Because there were old people and children there, we only talked about some very common topics during the dinner, such as the two children's homework, some recent interesting stories in Greenwich, the president parked his special plane on the runway to get a haircut, and blocked other people for more than an hour, etc. .
At around eight o'clock, after dinner, Sophia's parents took the initiative to take their two children away.
Simon, Sophia and Nancy came to a living room in the villa to continue chatting, and the topic turned to more formal business matters.
In the week since Forbes released its new annual list of the 400 richest people in the United States, the life of Simon, who has been promoted to the world's first billionaire, has not changed much, but the discussion in the media on this topic is very lively. In particular, the uproar caused by the launch of the 58list website by Yigret Portal has not completely dissipated, and most of the reviews of Simon on traditional print media platforms are not too positive.
"The layout of the Westeros system in the Internet industry is simply a more advanced existence than any previous monopoly alliance. You are involved in almost every aspect of this new technological revolution, and you all have a strong say. In view of Westeros The relationship between the Los Angeles system and traditional print media has begun to deteriorate, and I think what you should be most worried about is the emergence of another 'Ida Bertal'."
In the living room, two women were cuddling on the sofa next to each other. Speaking of the series of disturbances caused by 58list, Nancy commented like this.
Sofia is French and obviously doesn't pay much attention to the anti-monopoly history of the U.S. oil industry. She asked curiously: "Who is Aida Bertal?"
Nancy explained: "The author of "The History of Standard Oil Company", she directly led to the breakup of Rockefeller's business empire through more than ten consecutive heavyweight reports."
Simon leaned on the single sofa next to him, holding a cup of coffee in his hand, and said: "I remember there were a lot of analyzes later, and the "History of Standard Oil Company" was full of non-factual bias. Moreover, after the Standard Oil Company was split up, It did not bring benefits to the public, and in the following decade, oil prices rose sharply."
"Even if this is true, who cares? Most of the public are stupid and easily incited. They just need to see so-called justice being done."
Simon nodded: "I agree with this. Therefore, I have recently tried my best to let the public see what they want to see."
In this 58list website turmoil, the public opinion orientation that Yigrit Company focuses on is the large number of free conveniences provided by the 58list website to the public.
Nancy said: "However, power is not really in the hands of the public."
"The Westeros system has spent much more on government lobbying this year than you might think. I also urged Jeff to set up a dedicated lobbying office in Washington some time ago."
Nancy looked at Simon and asked, "Are you really only 25 years old this year?"
Many people always have to go through hardships to gain wisdom. A certain guy seems to be able to arrange many things in advance without going through it.
Simon took a sip of coffee slowly and said quietly: "Actually, I am 280 years old."
Nancy picked up a small pillow and threw it at Simon, but couldn't help but said to Sophia: "I think he might be a 280-year-old vampire."
Sofia smiled and asked, "How do you say that?"
Nancy reached out her little hand and tilted the silk scarf around Sophia's neck: "It's obvious evidence."
Sophia's face suddenly turned red, and she opened Nancy's little hand.
Nancy just teased him and did not pursue him fiercely. She turned to Simon and said, "Actually, there is the most important point. Mr. Westeros, interests, interests are the root cause of all disputes."
"If you look carefully enough, many of my layouts in the past few years have been to mitigate potential conflicts of interest as much as possible."
"Unfortunately, this is not enough."
"I understand that whether it is the new technology industry or Hollywood, I actually hope that the companies in the Westeros system will eventually become publicly held companies. Of course, the control must be in my hands."
Nancy said: "Then why do you still have so many in your hands now?"
Simon shrugged and said, "I can't give them all away at once. People are greedy. If I take the initiative, someone will think I'm too weak and ask for more."
Nancy tilted her head, thought for a moment, and couldn't help but shake her head: "This is simply a dead end."
"Yes," Simon smiled and said, "So, my next plan is to let them take the initiative to fight for it."
The Westeros system is now in a capital jungle where the weak and the strong prey on each other.
Simon was too proactive in throwing his food reserves to the surrounding beasts, which would only attract more predators. Although I don’t intend to antagonize everyone, breaking some tiger heads and wolf legs before sharing food can also allow many predators who want to come forward to grab food to measure their own strength.
