The long and short hour finally passed.
At 9:30 U.S. Eastern Time, the Nasdaq stock exchange officially opened. The Firefly System did not issue a shareholding reduction announcement until the last moment before the stock market opened. People who had been terrified for an hour finally breathed a sigh of relief.
However, because the news that the Firefly system might reduce its holdings on a large scale spread quickly within an hour, some investors who did not know the inside story and short-selling capital with ulterior motives still began to sell large amounts of stocks after the Nasdaq market opened.
As a result, as soon as the stock market opened, the Nasdaq index fell all the way from 3476 points to 3435 points. In just ten minutes, the Nasdaq fell by 1.17%, and more than US$40 billion in wealth disappeared.
Faced with this situation, a large number of technology companies and Wall Street capital had to enter the market to stabilize stock prices.
Compared with the Firefly system, a behemoth capable of destroying the entire Nasdaq market, the hedge funds shorting the Nasdaq and a small number of investors who have reduced their holdings obviously cannot compete with the entire new technology industry.
After a brief dip, the Nasdaq soon began to pull up. In the end, after a morning of shocks, the Nasdaq not only did not fall, but broke the record again, breaking through the 3,500-point mark.
Near noon, Eric's Boeing 747 finally landed at the private airport on Long Island.
After getting off the plane, Eric took his assistants and bodyguards and boarded the VH-60 helicopter directly to Manhattan, and the crew members of "Iron Man" will take off again and return to Los Angeles.
More than forty minutes later, the helicopter landed on the roof of the building at the entrance of Sixth Avenue.
Eric and Robert Iger, who came to greet him in person, greeted briefly, and then boarded the car to the headquarters of the "Oprah Show" studio.
Three black luxury cars drove towards Midtown together, and Robert Iger, who was sitting next to Eric, said, "Eric, I just received a call from Don Valentine of Sequoia Capital, and he hopes to be able to ' Sorry about the Hollywood gossip' thing."
"Sequoia Capital, Hollywood gossip," Eric still looked down at a document, and said, "Has Sequoia Capital fallen to this level?"
"No," Robert Iger explained: "Hollywood Gossip is a website independently invested by a partner of Sequoia Capital named Ronald Hill. It has no direct relationship with Sequoia Capital. Don Valentine is just a proxy. intercede."
"Well, I see."
Robert Iger didn't know whether Eric agreed or refused.
However, he also knew that the boss was very angry today, so naturally he would not say anything more for an outsider.
After a while, Eric spoke again, with sarcasm in his tone, and said: "It's always like this, when things happen, some people think they are big people and won't be implicated; some people think they are small people and won't be implicated .This time I will let them know that there are exceptions to everything."
Robert Iger nodded in agreement, but felt a chill rushing up from the soles of his feet, and couldn't help shivering slightly.
"The Oprah Show" studio headquarters is already busy.
Over the years, a black girl who came out of a slum has gradually become the queen of talk shows on American TV, and Oprah's status in the media has also risen.
If it was any other time, someone wanted to jump in line and disrupt the original production rhythm of the show, even if it was a first-line Hollywood star, Oprah would have the confidence to refuse the other party.
However, Oprah has no room to refuse the task directly pressed down by the ABC headquarters today. Moreover, the more people come out from the bottom, the more powerful they can feel. Oprah knows very well that she must ensure that there will be no mistakes in this program with only 24 hours of production time.
After announcing to all the staff in the production studio that she would be working overtime overnight, Oprah began to study the material of this exposure, and then felt more and more headaches.
Although "The Oprah Show" often touches on some very sensitive social topics in order to gain attention and ratings. But today's incident obviously does not allow her to hype it up. Not only can she not hype it, but she also realizes that in the next episode of the show, a piece of gossip news that is obviously full of explosive points must be dealt with less attention.
She was repeatedly reading some copies of online news provided by ABC, and when she heard the reminder from her assistant, Oprah quickly got up and left the office.
