"Eric, even if you don't participate in the Oscars, you can't leave Los Angeles at this time, right? After the Oscars, there will be a Firefly Films theme party. This is the first time for Firefly?" In the Pointe Manor, Drew lazily said Lying on the big bed, he looked at the two people who were packing their luggage.
Tina Fey helped Eric fold his clothes, and when he heard Drew's words, he glanced up at Eric who was taking clothes from the closet. She is now Drew's assistant, basically inseparable from Drew, and even lives with Drew. When Drew came to send Eric out of Los Angeles, she followed him.
Eric handed a suit to Tina Fey and said, "Michael and the others will arrange this."
"How about I go with you?" Drew raised his body and said with some expectation.
"I'm not going out to play, so you should stay in Los Angeles honestly and don't mess with me."
Drew snorted softly in dissatisfaction, his soft body in a striped hip-wrapping sweater wriggled to the side of the bed like a big bug, jumped off barefoot, and leaned over to Eric's suitcase to help him fold it together Clothes, looking at Tina Fey who was wearing black-rimmed glasses, Drew suddenly said, "Why don't you let Tina go with you, anyway, I don't have much to do during this time?"
Ti∷, when Na Fei heard these words, a trace of anticipation flashed in her heart, she glanced at Eric's figure secretly, but soon shook her head with some confidence and said: "I won't go, I don't know anything .”
"You don't need to know anything," Drew leaned close to Tina Fey's ear, whispering as if sneakily, but he didn't lower his voice at all: "With you by Eric's side, he won't provoke other women. "
Tina Fey instantly understood what Drew meant. His face turned red immediately.
Eric took out the last few clothes and handed them to Tina Fey. He knocked on Drew's forehead casually: "Stop talking nonsense, and, when I'm not around, you're not allowed to do anything messy in the manor."
Drew covered his head and yelled, and said in a drawn out dissatisfied voice, "I see."
After packing his luggage, Eric refused Drew to send him, took Allen and four bodyguards, and drove to Los Angeles Airport. Boarded a small Boeing private jet. The passenger plane was originally leased by Disney for the use of executives. After Disney was acquired by Firefly, the right to use the passenger plane was also signed to Firefly.
After the plane took off, Eric ordered Allen to take out the materials, went to a lounge at the airport alone, sat at the desk by the window and opened the folder in his hand.
After Chris returned to New York, according to Eric's previous instructions, Firefly Investment began to pay attention to and collect information and materials on computer and network-related industries. And a few days ago, I sent some of my favorite investment projects to Eric, and in this pile of information. One company caught Eric's attention, which is why he rushed to New York.
The company's name is America Online (aol). It was the original time and space, the America Online that merged with Time Warner Group in 2000. At that time in the previous life, Eric was just 25 years old, and he had just graduated from college for a few years. He was full of ambition, so , like many young people, was very concerned about this merger involving 180 billion US dollars. At that time, the market value of the merged AOL Time Warner Group even exceeded ** US dollars. Eric remembers very clearly that someone specially made For comparison, the mainland's GDP in 2000 was only 9.9 trillion yuan, equivalent to 1.3 trillion U.S. dollars. In other words, the market value of a company in the AOL Time Warner Group at its peak reached 26% of the mainland's GDP.
And now, the information in hand shows that although America Online has been established for seven years, it is still just a humble Internet service provider in Virginia. The company's valuation is only 300 million U.S. dollars, with 120 employees and 15 million users, and only 10% of the Internet service market share.
After Eric read the not-too-thick information in his hand several times, the plane had already landed at Kennedy Airport.
"Eric, here." Walking out of the airport hall, Eric saw Chris in a long black trench coat waving to him. Although it was the end of March, the temperature in New York was still only about ten degrees. Eric, who originally only wore a thin coat in Los Angeles, had to put on a windbreaker.
"Chris, how are you doing?" Eric and Chris hugged and greeted each other.
"It's okay, oh, this is Mr. Steve Case," Chris nodded, and then introduced the middle-aged man beside him to pick up the plane with Eric.
Eric has seen the profile of Steve Case many times. Steve Case is the founder of America Online. He is wearing a khaki trench coat and has a round face. He looks a bit shy.
"Mr. Williams, nice to meet you, I like your movies very much," Steve Case offered to compliment Eric, although he has accumulated hundreds of millions of wealth since he started from scratch, but Compared with Eric, it is still nothing.
Eric shook hands with the other party with a smile, and introduced the entourage around him before getting into the car and returning to Manhattan.
Eric and Chris got into a car, and after the car started, they asked, "How did you talk to him?"
Chris shook his head: "It hasn't been negotiated yet, he hasn't completely given up on the listing and financing plan, but he promised to talk to you."
Eric breathed a sigh of relief. When Chris collected aol's information, the other party had already been preparing for the IPO for half a year. However, in Eric's opinion, now is not the best time for aol to go public at all.
"As long as we can still talk."
Chris looked at his watch. Eric set off from Los Angeles at 9:00 a.m. Western time. According to the four-hour time difference between the east and the west, New York is also past 9:00: "By the way, I'll take you back to your residence first. Or go directly to the company?"
If Steve Case didn't come to pick him up, Eric wouldn't mind going back to his Manhattan apartment first: "Let's go to the company."
"Okay," Chris said to the driver. Then he said, "Come to my house for dinner tonight. Emily cooks herself."
