In order to build a Westeros Tower in Manhattan based on the "Avengers Tower" in his memory, Simon has successively purchased an entire block of property and land between 59th Street and 60th Street east of Madison Avenue in Manhattan in the past few years. , a total of six buildings.
However, it was impossible to clear out the residents in the six buildings at once in a short period of time. At that time, it was not time to build a building, so Simon took care of those buildings as commercial properties and signed two to three-year leases with most of the residents. .
The leases will expire in the next one or two years, and Simon's current net worth is enough to support the construction of the Westeros Tower.
Therefore, upon hearing James's question, Simon nodded and explained: "The design work of the building has been in progress for the past two years. Preparations are now starting to break ground at the end of next year. Only the main building will take about five years. Counting the later stages When the renovation is officially completed, it is estimated to be approaching the new millennium. With such a long cycle, even if it requires an investment of more than US$1 billion, we can easily raise funds."
Maybe every boy has a dream in his heart to build a building.
Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building, the Twin Towers, etc., there should be similar motives behind the scenes.
James couldn't help but think about it. Knowing that Simon had made up his mind, he still persuaded: "Simon, this is not just a matter of funds. Have you ever thought about a 2,000-foot-tall building, a building with more than a hundred floors, and millions of dollars?" Square feet of interior space, those are going to have people filling them.”
"Of course I have thought about it, Jim. I also know that many buildings tend to identify some tenants before starting construction. However, it will take at least seven or eight years from now for the Westeros Building to be completed and put into use. So, I I think there is no need to rush into this matter, and we can find tenants while building it. And, worst of all, our own company can use this building."
After this meeting, the construction plan for the Westeros Towers began to be officially put on the agenda, and Janet was personally responsible for it.
In order to achieve the most perfect architectural effect in every detail of this building, Simon simply did not set a budget limit, and now he has enough confidence to pay more than $1 billion in expenses.
While Simon was busy with various affairs within the Westeros system, in May 1991, there were other major events happening.
The two major ruling parties in the United States have successively begun planning for the 1992 U.S. presidential election.
On the Republican side, relying on the momentum gained from the Gulf War, there is almost no suspense that George Bush will become the Republican candidate for the next presidential election.
As for the Democratic Party, although it won the 1990 midterm elections, it is faced with the dilemma of having "no generals in Sichuan". Until now, there is no popular presidential candidate who can compete with George Bush.
As we all know, American politicians usually only have one chance to participate in presidential elections, not counting re-elections, in a lifetime.
Once failed, it will be even more difficult to obtain the party nomination.
Therefore, some big figures in the Democratic Party who have sufficient prestige and strength and are interested in the presidential throne have chosen to avoid it because they are wary of the momentum that George Bush will gain from his victory in the Gulf War.
Even if the general trend is on the Republican side, someone will always come forward to challenge George Bush.
Therefore, this May, a young politician named Bill Clinton, who serves as the governor of Arkansas, and New York Governor Marlo Cuomo, who is too old to wait and see any longer, successively announced that they would participate in the 1992 of the U.S. presidential election.
However, what concerns Simon the most is the publicly announced intention to run for office by business tycoon Ross Perot, who ranks among the top 400 richest people in the United States and has a net worth of more than US$2 billion.
Ross Perot was very dissatisfied with the two major ruling parties in the United States, so he stated that he would form his own party to participate in the 1992 presidential election.
Simon remembered clearly that in the original time and space, although his domestic reputation plummeted due to internal affairs, George Bush still had an advantage over Bill Clinton.
However, it was precisely because Ross Perot, a candidate who also favored the conservative camp, diverted a large number of votes from George Bush with a record third camp support rate of 19% that led to George Bush's re-election failure. .
There are also some backstory. Bill Clinton, who originally had little hope of reaching the top, unexpectedly entered the White House. Because he was suspected of being "inappropriately appointed", he was in power for eight years and was always surrounded by various scandals, and even He became one of the few presidents in U.S. history to be impeached by Congress.
This is very similar to the situation that Simon remembers about a guy who came from a completely layman businessman background and also unexpectedly stepped into the White House.
