"Congratulations to Crystal Palace for qualifying for the play-offs."

As soon as they met, Hassabis used an opening statement to narrow the distance between the two parties, giving Li Rui very optimistic expectations for the outcome of the negotiation.

But then, Hassabis brought some bad news. He admitted that deepmind had contacted the Google team in the past few days.

"We had a good chat with Alan." Hassabis said very honestly, "Google Brain is doing similar research work as us, and their results are amazing."

Alan Eustace is indeed a very charismatic person. He is Google's engineering director and one of the top leaders of Google's artificial intelligence team. When Google decides to acquire a company, it often sends some

When very reputable and influential people in the same field participate in acquisitions, this approach has two effects: first, it makes the other party feel cordial, and second, the cordiality carries with it a hint of hidden threat.

The threat hidden behind Alan Eustace is: We have Google Brain. If you accept the acquisition, you can develop together with Google Brain. But if you don't accept it, you will face cruel competition from Google Brain!

Due to Google's good reputation in the Silicon Valley technology circle (mainly due to their "don't be evil" motto) and its high investment in various Internet-related science and technologies, Google has been almost unbeatable in various acquisition competitions in the past.

If you have to find Google's failure cases, the acquisition of Professor Hinton's team some time ago is one of them.

Although he was unsuccessful, Eustace was not discouraged and soon set his sights on DeepMind, and even contacted Hassabis and others one step ahead of Li Rui.

If Li Rui hadn't suddenly visited London and intervened, the acquisition between Google and DeepMind might have been completed.

"Google is a very good company, and their Google Brain project has done an excellent job." Li Rui complimented his competitors to show the gentlemanly demeanor that the people of Eagle Country love most.

Then the conversation changed and Li Rui continued: "But what I'm not sure about is, will Google agree to all the conditions proposed by deepmind?"

Hassabis smiled bitterly: "Our disagreement lies in the independence of DeepMind. Google hopes that we can merge with Google Brain... I seem to have revealed some serious business secrets. Sorry, this topic ends here."

"I can understand your hesitation. Google is indeed a good employer, and I believe they have also put forward good conditions." Li Rui said, "The r incubator is more sincere, and I think you can feel this. In addition, I think Xin

Professor Dun is definitely a partner who is as good as any scientist. I am very much looking forward to what kind of sparks of wisdom you can create together!"

Hassabis and Legge looked at each other with embarrassed expressions on their faces.

"It doesn't matter, I can give you some more time to think about it. Your choice may determine the future of mankind, so we can't be too hasty on this matter," Li Rui said.

The negotiation only lasted less than half an hour, and Li Rui and his party stood up to leave.

When going out, Li Rui asked Hinton in a low voice: "Professor, do you have any other connections that would allow me to meet Suleiman, the other founder of deepmind? Why do I feel like something is wrong?"

Hinton asked in surprise: "What do you think is wrong?"

"I always feel that we still have an invisible opponent!" Li Rui said.

…

Li Rui's guess was correct. Soon Hinton got news from his former colleagues at New York University. Yang Likun, another big man in the field of artificial intelligence who could be compared with Professor Hinton, had just joined Facebook as Facebook's depth expert.

Director of the Learning Lab, and Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer came to London.

At this sensitive time, Yang Likun's arrival can definitely make people imagine.

Hinton firmly believed that Yang Likun also came for DeepMind.

Li Rui agreed with this idea, and Zach's robot-like face appeared in his mind, which made him feel a little nauseous.

Having Google as a competitor is already a headache, but now there's Facebook.

Sure enough, it is impossible for good things to go unnoticed. It is too rare to pursue a company without competitors like Arm, and more companies like Deepmind are immediately targeted by big guys from all over the world as soon as they make some achievements.

If he loses to Google in the competition for DeepMind, Li Rui will not be too disappointed. After all, DeepMind fell to Google in his previous life, and later it did play a key role in the development of artificial intelligence with the help of Google.

.

Losing to Facebook was something Li Rui couldn't bear, not only because of Li Rui's disgust for Facebook, but also out of his disgust for Zach himself.

If Google's philosophy is "Don't do evil" (whether true or false is another matter), Facebook may also have a philosophy, which is "Do no evil". As long as there are enough interests, Facebook can do anything!

More importantly, there is currently no direct competitive relationship between Li Rui and Google, but he is a mortal enemy of Facebook.

Several of Li Rui's major investments in China, including WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat and Pinterest, have all been targeted by Facebook.

On the one hand, Facebook is building the same type of software and frantically competing for the market. On the other hand, Facebook is tempting them with huge sums of money in the hope of acquiring these companies.

If Li Rui hadn't made the first move and reserved enough shares in several companies early on, Facebook might have reaped the fruits of victory.

Facebook's actions have become more and more frequent recently. Last month, it just launched a new offer to WhatsApp, hoping to acquire WhatsApp at a valuation of 3 billion yuan.

If Li Rui was not a reborn person and didn't know clearly how much the WhatsApp was sold for in his previous life, he might have been tempted.

But Li Rui knew that the value of WhatsApp could never be measured in terms of money. Let alone 3 billion yuan, even if Facebook offered 19 billion yuan in its previous life, he would not agree!

Whatsapp is the core of Li Rui's overseas industrial ecosystem, and its status is similar to that of Credit Suisse in China. Of course, it cannot be sold no matter how much money is paid.

The only problem is that the two founders are too stubborn. As long as they are together, WhatsApp will not be able to develop as Li Rui imagined.
Chapter completed!