你会觉得我们是掠夺者吗？（壹读专访）

Do You Think We're Plunderers? (Yidu Interview)

> Outlet: Yidu (壹读), second in its "new internet companies" interview series (interviewer Lin Chufang) · 2014-04-17 (first publication of Part 1) · Part 1 from Yidu's own Toutiao account: [original link](https://www.toutiao.com/article/3205407695/); Part 2 from the ikanchai.com reprint: [original link](https://m.ikanchai.com/pcarticle/2695)
> Only his own answers are kept. Prompts marked (Q) are the editor's one-line summaries, not the interviewer's wording.

**(Q)** What is Toutiao valued at after this round?

Two or three billion yuan, I suppose.

**(Q)** How did you persuade the investors?

I didn't, because there was no need. I didn't even make a PPT, and I didn't go around meeting investors. Because it's simple: I only want to talk with people who understand me, and over the years I've kept in touch with the people who understand me.

**(Q)** In a few simple sentences, what does Toutiao do?

It makes it easy for people to get content on their phones.

**(Q)** Everyone is building this kind of product; how are you different?

But our approach is different. We use an intelligent, simple method, so that with one refresh the user gets the content they most want to see at this very moment. Simply put, this app "knows you", and knows you better the more you use it; we study you and try to read you.

**(Q)** How did you come up with this product?

I've always been interested in getting information. Whether I was doing search before or social networking sites, I was always very interested in how to discover information. I'm a heavy reader of information myself.

**(Q)** How heavy?

In junior high I bought a dozen-odd magazines and twenty-odd newspapers a month, and spent all my pocket money on them. My interests are also broad: tech and gadgets, society and world affairs, history, politics, I'm interested in all of them, and only not interested in football and other sports. So although lots of people say Titan Sports Weekly (体坛周报) is a good read, I just can't get into it. So I'm a homebody, not a sunny sporty guy...

**(Q)** When did you start reading Southern Weekly?

Around 1998, I suppose; I was in my last year of junior high, and I read it right through to my first year of university.. [Note: 「看.。」 is so on the ikanchai.com page, probably with one extra English full stop; kept as on the page.] After 2002 I stopped, because it got blander and blander, and there was too much political reporting.

**(Q)** Where did the idea for Toutiao come from?

Because I'm a heavy reader. I found that before Toutiao, people had no better way to get information. I looked at 100 related apps, and only at the end of 2011 did I come up with the Toutiao approach.

It's no exaggeration to say that Toutiao is the best of all the approaches: simple to use, no setup; we push you whatever you want to see based on your interests, all done by machine. We have over a hundred million users, so in theory over a hundred million interfaces; everyone's is different.

**(Q)** Compared with the Tencent, NetEase and Sohu clients, what's the difference besides the algorithm?

We're a platform. We don't produce content, and we have no editors or reporters. We only distribute content and serve content media; we don't compete with content media, and we also help content media gain benefits, so content media are all willing to work with us. But the ones you mention both take other people's content and make content themselves.

**(Q)** You don't make content yet draw the users in; isn't that even more thorough plunder?

I completely disagree. Every day we receive cooperation requests from media. They're willing to work with us, and it's certainly not because they like plunderers. Because we can bring media benefits: we can take thousands upon thousands of users to visit their pages and ads, and we can also crawl their pages and recommend them to thousands upon thousands of people. We even let media show their own ads inside our app without charging a cent. Have you ever seen such a great plunderer?

**(Q)** Have you never run into copyright problems?

We mostly use our partners' content. For some websites we use the original web page directly; we just need their mobile pages to be optimized for phones. We can provide content owners with a lot of brand exposure and traffic, so many content providers are willing to work with us. Actually, I'm very willing to send traffic back, as long as their servers are stable.

**(Q)** How do you make money?

For now it's still advertising, but we respect copyright and respect creators' rights: we don't put ads on media content, and for strategic media partners we also provide ad technology support. We also don't develop content commercially; the commercial uses of content are left to the original website. We allow all media to put ads on content pages, as long as they don't affect users' reading.

Now do you think we're building a healthy ecosystem? Do you still think we're plunderers? Because we're not plunderers, many media approach us to work together. Right now we have several hundred strategic media partners.