Coincidentally, the other person who lost the election happened to be Clinton's wife, Hillary Clinton.
Speaking of which, this can probably be regarded as a kind of political ecology in the United States.
Those old political families with deep foundations or senior politicians who are popular among the people have reached the top, such as George Bush at this time, and they have no similar 'troubles'.
Although Simon's political layout focuses on Congress, he will not spend too much energy in the White House.
However, this time, Simon still ordered James Raybould to establish contact with the Clintons privately and promised to fully support the other party's participation in the election.
It would be unwise to make such a promise before Clinton had even secured the party's nomination.
However, the icing on the cake is never as good as providing help when needed. If you want to get more, you will naturally have to take greater risks. Since the focus of the layout is not on the White House, it is natural to invest in a potential stock that is not optimistic, and it will fail, and it will not have much impact on Simon and the Westeros system.
Greenwich, Connecticut.
Simon is planning a birthday party in the manor here. Tomorrow will be the 8th birthday of Sophia's daughter Gemma Fessey. The apartment Sophia bought in Greenwich was not that big, so Janet took the initiative to lend her family's manor to little Gemma for her birthday party.
Not only that, but the documentary about Antarctica that Janet originally promised little Gemma for her birthday will be played in the manor tomorrow night.
The documentary began production last year and was eventually titled "Snow World" with a budget of US$3 million. The content of the documentary is not mainly about penguins, but mainly shows the various scenery of Antarctica.
At the same time, after the 'premiere' tomorrow night as little Gemma's birthday gift, the documentary will also be released in North American theaters next Friday.
As long as it gets a good response and based on the experience accumulated from the first documentary, the "Diary of the Emperor Penguin" project in Simon's memory will be launched again.
May happens to be the new year’s American drama promotion season. Since it is necessary to strengthen Daenerys Entertainment’s layout in the television field, Simon has also rushed to New York in recent days to personally participate in the selection and preparation of some projects.
Janet was unable to come because she was pregnant. Although it was a weekend, Simon did not return to the West Coast. Instead, he stayed here and planned to attend little Gemma's birthday party before leaving.
In the evening, Sofia checked the arrangements for tomorrow's birthday party led by the housekeeper Alice, and came to the study on the second floor. Simon was sitting behind the desk and carefully flipping through some documents.
She was about to sit down opposite Simon, but when the man looked up and saw her, he made a gesture to come over. Sofia hesitated for a moment, then turned to Simon on the other side of the desk, and then was taken into the man's arms.
She was a little worried about what Simon would do, and then she felt relieved after confirming that he was just hugging her.
His face still couldn't help but turn a little red.
This posture is more like an adult holding a child, or a boy holding his girlfriend.
However, she is so many years older than him.
I had to try my best to hypnotize myself and turn my attention to the document in the man's hand: "What is this?"
Simon tilted his head and touched the woman's smooth face and explained: "A development plan for a data interface."
Sophia hummed, but because her mind was wandering, she didn't have much interest.
Simon stopped talking after explaining, hugged the woman and continued to focus on flipping through the documents in his hand.
Since the last time I came up with the idea of building an entire hardware system ecosystem around the USB interface, things have made quite a bit of progress during this period.
In fact, Apple has been developing a similar data interface since 1986. It was the 'FireWire' interface that was used in many Apple computers in the 1990s but failed to become popular.
In Simon's memory, this data interface, which actually appeared earlier than USB and has higher data transmission efficiency, has not been popularized. On the one hand, it is the rapid decline of Apple in the 1990s, and on the other hand, the cost of the interface is too high. High and the conservative and expensive licensing strategy of Apple, which holds interface patents.
To put it simply, the difference between the FireWire interface and the USB interface is probably equivalent to the difference between the core component sensor of a digital camera, CCD and CMOS.
Because of its advantages in cost, energy consumption, etc., CMOS is destined to be the application trend of consumer-grade digital cameras in the future, and the same is true for USB compared to FireWire.
However, FireWire now has a head start in terms of time.
If Simon had control over Apple, he would temporarily promote the FireWire interface as a transition, and then promote another standard after a cheaper and more convenient USB interface solution is completed.