Nancy heard this and said, "Aren't you worried that things will be out of control?"
Simon glanced at Nancy: "Do you think a billionaire is easy to bully?"
Nancy curled her lips: "You have become arrogant."
"This is confidence," Simon said, raising his wrist to look at his watch, and said unceremoniously to a small woman leaning on Sophia: "Is it time for you to go back? If it happens, I can send a driver to take you there." one time."
Nancy blinked and quickly held Sophia's arm: "I plan to stay here and sleep with Sophie tonight."
Simon looked at the little woman wrapped around Sophia and said, "I'm already thinking about how to put on small shoes for you."
"You give it a try. The worst I can do is resign. Headhunters have been contacting me for the past two years."
"How about we leave the decision to Sophie?"
"Okay," Nancy said, her little arm on Sophia's arm tightened, and she looked at her best friend: "Sophie, do you choose me or me or me?"
Simon protested: "Isn't this too shameless?"
Nancy just snorted and continued to look at Sophia with a pair of bright eyes, showing a somewhat pitiful expression.
Sofia blushed and gave Simon a helpless look.
"All right."
Knowing that there was no chance tonight, Simon put down the coffee cup in his hand, stood up and walked towards the two women.
Nancy was stunned, only to feel the tall figure of a certain man pressing over, leaning over to lift Sophia's chin and kiss her wantonly. The slight humiliating sound made her shrink back subconsciously, and she held back for a moment. When he could hardly bear to run away, the man finally let go of Sophia and said, "Well, good night."
Sophia's voice was soft: "Well, good night, you."
After Simon left for a while, Nancy finally opened her mouth slightly and took a deep breath, then looked at Sophia reproachfully: "You really let him go."
How could Sophia, as a woman, fail to see the potential spark between Nancy and Simon. This best friend of hers has a strength that is not commensurate with her appearance. People who can make her attracted are often more powerful men, and the guy who just left happens to be this kind of person.
There wasn't much space in that little man's heart, and Sophia didn't want anyone to come over and share it with her. However, other than taking advantage of the situation, she didn't make any deliberate plans because she knew it might be counterproductive.
The next day is September 11th, Saturday.
Early in the morning, the New York Times announced that the U.S. Senate would officially confirm that it would hold a hearing on September 16 regarding issues such as fraudulent information, endangerment of public safety, disguised low-price dumping and other issues involved in the 58list website owned by Yigrit Company. This will determine whether to conduct further investigation.
Igret immediately responded positively on its own portal, saying it would try its best to cooperate with the hearing.
In the original time and space, Daimon's laziness and arrogance at the congressional hearing on Microsoft's monopoly issue directly led to a large-scale antitrust investigation of Microsoft that lasted for two years, and Microsoft was once infinitely close to being broken up.
In the subsequent Facebook privacy leak incident, Zuckerberg learned well from the lessons of his classmates at that time and showed very respectful cooperation in the congressional hearings. A large number of congressmen were very satisfied with Xiao Zha's performance and originally vowed to punish Facebook tens of thousands. To the discerning eye, the $100 million hearing turned into a farce that went through the motions.
Although there are many other influencing factors, coaxing the officials in Congress will definitely bring a lot of benefits.
After all, everyone cares about face.
Congressional hearings require the presence of the head of the target company, and the CEO of 58list is Michael Novarek. However, in order to show the importance it attaches to this hearing, Jeff Bezos, the president of Igret, took the initiative to announce on his Facebook page that he would attend the hearing and answer some questions that members of Congress may have on the spot. .
Not only did it carefully prepare for possible issues in advance, Eagle Reiter also invited a dedicated public relations team and government consultants to design all the details of next week's hearing.
However, when it came to Senate Republican leader Bob Dole's invitation for Simon to attend the hearing in person, Eaglet politely declined on the grounds that his boss wanted to accompany his pregnant wife.
Congressional hearings are not very respectable matters after all.
I've given you all the face you deserve, and it's wrong to slap your face on your nose.
