Sitting down at the conference table for the first time, Eric glanced for a week with a gloomy expression, his eyes fell on the screen shared by Ian Grenier, Steve Mitnick and Tina Brown, and asked : "So, Ian, what time is it over there?"
On the video call screen, Ian Grenier raised his wrist and looked at his watch, and said, "Twenty-five past eight."
"Very well, there is one hour and five minutes before the opening of the Nasdaq stock market," Eric looked around again, and said, "I think you all know what happened. Now, call those people, Steve Case, Bill Gates, or the CEOs of other Internet companies, tell them to take down all the news related to the three children and block all the sites that post information about the three children. After an hour, if they If it fails to meet my requirements, the Firefly System will publicly announce plans to reduce shareholdings in listed companies such as Yahoo, Cisco, Amazon, Sprint, and Qualcomm. Since they feel that life is too easy, let the Nasdaq collapse.”
Hearing Eric's words, all the executives of the Firefly system connected to the meeting room showed shocked expressions.
The stocks of companies such as Yahoo, Cisco, and Amazon are all major technology stocks that can influence the Nasdaq market.
Although the current Nasdaq stock market is getting more and more crazy, it is also becoming more and more shaky. A slight turmoil in the capital market may cause the Nasdaq to fluctuate. If major stocks such as Yahoo, Cisco, and Amazon suddenly announce a plan to reduce their holdings, the market panic will cause a large-scale follow-up sell-off, and the Nasdaq index will collapse almost instantly.
There was a moment of silence in the conference room, but this time it was Katzenberg, who was usually the most fiery, who spoke first, and said, "Eric, even if you do this, you can't hide things."
"I didn't want to hide it, I was just teaching some people how to behave," Eric shook his head, and said firmly: "Now, call, give everyone ten minutes, and let's continue the meeting after the call. Don't Bargain with me, I don't want to bargain with anyone today!"
Feeling Eric's unquestionable tone, Tina Brown first picked up the mobile phone on the table, got up and left the camera, and everyone else followed suit.
Eric asked Caroline to bring a laptop, connect it to the Internet, and put it on the conference table. He himself just leaned back in his chair, flipping through a document absently.
After a while, the phone rang suddenly in the meeting room. Eric just glanced at the landline next to him, and then looked away, showing no intention of answering.
Immediately, the mobile phones of Eric, Caroline, and Mayer also rang, and the top-level communication network customized by Boeing Connection for this Boeing 747 made the various communication methods on the plane the same as those on the ground.
However, Eric didn't lift his head this time.
Mayer glanced at Eric's reaction, and casually put the ringing mobile phone on the conference table, neither turning it off nor answering it, Caroline hesitated for a while holding the small Nokia Next, do the same.
Eric listened indifferently to the rapid ringtones on the plane. All over North America, as the calls of Chris, Katzenberg, Ian Grenier, Tina Brown and others were gradually dialed out, San Francisco, Boston, In Seattle, New York, and even Los Angeles, cities where technology companies or venture capital firms gather, many people are experiencing the frightening hour.
No one dares to bet against Eric Williams whether he will actually announce the reduction plan.
After all, even if Eric Williams' net worth has shrunk by half, the other party is still a super rich man with a net worth of more than 100 billion US dollars. However, if the Nasdaq collapses, countless new technology companies that rely on the technology stock bubble to absorb large sums of money will be lost, and some capital upstarts that have made hundreds of millions of profits through the listing of technology stocks will also fall to dust in a blink of an eye.
And so, in just a few minutes, the entire new tech industry is in turmoil.
Whether it is the East Coast, where the working hours are approaching, or the West Coast, where the sky has just dawned, countless Internet company executives who were gloating and even fueling the flames not long ago are almost all suffering from communication bombardment.
Not only the executives of the Firefly system, but also a large number of senior executives of venture capital companies, major shareholders of technology companies, and even Wall Street capital that bet large sums of money on technology stocks. After hearing the news, they all called to put pressure on the entire Internet industry. No one wanted to For a piece of gossip news, his billions of assets were wiped out.
Afterwards, the editors on duty of countless portal websites, search engines, news websites, Internet forums and other Internet information platforms received mandatory orders from the top of the company one after another, and began to eliminate news related to the three little guys.
