Before Rachel Weisz finished eating a piece of bread, the glass door leading to the terrace from the living room was violently pushed open with a bang.
The two women looked up together.
Seeing the two beautiful girls in the room, the aggressive Daimon classmate paused for a moment, and his face changed rapidly a few times, as if he wanted to calm down the gaffe in his expression, but quickly gave up and continued to walk across the room angrily, standing tall. And go.
After a while, Simon opened the door and came in. He had no intention of seeing off his classmates. He nodded slightly to Rachel at the dining table, walked to the corner of the couch where Kate Beckinsale was reclining, and sat down.
Kate put down the magazine in her hand, stood up and crawled along the sofa in a very seductive manner. When she saw the man reaching out, she lay down on her back, her head resting on Simon's lap, and she gently held the man down and caressed her delicate face. With his big hand, he asked with a smile: "What happened just now?"
Simon smiled and said: "Obviously, the negotiation broke down."
Kate then smiled: "Then why are you still so happy? Mr. Gates looked very angry just now."
Simon's fingertips slid from Kate's smooth face to her neck and said: "Although the negotiation broke down, it was actually me who was bullying him. You know, you always feel good after bullying someone."
Kate symbolically blocked the man's movements, and also picked up some other meanings from his words. She said slightly in an intimate tone between lovers: "You are really a bad guy."
Simon looked into the beautiful eyes of this British rose and said, "I'm going back to California soon. Will you go back with me, or will you stay here for a few days?"
"So urgent, today is Saturday?"
Kate was a little surprised and almost wanted to sit up.
She had no resistance to this legendary man. Last night, although a certain guy was a little more aggressive, he actually made her feel very good. She also wanted to take advantage of this weekend to get closer and at least become his lover first. Maybe, It is not impossible to eventually achieve a certain goal in the future.
Simon said: "There are a lot of things and we must leave immediately. Let's do this. You and Rachel can spend a few days in Seattle. The cherry blossoms in this city will be in bloom soon. They are very beautiful."
Kate nodded, but seemed a little unsure: "Simon, can we continue to live here?"
Simon smiled and said: "Of course, I will leave a few people to be your drivers and wallets. You can go wherever you want and buy whatever you want."
"Thank you, Simon, you are so considerate," Kate held Simon's arm and sat up, kissed the man on the face, and said, "So, when can we see you again next time?"
"This should be quick."
Simon said, retracting his arm from Kate's arms, standing up and saying, "In that case, I'll leave first."
Rachel Weisz, who never had a chance to speak, saw the two of them getting up and walking out. She finally reacted and subconsciously stood up to follow them. The entourage outside had already packed up and was waiting to set off. They took the man to the small dock on the lakeside and watched him board the speedboat and go to the airport on the other side of the lake. Then he blinked a few times.
Did you promise anything
Domineering guy.
She never said she wanted to stay in Seattle, let alone with Kate Beckinsale.
There was a feud last night.
When the speedboat soon reached the other side of the lake, Kate pulled Rachel next to her: "Hey, we're going back, are you still reluctant to let go?"
"I, how can I," Rachel denied subconsciously, and added: "Besides, I didn't say I wanted to stay, he just decided for me."
Kate tilted her face with a look of disdain: "Then why didn't you say anything just now?"
Rachel defended: "He didn't even give me a chance to speak."
"The mouth is on you, and Simon didn't put any tape on it," Kate said again, then waved her hand, hugged her shoulders and dragged her to the villa: "Okay, sisters, all we need now is Carefully plan what you want to do in the next few days, you heard me, I have a driver and a wallet."
"I don't think this is good."
Rachel frowned slightly and whispered.
When they first met yesterday, Rachel had a good impression of Kate. She was generous and straightforward and was good at getting along with others. She had a high IQ and EQ, and she was from the UK. However, after a day and a night, I gradually started to dislike it. I had too much fun, was a bit worshipper of money, and was not very good at taking care of other people's feelings. I didn't hide my feelings for a certain guy in my words and deeds... well, I coveted him, and I didn't even care about the other person. Facts about married men.