**(Q)** Who are your competitors?

None. And we won't look left and right; we only look ahead. Looking left and right disturbs your calm; looking forward and back constrains your passion. We also don't follow other people's methods, so it's hard to say who our competitors are. Also, competitors on the internet are sometimes blurry. For example, who is Momo's competitor?

**(Q)** Ten years ago Tencent and Alibaba never imagined becoming rivals; how do you see that?

Of course, there will certainly be potential competition. For example, all apps are competing for users' time, so some content overlaps and some functions can be substituted. Do two counters in a supermarket compete? It seems they do, but if they were separated, neither would do good business. For example, Haidilao and Feiteng Yuxiang: do they compete? Of course, but if they open next to each other, both do better business.

**(Q)** Is this the chance for the "diaosi" to turn things around?

You don't understand how hard it is for us. Everyone only sees these few companies, but China is so big, and counting over and over there are only these few that look decent. The mobile revolution did give us some opportunities, but not as many as people think; we're still finding opportunities in the nooks and crannies. [Translator's note: "diao丝" (diaosi), a self-deprecating slang term for ordinary young people without status or money; written so in the prompt.]

**(Q)** If the portals and giants all used your method for pushing content, what would it mean for you?

The thing is, they won't. Our directions are different. And the big internet organizations all have editorial staff; would they give up producing content? But we won't have editorial staff.

To give an imperfect example: the so-called internet finance institutions everyone talks about don't need branches, but financial institutions with branches also make money; they can let older people go deposit money and also sell wealth management products, and they live very well too.

**(Q)** What are your values?

In how we work, as a typical tech startup, we pursue excellence to the extreme, candid communication and innovation, and whether we're doing well or not should be visible to all employees. Externally, we don't export values: we are neither the Global Times nor Southern Weekly.

**(Q)** Is it hard to manage so many engineers?

At the start there were more engineers; now they're under half of the company. The rest are colleagues in marketing, sales and other departments. Managing engineers is easy: hire the right people, then give them goals, and that's about it. We replace management with managing the work: for example, what to do these two months, what to do these two weeks; schedule it and it's OK. So you'll find I don't do much managing; I sit there all day working on my phone or computer.

**(Q)** How do you spend a working day?

In the morning I look at the back-end data, then spot-check users and read all kinds of feedback online. Every night before 12 a report goes out on all user feedback from the previous day. In the morning I handle the day's interviews and the people I need to meet. In the afternoon I usually join discussions, and the evening is time for learning and thinking. I rarely go out, once a week at most.

**(Q)** How do you persuade people to join?

I have no special technique. First, respect the other person; for example, I'll arrange to meet near their home. As a CEO, people generally won't refuse to talk with me. Second, understand their work and their needs: do they want to get better technically, or be freer financially, or are they unhappy with their current job, or is their boss awful? Then tell them we have lots of great people here, and our stock is rising by the day...

**(Q)** How much of the company's actual situation do you show?

I show everything, holding nothing back. Because we're confident, and if I didn't tell the truth, they'd find out once they came. I tell them a fairly complete picture of the company, such as user numbers, headcount, stock value, future upside and so on, then take out the iPhone calculator and do the sums for them on the spot, telling them the returns over the next few years under different scenarios.

**(Q)** Will you compete with Baidu, Alibaba and 360 for good employees?

Yes. We have our own advantages. For example, if Baidu gives someone 1 million worth of stock, we'll give 1 million worth of stock or even more. Baidu's stock can't go up another tenfold, can it? But ours very well might. [Translator's note: the source writes 再涨十倍, literally "rise ten times again".]

**(Q)** Isn't Toutiao's interface too unsophisticated?

We'll redesign it within a few weeks. Before, we were relatively rational and focused on the product's functions; after the redesign we'll pay more attention to users' psychological feelings. Toutiao used to value function more. With strong demand and no competition that's no problem. But once it becomes a non-essential need, you have to value the experience. Fatty meat certainly fills you up most easily, but once there's plenty of meat, lean meat becomes more expensive than fatty meat.

