Li Mu carefully studied the development history of Apple and felt that Apple is actually at its weakest point now.
Because invincible products like iPhone and iPad have not yet appeared, Apple has not yet formed a halo of excellence around the world, and its powerful aura of excellence is brought by the iPhone. Once Apple’s halo of excellence is established, If he succeeds, he will be equivalent to cultivating the Nine Yin Manual + Sunflower Book. At that time, he will truly be invincible in the world.
If Li Mu can seize the opportunity of the iPhone, come up with the first true touch-screen smartphone, and destroy the development of IOS, it will be equivalent to defeating Apple.
Without the iPhone and its leading position in the entire smartphone industry, Apple will lose its lead in many fields. After all, the impact of the iPhone on Apple is endless. Without the iPhone, there would be no iPad, and Apple’s IOS would be It is difficult to promote it. If there is no iPhone to promote the IOS system on the mobile side, the sales of products based on the OS system will also be greatly affected. For example, the sales of PC products such as Macbook and iMac will be cut in half at least. In this case, Apple will Even if the market value is exhausted, it is unlikely to exceed US$300 billion. If a high-tech industry company cannot find its pillar products for a long time, it will definitely go downhill quickly.
Although Apple is scary and Steve Jobs is awesome, Li Mu feels that as long as he plans his strategy and controls every detail, he can attack Apple just like he attacked Tengxun and QQ.
Let’s call it a “destructive plan,” Li Mu thought.
But suddenly I thought of Liu Cixin's "The Three-Body Problem". The wall-facer in it can mobilize all the resources in the world, and is even more powerful than Apple. Then you can be Apple's wall-breaker!
This plan to break Apple's success is my own "wall-breaking plan"!
As a result, Li Mu suddenly felt a strong sense of historical mission. This wall-breaking grand strategy could simply affect the entire world, so he must plan carefully and strive for complete victory!
When I thought about the possibility of standing in front of Steve Jobs in the future, I told him with a smile: "Steve Jobs, I am your wall-breaker."
Li Mu felt that rebirth was so wonderful.
If that day comes, I believe Steve Jobs will just look at him in confusion. He will not understand what the words "wall breaker" actually mean. But what is certain is that by that time, At that time, I was like a god in front of Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs was a genius, but he was also paranoid. After careful analysis of this great man’s acting style, Li Mu believed that his advantages and disadvantages were very obvious. The advantages were naturally superior thinking, decisive actions, and unique vision, but his shortcomings were also obvious. Overly arrogant, selfish, somewhat cold-blooded, and unscrupulous in order to achieve his goals.
In fact, throughout Steve Jobs's life, glory and shame coexisted, but the glory was so great that many people selectively ignored the shame. Li Mu once knew many small details about him, such as his refusal to pay child support for his biological daughter. Being executed by a court judgment, for example, deceiving friends and partners, using some shameless means to prevent the development and cooperation of other companies, or for example, Apple's success in the previous stage was largely due to deep plagiarism of Xerox GUI, and even Many people in the industry commented that what Jobs did was no longer plagiarism, but a burglary.
In short, this is not a saint, nor a villain, but an outstanding person who will do whatever it takes to achieve his goals.
Li Mu does not admire Steve Jobs, but he admires the huge impact that the iPhone has brought to the entire world. In fact, Steve Jobs is not entirely right in the field of smartphones. For example, he has been unwilling to provide iPhone SDK, which is a software development kit, to third-party developers. , the fundamental reason is that Jobs does not want to open his products to third-party developers.
If Steve Jobs had insisted on this closed concept, there would have been no APP-Store that was extremely profitable later. IOS would probably have been overtaken by the completely open Android because of its poor openness to third parties;
For another example, when he was alive, he used to be full of disdain for large-screen mobile phones, thinking that people would not need such clumsy large-screen mobile phones, and iPhone4 was the most reasonable mobile phone size; but in fact, the development trajectory of smart phones is based on the size of the mobile phone and the size of the screen. The proportion is constantly increasing and the process of constantly searching for the golden size.