In the conference room on the Boeing 747, ten minutes passed quickly, and everyone returned to the video call screen one after another.
Eric has asked Caroline's two daughters to turn off their mobile phones, and the landline line has also been cut off.
Chris finally walked to the call screen, but gestured to the Nokia in his hand, and said, "Eric, Mr. President's phone."
Eric nodded, and Chris turned on the speaker and put the phone in front of the microphone.
"Eric, can you hear me?" Clinton's voice quickly came out of the speaker, probing, and before Eric could answer, the other party said directly: "Listen, Eric, you can't do this Do. Tell me, you wouldn't do that, would you?"
Eric replied bluntly: "Mr. President, the decision on this matter is not up to me."
"They're already dealing with it, Eric, but you have to calm down."
"I'm very calm right now, Mr. President."
"Well, fine," Clinton paused for a moment, then continued, "Eric, I know you're angry, but you can't be an enemy of the whole world."
"Thank you for your advice, Mr. President. However, if the whole world is against me, I don't mind trying to fight against the world." Eric said coldly, and then said: "Sorry, Mr. President, we There's a meeting going on."
"Okay, then, let's talk next time."
Clinton hung up the phone in a somewhat embarrassing tone, Eric looked at the crowd again, and said: "Next, regarding TV and print media, my bottom line is that they can discuss, but the children's names, photos and address information must never appear , even if it is a photo with a mosaic. Jeffrey, you are responsible for coordinating this matter yourself."
"Okay," Katzenberg nodded, hesitated, and said, "Eric, do you need to make an official statement?"
"Cancel tomorrow's "David's Late Show" recording, let ABC prepare. After I arrive in New York, I will cooperate with the recording of "The Oprah Show", which will be broadcast tomorrow."
"I'll let Robert arrange it later, it's just..."
Eric looked at Katzenberg's obvious hesitation, and took the initiative to add: "The promotional schedule of "Iron Man" is still the same. Of course, you can also let Marvel prepare to adjust the movie universe plan. Necessary If not, Iron Man will completely withdraw from the Marvel Cinematic Universe project."
Thinking of the one-sided praise that "Iron Man" received from the media, Katzenberg felt distressed for a while, and then he gritted his teeth about the person behind today's incident, and said solemnly: "I will."
"Then," Eric withdrew his gaze, looked at everyone, and said, "I think everyone knows about these recent things, the large-scale wiretapping incident, and the exposure of the three children just now. I remember a sentence from the East As the saying goes, a tree is higher than other trees, and it must be additionally damaged by the wind. The firefly system is a towering giant tree, so this kind of thing will happen again in the future. In order for our enemies to consider the consequences before taking action , I will pursue today's matter to the end. Those standing in front of the stage and those hiding behind the scenes, I will not let go of any of them."
…
Faced with the strong pressure of the firefly system, most ordinary people are still ignorant, and the Internet storm that has just been brewing has disappeared invisible.
However, due to the extreme openness of the Internet, it is impossible to completely cover up this matter after all. In fact, although it was suppressed, the relevant news gradually spread among the public, but it lost the guidance of the media and public opinion. The disturbance caused by this incident was far lower than many people imagined.
manhattan.
It was nearly nine o'clock in the morning.
In Cindy's apartment on 75th Street in the Upper East Side, Linda rushed in with the key. Looking at Cindy who was quietly leaning on the sofa in the living room and reading a book, although it felt a little weird, Linda was still gloating. In a tone of voice, he said, "Hey, hey, have you heard?"
Cindy turned a page of "The Thorn Bird" in her hand, and shook her head slightly: "No."
"Hey, what's the matter with you recently, it's weird," Linda muttered, dropped her satchel and ran to the study, and came out with a laptop in her arms after a while, saying: "That guy is going to be in trouble , all the information of the three children has been exposed on the Internet, I just saw it on AOL. Tsk, fortunately I was not pregnant last time, otherwise I will have to face this situation in the future."
Listening to Linda's words, Cindy's expression moved slightly, and she finally closed the book, got up and came over.
Seeing that Cindy finally showed interest, Linda became even more interested, quickly opened the browser and found the homepage of the AOL portal, pointed with her little finger, turned to Cindy and said, "Hey, look."
