Firefly Group headquarters in Burbank.
Elizabeth took an assistant out of the car in the parking lot and walked straight into the headquarters building of the Firefly Group. Compared with the past, today's Firefly Group headquarters is obviously much more lively. The hall on the first floor is full of people, and men and women in suits and leather shoes gather together in twos and threes to chat about something.
Elizabeth knew that these people were just the attendants of the Firefly system executives who rushed over to attend the meeting, so she left her assistant here, and she went straight to the VIP elevator in the building.
When I came to Eric's office on the top floor, I greeted the outside secretary, and she pushed the door open and walked in.
The situation in the office made Elizabeth a little dazed, Eric stood in front of the window with his chin raised, and Kelly Hines was carefully helping the man straighten his tie.
Seeing Elizabeth coming in, Kelly was also stunned for a moment, and then greeted with a smile: "Morning, Liz, you came just in time, I still have work to do, come and help Eric tie his tie."
After Kelly finished speaking, she loosened the tie in her hand, picked up several documents on Eric's desk, nodded to Elizabeth, and left the office.
After Kelly left, Eric grabbed the half-tied tie on his chest, looked at Elizabeth, and said with a smile, "What are you looking at, come quickly and help me tie my tie."
Elizabeth walked forward with her mouth curled up, raised her hand to take the tie in Eric's hand, couldn't help pulling it, and said: "You are not afraid that I will strangle you to death, there are so many people waiting outside, it is still a mess at this time Come."
"Well, anyway, no matter how I explain it, you won't believe it."
Elizabeth ignored Eric, sniffed him a few times, and then showed a look in her eyes that counted you through, and said, "What are you planning to do when there is such a big commotion?"
Eric shook his head and said, "It's nothing, I just want to get together all of a sudden, of course, to do some small things by the way."
Elizabeth was very dissatisfied: "Hmph, you are hiding it from me like this, be careful that Fox doesn't cooperate with you."
"It's okay, if Fox dares not cooperate, I will go and clean up the boss's daughter tonight."
Elizabeth turned her head, and immediately exerted force on her hands: "You bastard."
"Take it easy, I'm really going to strangle you to death," Eric said with a smile, grabbing Elizabeth's little hand, "Help me fasten my tie, there's something good for you."
Elizabeth quickened her hand movements and asked curiously, "What?"
Eric smiled and didn't answer. After Elizabeth fastened his tie, he took out a script from the filing cabinet under the desk and said, "Here, here it is."
"The script you wrote?" Elizabeth said, picked it up to look at it, and then said: ""Gladiator", the project of Ridley Scott, didn't you say that you have confirmed the cooperation with Amberlin Films? "
The projects of Hollywood's first-line directors will basically appear on the attention list of studio executives. It is not surprising that Elizabeth directly mentioned the information of "Gladiator".
Eric explained: "Amblin had a problem with the funds. Of course, it may be because of lack of confidence in this project, so the project was cut off. Last Saturday, I met Tony Scott who happened to know about this project. I took a look at the script and thought it was pretty good. However, Firefly’s big production project has been scheduled for three years, so I’ll let you take care of it.”
Elizabeth casually flipped through a few pages, and said with some hesitation: "Epic movies, now everyone knows that epic movies are very risky. Even the movie "Braveheart" a few years ago wasn't too successful at the box office."
Eric said: "The script of "Gladiator" has a wider audience than "Braveheart", and Ridley Scott's director skills are still guaranteed."
"Okay, then I'll go back and discuss it with everyone," Elizabeth nodded, and she naturally believed in Eric's judgment very much.
Just as I was talking, the office door was pushed open again. The girl was wearing a small shirt and white casual trousers in a serious manner today, but she still smiled like a little girl and rushed over, directly wrapped around Eric, her legs still looped He exerted force on his waist in a funny way, but it didn't have Natasha's 'lethal power' at all.
Eric hugged the girl's small body, reached out and patted her small buttocks, and said helplessly, "Don't make trouble, Liz is here."