Back at the villa, Rachel continued to be dragged by Kate to the study room where a computer was installed. She began to search for and plan the schedule for the next few days based on information on the Internet. By chance, she saw a Boeing 767 at the airport on the other side of the lake through the study window. Flying into the sky, after all, he still didn't propose to leave.
Then Rachel couldn't help but feel in her heart that she probably wanted to stay too.
All right.
She is also a hypocritical woman.
who cares.
Having made up their minds so self-destructively, the two women went out to eat at a well-known restaurant at noon, and started to have fun and go shopping in the afternoon. Anyway, a certain man paid the bill, and that guy had too much money to spend. It was the first time in their lives that they let go. Hands and feet once.
Of course, both women are very smart people.
Invariably and quietly, they set their spending limit at about $100,000.
Even if you understand that adding another zero is not a big deal to someone, people need to be self-aware. ,
If a man takes the initiative to give, even if it is a Beverly mansion, Kate will be willing to accept it, and Rachel will probably struggle for a while before accepting it. Nowadays, men let them take it by themselves. In this case, if they don’t know how to exercise restraint, there is something wrong with their IQ.
Moreover, both women can only be regarded as third-tier actors in Hollywood at the moment. US$100,000 is already a lot of money for them.
Kate returned to the UK last year to film a thriller called "The Killing". The heroine was of a very large scale, and even though she was somewhat qualified in the industry, her salary was still only 30,000 pounds.
The glamor in the entertainment industry has always been the glamor of a few people at the top.
This is why countless people are willing to sell everything they have and try their best to climb up.
After investing in Microsoft for so many years, Simon had been looking forward to the software giant becoming a part of the Westeros system until his meeting with Daemon on March 11.
Microsoft, Intel, Igret, Cisco, AOL, Oracle, SUN and other companies work closely together, and the Westeros system is enough to completely control the global information industry.
Unfortunately, this idea did not come true.
Simon was just a little regretful about this, but he wasn't too disappointed.
People's hearts are unpredictable.
The more outstanding a person is or thinks he is outstanding, the more he would rather be the head of a chicken than the tail of an ox.
Even if they understand that mutual cooperation can maximize benefits, some people still prefer to take the absolute initiative in their own one-third of an acre of land. Even if the harvest is smaller, development is more difficult, or even declines accidentally, we are not willing to accept being a vassal of others even in name.
The former Soviet Union fell apart because of this.
Ukraine, which inherited a large amount of inheritance from the former Soviet Union and got rid of a large number of people in need of assistance, could have become a 'mini-Soviet' by relying on its profound heritage in industry and agriculture. In Simon's memory, Ukraine was reduced to the poorest run-down country in Europe. The end result is that too many people are unable to make the best choice for the country due to various reasons, whether they conflict with their own interests or are bound by public opinion.
Bill Gates is a very proud man.
As Windows' monopoly advantage in the operating system field becomes more and more obvious, the software tycoon becomes more and more resistant to the software empire he created becoming a part of a certain business system, even though he understands that this will have many benefits for Microsoft. Daimon still prefers to keep this company firmly in his own hands, and he probably still has the ambition to directly compete with the Westeros system.
During the meeting on the morning of March 11, Simon determined that there was no room for change in certain things, and he completely gave up the idea of letting Microsoft become a member of the Westeros system.
Speaking of which, it's actually not bad to have such an enemy.
The Westeros system actually needs opponents. This can not only maintain the aggressiveness within the company, but also prevent the outside world from being afraid of the companies in the Westeros system.
However, just as many major powers in the world have actual hostile relations but still have very extensive economic cooperation on the surface, even if the positions are completely antagonistic, the cooperation between Microsoft and the Westeros system will not stop.
Because both sides have mutually dependent and mutually restrictive bargaining chips.
Just like back then, when Apple was at its peak, faced with Gates' threat to stop supplying office software, it could only allow the other party to develop a separate operating system, thereby creating a problem.
At present, Microsoft's advantage in the field of operating systems is just like Apple's back then, and the overall strength of the Westeros system is even stronger.