Simon flew from New York to San Francisco for two days over the weekend, spent the weekend with his female assistant, and returned to Los Angeles on Monday.
Janet has already negotiated with Veronica about staying in North America.
Veronica will next be based in New York as a special financial advisor to Westeros Corporation, mainly responsible for overseeing the financial status of AOL, Verizon Telecommunications and Nokia.
All three companies are in a state of rapid growth due to continued expansion, very active capital flows, and high levels of executive autonomy.
In this state, the long-term lack of strict supervision is actually very dangerous. If you are not careful, a replica of the Enron incident in Simon's memory may occur.
After the appointment of Veronica's position was announced, the heads of the three companies personally called Simon to express varying degrees of objections, but Simon did not make any concessions. As long as the three companies do not go in the wrong direction, he will not interfere too much in the management of Steve Case and others, but this does not mean that he will completely trust several senior executives.
On September 16, a congressional hearing on the 58list website was held in Washington as scheduled.
There were actually three parties involved in this hearing, including members of the Senate, executives of Igret, and delegations from several large newspaper groups in the United States.
In order to avoid being taken out of context by traditional paper media to guide public opinion, Igret has turned this hearing into a live TV broadcast. The two major network platforms, NBC TV Network and CNN TV Station, will broadcast the hearing, which is expected to last for three hours, live on TV. .
FOX and ABC, which were originally good friends with the Westeros system, chose to refuse this time because of their own interests in the print media field.
This didn't surprise Simon either.
At the same time, the Igret portal will also conduct a comprehensive live broadcast of graphics, text and audio for this hearing.
After more than half a year of technical upgrades, AOL has basically completed the ADSL transformation of its own network. This means that as of September, the basic Internet speed of more than 26 million World Wide Web users covered by AOL has reached 256Kbps. Compared with the old dial-up Internet access The maximum network speed of 128Kbps has been directly doubled.
In fact, many users have activated the higher speed 512Kbps, which is enough for web pages to play audio content in real time.
As Simon begins to allow the Westeros system to expand wildly, AOL, which has completed its ADSL layout, will also accelerate its industrial layout in other regions of the United States outside of the east and west coasts.
Simon watched the three-hour hearing in its entirety at Point Dume Manor.
There were no special surprises during the entire hearing, and Ygritte's advantage was very obvious.
Most old-timers in the Senate apparently still don't know what the Internet actually means, so there's a lot that needs to be explained by Michael Novarek himself.
Novarek showed great patience, and these basic questions, such as what kind of services 58list provides, what method the website relies on to make money, etc., inevitably occupied most of the hearing.
Although there is no shortage of more acute issues such as how 58list will deal with fraud and false information, these questions were resolved one by one by Michael Novarek with careful preparation in advance.
The climax of the hearing was probably the accusation by representatives of several newspaper groups against the 58list website for alleged low-price dumping.
The paper media believes that 58list’s free model is a disguised low-price model that is destroying the classified information advertising industry worth tens of billions of dollars in traditional paper media. This behavior threatens the jobs of tens of thousands of newspaper practitioners, and, Once it destroys the classified information advertising business of traditional newspapers and takes advantage of its market advantages, 58list may charge higher fees to consumers.
Ygritte made no concessions.
It said that the launch of the 58list service has actually saved the public a lot of unnecessary expenses.
It may cost a user 30 US dollars to publish a classified information ad in a newspaper. However, with this 30 US dollars, users can not only enjoy the free news information, e-mail, social network, online games and other services of Yigrit Company, but 58list is just One of them.
Moreover, the Yigret portal has its own business model, with its main income coming from merchant advertising.
This is also the basis for 58list to provide free services.
In addition, the website will not be able to charge users high fees in the future, because once it does, other free websites of the same type will inevitably appear. The accusations made by the representatives of the newspaper group are simply not true.
According to the final statistics, during the three-hour hearing, one member of the House of Representatives in the Senate was basically defeated, and the representative of the newspaper group was completely defeated.
More than 50 million users on the Internet and TV platforms followed the hearing in real time, and they overwhelmingly favored the side of Igret. The newspaper group, which wanted to safeguard its own interests, instead became the villain of this hearing.