Cindy glanced at the AOL homepage in doubt, and said, "What are you looking at?"
Linda withdrew her gaze, glanced at the AOL homepage, and asked in confusion, "Hey, I saw it at home just now, "Eric Williams' Bastard Exposure", why is it gone?"
Having said that, Linda refreshed the webpage several times, but the link to the news entry just now was another article about the Clinton administration's latest biopharmaceutical policy bill.
"Oh, by the way, I remember that the article just now said it was reprinted from 'Hollywood Gossip'," Linda muttered, then opened the Google search engine, typed the two words 'Hollywood Gossip', and pressed Search key.
It's just that I opened several result directories repeatedly, but I couldn't find the website 'Hollywood Gossip'.
Linda was not a fool. After being confused for a moment, she leaned back on the sofa, grabbed a pillow and beat it a few times, saying, "I see, it must be that guy's fault."
Cindy naturally didn't believe that Linda would come to her and talk nonsense early in the morning, so she pulled the laptop over, skillfully switched several portals, searched for a while, and opened some relatively large news websites, none of which Any news about the three little guys.
After thinking about it, Cindy picked up the remote control to turn on the TV, switched several channels repeatedly, and finally stopped on the CNN news station.
"According to our internal information, Eric Williams issued an ultimatum to the top management of all news portals. If the relevant websites do not clear all the news about his illegitimate child before the Nasdaq stock market opens today, The Firefly system will publicly announce a large-scale reduction in the shares of technology companies such as Yahoo, Cisco, and Amazon. In just half an hour, we found that the mainstream portals such as AOL and MSN have all removed relevant news entries, and Yahoo! There is no relevant news on the portal from the beginning to the end. Bernard, can you explain to everyone why the technology giants in the Internet industry succumbed to the pressure of the Firefly system, and whether the Firefly system has seriously hindered To freedom of the press?"
After the host finished speaking, the live broadcast camera turned to a guest sitting next to him.
Cindy didn't listen to the other party's continuation, and pressed the mute button casually.
Linda's mouth opened slightly, and she said after a while, "That guy really did it."
"Or else," Cindy closed the laptop in front of her, got up and walked back to the sofa by the French window.
Linda picked up the remote control to turn on the sound and watched it for a while, then turned off the TV a little depressed, moved to Cindy's side, and said: "Oh, I thought that guy was going to be unlucky, but I didn't expect it to be so silent. Pressed down."
Cindy picked up the "The Thorn Bird" just now and opened it, and said, "Do you really wish him bad luck?"
"No, no." Linda grabbed another pillow and scratched at Cindy's side, saying, "He, he actually wanted us both to get pregnant last time, it's too bad .”
"You didn't react that way."
"He is a tyrant. If I disagree, I might be beaten to death."
With a smile on the corner of Cindy's mouth, he said, "Maybe."
Linda also realized that the reason she gave was not convincing, so she hesitated a few words, then said, "Oh, have you had breakfast, shall we go downstairs to eat?"
"I've eaten, you go by yourself."
"Why have you suddenly become so bored recently?" Linda reached out and snatched the "The Thorn Bird", and then subconsciously made a protective movement, only to find that Cindy didn't beat herself like before, and she was even more puzzled: "Hey, you What's the matter?"
"I am pregnant."
"Oh," Linda responded, but immediately jumped up in surprise, throwing all the books in her hand: "Ah?!"
Cindy gave her a blank look, got up and picked up the "The Thorn Bird", and said, "Stop harassing me here, today is not the weekend, don't you need to work?"
"But, you, you, you, did you tell him?"
"I'm a bit hesitant," Cindy opened the book again, and said, "Besides, what happened just now has reminded me. Maybe it's not bad to let this child be named Crawford. I can't afford it now."
"He certainly won't agree."
"Let's see how he handles this. It's not over. If he can't handle Kevin and Hawaii, I think it's better to let my child be named Crawford."
"Yeah." Linda nodded in agreement, then leaned over again, and suggested enthusiastically, "At that time, I will be a mother."
"Then what am I?"
"You are so fierce, of course you are a father."
"roll."
"Well, you're pissing me off again."