Zhou Hongyi, founder of 360 Security Technology Co., Ltd.——
Explore the next internet highlands
Our reporter Huang Xin
Before the Spring Festival, a Chinese New Year crossword puzzle released by 360 Security Guard Officer Wechat attracted a lot of attention.
This is a new move by Zhou Hongyi, founder of 360 Security Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as 360 Company).
Zhou Hongyi, who is over fifty years old, is still keeping up with the trend.
A few days ago, he also opened a new account on Xiaohongshu. Young netizens called him "uncle in red" who likes to wear red T-shirts, and chatted with him about skis and hoarding machines.
The employees of 360 Company called him "Lao Zhou".
"Lao Zhou" admitted to reporters that although he has been running on the road of entrepreneurship for more than 20 years and has experienced many ups and downs, his heart is still full of passion.
"The Internet is constantly changing. Entrepreneurs should aim at the changing trend of the industry and follow the trend." Zhou Hongyi said.
follow the trend
Just before the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, employees of 360 Company received an internal letter from the Olympic torchbearer "Lao Zhou".
In his letter, he announced that 360 will comprehensively transform a digital security company, devote itself to industrial digitalization, and serve the digital transformation of governments and traditional enterprises.
Upgrading from network security to digital security is Zhou Hongyi's follow-up.
Back in 2008, Zhou Hongyi and his investors sat in the Olympic venues in Beijing watching diving competitions.
The competition was very exciting, but Zhou Hongyi was distracted. He repeatedly calculated the path he wanted to take in his mind, "Internet security will definitely become a problem that everyone has to face and become the infrastructure of society. I want to deepen the field of Internet security."
At this time, another wave of Internet boom in China has lasted for two or three years. Content platforms such as Youku and Douban have emerged, and e-commerce has maintained high growth under the influence of the international financial crisis in 2008.
The online habits of a large number of users have evolved from online chatting and browsing news to purchasing game equipment and content services, involving asset security, and antivirus software has become a rigid need.
Zhou Hongyi had a hunch that the rain was coming. He once said in a speech, "There is an opponent you can never beat, and that is the trend."
Since starting his business in 1998, Zhou Hongyi has had several setbacks in his entrepreneurial journey: he was stubborn, and he missed the opportunity to enter the search market; when he started his business, he failed in community search.
"When I had money, technology and experience, I was impetuous." He reflected afterwards that the Internet is constantly changing, and he must reset himself to zero at any time to grasp the new needs of users.
A word that Zhou Hongyi often mentions now is taking advantage of the trend.
He said, "If a person and a company want to succeed, they must keep the development direction in line with the times. The times are the trend, and so are the customer's needs."
"The first 25 years of the Internet was the era of consumer Internet. The people's rigid needs were the digitalization of food, drink, entertainment, food, clothing, housing and transportation. Whoever solved this rigid need could win the market at that time. The current blue ocean is the industrial Internet, and industrial digitalization is a rigid need and a new It is also the second half of the Internet." Zhou Hongyi judged that China is likely to lead the global digital transformation.
In fact, in 2018, China's digitalization process has emerged with a clear anchor point.
This year, the Chinese Academy of Sciences released China's first cloud artificial intelligence chip, and the theoretical peak speed reached the world's advanced level.
This year is also considered to be an inflection point for China's cloud computing industry.
This year, public reports show that the vast majority of corporate users have recognized that digital transformation is a must for corporate strategy.
It was also this year that the digital technology accumulated by the Internet made great progress, and the huge digital market demand burst out.
"The next 10 years is a window period. Enterprises will either complete digital transformation or disappear from the market. Digital technology is a double-edged sword. High-speed development without security is like 'streaking'. The faster you run, the greater the danger." Zhou Hongyi said.
Based on these judgments, Zhou Hongyi announced the upgrade from network security to digital security at the 360 company strategy conference at the end of 2021.
Embrace change
Zhou Hongyi once described himself in his book as a "non-mainstream child" - naughty and mischievous never play cards according to common sense.
In an era when everyone wanted to have an "iron rice bowl", Zhou Hongyi was very excited about an article about entrepreneurship in his youth, and the idea of entrepreneurship was deeply rooted in his heart.
"Entrepreneurship is a state of mind that embraces change and is unwilling to settle for the status quo," he said.
In 1998, the Internet boomed all over the world.
In China, a keen few people realized the opportunity. Many of today's Internet giants resigned and started their own businesses at that time, including 28-year-old Zhou Hongyi.
