Ma Huateng’s father reveals the secrets of Tencent’s early days. Ma Huateng’s father, Ma Chenshu, was a cadre who went south. Ma Chenshu was born in 1940. He has a technical secondary school degree and is an economist. He once served as an accountant and statistician for the Hainan Port Authority of the Ministry of Transport. Member, Planning Section Chief and Deputy Director, Shenzhen Shipping Corporation Planning and Finance Department Manager and General Manager, Shenzhen Yantian Port Construction Headquarters Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Shenzhen Yantian Port Group Co., Ltd. Deputy General Manager, elected in 1997 He is a director of a listed company in Yantian Port and is now retired. Ma Chenshu is a native of Chaoshan and a hometown party member of Li Ka-shing. The Yantian Port he serves is one of Li Ka-shing’s favorite business forms. In addition, Hong Kong PCCW appeared as a venture investor for Tencent for the first time, so many People are speculating whether Ma Huateng's father has many contacts with Li Ka-shing, and this contact has given Ma Huateng a lot of help. However, these are just speculations. Ma Chenshu's most direct help to his son was mainly driving a Mercedes-Benz to do accounts for his son in the early days of Tencent, while indirect help may be the inheritance of experience in corporate governance and capital market operations. Another help provided by Ma Huateng’s family is that Ma Huateng’s mother has been the legal representative of Tencent for a long time. According to public documents related to Tencent’s listing, the legal representative of Shenzhen Tencent Computer Systems Co., Ltd., Tencent’s sponsoring company, is Ma Huateng’s mother Huang Liqing. As for why his mother has been the legal representative of the company for a long time, Ma Huateng explained that the legal representative who founded the company at that time had to be unemployed or retired, so he had to let his retired mother serve as the legal representative. Although Ma Huateng's family is wealthy, his entrepreneurial capital comes mostly from his own accumulation. It is rumored that Ma Huateng's start-up capital came from stock trading. It is said that he once flipped 100,000 yuan into 700,000 yuan. Ma Huateng himself has not responded directly to this, but Ma Huateng admitted that he once made a small fortune by developing a stock card, and used this to enter the capital market and obtain primitive accumulation of capital. As we all know, Ma Huateng's father is an executive of a listed company, so there is still someone whom Ma Huateng can consult in the capital market. One thing that is certain is that whether Ma Huateng or Zhang Zhidong, it is difficult to accumulate their earliest entrepreneurial capital by relying solely on their income as engineers. The income levels of Ma Huateng at Runxun and Zhang Zhidong at Liming Network at that time were roughly 1,000-2,000 yuan per month. Even with the dividends at the end of the year, there was not much accumulation. Zeng Liqing and Xu Chenye at Shenzhen Telecom and Chen Yidan at the Entry-Exit Quarantine Bureau have even less income because they are in public institutions. According to the "Company Law" at the time, to establish a company, it must have a registered capital of at least 500,000 yuan. Therefore, the first question before Ma Huateng and his entrepreneurial partners was how to raise 500,000 yuan in registered capital. Most of the initial 500,000 yuan was vacated by Ma Hua, who had made gains in the secondary capital market. However, Ma Huateng did not occupy the majority of the shares. He cleverly defined the shares in his name as 47.5%, while the shares of the other four people combined to 52.5%. The advantage of this is that he will not give other entrepreneurial partners a feeling of dominance. In extreme cases, the other four founders can work together to persuade him to change his decision, and he must pass any resolution with at least two It can only be implemented with the consent of the founding shareholders. In this way, Tencent has clearly understood its collective leadership strategy since its inception, and Ma Huateng himself has not lost control of the entire company. "Stock Analysis System" found the first pot of gold. Chen Shu and his wife said that Ma Huateng's grades were always in the top five when he was studying in the Computer Science Department of Shenzhen University. He also gradually experienced the fun in writing software and researching computer networks. He loved it. He "played" and became the nemesis of various viruses. At the same time, he often did some pranks of locking the hard drive, making the administrator of the school's computer room dumbfounded. Ma Chenshu told reporters that Ma Huateng’s first pot of gold came from the university’s graduation project. On the eve of graduation in 1993, he designed a "stock analysis system". Soon a company took a fancy to the software and asked him how much it would cost before selling it. But at that time, Ma Huateng and his family did not know how much the software was worth, so they asked him to sell it. The other party bids. Later, the other party gave Ma Huateng 50,000 yuan, which made Ma Huateng very happy. Ma Chenshu even found a friend to help him carry the money home. After tasting the sweetness, Ma Huateng was out of control. Later, he collaborated with his classmates to develop a "stock receiving system". He was responsible for designing the software, and another person was responsible for the hardware.