**(Q)** How long will you keep doing this?

If I can keep being No. 1, I'll keep doing it, unless I feel I can't get it done. There's no such problem now; the company is rising fast, so why not? Unless I'm No. 2 with no hope of reaching No. 1.

**(Q)** What do you want the company to become?

I don't know, but I don't want to become a big company. I especially like a team of 30, and later found I could also remember everyone's names in a team of 100. But now there are more and more people, so the dream has to be adjusted: ideally no more than 500 people.

**(Q)** Which apps and companies deserve a thumbs-up?

I think Wandoujia is good, and Momo is good too.

**(Q)** Are you a Momo user?

I'm not; I've just been studying Momo all along. I found I can't use it well at all, because every group says "over-30s please go away". Other products rarely make me feel old, but Momo does, so I can only join "second-hand goods trading groups".

Yidao Yongche is also pretty good. It's a complete closed loop: the user doesn't pay cash, just binds a credit card or Alipay, and wherever you get out it settles automatically, because your trip is recorded by the phone automatically, no meter needed. The drivers are also non-professionals; they just register, and when they want to work they open the app. I know many drivers earn over 10,000 a month using this app, and some 20,000 or 30,000. Although the total number of users isn't large, you can imagine there are many high-end users.

Jumei Youpin is also good, but I don't buy cosmetics, so I'm not a user. Meituan and Xueqiu are also good. Fang Sanwen came from media, and people from the media world are very strong at building social products or new media. [Translator's note: Fang Sanwen (方三文) is the founder of Xueqiu.]

**(Q)** Is there an app like Toutiao in the US?

Yes, but not as good as ours. The most similar to us is Yahoo; they also do things in a similar way, but we launched before them.

**(Q)** Chinese apps used to have American prototypes; what about now?

Since the mobile internet era it's been reversed. Nobody talks about "copy to China" anymore. China may still not be good enough in foundational areas, such as mobile operating systems, but at the level of application services it's almost in sync between China and the US, and sometimes China is even earlier. Look, there's no Momo in the US.

**(Q)** At the level of application services, is it the US first and China second?

Yes, one hundred percent. The order might be the US, China, Russia, Japan, Korea; China is close behind the US, and third place isn't on the same level as China and the US at all.

**(Q)** Is that because China has so many users?

Yes. Look, the US has over 300 million people, many with higher education; China also has four or five hundred million smartphone users, and in market size, educated population and network infrastructure it's not far behind. Actually India's scale is OK too, but its infrastructure is too poor.

**(Q)** Do you envy the previous generation of internet entrepreneurs?

I think they have it pretty rough, still struggling nonstop at their age. I've also heard some CEOs worked so hard they got herniated discs. Although they're all giants, compared with leaders of traditional companies who are just as much giants, they work too hard. Chairmen of traditional companies hand the work over to the general manager, coming into the office three days a week is good going, and when there's nothing on they go play golf. Look at the internet giants: if they worked at that pace, they'd surely be finished, so everyone's worn out like XX. [Translator's note: "XX" is as written in the source.]

**(Q)** Do you see your own future in them?

I do. The future may still be working without sleep or rest. Those excellent senior elites all say they're product managers; one says he picks one wallpaper out of 10,000 images, another interviews new hires from morning to night; on paper they're the richest and second-richest, but they may be the richest people with the worst quality of life.

**(Q)** Meaning?

You can guess. But the few who toss and turn the most haven't been disrupted: Alibaba, 360, Tencent, Baidu are all doing very well, precisely because these companies' leaders worked hard in the first half of their lives and will work hard in the second half too, whereas traditional business leaders struggle for a few years in the first half and then start practicing golf...

**(Q)** Will companies like yours become their gravediggers?

It's hard to say we'll become gravediggers; at least those traditional internet giants are hard to bury. Look at Baidu Maps, with a 60% market share.

**(Q)** Is there any point in big companies defending everywhere?

Rather than defense, it's that new territory has appeared, and they have the best tools to occupy it. Don't worry too much about competition among internet companies; what needs more worry is traditional industries. For example, virtual taxi companies will appear that can dispatch tens of thousands of cars at once; and those shopping malls, who knows how many more years they can hold out.

