Chapter 4: Can't lose you
"According to the current renminbi-to-dollar exchange rate published by the Bank of China, the benchmark rate is around 8.27 yuan. In other words, if Facebook's valuation after financing is over three hundred million dollars-and newspapers are now reporting close to four hundred million-let's calculate it at four hundred million. This American social network is growing every day, too. Converted into renminbi, that's 3.3 billion. This student owns a company worth 3.3 billion. Based on his shareholding, his net worth is at least 1.4 billion. He truly is the youngest tycoon." In the office of Nanjing University's president, a secretary-assistant was briefing a middle-aged man behind the desk, who wore gold-rimmed rectangular glasses and had his hair neatly and precisely combed to one side.
The middle-aged man was Jiang Yulang, Nanjing University's current president. Born in 1960, he had a prominent nose, and the nasolabial folds on either side gave his entire face a strongly sculpted appearance under the light. Even from a distance at major events, the university's faculty and students could see the added authority those features lent him.
After listening, Jiang Yulang lifted his teacup and took a sip, then remarked to himself, "A net worth of over a billion. That's more than our university's Project 985 funding."
Nanjing University was a national university with vice-ministerial rank. Not only was it among the first key universities supported under Project 211, but the first phase of the national Project 985 had also designated its goal as striving to become "a first-class domestic university of internationally recognized high standards." Under its three-year Project 985 agreement, funding from the Ministry of Education and Shanghai Municipality totaled 1.2 billion yuan. Yet that sum clearly fell some way short of the Facebook founder's net worth. Even President Jiang