As soon as she walked out of the studio, Oprah saw Eric and his party coming out of the elevator, and hurriedly greeted them warmly: "Mr. Williams, nice to meet you."
"Hello, Ms. Winfrey," Eric shook hands with Oprah.
Oprah greeted Robert Iger again, and everyone came to a conference room in the studio.
Everyone sat down at the conference table, and Oprah took the folder from the assistant, sent out all the irrelevant people, and then went straight to the topic: "Then, Mr. Williams, can you tell us first, our This program probably, um, what scale can it touch?"
"Today's matter, two women, three children," Eric finished, and then said: "Also, you can call me Eric."
Oprah nodded, feeling relieved. What she was most worried about was that Eric avoided the scandal and forcibly clarified and covered it up. This would often only backfire.
However, even though she had come to a conclusion in her heart, Oprah still cautiously confirmed: "Eric, what do you mean, you plan to publicly admit the identities of the three children?"
"Yeah, and there's also my opinion on this incident, which I hope will be talked about openly and honestly on the show."
Oprah was a little surprised by Eric's calm attitude.
Still, in her view, this was clearly the best coping strategy.
"That's good, Eric, it's always easier for the public to, um, understand someone who's honest and outspoken."
Eric naturally understood the pause in Oprah's tone, and the other party obviously wanted to use the word 'forgive'.
It's just that Eric never thought about getting the other party's forgiveness because his code of conduct was contrary to the general perception of the public, which is boring. The reason why he arranged this program was just to tell some people his attitude towards some things. Eric didn't want anyone to use this kind of thing in the future to hurt the women and children around him.
Of course, Eric is not disgusted with conveying a false feeling that he hopes to be forgiven to the public through this program.
After all, popular opinion is always the most easily manipulated yet very powerful tool for public opinion.
Eric's unexpected attitude allowed Oprah to quickly set the tone of the show, and continued to discuss some details for more than an hour. Then everyone moved to the studio to start the formal recording of the show.
…
San Francisco on the west coast.
In the office of Sequoia Capital headquarters, Don Valentine hung up the call with Robert Iger again, and said to a thin middle-aged man opposite: "Williams only responded that he knew."
As one of the most powerful venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, Sequoia Capital is actually composed of more than 30 investment funds. The middle-aged man named Ronald Hill opposite Don Valentine is the head of one of the larger funds.
Hearing Don Valentine's words, Ronald Hill realized that Eric obviously did not accept the apology.
Pulling his tie, Ronald Hill said in an anxious tone: "What else is he going to do? In just one morning, in order to maintain the Nasdaq index, half of the new technology has invested at least 3 billion U.S. dollars. Doesn't he think that's not enough?"
Don Valentine put the handset back on the landline and said, "Ronald, it's useless to complain, let's think about the aftermath. I also don't understand why you invest in such a troublesome website." .”
"Adam Wembley, the founder of this website, is my middle school classmate," Ronald Hill squeezed out a wry smile, and said, "He showed me the plan at the beginning, and I thought it was good, and it only needed You can get 70% of the shares for $2 million, so I agreed."
"Did you know about this beforehand?"
"Of course I don't know. If I knew, I would never allow that idiot to mess around. This is Eric Williams. I would rather that idiot provoke the president."
"So," Don Valentine tapped his fingers on the desk a few times, and said, "You and that Adam Wembley are not close?"
"I'd rather never have known this man now."
"That's easy," Don Valentine nodded, and said solemnly: "Ronald, if you don't want to be implicated, go and find out the ins and outs of this matter. That Adam Wembley is obviously not You may do this kind of thing for no reason. In addition, before this matter subsides, I hope you can temporarily leave the position of LH fund manager."