The girl smiled and kissed Eric on the face, stood up, and suddenly reached out to snatch the script from Elizabeth's hand.
Elizabeth, who had been on guard for a long time, dodged skillfully, and hit back with her backhand: "Little Bichi."
The girl withdrew her hand, hugged Eric's arm, and complained with aggrieved expression: "Eric, she scolded me."
Eric separated the two women who were at odds with each other, and said, "Okay, don't quarrel, let's go to the meeting room, everyone is almost here."
…
The largest conference room at the headquarters of the Firefly Group was already full of people. Eric took Elizabeth and the girl to the door, and Kelly just pushed the door out.
Eric stopped in his tracks and asked, "Are you all ready?"
Kelly said: "There are some problems with the connection on the Nokia side, but it's fixed."
Eric nodded, pushed the door open and walked in first.
Seeing Eric come in, all the people who were whispering and chatting fell silent, got up one after another, and looked at Eric who had just walked in.
At this time, in addition to the executives of the Firefly Group, Fox Group, and MGM Group in Los Angeles, the three major Firefly Electronics headquartered in San Francisco on the west coast, and several core executives of Qualcomm headquartered in San Diego also rushed over at the same time. , other departments and companies appear on ten 32-inch wall-mounted screens lined up on both sides of the juxtaposed large conference room through video connections.
Eric walked to the top position, took a folder from Caroline, nodded to everyone, and said, "Everyone, sit down."
All the people sat down one after another, but Eric still stood where he was. There was no seat prepared for his position today.
In the conference room, Katzenberg, Frank Wells, Yatou, Elizabeth, Amy Pascal, John Carley, Joe Ross from the Hollywood system, and Victor McNairy from Firefly Electronics, Qualcomm CEO Erwin Jacobs and others sat on both sides of the large conference table. On the wall of the meeting room, ten 32-inch wall-mounted screens are connected to executives such as Robert Iger of ABC in New York, Chris and Emily of Firefly Investment, John Chambers of Cisco Headquarters, and other executives of Yahoo! The three of En Genier and ten other Apple, Sprint, Amazon, etc. offices.
Scanning around, feeling the gaze of dozens of people through the scene and the camera lens, Eric suddenly felt a sense of complacency.
This is your own business empire.
Firefly Empire.
Eric felt this way, and everyone who attended the meeting via video connection also had an inexplicable shock in their hearts.
Before they knew it, everyone realized that they were in such a huge business empire.
At this time, in the Firefly system, in addition to Firefly Group, Cisco’s market value has also exceeded 100 billion U.S. dollars. Although it has been excluded from the Firefly system, AOL, which still holds more than 15% of its shares, has a market value of more than 50 billion U.S. dollars. The core companies such as Yahoo, Nokia, Firefly Electronics, and LTD all have market capitalizations of tens of billions or even tens of billions of dollars.
After these years of accumulation, the scale of assets controlled by the entire Firefly system has exceeded 400 billion US dollars at this time.
What is this concept? According to recent statistics, in the latest data on the GDP of countries in the world, India, which ranks 13th, has a GDP figure of 429 billion U.S. dollars, and Australia, which ranks 14th, has a GDP figure of only 380 billion U.S. dollars.
In this way, the firefly system is equivalent to controlling a huge "economy" ranked 14th in the world, and it can be described as a veritable rich country.
The meeting room was quiet for a while, Eric finally clapped his hands, attracted everyone's attention, and then smiled and said: "Yahoo's annual meeting last year, last year's Chris wedding, everyone gathered together. I originally hoped Such a party can be held once a year. However, eight months have passed this year, and everyone, including myself, is very busy. There may be no time for a real party this year, so I have to choose to pass this We can get together once. Starting next year, I hope to thoroughly determine this kind of gathering, and arrange the date and schedule in advance."