Due to the use of this device, users can use TV to check stock prices in real time. The market sales are very good. At the peak, one unit was sold for more than 2,000 yuan, which made Ma Huateng earn tens of thousands of yuan. It was not until the classmates who worked with Ma Huateng went abroad that they stopped Ma Chenshu and his wife looked very proud when talking about manufacturing and selling "stock receivers". "Now we also have a handbag accessories at home!" Ma Chenshu added happily. In 1994, Ma Huateng invested the 100,000 yuan he earned from developing software into the stock market and bought Shenzhen Development Bank when the price per share was only more than 6 yuan. As the stock price rose sharply, Ma Huateng's 100,000 yuan turned into 700,000 yuan, which soon gave him millions of funds, laying the foundation for his independent business. Ma Chenshu and his wife used 4 telephone lines to become "webmasters". They told reporters that they had no special hobbies until Ma Huateng graduated from university and worked as a software engineer at Runxun Company. Although their home did not even have a stereo, they had 5 2 telephones and 8 computers. At that time, the real Internet had not yet been fully popularized, but my son was already obsessed with the Internet. When he first went to Huiduo.com, he experienced the fun of the Internet. (Sunshine Network Sun) Half a year later, Ma Huateng invested 50,000 yuan to build 4 telephone lines and 8 computers at home, and became the webmaster of Huiduo.com Shenzhen website. He was extremely busy after work every day. Over time, Shenzhen’s “Ma Station” has become famous on Huiduo.com, but few people know that Station Manager Ma is actually just a young man in his early 20s. Ma Chenshu said half-jokingly that at that time, installing a phone cost more than 4,000 yuan in initial installation fees. Fortunately, his daughter and several relatives worked at the phone company at the time and could apply for installation at half price. Later, he asked his daughter and relatives to apply for 4,000 yuan for them. A half-price phone for Ma Huateng to use for Internet access. At this time, Ma Chenshu pointed at Huang Huiqing and said: "Actually, she has a share of the credit for the fame of 'Ma Station'. At that time, Ma Huateng asked his mother to help him manage the website when he went on a business trip. Every time before going out, he would write a He wrote a note to his mother, telling her that if a netizen calls and says that the network is unavailable, he should follow the steps on the note to troubleshoot and ensure that the network is open. "It is precisely because of the support of his family that Ma Huateng also attended the first and second sessions. National BBS webmaster conference. "I am the first chairman of Tencent," Ma Chenshu said. After graduating from Shenzhen University in 1993, Ma Huateng joined Runxun Company and began to work as a software engineer, focusing on the development of paging software, and has been in the development department. As a supervisor, Ma Huateng, who had a special liking for the Internet, proposed to the company to use the Internet for wireless paging services and developed a system. Unfortunately, he did not receive support from the company, which strengthened Ma Huateng's determination to start his own business. . On November 11, 1998, Shenzhen Tencent Computer Systems Co., Ltd., a company that later changed the way Chinese people communicate, was established. At this point, Huang Huiqing smiled and added: "Actually, I am the first chairman of Tencent, and Huateng is my successor!" "She is right, I run the company and help. They registered, but registering a company at that time required a retirement certificate or unemployment certificate. His mother happened to be retired. After discussion, we registered Tencent in the names of his mother and my brother-in-law. His mother nominally owned 60% of the shares. Naturally, He became the chairman, and it was not until 1999 when venture capital came in that the shares were completely transferred to Ma Huateng." Ma Chenshu told reporters this little-known entrepreneurial story with a smile. Ma Chenshu also told reporters that the name "Tencent" was also given by him, which means "the information age of thousands of horses galloping". At that time, he had 4 names, all with the word "Teng", but Ma Huateng did not I agreed with the name "Tencent" and thought it was too personal. However, when registering, the other three names had already been registered by others. As a result, Ma Chenshu finally registered "Tencent Company" with a registered capital of 500,000 yuan. Ma Huateng named the company Tencent, which is full of profound meaning. On the one hand, Ma Huateng has the word "Teng" in his name, and the company is closely related to him; on the other hand, "Teng" also means taking off and developing. The suffix is ??"Xun", which is more due to the influence of his old club Runxun on Ma Huateng. As for the English name Tencent, it is more based on the famous communications company Lucent. Later, Tencent was listed in Hong Kong. Tencent's English name was called "tencent" by Hong Kong people. At that time, Tencent was at most an SP (SMS Content Provider) company. Tencent charged 10 cents for each text message sent by users. , exactly ten cents, very appropriate and vivid.