Chapter 207: Chapter 186: Zhang Yiming, You’re on the Wrong Path

Selling cheap goods is fine, but counterfeits are another matter. They can easily cause a platform to crash and burn.

Standing to the side, Song Yuncheng seemed to have a realization.

More than ten minutes later, Cheng Ou returned to his seat, still wanting more. The next person on stage was Lin Qi of Youzu Network.

Chen Yansen wasn’t familiar with the gaming industry; his only venture had been a two-million-yuan investment in Miha You for a 15% stake.

After Lin Qi stepped down, Cheng Weixing hurried over to Chen Yansen to remind him it was his turn to go on stage.

Chen Yansen smoothed the creases on his clothes, then ascended the stage.

The quiet murmur of conversation, which had been buzzing moments before, vanished the instant Chen Yansen took the stage.

"I am the founder of Orange Technology and Pinbei Mall. All of you here are veterans of the industry, my seniors. When it comes to starting a business, I’ve been at it for less than two years, so I can only offer some humble insights..."

Chen Yansen said with false modesty.

But the arrogant expression on his face clearly said, ’I’ve achieved all this in just two years. What about the rest of you?’

"Personally, I believe that before starting a business, you must first choose a good path. It’s either a narrow road with few people or a wide road with many."

Chen Yansen smiled faintly, casually spinning his bullshit.

These people in the audience hadn’t paid him, nor were they his children. Why would Chen Yansen possibly share any truly useful information?

He went on for several minutes, spouting a torrent of grand, empty words. At first, they sounded like profound insights, but upon reflection, they were nothing but bullshit.

Zhang Yiming, however, who was in the crowd, thought what Chen Yansen said made a lot of sense. He listened while pondering how to leverage his own strengths to find the best track for himself.

"President Zhang, I’m organizing a small networking event for this evening. Chen Yansen, Lin Qi, and Cheng Ou will all be attending. I was wondering if you might be free?"

Just then, Cheng Weixing took advantage of his official capacity to slip over to Zhang Yiming’s seat and ask in a hushed voice.

He had noticed Chen Yansen’s interest in Zhang Yiming, so he decided to use Chen Yansen’s name as a pretext to gather a few influential industry figures for an exclusive get-together.

Zhang Yiming didn’t think much of it. He had just seen Cheng Weixing approaching Chen Yansen several times, so he subconsciously assumed Cheng Weixing was inviting people *for* Chen Yansen. He never imagined he was actually the first person Cheng Weixing had approached.

"Of course I’m free. What time?" Zhang Yiming readily agreed.

"It’s not set yet. I’ll let you know later, President Zhang." Seeing that he had secured Zhang Yiming, Cheng Weixing felt a wave of confidence and replied with a smile.

After Chen Yansen left the stage, he turned around and used Zhang Yiming’s name to persuade Chen Yansen to attend the evening gathering.

Chen Yansen agreed without hesitation.

In his eyes, Zhang Yiming was at a critical juncture in his life. Whether he invested in him or partnered with him, the returns would be substantial.

When they had spoken earlier, the man had looked at him with such admiration. ’If I offer to buy a stake,’ Chen Yansen thought, ’he’ll find it hard to refuse.’

And just like that, by playing both sides, Cheng Weixing had managed to assemble the gathering.

「The morning forum ended, and the luncheon began.」

Chen Yansen and his companions had just sat down when people started approaching to say hello, business cards in hand and ingratiating smiles on their faces.

This crowd included business owners in dumpling processing, electronic toys, and aquaculture, as well as investment bankers and brokerage managers. Chen Yansen had Song Yuncheng handle the former and passed the latter off to Gao Weilin.

Meanwhile, Chen Yansen engaged Zhang Yiming in conversation.

"Are you interested in joining Pinbei or Orange Technology? Whether it’s for product recommendation or for the algorithm department of our Aurora OS, we need an algorithm engineer with your extensive project experience."

Chen Yansen proactively extended the invitation.

During his time at Kuxun Network, Zhang Yiming had built up a wealth of expertise in recommendation engine technology. He later joined Wang Xin’s Fanfou Network, where he specialized in search, message distribution, and mining for trending keywords.

After more than four years of honing his skills, Zhang Yiming had developed impressive expertise in execution, team management, and algorithms.

This was also why, after founding Meituan, the first thing Wang Xin did was try to recruit him.

Zhang Yiming pushed up his glasses, unable to hide a smile, but he ultimately declined. "Thank you for the offer, President Chen, but I left Jiu Jiu Room specifically because I want to create my own product."

"The two aren’t mutually exclusive," Chen Yansen said with a wave of his hand, as if it were nothing. "I can give you the funding and the authority to develop a product independently."

"But President Chen, I haven’t even figured out what kind of product I want to make," Zhang Yiming said with a wry smile. He was touched; Chen Yansen was showing him an incredible amount of respect and trust.

He thought for a moment, then asked, puzzled, "President Chen, why do you have so much faith in me?"

To his engineer’s mind, everything had a cause; there was no logical reason for Chen Yansen to value him so highly.

"I’m planning to develop a ’thousand people, thousand faces’ recommendation engine for Pinbei Mall to improve the conversion efficiency for our products. That’s why I’ve been paying close attention to top domestic talent in the algorithm field. I actually had a headhunter contact you last year, but you weren’t interested in jumping ship, President Zhang."

Chen Yansen was lying through his teeth.

Zhang Yiming gave a dry, slightly embarrassed laugh. He never imagined Chen Yansen had been watching him for so long.

A headhunter had indeed approached him last year, but at the time, his mind was set on starting his own business, not switching jobs. As for whether the recruiter he’d turned down was working for Chen Yansen, how could he possibly know?

"That’s a brilliant product plan, President Chen. I made similar attempts at Kuxun and Fanfou. You can actually extract product attributes, descriptions, and other data, then calculate the similarity between products based on those feature vectors to make the recommendation system effective."

Zhang Yiming didn’t hold back in front of Chen Yansen, speaking with confidence and ease.

He had assumed Chen Yansen was a liberal arts major, his skills leaning more toward management.

He never expected that during their conversation, the man’s comprehension would be so astonishing. He could even outline a general plan for the code’s implementation off the top of his head, which shocked Zhang Yiming.

"So, President Zhang, what kind of product do you want to make?" Chen Yansen asked, recalling the timeline. ’At this point, his goal should be news content distribution.’

"My initial idea is to develop a mobile browser that integrates intelligent search with a personalized display. After all, with the growth of smartphones over the past two years, the advantages of the mobile platform are becoming more and more pronounced..."

Zhang Yiming replied with a smile, his tone sincere.

’Wait!’

’Aren’t you supposed to be developing Toutiao?’

Chen Yansen fought the urge to interrupt him.

He’d thought Zhang Yiming might be bluffing him, but the man’s eyes were sincere, and his breathing and heart rate were perfectly normal.

That meant there was a 99% chance he was telling the truth.

Besides, the market prospects for mobile browsers were actually quite good, a fact made clear when He Xiaopeng sold UC and cashed out for 20 billion.

But if so, Zhang Yiming was heading down completely the wrong path.

’Should I still invest in him?’

Chen Yansen never expected his first meeting with Zhang Yiming to start this way.

It was as surreal as going back to 1999, investing ten million in Ma Liyun to create Ali Baba and build an e-commerce empire, only for him to insist on developing a QQ chat room instead.