After a day's work on the East Coast on Saturday, Simon picked up Jennifer and the two little guys and flew back to the West Coast in the evening.
Arriving in Los Angeles, it was still evening on the West Coast.
I spent a day with the woman and the children at the Dume Point Manor on Sunday, and left again on Monday. First, I went to San Francisco to visit my waist and legs who have been caring for their babies since they were pregnant. By the way, I met Girl C and talked about September 26th. Tinco Beyer’s new autumn product launch will be held on another Saturday.
At last year's autumn new product launch conference, Tinker Bayer launched the first-generation tablet computer product iPad-10. With its excellent entertainment functions, Tinker Bayer became a hot product with sales exceeding 10 million in the first generation within one year of its release. New products, according to the latest statistics, global sales have reached 12.7 million units.
Compared with the performance of the first-generation iPad-10 and Apple's previous NewtonPad, this year is a relatively conservative routine upgrade.
The two major updates that the industry is looking forward to in the near future, namely the switch from black-and-white LCD to color screens and the addition of cameras, will not be met this time.
It’s not that the technology can’t reach it.
The problem is also very simple. If you upgrade too much at once, how can you play in the future
Squeezing toothpaste is the way to go.
After all, the products of Tinco Bayer are not only still ahead of many other similar manufacturers, but also have formed various ecological barriers in terms of software and content.
In this case, only fools will involuntarily involuntarily turn themselves in.
Therefore, after lunch at the Woodside Mountain Villa, the topic between Simon and Girl C was mainly about the foundry issue of chips for a series of products owned by Tinker Bayer.
Starting last year, after several months of absorption operations, the Westeros System finally acquired 30% of TSMC's shares, no more, no less, but as a result, it became a wafer foundry that is far less prosperous than it was later. The manufacturer's largest shareholder.
Of course, when it comes to chip foundry, more and more orders from Westeros system electronics companies such as Tinker Bayer and Nokia are beginning to turn to TSMC.
This is not the situation Simon wants to see.
As a latecomer, no one knows the development trends of the semiconductor industry better than Simon.
Even if he becomes the largest shareholder, aside from pure commercial interests considerations, Simon definitely does not want to see the wafer foundry industry, which will only become larger and larger in the future, be controlled by a single company that cannot be 100% controlled by the Westeros system. A large market share, even if it can be controlled 100%, is not suitable for one company to dominate.
Again, eggs cannot be put in one basket.
Therefore, in addition to TSMC, Simon's requirement is to support another group of wafer foundry companies as soon as possible, eventually forming a pattern in which three to five industry giants of similar size, including TSMC, share the wafer foundry market. Moreover, North America and Europe needs to make sure there is at least one.
Even though Simon's position seems to be definitely siding with the United States on the surface, in fact he has been making defensive arrangements.
Just like the wafer foundry companies this time, there must be no less in the United States. There must be at least one, but there must not be too many. For example, if five can be retained in the end, at most two will be released in North America.
We discussed this with Girl C, and then went to Finland, where Simon would also make some related arrangements for Nokia.
With the backing of the Westeros system and the joint guidance of the two super electronics giants, Simon is confident in changing the future trend of the wafer foundry industry.
After only staying in San Francisco for one day, Simon set off again in the evening, his destination being Europe.
In addition, just the week before, in Russia, after a period of stalemate with the Russian State Duma, Yeltsin finally made a compromise, gave up the plan to re-instate Chernomyrdin as prime minister, and chose himself and the parliament. The former Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov can be accepted as the new prime minister.
The two changes of prime ministers in just one year have resulted in serious divisions and confrontations among various parties within Russia. Due to the constant push and shove between different forces on various major domestic affairs, this has in turn affected Russia's own A precarious economic situation.
What a mess.
As a bystander, Simon is more of a judge of the future.
Primakov's strong character and political ambition are destined to be incompatible with Yeltsin for a long time. By next year, once Primakov points the finger at Yeltsin, his resignation will be inevitable. By then, Simon felt that history would deviate this time. Instead of Stepashin, the sixth prime minister during Yeltsin's term, someone who had been arranged by Simon would take over in advance.
Simon had already reminded Yeltsin that he must set aside a year for someone to accumulate reputation.
Then, history should return to its previous track.
