Reason for Success

Evening the next day.

David looked around the celebration party for the company and the new investors. Yes, that's right, celebration.

The funding was finally over, and the two parties were happy with what they had gotten out of it.

Now that everything was done, he spent the rest of the time talking and laughing with the representatives.

Seeing the peaceful atmosphere around the venue, no one could imagine that a few minutes ago, these few people were still arguing for the slightest gain on the table.

"Hello, John. You look so happy now." David saw John Doerr coming over to him, so he welcomed the guest with a few words.

"Haha, of course, I'm happy. I've just made a successful investment in a promising company. Investing in Yahoo will definitely give us great returns in the future."

"That's right. We all hope for a good result, don't we?" David laughed along with John as they slowly enjoyed their drink.

Earlier this morning, David went out of the sidelines and took the lead with the two founders for the negotiation.

He just found out that his explanation was more convincing since he could go on to say so much about the entire topic more than everyone in the room.

The scene could be described as lively. It was like a tug of war, two sides trying to take even the slightest advantage over the other.

Lowering the valuation and increasing the shares, increasing the valuation, and lowering the shares. Both sides would not budge.

In the end, knowing that time was on the side of their company, the longer they hold the talks, the bigger Yahoo is getting by the day, so they reached an agreement just according to David's expectations. It was agreed that the company is valued at $400 million.

For the shares, everyone felt that it was too much to give out 35% of the shares. They were only willing to give up to 20%. However, when voting rights and classes of shares were brought up, they finally agreed and promised 20% with one voting right per share and 10% with no voting share.

This would raise them a total of $120 million, more than enough to proceed with their global expansion plan and some more extra cash.

In the end, some parties backed out due to some reason.

The ones that backed out were some small capital firms. This should be after communication with capital giants.

Maybe they gave some concessions to the small capitals enough to ask them to back down for this round of funding.

In the end, only five parties remained, and they successfully reached a deal with Yahoo.

Each party contributed $24 million in cash, with each receiving 4% of the company shares with voting rights and 2% of non-voting shares, giving them a total of 6% for each side.

Once everything was finished, Thomas and the other lawyers made a draft along with the legal team of various capital firms. Soon Yahoo and the other investors signed an agreement.

Now, Yahoo has amassed enough funds to burn in the upcoming months of expansion.

"What do you plan to do after this?"

"I haven't thought about anything yet. I will just rest for now."

At this question, David knows how to control his mouth. There's no way he would expose his next investment plans or next moves to others, especially when his interest might potentially be harmed.

"Haha, sometimes I'm forgetting that I'm speaking with a young man in his teens. When I was your age, I was still working on my family's farm."

John Doerr shook his head and laughed while his eyes concealed slight amazement while observing the young man in front of him.

This young man is certainly special. Before coming here, from their investigation, this young man hasn't even gone through university, and from the looks of it, he doesn't have any plans to take an entrance exam.

But from his previous experience in the conference room, this young man was very insightful. His description of the future internet framework was highly creative. He is definitely an interesting individual.

"The future is definitely for you young people."

David can only smile and accept the praise, but in his mind, he was already scolding him, like how old are you now? You are only in your forties. You're not even that old.

"If you want to do something else, you can join our company. You're welcome to give me a call anytime."

Smoothly giving a reason to decline, David expressed goodwill and exchanged contacts with the other before separating.

Being acquainted with a future multibillionaire is definitely interesting. Though who can tell when will be the next time they see each other.

"David, you're actually here. Come drink with us." Jerry quickly pulled him to the circle of Yahoo executives with a big smile on his face.

Yesterday they were only considered college dropouts that were starting a company. However, now, they are owners, board members, and executives of a company worth hundreds of millions.

More so than David, who has sky-high ambitions, these two founders were the happiest today. They were beyond ecstatic.

Their schoolmates who think they know better, who used to laugh at their ideas and their work, will only have to look up to them as there is now a large gap between them.

They also didn't forget to cash out a tiny portion of their shares to improve their lifestyle, maybe buy a house or do some other business ventures.

This is a common approach for start-up founders once they get successful. Only that some of them are blinded by money, selling parts of their stake again and again that they slowly lost control of their company.

For the two college dropouts turned Yahoo founders, in short, they are now officially successful business elites. They were already considered on top of the pyramid, and it fills them with so much pride and excitement.

They made it.

How long has it been since they started?

Their journey can only be called a miracle run, another miracle that occurred in Silicon Valley.

"So what now? Are you going back to your home in LA again?"

"Of course. These past few days were too much for me. I'm gonna rest for some time. You all should too. The workload will only be easier now that we will get some assistance from the new investors."

Along with the equity agreement, these several venture capital firms also promised to offer them assistance on various equipment, servers, and limited technologies from the companies under them.

This is the advantage of large capital firms. They are managing a lot of companies that it will be easier to maneuver around many things.

As an example, Yahoo would experience faster patent registrations because the capital firm's connections are in place. They also get to have priority on orders of various computer equipment, which would save them a lot of time because they also had stakes on those companies, and others will help Yahoo connect with pools of talents.

With the successful round of funding, their original shares were naturally diluted.

Giving out 30% of the total shares, each of their shares was diluted equally. In the end, David was left with 17.5%. Jerry Yang and David Filo, the two founders of Yahoo, had 26.25% each.

Overall, the three of them still hold 70% of the entire company share. This is definitely the best they could hope for. After all, they didn't want to become the next Steve Jobs and be kicked out of the company.

Along with the two founders, David began to walk around to get acquainted with these elite capital representatives and their personnel. Maybe it will be convenient in the future.

These people are definitely the top talents of their professions. Some of them are lawyers, technology specialists, engineers, and financial bankers. Now they work in the investment teams under these capital firms as technical personnel or consultants.

David raised the glass in his hand and took a sip of his non-alcoholic beverage as he continued to chat with the enthusiastic elites around him.

This is the challenge for people who are below the age of drinking. He had long sensed some people landing their eyes at his cold beverage, but his face remained composed.

A smile blossoming on his face, and his eyes were flashing with brilliance, unfazed by their curious gazes.

Throughout the night, he had met a lot of people. As for how many? Who knows, but David had a large collection of business cards in his pocket. This is the sweet trouble of the successful.

David thought that these talents might be arrogant, but his experience all night proved him wrong.

Contrary to his expectations, no one looked down on him at all. Most were extremely professional and polite, and some were even enthusiastic like they had known each other for years.

This made him especially comfortable.

Maybe this is why they are very successful.