The 9 million cab ride that became worth 20 billion. Picture this: I was in a taxi in Beijing, negotiating to invest in the first search engine for China, but the valuation seemed too high, and the entrepreneur was confidently immovable. That's exactly where I was in 2000 with Robin Li, founder of Baidu ( @Baidu_Inc ). I had already invested in six search engines (we missed Google…another story), but this would be the first in China. But I saw something in China that reminded me of America during the 1950’s. People were “keeping up with the Jones’s,” or in this case, the Wang’s. If one family bought blue windows and spires and paved driveway, all the families would want one. So I started looking for startups in China to fast follow successes in the US. I started asking my team to look out for the first search engine in China. When John Fisher ( @dfjjohn ) mentioned that @ScottWalchek (founder of C2B, one of our first AI investments) was already backing a Chinese search engine called Baidu... I got on a plane. Robin Li was confident and brilliant. His pitch was solid. In the negotiation in that cab ride to dinner, Robin asked for 9 million for 28% of Baidu. That was an insanely high price for a Chinese search company in 2000. I thought I would be overpaying for the company, but I wanted to make sure we owned search in China, so I acquiesced. And I am glad I did. That 28% stake became worth more than 20 billion. I worked with Robin to develop his business model for paid search that became fundamental to Baidu’s success. Baidu now has over 1 billion users and 6 billion searches per day. It is always best to just make the deal. Even in the back of a cab.(Tim Draper)