The Boeing 767 crossed the continental United States and the Atlantic Ocean. After about 11 hours of flight, the first stop was London.
It was around one o'clock in the afternoon on September 22, local time.
I plan to stay in the UK for a day and a half, but my schedule is still full.
Speaking of which, for the UK, from a commercial perspective, it is not worth Simon's efforts. The British economy has basically entered the stage of resting on its laurels and has little investment value. After the millennium, Britain's economic growth was not only due to the dividends of joining the European Union, but also due to its open immigration and tax policies, which attracted a large number of wealthy people from Eastern Europe or the Far East to immigrate and settle.
In fact, it is an asset transfer.
Therefore, a very interesting phenomenon has emerged. Most of the people at the top of the British rich list are not native British.
Of course, apart from the economy, the UK still plays a very important role at the political level, especially on the European continent.
What a shit stirrer.
At the very least, it is in the interests of the Westeros system to keep the countries of Europe divided.
It lasted a day and a half without any incident.
An interesting fact worth mentioning is that, for the convenience of his schedule, Simon stayed in the mansion on Kensington Garden Street as usual. Then, a woman who happened to be in London next door to Kensington Palace heard the news, deliberately avoided it, and ran away. It is said that she didn't even take her luggage and left the UK overnight.
Simon was helpless.
Are you that terrible
The next day we also left London in the evening and flew to Helsinki.
Because of some annoying person, I brought along Yulia Shulshkina and her daughter this time.
In Finland, it's mainly Nokia's business.
When I met with Nokia head Jorma Ollila, apart from Nokia's business conditions, the topic was mainly about the foundry layout.
In addition, during the visit to Nokia's new headquarters, Simon was inspired by an idea.
About Nokia.
In the original timeline, in the era of smartphones, Nokia’s mobile phone business collapsed due to various reasons, but it still left a very deep technological foundation for Finland. Many of the few Internet companies in Europe came from Finland, and there were also some The phenomenon-level game that is popular around the world is also produced by a Finnish game studio.
In short, such a small Nordic country with a population of only 5 million has shown considerable technological potential.
What Simon thought of was not Finland, but Australia.
Compared with Finland's 5 million, Australia's population of more than 20 million clearly has greater potential for exploration.
What's more, like the United States, Australia is also a country of immigrants. Even if it is not as good as the United States in being able to dominate the world, it is still easy to attract high-quality talents. Therefore, it is also very suitable for large-scale support in the field of new technologies, especially the Internet industry after the millennium.
Simon even thought about the direction.
game.
After all, it depends on the size. It is unrealistic for Australia to become a world-class Internet giant. However, if it specializes in one direction, such as games, it should have great potential.
That night, he left Finland again and flew to St. Petersburg, Russia on the Baltic Sea coast. After dinner, Simon personally drew up a plan and sent it to North America and Australia.
First of all, money is not an issue.
Secondly, the platform is not a problem either.
Next, there is talent.
This is a problem.
Therefore, Simon plans to provide targeted funding to some universities in Australia to cultivate specialized game development talents. At the same time, he will set up a targeted angel investment fund to specifically fund various game development teams in Australia and monitor future sales channels.
In any case, since Australia is planned to be turned into a private domain of the Westeros system, of course it cannot be just a mine or a pasture. It is still necessary to keep pace with the times and open up more industries.
We only stayed one night at the seaside manor outside St. Petersburg, and set off again the next morning.
Target Moscow.
This is Friday, September 25th.
After breakfast, we boarded the plane. Girl A sent some documents as usual. Simon was more concerned about the recent promotion of DHO cable station by Daenerys Entertainment in North America.
Warner or GE responded quickly.
Like facing a powerful enemy.
Whether it is Jack Welch or the person directly in charge of HBO, it is clear that Daenerys Entertainment’s launch of the DHO project will pose a threat to Warner’s premium cable business.
Not only will HBO's market share be affected, but more importantly, HBO will inevitably lose a large source of high-quality content.
Obviously, now that it has launched its own paid cable station that mainly plays movies, Daenerys Entertainment will definitely not easily sell the TV broadcast rights of its movies to HBO.
If it were ten years ago, there was not much difference in the size of the major Hollywood studios. Losing the content of a certain major studio alone would not be a big deal to HBO. The problem now is that Daenerys Entertainment has produced more movies in recent years. More than half of Hollywood's finest content.