At that time, Zhou Hongyi was already the general manager of the Founder Division of Peking University. He gave up a stable job and income to start an Internet entrepreneurial career.
It can be said that Zhou Hongyi's entrepreneurial history has accompanied the growth of the entire Chinese Internet.
When the Internet was just emerging in China, it was still an ideal to "allow Chinese people to use their native language to access the Internet".
Zhou Hongyi realized that this was a huge market opportunity. He founded Beijing 3721 Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as 3721 Company) in 1998, creating a precedent for Chinese Internet service.
In 2001, the company was the first to become profitable among Chinese Internet companies.
In November 2003, Yahoo, which wanted to deepen the Chinese market, announced the acquisition of 3721. Zhou Hongyi began to take charge of Yahoo China. He hoped to make some achievements with the help of this larger platform, but in the end, due to cultural differences, he left Yahoo ahead of schedule.
In August 2005, Zhou Hongyi joined IDG (International Data Group Venture Capital Fund) as an investment partner, and has successively invested in a number of entrepreneurial projects, including Internet products such as Xunlei and Kugou.
At this time, Zhou Hongyi found that although the Internet has become popular, the market size of Internet security is not large. This is an emerging blue ocean market.
Therefore, in August 2006, Zhou Hongyi announced to invest in Qihoo 360 Technology Co., Ltd. and became the chairman of Qihoo 360, and then the company grew into an Internet security service provider.
Today, Zhou Hongyi's positioning of 360 is very clear - a service provider.
Zhou Hongyi believes that Internet companies should not try to subvert traditional fields, and help traditional companies realize process reengineering is the direction.
"In the future, there will no longer be a distinction between digital companies and traditional companies, and all industries are worth redoing with digital technology," he said.
Automotive is an important area.
In 2021, after Internet companies have entered the market to build cars, 360 will spend 2.9 billion yuan to become the second largest shareholder of Nezha Auto.
"What the traditional auto industry lacks is digital genes and thinking, especially in the era of intelligent and connected cars, the car will change from a sofa on four wheels to an energy center + computing power center on four wheels, digital security is more important, we It can empower the digital transformation of the automobile manufacturing industry and solve the security problem of the Internet of Vehicles, but it will never build a car." Zhou Hongyi said.
Explore more than
In 2018, Zhou Hongyi, a member of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, began to spend more time studying national policy documents and more in-depth research on the overall development trend of the country.
At the National Two Sessions this year, Zhou Hongyi proposed that the deep integration of Internet technology and all walks of life is bringing new threats and challenges to network security.
In the same year, 360 launched the "Security Brain", which integrated big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and other technologies to provide new solutions for network security problems in the era of big security.
So far, Zhou Hongyi has determined the path that 360 Company is going to take - to be the ultimate in the field of security.
"We are now going all out to deal with online black production and professional criminal organizations. Only when we can defend against attacks and can escort the country and enterprises is our real ability." Zhou Hongyi said.
In the past two years, Zhou Hongyi went to many cities and enterprises to engage in actual offensive and defensive combat.
He introduced practical combat into the cybersecurity industry.
360's digital security "strategy" is internally referred to as "real network, real soldiers, and real combat".
Zhou Hongyi's explanation for it is: do not engage in fake handle style.
Real soldiers are real offensive and defensive teams; real combat is to simulate attacking real infrastructure. Except for not doing the final damage, all methods simulate real hacker teams as much as possible.
Safety is no trivial matter. Saying it a hundred times is better than playing it once.
"Everyone has realized that cyber warfare is not a concept, but something that happens every day through the simulated actual network attack and defense exercises." This is what Zhou Hongyi is most proud of at the moment.
In Zhou Hongyi's plan, every city and every industry should establish a "combat shooting range", establish its own big data analysis center, vulnerability mining base, intelligence research and emergency response team... Under the guidance of the new tactics, 360 The company has formed a set of digital security capability system from the security capabilities accumulated over more than 20 years, which are exported to government departments at all levels and traditional industries.
At present, 360 has cooperated with local governments in more than 10 cities including Chongqing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Qingdao to start the construction of safety brains and safety infrastructure groups.
In 2022, Zhou Hongyi set a goal for 360 Company to transform into the role of "digital enabler".
He hopes that 360's SaaS (software-as-a-service) services for small and medium-sized enterprises, and digital services such as big data and Internet of Things for governments and large enterprises, can make new progress.
"This is an era when the Internet is surging, and I am eager to explore the next highland." Zhou Hongyi said.