After the meeting on Saturday, Simon did not expect the Gate Alumni Association to take the initiative to compromise, and quickly contacted the spokesperson of the Westeros system on the Microsoft board of directors and some other shareholders and executives of Microsoft, even though Microsoft is Gates's boss in daily situations. , faced with Simon's ultimatum, I believe Microsoft also knows how to choose.
Not only that, the next day, March 12, Igret suddenly released its full-year financial report for 1994.
The fiscal year cycle of Daenerys Entertainment Group has been set from October of the previous year to September of the following year in accordance with the off-peak season rules of the Hollywood entertainment industry after its listing last year. This limit happens to be the end of the summer season. With the opening of the autumn TV season, this setting is more conducive to all aspects of financial statistics and even has the effect of tax avoidance.
Before going public, Igret still conducts financial statistics based on the calendar year.
Not surprisingly, after listing, Yigret's fiscal year cycle will still be calculated based on the natural year.
This is beside the point.
Even though there had been many speculations and estimates in advance, when Igret actually released its full-year financial report for 1994, it still caused a sensation in the entire media industry.
Yigret's annual revenue data of US$5.41 billion last year was already astonishing.
And this year, when Igret's annual revenue data of US$11.67 billion appeared on the front pages of major online platforms and a series of mainstream newspapers in North America for the first time, many people even immediately questioned it, thinking that this It is likely that Yigret made false financial data in order to obtain a higher IPO valuation.
11.67 billion US dollars!
How can it be
However, after carefully reading the detailed financial report data published on many platforms, everyone has to accept it.
The first is the advertising business that contributed the largest revenue to Yigret in the past year.
Compared with the US$1.15 billion in advertising revenue in 1993, because all new technology companies have begun to burn money like crazy in the past year, even traditional companies have begun to pay attention to the marketing of Internet platforms. Igret’s portals, social networks, and search The total revenue of the four major online advertising platforms, engine and advertising alliance, reached an astonishing US$3.21 billion, with a growth rate of 179%.
e-commerce business.
The revenue of Amazon's online mall in 1994 was US$2.59 billion, compared with US$1.36 billion in 1993, an annual growth rate of 91%, nearly doubling.
Under the radical expansion strategy of a workaholic housekeeper, because the gross profit margin of e-commerce is far lower than that of other businesses, coupled with the huge amount of technology research and development, channel construction, advertising and marketing, and even large-scale efforts to let users form online consumption habits, Due to large-scale subsidy investment, the loss of a single department of the e-commerce business was as high as 710 million U.S. dollars.
However, no one can ignore the high growth potential of this business and its vast market potential that far exceeds software, advertising and other businesses.
After all, software and advertising are more oriented towards corporate users, but e-commerce is open to all the public. The most typical reference is the scale comparison between traditional print media and TV advertising and the retail industry.
In the original time and space, Amazon gradually became the overlord in the e-commerce field with a steady development strategy. However, Bezos's stability was more necessary in Simon's view, because back then Amazon encountered difficulties when it just started to move towards the fast lane. When the Internet bubble burst, its market value dropped by as much as 90%. During the critical years of Amazon's rapid growth, there simply wasn't that much money for Bezos to burn.
Simon initially hoped that Yigret's e-commerce business would develop steadily.
In the end, it backfired.
Every manager has his own style of acting, and Simon cannot directly transfer Bezos, who has begun to take control of the overall situation, to replace Alice in charge of the e-commerce business.
Still, the results were pretty good.
Amazon has used a series of huge successes to prove the correctness of its development strategy, but this does not mean that the development strategies of other companies will not work.
In Simon's view, Alice's radical expansion methods are somewhat similar to the business strategies of some emerging Internet unicorn companies after 2010.
The key is two words, burn money.
This is not meant in a derogatory sense.
Simon remembered reading an article about the shared travel business.
The Internet industry never lacks ideas.
Before the emergence of travel giants like Uber, many people had already come up with similar project planning. However, most solutions are hampered by a key difficulty, which is how to get users out of their traditional travel habits and use online taxi services.
In the end, everyone just discovered that it was poverty that limited everyone's imagination.