To put it simply, HBO no longer has the "Jurassic Park" series, but DHO does; HBO no longer has the "Conjuring" movie universe series, but DHO does; HBO no longer has the Pixar animated series, but DHO does; HBO no longer has "Day of the Alone", "Titanic", "Rush Hour", "Jumanji", etc., etc., but DHO has...
Well, what else does HBO do
As a result, when it was officially announced that Daenerys Entertainment was about to launch DHO TV station, Warner quickly contacted the company and couldn't wait to clarify the TV broadcast of the DC movie universe series.
Daenerys Entertainment will certainly not be humble about this.
The relevant contract will definitely not miss this matter, so under normal circumstances, just follow the contract.
In this regard, Warner Bros. owns the distribution rights for most of the series of films, while Daenerys Entertainment only has a few films such as "Wonder Woman", which seems to be at a disadvantage. However, as a related equity party of a series of films in the DC movie universe, it cannot be It seems that the party with the distribution rights will 'sell' the TV broadcast rights of the relevant films at a low price. Therefore, in the future, of course, it will be given to whoever pays the highest price.
Otherwise, I will definitely have to go to court.
Actually, Simon is not so determined to win the DC movie universe series. After all, there is no shortage of content here. In comparison, the superhero series may become the mainstay of HBO in the future and the key to attracting users.
What Simon wants to do is to push up HBO's costs as much as possible, even if he can't get the copyright.
One goes down and the other goes up.
In the study room in the front cabin of the Boeing 767, the estimated flight from St. Petersburg to Moscow was only 40 minutes. Simon was sitting behind his desk, flipping through documents, when the door knocked, and it was Shulshkina.
Seeing that the woman was hesitant to speak after entering the door, Simon waved his hand: "Come here."
Shulshkina stepped forward obediently, turned around the desk, and obediently allowed the man to hold her arms around her and sit on his lap. After waiting for a moment, she finally spoke: "Sir, that's it. I, I have been in recent years. I saved some money, and when I come back this time, I want to provide it to some people in need.”
"Okay," Simon nodded with a smile, and added, "In this case, aren't you managing a fund? You can take out another sum from it, just 10 million US dollars, and spend it where you think it should be spent."
Shulshikina shook her head subconsciously: "No, 10 million is too much."
Shulshkina only planned to spend 200,000 US dollars this time. The man asked for 10 million. In Shulshkina's view, it was indeed too much. She is a very rational woman and hopes to get into trouble for herself. We will do our best to our motherland, but we will only do what we can.
Simon didn't care: "Then it's up to you."
After saying that, seeing that the woman had no intention of leaving, Simon continued to read the information in front of him while holding the soft jade in his hand.
After a while, Shulshkina's sighing whisper finally came to my ears again: "I don't understand, sir, how could all this happen?"
Simon felt the sudden sadness of the woman in his arms, and of course he understood what she was lamenting. He thought for a moment and said, "Regarding the disintegration of the Soviet Union, I can only say that this is a historical tragedy that is both accidental and inevitable."
"Why do you say that?"
"The disintegration of the Soviet Union was rooted in serious economic problems. However, this is not fatal. Even European and American countries will have an economic crisis every few years. The most typical one is the Great Depression in the United States," Simon said : "The key is that the Soviet Union made serious mistakes in dealing with economic problems."
"Um?"
"To put it simply, in the process of solving economic problems, the top leaders of the former Soviet Union, and even Russia in recent years, completely blamed the national system for the cause of the problem. This is the most serious mistake. I discussed this with someone some time ago The problem, the collapse of the Soviet Union, was mainly due to problems in the production system and distribution system. The details are very complicated. However, for example, in the distribution system, a country can achieve long-term stability only when social resources are distributed relatively evenly to more people. However, in the past The top leaders of the Soviet Union and Russia in recent years have blindly learned from the West to carry out privatization and change the distribution system in a short period of time. This not only failed to solve the serious distribution imbalance problem accumulated during the former Soviet Union, but also because Russia lacks the Western experience that took decades and hundreds of years to gradually improve. The sudden privatization of the mandatory tax and welfare system will allow a few oligarchs to use their connections and power to occupy more social resources, leading to an even more unbalanced distribution system and even its current collapse."