Amid the nodding and agreement of the crowd, Eric took two steps on the spot before continuing: "Of course, everyone must have discovered that this time one of our partners withdrew from the meeting, which has to be said to be a pity. Because in my vision, all companies in the Firefly system are an indispensable part. The departure of America Online also made me realize that there are too many things in this world that are always unsatisfactory. However, I hope The next few years will be able to refill the void left by AOL."
After saying this, he paused for a moment and glanced at the people inside and outside the arena. Eric suddenly smiled and said: "Well, everyone must have heard about what happened recently. It was very lively. I suddenly felt that even if I You can live well by appraising scripts, after all, just my affirmation can raise the price of a script worth $100,000 to $7.5 million."
In the mocking laughter of the crowd, Eric clapped his hands again and continued: "Hey, let's talk about this matter at the end. Looking at everyone who is sitting in front of me and participating in this meeting through video, I am now I still can’t believe it’s all true.”
Eric said, rolled up his shirt sleeves casually, and with these memories, he said slowly: "Thinking of ten years ago, heh, it was exactly ten years, 1988, probably at this time, I I was still working as a waiter in an Italian restaurant, and, because of some accidents, I suddenly found that I was the only one left in my world. When serving dishes to guests every day, I was basically in a daze, thinking about my own affairs , Thinking about the future, thinking about it, I felt that I could not live in such a muddle, at least, I should do something to prove that I am real. Then, I wrote my first novel , my first screenplay, my first movie, and my first movie as well. Looking back now, I realize how lucky I was, because along the way, I always met someone who could help me people."
"I gained a firm foothold in Hollywood and founded the Firefly Group. Slowly, I also began to want to do more things. I admit that at the beginning, I held a very blind and completely speculative Just like investing in AOL, Cisco, and even Nokia, my thought at the time was to wait for these companies to develop and sell the stocks I invested in so that I could make a lot of money. money."
Hearing the laughter resounding inside and outside the arena, Eric also smiled and said: "However, now, I don't have any speculative thoughts, even if it is America Online, which is about to leave the big family of Firefly, I think everyone will definitely It is very clear that there is not much money involved in this. It is just that everyone has conflicts with foreign development concepts, and the two sides have to separate. In fact, if possible, I even hope that everyone can go hand in hand forever, because, Or what I just said, in my heart, every team in the Firefly system is indispensable."
Having said that, Eric gestured to Caroline, who was quietly sitting next to her, and took an engineering prototype of a tablet computer from the other party and showed it in front of everyone, saying: "Perhaps, everyone will think that what I just said is Out of politeness, but definitely not. Simply put, the future of the Firefly system can be completely concentrated in this small machine. Everyone must already know that this is the tablet computer jointly developed by Firefly Electronics and Yahoo! ...Perhaps, at this time, you will have doubts in your hearts, what does this have to do with me, of course it has something to do with it."
"In my imagination, this machine can link the entire firefly system..."
For the next half an hour, Eric was explaining that the planned tablet computer and even further smart phones will integrate Internet devices, content, service providers and mobile communication equipment manufacturers, underlying technology R&D companies and even Hollywood in the entire Firefly system. The content services of media groups are linked together to form a complete and grand blueprint for the industry in the information age.
Eric has been preparing for today's speech since Monday. Combining the future development of the information industry in memory and the accumulation of experience over the years, Eric's description of the future prospects of the Firefly system made everyone on the scene fascinated.
It can be said unceremoniously that if Eric's vision can be realized, the entire 21st century may be the era of the firefly system, just like the Morgan and Rockefeller families in the 20th century relying on energy, automobiles, and finance to control the entire world like that.
At the scene, because of Eric's age, the elites in the workplace who always had some contempt and prejudice against him, felt completely convinced at this moment.
This young man may not have a high degree of education such as an Ivy League school, or he may not have the workplace experience they have accumulated over the years, but the foresight shown at this time may be the reason why he was able to lead the Firefly system in just ten years. Just come to the reason now.
After all, there has never been a shortage of talents in this world, not even geniuses. What is lacking are those who can always walk on the right path and truly have a keen forward-looking vision.