The Samsung Note that became popular all over the world also proved that Jobs's views were paranoid, and it was a paranoid view that could not represent the public at all and could only represent his own. After Jobs's death, the iPhone and other brands of smartphones did not. Following Jobs's paranoid determination, all mobile phone manufacturers, including Apple itself, have upgraded their screens to more than 4 inches. If Jobs was still alive and insisted on 3.5-inch screens, I am afraid that the myth of the iPhone would not continue forever;
Therefore, no one is perfect, and those who have no flaws are not humans but gods. It is precisely because Jobs is not a god in Li Mu's eyes that Li Mu has the confidence to defeat him.
Li Mu seemed to have suddenly found the next big goal in his life, and he was immediately excited. Before the plane took off, Li Mu quickly called Elon Musk. He didn’t know much about Apple’s current situation, but Elon Musk Lon Musk must know better.
It was late at night in the United States. After Elon Musk was woken up by the phone call while sleeping, he immediately wanted to curse, but when he saw that it was Li Mu, he immediately turned into a docile sheep and answered the phone to ask. : "Mr. Li, what are your instructions for calling me so late?"
Li Mu heard his tired voice and realized that it was still early morning in the United States, so he said sheepishly: "Sorry, Elon, I'm in China and forgot about the time difference."
"It doesn't matter." Elon Musk smiled: "You are my boss, I am at your disposal 24/7."
Li Mu smiled and said, "You're not working for me. When did I become your boss?"
Elon Musk smiled and said: "I am helping you work at PayPal. If there is an opportunity in the future, I naturally hope to cooperate with you in more fields."
As he said that, Elon Musk thought of something and said: "Oh, by the way, after we met last time, I went to see a car powered by a laptop battery. It seemed a little interesting. The lithium battery cells of the laptop battery looked like It is small, but the combined energy is really powerful, and the power storage per unit volume is also ideal. I think this thing can really be worth investing some money to try. If it can be mass-produced, it should be an industry with a bright future. .”
Li Mu hummed and said, "You can contact them. If they accept controlling investment, I can invest and give you a share of the shares."
"OK." Elon Musk said: "I will take time to go there again to learn more about it and talk to them to see their financing willingness."
"Okay." Li Mu said, "I'm calling you because I have other matters. Do you know about an American company called Apple?"
"Understood." Elon Musk said smoothly: "I like their products very much. It's a company with geek thinking."
Li Mu asked: "What is the current situation of this company?"
Elon Musk thought for a while and said: "This company was pretty good before, and its PC products were quite valuable. However, it took some detours in the past few years and encountered a bubble burst, so it suffered a bit serious setbacks. But recently, They were just getting started. In 2001, they launched a music player called iPod, and then launched a software called iTunes. This software is very interesting. It helps record companies in the United States and even the world sell digital music. It just matches their This piece of hardware called iPod is very impressive.”
Li Mu frowned. The relationship between iPod+iTunes is like the relationship between his logistics company and his logistics management system. The two are extremely closely combined and can produce a powerful chemical reaction. In addition, the European and American markets have always had strong copyright awareness. This The habit of paying for digital music online has been cultivated for a long time, which has given iPod and iTunes excellent development soil. The iPod itself is a great product. The more it sells, the more iTunes users there will be. At the same time, more music will be sold on iTunes. Apple can make money selling hardware while increasing the installed base of the software, and continue to increase digital music sales in the software market. This is a perfect closed-loop combination.
It seems that before the launch of the iPhone, the combination of iPod and iTunes was Apple's main force, accounting for at least half of Apple's revenue.
So, Li Mu hurriedly asked: "What is Apple's market value now?"
Elon Musk hesitated for a moment and said: "Five to six billion US dollars, it can't be higher."
"So low?!" Li Mu was a little surprised by the market value of five to six billion US dollars. Apple's market value exceeded US$600 billion in 2016. If it was only US$50-6 billion in 2003, then its market value would be over ten years in the future. The market value has soared at least a hundred times!
Elon Musk said: "Just wait a minute, I'll check."
