Group doesn't have the strength to compete with the bank card alliance, and once the shares are sold, lawsuits such as anti-money laundering and transaction fraud will have nothing to do with us..."

It was the booming online shopping industry that drove the popularity of the payment tool industry.

After the bubble burst, the major online shopping giants themselves were half-dead, let alone these payment tool-type internet companies. Due to various factors, PayPal's development prospects dimmed a lot.

After all, payment tools are just tools. There is pressure from institutions such as Visa and MasterCard in front, and regulatory pressure to prevent funds from flowing into gray areas behind, and the future development is full of uncertainty.

Originally, they thought that so much money had been invested, so they gritted their teeth and held on until the industry recovered.

Who knew that Su Yehao would pop up and offer a pretty good price, so several venture capital firms discussed it and decided to sell.

Elon Musk didn't think so much. He purely believed that Su Yehao planned to develop into the online shopping industry.

Besides that, he hadn't thought about what to do next, so he decided to stay and take a gamble, only cashing out half of his shares, which was like double insurance.

The worst outcome would be losing half of his wealth, but if Su Yehao's online shopping business succeeded, he would definitely earn back more.

The reason he guessed that Su Yehao would develop into the online shopping industry was that Yanwenzi Group had also acquired Netflix this time.

Considering the situation of Netflix, Elon Musk truly felt that Su Yehao probably wanted to sell porn, because Amazon started by selling books, and selling porn would be reasonable and logical, with huge market demand.

PayPal discussed the results, and a venture capital representative came forward to negotiate with Su Yehao again.

Willingness to negotiate again already indicated that they were wavering.

Su Yehao stuck to the price of 300 million U.S. dollars and wouldn't budge. The other party pretended to discuss it for a while, and as expected, they agreed to the price...