"Okay." Eric nodded briskly, not seeing the guilt and embarrassment that flashed in Chris's eyes when he said this.
…
"If you don't pay attention to user experience, even if a company's technology is advanced, it will often be eliminated by the market. Therefore, AOL's business strategy is to focus on users. We will conduct statistics on the satisfaction of all users every quarter. And collect suggestions from users to make improvements..." In the meeting room of Firefly Investment Company, Steve Case explained his business ideas passionately.
After Firefly Investment contacted him, Steve Case already had the idea of introducing Firefly Investment funds in his heart. After all, if he chooses to go public, AOL will have to accept a lot of supervision, which will definitely limit a company to a certain extent. The pace of enterprise development. However, the reason why he has not spoken up to now, and also proposed to interview with Eric, the owner behind Firefly Investment, is nothing more than a bargain. I want to get more benefits from Firefly.
"Mr. Keith, I heard. You are still more inclined to let AOL go public, right?" Eric waited for the other party's speech to end before asking.
Steve Case nodded without hesitation: "Yes, if we choose to go public, AOL can more easily draw development funds from the capital market. In our development plan, AOL is very hungry for funds. of."
Eric smiled. If Steve Case insisted on going public, he wouldn't be here at all today. However, there is no need to expose what everyone knows well.
"I have no objection to the listing of America Online," Eric said. "However, I don't think now is the best time to go public."
Steve Case showed a puzzled look.
Eric said: "If you pay more attention to current affairs, you should have noticed the recent election speeches of Democratic presidential candidate William Clinton. He proposed a plan for an information superhighway."
"I have indeed heard some," Steve Case nodded, "However, although I support some of Clinton's propositions, I don't think he has a high chance of winning. Last year's Gulf War victory brought President Bush It has gained a high reputation, and Clinton’s Democratic Party is also in a state of disunity, and if Clinton cannot be elected president, many of his governing ideas will be just empty words.”
"It cannot be said that the reason why Clinton proposed the information superhighway plan is precisely because his campaign team saw the huge development prospects of computer networks. I think this is an irreversible trend of the times. Even if Clinton loses the election, Bush Even if the president is re-elected, this trend cannot be changed, so it is very unwise for AOL to choose to go public so early."
"Mr. Williams, although I am very confident in the popularization of computer networks, but..."
"$60 million."
"What?" Steve Case was stunned for a moment and asked uncertainly.
Eric said: "I know that AOL plans to sell 30% of its shares this time, and plans to raise 5,000 US dollars of funds. I can pay 60 million. Moreover, in the next few years, if AOL lacks funds, Firefly can still carry out invest."
Hearing Eric start to quote directly, Steve Case said: "Mr. Williams, 60 million US dollars seems to be a little less, although our company plan is indeed to raise 50 million US dollars, but if the market responds well , the scale of financing must be more than that.”
"Very good," Eric smiled: "It seems that you have agreed to talk to Firefly about the capital injection, so the specific amount can be negotiated by our two teams."
Steve Case was stunned, and soon realized that Eric had led himself into a ditch: "Mr. Williams, I was just talking about a possibility, and I didn't agree."
"It's okay, let's continue talking," Eric sat up straight, the smile on his face still unchanged.
Chris also smiled and interjected at this time: "Mr. Keith, Eric not only has to manage Firefly Pictures, but also has a few movies in his hand. Moreover, the Oscars will be in a few days. You said you want to talk about it in person. , He canceled his attendance at the Oscars and came to New York specially, so you should be able to see that we are very sincere."
"Okay," Steve Case also felt that it might be self-defeating if he continued to be hypocritical, "However, I have some conditions of my own regarding the scale of Firefly's capital injection and the management rights of the organization?"
"Excuse me?" Chris stretched out his hand.
"First of all, Firefly cannot interfere with the day-to-day management of AOL."
"You can rest assured," Chris replied, "You should know that Firefly Investment is currently Cisco's largest shareholder, but we do not intervene in Cisco's management except for major corporate matters."
Steve Case obviously knew about this matter, nodded and said: "Another thing, I hope that Firefly can give me the voting rights of the shares it holds."
Hearing this condition, Chris looked at Eric. Not intervening in the daily management of AOL and transferring the voting rights of the shares are two different things. If you give up the voting rights, it means that Firefly has completely lost the power to control the direction of AOL. Steve Case can do whatever he wants.
Eric thought about it quickly, then raised three fingers and said, "Three years, within three years, Firefly will give you the voting rights of the shares it holds."
"Three years is too short a time, at least five years," Steve Case bargained.
"No, five years is too long," Eric shook his head: "Up to three years, and I hope AOL will choose to go public after three years."
Three years later, it happened to be 1995. At that time, it was the beginning of the Internet Big Bang, and it was also the beginning of the formation of the Internet bubble.
Because of the merger between AOL and Time Warner, Eric still paid a lot of attention to AOL. The most glorious period of AOL was only five years after 1995. This is because the main business of AOL is dial-up Internet service. After 2000, with the bursting of the Internet bubble and the popularization of broadband Internet access, AOL declined rapidly at a rapid rate, and its market value fell within a few years. It has shrunk by more than 90%. Therefore, the reason why Eric attaches so much importance to AOL now is entirely because of AOL's net worth during the five years between 1995 and 2000. After these five years of golden age, AOL would be of little value.
"Steve, you can still talk about the amount of capital injection, but in three years, I will never give in." (To be continued...)