Although Don Valentine's tone was gentle, Ronald Hill instantly understood that the other party was going to kick him out of Sequoia Capital, which was a hundred times worse than what he had imagined. It took him eight years to get to where he is today step by step, in charge of a fund with a size of more than US$1 billion under Sequoia Capital. After leaving Sequoia Capital, Ronald Hill didn't know whether he had the courage to start all over again.
Standing up abruptly, Ronald Hill pressed the solid wood desk and remained silent for a moment, with a changing expression, before he said with some begging in his tone, "Don, it shouldn't be like this."
"Sorry, Ronald," Don Valentine also stood up, turned around the desk and patted Ronald Hill on the shoulder, and then leaned on the edge of the table and said with a sigh: "The timing is very sensitive now." , we can't take the slightest risk of being targeted by the Firefly system. You should know that this is a behemoth with a controlled capital scale close to US$1 trillion. US$1 trillion is equivalent to one-ninth of the North American economy. No one dares to Fight against such a capital behemoth. If Eric Williams really announced the reduction of holdings this morning, everyone would be finished by now. But you just heard that he has no intention of letting it go. "
"But it really has nothing to do with me."
"When a child does something wrong, the responsibility is usually taken by an adult," Don Valentine reached out and patted Ronald Hill on the shoulder again, saying, "If I were you, the first thing I should do now is The first thing is to shut down that website completely, then find out the ins and outs of the matter, and take the initiative to give Eric Williams an explanation."
"Don, I can do this, but can the company stop ripping me off for the time being?"
Don Valentine shook his head again, and said, "I'll let Deborah announce your resignation later. Ronald, take heart, you already have a net worth of more than 30 million U.S. dollars. After leaving Sequoia, you You can still do some of your own things. Of course, I think the most important thing for you now is to deal with this matter. That’s it for now, I’ll have a meeting later, so please calm down.”
After saying this, Don Valentine left the office without hesitation, leaving only Ronald Hill standing there in a daze.
…
After experiencing the decline at the opening and the shock in the morning, the Nasdaq index was slowly rising throughout the afternoon.
As of the close, the Nasdaq index has rushed to a high of 3526 points.
Moreover, many investors discovered a slightly strange phenomenon at the first time.
In the entire Nasdaq market, compared with most other technology stocks that barely maintained their stock prices and did not suffer a drop during the morning shock, the stocks of Yahoo, Cisco, Amazon, Qualcomm and other companies in the Firefly system all showed significant gains.
Among them, the one-day stock increase of Yahoo! Networks reached an astonishing 6.1%, and its market value jumped from $132.6 billion at the opening to $140.7 billion, with a single-day increase of $8.1 billion. Cisco's market capitalization has also reached a new high, reaching 295.6 billion US dollars as of the close, only one step away from the 300 billion US dollar mark.
According to statistics, just this wave of single-day increases has increased the assets controlled by the entire Firefly system by US$57 billion, and at the same time brought Eric himself more than US$11 billion in asset appreciation.
So, in the evening, TV evening newspapers and Internet media all over North America once again expressed their feelings about the wave of new technology.
On the other hand, although the news about the exposure of Eric Williams' illegitimate child this morning has basically spread among the public, not only the Internet platforms that have been basically cleared, but most of the traditional media are concerned about this matter. Showed a very cold attitude.
Of course, there are voices of doubt.
Time Warner's CNN TV station went against the trend and made a special evening talk show, discussing in detail whether Eric's suppression of Internet media has affected topics such as press freedom.
In fact, this is also a very sensitive topic. For Westerners who advocate freedom, once this topic is expanded, Eric's suppression of press freedom is obviously more likely to cause public backlash than his illegitimate child incident.
However, although CNN has ulterior motives, this topic has not caused a large-scale media hype.
In fact, most news incidents tend to become more and more serious only after the media swarms and hypes them.
Similarly, without the support of the media and the lack of sufficient commentary guidance, the public will often feel that this matter is not a big deal. As a result, CNN was left alone, and a potential blockbuster was dropped, but it turned out to be a dud.