As he spoke, Elon Musk turned on his computer, checked the Nasdaq information that had closed, and said to Li Mu: "The stock code is AAPL. The closing stock price yesterday was US$7.2, and the market value is US$5.355 billion."
Li Mu said in his mind, "Fuck" but didn't say it out loud. Apple's market value today is only US$5.3 billion? The valuation of Makino Technology in its last round of financing was already US$33 billion. After the successful financing, the valuation has been raised to more than US$40 billion. If it IPOs, the market value will be tens of billions of US dollars. Buying ten apples is not a problem.
Li Mu asked: "Is the situation of Apple's shareholders complicated?"
"I'll go, it's too complicated." Elon Musk said: "Even Microsoft has shares in Apple, but they have been selling these shares one after another in recent years. Boss, don't you want to invest in Apple?"
Li Mu smiled slightly and said, "I have this idea, but I haven't figured it out yet."
Elon Musk said: "Boss, Apple's main business is in the hardware market, which is very different from Makino Technology. Moreover, its hardware market has always been very niche, and only iPod sales are better. If you want to invest in or acquire Apple, I don’t think the strategic significance is very great. At least half of its profits now rely on iPod and iTunes, which can easily be replaced by you, the boss.”
Li Mu suddenly thought of his Mango-ME, which is the super cost-effective MP3 player used to beat the price of domestic MP3 players. The overall design style of that machine is close to the iPod-nano in the next few years, and it is better-looking than the current iPod. , the key is that it’s infinitely cheaper than others!
If you take Mango-ME yourself, or take a high-end version of Mango-ME and go to the United States to compete with the iPod, and continue to use this method of smashing the price, Apple's iPod business will definitely suffer a huge blow;
If you develop a software similar to iTunes on the basis of YY, or simply embed a small software with functions like iTunes in YY, and then negotiate cooperation with record companies around the world to help them sell digital albums, With YY's current user base and influence, I'm afraid no record company will refuse. No matter how awesome iTunes is, it can't compare to the current YY. If YY starts this business now, it will definitely beat iTunes to the ground.
When the time comes, if you develop a YTunes yourself and then use it with Mango-ME to sell it in the European and American markets, Apple's overall profitability will definitely suffer a major blow. If the main profitable product is sniped, it will be equivalent to a family's main labor force being suddenly interrupted. If he loses his legs, not only will he himself be affected, but other members of the entire family will be greatly affected!
If we use a "big family" to describe the current Apple, then the traditional PC business and the supporting Macn-OS system are like the frustrated father and mother of this family.
My father has always felt that he is very talented and capable, but he is not recognized by the outside world, so his income is relatively meager. If he only relies on him to support the family, it is indeed a bit stretched; although my mother has always tried her best to assist her father. , but the effect it can play is really weak and cannot bring about essential changes.
At this time, the family's eldest son iPod finally graduated from college and started a business with the family's eldest daughter iTunes. Unexpectedly, the two of them started their business smoothly. With their abilities, they immediately brought a generous income to the family. This income After getting it home, they not only subsidized their parents, but also helped their parents raise their younger siblings.
Since the family has enough income, the family's underage son iPhone was sent to the best school. In the next few years, when he returns from school, he will become the real pillar of the family. His sister iPad also followed in his footsteps and achieved great success.
Gradually, the eldest son who supported the family's income gradually declined due to his ability to keep up with the development of the times. However, due to the great success of the younger son and daughter, the eldest son has completed his phased tasks and then retired, while the younger son While greatly promoting the development of the family with the younger daughter, he also helped his parents gradually realize the value of their lives, and also helped the eldest daughter’s iTunes develop steadily.
Later, the eldest daughter gave birth to her next generation, and her next generation was fully nurtured by the younger son and daughter as soon as it was born. The youngest next generation of this family is APP-Store.
Looking at the development path of this "family", if the eldest son and daughter failed to start their own business, the blow to the family would most likely bring the family to the verge of collapse.
Disintegrating this family is Li Mu’s biggest dream at this moment!
(End of chapter)