Do a person and an enterprise really have to go forward with a defiance attitude? Can’t you just win clients without undermining rivals?
Zhou Hongyi said no, “there must be an overturn, a targeted overturn”. He thinks that the Internet industry has been packed with giants who never stop seeking new opportunities, and you must overthrow them into a dilemma if you want to keep a foothold, otherwise you would never gain a firm footing .
Although controversy always follows Zhou Hongyi, he does something smart: avoid becoming an idol. “Because those who are admired will some day be knocked down.” Zhou stays grounded, and avoids getting brought down by not making himself a major figure. He talks about innovation when you talk about morality. “I’d never be a giant,” he said, “I am a loser under beating. I’m nobody.”
At the end of this interview Huxiu asked about what else he thought had been missed on 360’s financial report, like certain strategic advantages or accumulations. Zhou answered with a second of hesitation:”I can’t say it. Except that I spent most energy on mobile, which is my focus at this moment. Mobile Internet will take over cables in the coming years, and I’ve been thinking what the mobile search and device safety would be like.”
Huxiu: Many entrepreneurs prefer getting their starts on an all-win base, while you chose to begin with setting up rivals and fighting with them, is this initiative or passive?
Zhou Hongyi: Frankly, I didn’t deliberately choose enemies, this is a misunderstanding. I told many entrepreneurs that the war of words is meaningless when you are doing a product without the stance of solving users’ problems. Yet many people only see the side of me in a verbal battle, and they think that is the way which makes me conquering. They are wrong. Flame war is not my essence but tactics. I am always watching what kinds of demands haven’t been met, or if there’s any chance giants could be toppled over in such a market.
Because I always look at things from the perspective of users, then whether intentionally or not it always conforms to the principle of “disruptive innovation”, and puts competitors and other big players in the market in a very tough quandary. Especially if it’s a business disruption, they will consider it very difficult to respond: what they already have will become a burden, if they don’t follow (us) they will have problems, and if they do follow (us), they will have problems. For example, free antivirus software — should they follow (us) or not? If they do they will lose several hundred million in revenue yet not know how things will turn out; if they don’t follow, they will lose users.
Giants’ conterfire in such a circumstance is irrational and it leads to a war of words. Instead of saying I’m doing the wrong thing, they can only attack my personal motivation and history, calling me “counterrevolutionist”. It turns into the people fighting in the cultural revolution, and it leaves the impression that I’ve always picked a rival to fight with and I’m hyping with it. First of all, no matter how hard you hype it’s meaningless when you are unable to provide voluable products to users; secondly I don’t actively attack people. (Huxiu: Well… ) I do swear when I’m unbearable though. My harhest counterattack is using the method of subverting competition, to make the best product experience and busniess mode. Speaking with products.
Huxiu: So the consideration of doing your products is to meet the demands which are not met by others? You can’t stop aiming at those magnates?
Zhou: Whatever you do you’re unable to ignore them in China’s internet industry. Everyone says he wants to find the blue ocean market. To be honest, smart people are everywhere. When you’ve got an idea, 100 people have already thought about it, 10 people have realized it and 5 people have been doing it for one year that you are not aware of. Where is the blue ocean market? Ten years ago these giants started filling the gaps when the three portals (Sina, Sohu and 163) were commercializing. Therefore, the giants had the opportunities to grow. Nowadays the Internet business is highly congested with big men monopolizing users and flows, and the queue of thousands of people are non-stop seeking directions, watching the trends in the US and monitoring what small groups are working on in China —— in such an environment you make a similar product following giants’ rules, they don’t care at all, even you do it well and quickly. They know you can never beat them.
Are the new companies able to avoid those giants? Are there any fields with no giants’ fingers in? Gu Yongqiang also has to face magnates as his biggest competitors in video section, and it’s the same for fields like group-buying and cloud storage.
Therefore I encourage beginners to emulate me but not the big men, and to seek the opportunity for differentiation. That was what made me not touch IM but getting into search business (Huxiu: Is LINE a differentitaion?), which some people say because it brings money —— I’m not doing everything that brings money because it brings troubles as well if you can not do it properly; others say I’m addicted to it —— I agree, yet it couldn’t be based on passion only; while I’m also said to have a team and techniques which enables me to do that —— it’s essential condition but not sufficient, since Microsoft challenges Google with techniques too. But was it a success?
More fundamentally, I decided to do search for the opportunity to topple over. Will Baidu follow me when I offer cleaner and better UX search service? If they don’t they give up the market; I bet they won’t as they are gonna lose money when they do, and it’s hard for them to give up one third of their existing revenue (medical ads), at the same time it doesn’t matter to me because I haven’t got that much money.
Huxiu: Sougou started search service a few years earlie and they didn’t see the chance to topple over Baidu?
Sougou and Sousou started too early chasing money, also they allowed for advertising which had no difference with Baidu. They are not able to catch up with Baidu if they only make small changes. Jobs said: “think different”, but really doing that is difficult. The way the big players do things is out there, it’s very easy for you to be influenced by it, and you will think: If they can do it that way, then why can’t I? But the revolutionary form of innovation that I want to teach is: If they can do it that way, then I defeinitely cannot. To topple over yourself first before toppling over others. Take off your own shoes at the beginning. It’s difficult to bring forth new ideas if you’re not willing to give up things. People used to think that we were bare-footed when we worked on anti-virus, the fact was we earned 160 to 170 million yuan every year through acting for Kaspersky.
People have known the theory of disruptive innovation, while it needs courage, the courage of relinquishment, to realize it.
Huxiu: Is 360 now able to afford the abandon as a listed company?
Zhou : Quoted companies shouldn’t become the slaves of capital market. You will turn into short-sighted when trying hard to please the market. Dare not to give up means you dare not to invest in the future, and you may lose the future if you have no big picture at first. Amazon was said to be a cheater for a long time in early years, but it invested a lot in its future and the result didn’t show up until today. Yahoo tried to meet Wall Street’s requirements every season and it was going downhill in the end.
Listed companies have bigger burdens, once you start “wearing shoes” then you lose your competitiveness, so you have to keep that “barefoot” spirit.
Originally published on Huxiu.com.
(Source: huxiu.com)