Unfortunately, Simon cannot intervene in Apple's operations.
At the same time, I don’t want to waste too much time on Apple.
Coincidentally, Yigret's team also successfully found a solution similar to the USB interface.
Simon doesn't have much memory of this, but he is almost certain that this is the USB interface solution in his memory.
The plan came from an Indian hardware engineer named Ajay Bhatt under Intel. This engineer submitted his plan to Intel executives two years ago and wanted to develop a serial interface and parallel interface better than the existing ones. The application is more extensive and convenient, and it also has a plug-and-play data transmission interface.
However, after three consecutive revisions and submissions in the past two years, Ajay Bhatt's plan failed to get approval. Previously, the engineer had been working on Intel's processor chip team.
Information within Silicon Valley is very open.
The popularity of the World Wide Web has further accelerated the exchange of information within Silicon Valley.
After Simon put forward his idea, Yigrit spread the word about looking for similar plans or talents, and Ajay Butt quickly contacted him.
Yigrit, which has quickly become a rising star in Silicon Valley, has attracted much attention for its every move in the past year or so, just like AOL, Cisco and other star technology companies in the Westeros system.
Therefore, this matter unsurprisingly alarmed Intel executives.
Ajay Bhatt's data interface solution, which had been ignored for two consecutive years, immediately attracted the attention of many people.
Building a hardware ecosystem around personal computers is not the focus of Yigrit's business. Westeros is still the largest shareholder holding 15% of Intel's shares. Now that Intel takes it seriously, Simon does not insist on poaching. Later, he also took the initiative to bring Microsoft in.
The promotion of USB interfaces requires the joint efforts of hardware levels, operating systems and peripheral manufacturers.
Intel is responsible for hardware, Microsoft is responsible for software, and Igret or Westeros focuses on the development of peripheral hardware systems such as digital cameras, USB flash drives, and MP3 players.
The three companies working together can achieve the purpose of promoting USB.
Therefore, just recently, the 'Universal Serial Bus' project team jointly participated by the three companies was formally established, with Ajay Bhatt as the project leader, and the technology patents will be shared by Intel, Microsoft and Igret hold.
Because there is sufficient budget and technical platform support such as hardware systems and operating systems, the development cycle of USB is expected to be one to two years. The first phase of peripheral hardware ecological promotion targets will mainly be aimed at mice and keyboards that are essential for personal computers. Two major peripheral equipment.
Westeros will also invest in the development of USB interface versions of digital cameras, USB flash drives and other peripheral hardware products.
Simon quietly read the information about the USB project, put down the folder, and found that the woman in his arms squinted her eyes slightly, her face was rosy, and she looked almost asleep.
Just as she put the woman on the desk with a wicked smile, Sophia woke up and pushed the man's hand that was trying to untie her clothes: "It's already a little late. I have to go home and have dinner with the children."
Simon pretended to be dissatisfied and said: "Then what should I do?"
Seeing that Simon didn't mean to force it, Sophia held the man's hand and pressed it on her chest, saying, "I'll come over after dinner, um, after the children fall asleep."
Simon smiled and said: "How about I go over? I really want to try the feeling of a night attack."
Sofia rolled her eyes charmingly and patted the back of Simon's hand. The two stood behind the desk in a charming and ambiguous posture, but neither did anything else. Sophia was not in a hurry to escape. She was still rubbing her calf on the man's leg. She changed the topic and said, "By the way, I have already found some people about the detective team."
“Germany’s Stasi?”
Sophia nodded: "I have contacted about a dozen people, some of whom are quite high-level. I have recently compiled some information for you. Or, if you want to see it for yourself, I can ask them to come to the United States?"
Simon thought for a while and said: "No need for the time being, you arrange some things to see their abilities first."
Sofia nodded and said: "I plan to let them be responsible for the background check of your butler and maid team in Europe, which is a kind of test. In addition, I recently personally visited some major universities in Europe and found many very powerful girls. According to your idea, maybe you can really create a large number of female multi-millionaires and billionaires. Thinking about it is indeed a very fulfilling thing. In this world, most people always despise women."