**(Q)** As traditional services are disrupted, do companies with a "state" background need to be nervous?

Hard to say. Banks are powerful, right? But see whether they got nervous when Yu'e Bao came out.

**(Q)** Banks are still profitable, and ICBC is one of the most profitable companies; how do you see that?

Look again in five years?

**(Q)** Aren't the Yu'e Baos fragile too?

Can the overall trend be stopped? If they really wanted to strangle the new economy, China's economy would be done for. If WeChat could be strangled, China Mobile would have done it long ago. Why won't it happen? Because WeChat, like the new economy and new models, is doing incremental work and hasn't touched the existing stock. But this is boiling the frog slowly; if traditional industries don't change, they'll wake up to find the world has changed.

**(Q)** Do you like the mobile internet era?

I do. It brings people closer to computers. Computers used to be fixed, with a network cable connected to the computer; being near the computer meant you were online, and leaving it meant you were offline. But now you don't need that cord tying you down; the phone is your cord, and the phone keeps you online all the time.

**(Q)** How will the mobile internet change the world?

I'll only speak from what I know. Because now everyone can be online all the time, can connect anytime, exchange information anytime, input and output anytime, which has greatly raised the degree of informatization. Everyone takes photos together and can record the whole world, because taking photos is so convenient. Because everyone is online every moment, the scale and speed of producing and exchanging information will rise to a much higher level.

Before, to video-chat with my parents we had to agree on a time, and both sides had to sit by a computer. But now they can video-chat anytime, anywhere. Children and old people alike are all strung together by the mobile internet.

**(Q)** Anything else?

There are some devices that can read out all kinds of data while you drive; the tool is your phone, which can record where you go and how fast. People and things all over the world are becoming more and more informatized, which is very interesting.

For example, if everyone has a map app open, you can calculate the traffic flow everywhere, then, based on the movement of each point, calculate lots of information. For example, if a new road opens somewhere, you can know very quickly, without the traffic bureau telling you.

**(Q)** Will this lead to the breakup of traffic radio stations?

Possibly. There's so much more information to dig out: which route is fastest, where it's most congested at what time, all of it can be known.

**(Q)** In the long run, will computers disappear?

Have watches disappeared? Have alarm clocks disappeared? What about digital cameras?

I think digital cameras have actually already disappeared: photos taken with digital cameras are already under 10% of all photos. Ordinary taxi companies, calculators, tape recorders and maps will disappear, and once mobile payment is widespread, ATMs will certainly disappear.

**(Q)** Will money disappear too?

Paper money will disappear; when the number of times it changes hands each day is orders of magnitude fewer than now, it counts as disappeared. Recently I paid a taxi fare with "Scan" and found it very simple. I believe that gradually taking taxis won't need paper money, and neither will going to the movies. If policy loosens a bit, paper money will disappear within three years, with most transactions paid by phone.

Money flows will also be better tracked on the mobile internet. The downside is that your bad spending records will all be recorded. If you buy expensive goods it'll be recorded, and your wife will know. Interestingly, because spending is tracked, you can also know clearly whether there's cheaper cola for sale a hundred meters away, which you didn't know before.

**(Q)** Will newspapers disappear?

That doesn't need predicting... With every app, every category of apps that comes out, an industry disappears; that's broadly right. Andreessen said "software is eating the world": every product that can be informatized has been swallowed by iOS and Android. Here, the operating system is the aircraft carrier, the vehicle, the big software; one small piece of software after another on the big software platform replaces one piece of hardware and hardware facility after another outside the platform.

In short, everything connected with information will disappear; things that aren't informational won't disappear, such as oil.

**(Q)** Do things disappear because everything can be solved by computers and algorithms?

That's a misunderstanding of me. Computers can tally and discover, but they can't replace people; computers don't guess out of thin air, they calculate based on people's behavior.

Suppose you have a calendar reminding you to go to Zhichun Road in the evening, and Zhichun Road is jammed; actually the calendar is fully able to remind you to avoid that time. Or say you're taking a bullet train to Shanghai and the train breaks down; an app is fully able to tell you in advance.

Because technology links more things together, you not only know A in advance, but are also able to know B and C.

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