The sharing giant's solution to this problem is very simple and crude.
subsidy.
Spend money like crazy to subsidize.
It was found that this strategy was actually effective. All Internet companies, whether emerging or established, whether sharing or e-commerce, started a new round of subsidy wars. Red envelopes were flying all over the place, and the giants unknowingly reaped the benefits. Massive users.
When consumption habits are formed and subsidies disappear, users can no longer get rid of their dependence on these services.
Simon opened the Internet era in advance by sparing no effort to invest, and basically relied on throwing money. In order to promote its own network services, AOL also adopted large-scale subsidy and preferential programs.
I just didn’t think much about it at the time.
It was Alice's radical expansion strategy that allowed Simon to see the shadow of money-burning wars in later generations.
At this stage, since there are sufficient funds and all conditions are complete, it is not impossible for Simon to directly invest money to catalyze the e-commerce market to enter a period of rapid expansion.
In the process of planning for the new year's corporate development at the end of last year, Simon personally approved the expansion plan of Yigrit's e-commerce business that lost US$1 billion in 1995, most of which will be used for product discounts and shipping directly to users. Fee subsidies.
Online shopping can actually be addictive.
Once you get used to it, you can't change it even if you want to.
As long as users form a habit, all investments will be recouped exponentially in the future.
After e-commerce, there is another important software business. As the types of Internet-related software of Igret have continued to increase in the past year, this year IE enterprise service fee revenue after free is also included. Igret 1994 Annual software business revenue totaled US$1.99 billion, a year-on-year increase of 145%.
In this aspect alone, Igret is to a large extent not inferior to Microsoft, which had a total revenue of US$5.63 billion in the previous fiscal year.
In my memory, Microsoft's later operating system business was gradually marginalized. Instead, the revenue of Office, which seemed inconspicuous to ordinary people, gradually accounted for one-third of the company's revenue. This shows the strong vitality of application software. Moreover, Office's subsequent strength largely relied on its gradual shift to a cloud-based subscription model.
Igret's Internet tool software matrix has now realized the transformation from sell-out to subscription.
In the past year, in addition to key products such as the Three Musketeers of the web page and the image design software Ygritte Photoshop, the embedded browser playback software Ygritte Flash Player, and the video editing software Ygritte VideoStudio, the Ygritte software department has also successively launched through independent research and development and mergers and acquisitions. In addition, other professional software closely related to Internet services such as audio editing, network documents, typesetting design and so on.
Not only that, in order to avoid the emergence of other 3D software in the industry, Simon has decided to hand over the Daenerys special effects and the 3D modeling and animation software Maya used by Pixar Studio to the Igrit Software Department for transformation, development and commercial operations. Of course, there will definitely be certain restrictions on the functions of the public version. Simon also has another purpose of doing this, which is to promote the development of 3D games.
With the rapid improvement of basic software and hardware performance, 3D games are now in their infancy.
Compared with animation and special effects, the market size of 3D software in the gaming field is even larger.
In addition to the software business, the YWS data center business, also headed by Carol Bartz, also achieved a super high annual growth of 118% in the past year, with revenue reaching US$1.73 billion.
Calculated, just the four core areas of advertising, e-commerce, software and YWS, the total revenue has reached 9.52 billion US dollars.
Others, such as the Ystore software store, Steam game store, online game business, solutions and patent licensing, etc., also contributed piecemeal revenue to US$2.15 billion.
Comprehensive statistics show that for the whole year of 1994, Yigret, which has become a giant, had total annual revenue of US$11.67 billion.
As predicted by some media, with annual revenue of tens of billions of dollars, Igret has made money faster than it spends money. Even after investing heavily in various aspects, this new technology company has only been established for about five years. The company still achieved a net profit of US$790 million.
For the media and the public, Ygritte's financial report data only brought shock.
For Microsoft, it is the most direct and strong sense of oppression.
Faced with Simon's ultimatum, and under multiple lobbying and pressure from Microsoft's board of directors, major shareholders and management, on Monday morning, March 13, Bill Gates finally chose to compromise and agreed to Simon's overseas sales of Windows systems. pre-installed IE requirements.