Reborn America, this is my time

Chapter 173 See off guests!

As the saying goes, the authorities are confused by the bystanders.

In Ethan's previous life, there were countless street stall literature that described the energy of the Rockefeller family very well, saying that they are the real richest man in the world and the real masters of America, regardless of whether it is the donkey and elephant parties or other families, You can only breathe with their approval... Although this kind of remarks seem silly at first glance, but when Ethan comes to this world and finds that the Rockefellers really dare to kill people in the street, he will not have to bear the burden of wantonly trampling on the law. The behavior of any consequences still brought a huge shock to the young mind of a child in his 20s who has not experienced higher education.Therefore, when Wenlock's people pretended to beep and took out a hot gold business card, he would be nervous.

But following Evelyn's disturbance, Ethan immediately realized that Rockefeller might have indeed done strong buying and selling in the past, but this time, Wenlock's people were definitely bluffing.

If Rockefeller really wanted to rob, he would have broken the rules of this land.When the scientists who supported the continuous advancement of America discovered that half of the people in their own scientific and technological circles could not keep the achievements of their own people, then they still studied a der?Forget it!Escape is better!It’s okay to pass a Liao if it’s really impossible!Because no matter how hard they try, they will not be able to drink a mouthful of soup in the end!

If Rockefeller dared to carry out real strong buying and selling against them, it would not be overturning the table, but smashing everyone's pot. It is impossible for other big capitals to let Rockefeller do this. Therefore, when Fred T. When the name Man can stabilize the pot representing interests, the biggest gap in this war has actually been smoothed out by the principal, and the rest——

"Damn it!"

Ethan hammered his desk and ran to Cupertino, staring at Steve Jobs for the report.

And under Ethan's spur, Steve Jobs, who was still making holiday arrangements, took a big stick to make the company's finances work overtime, and rushed out Apple's financial report in [-]. A simple sweep, it was terrible The content of the report made Ethan frowned.

What Ethan first discovered was that there was a huge problem with Apple's production process.

In the beginning, when the sales volume of the first generation of Apple was not high, Apple computers were made by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs himself. This approach was no problem at the time.

With the increase in market demand, that is, after the launch of "Pac-Man" last year, when Ethan helped promote a wave, some insiders' interest in Apple computers surged, which also made the original local workshop production unable to keep up. Strong feedback from the market, so Steve Jobs hired people to make and assemble.

However, Steve Jobs did not standardize the management of this part of the manpower. Apple did not open its own factory, but let them directly do the work of producing computers in the name of company employees, and forcibly passed the first time. Product growth period.If demand for Apple computers stabilizes after that, then that's fine, but the problem is...

The market demand for Apple computers has been rising in a straight line.

After they launched the second generation of Apple, the color display and games that can be played with simple programming made the market's interest in them increase again, and with the increase in market demand, Steve Jobs also made Apple's production For their own reform, they use external factories for OEM while retaining the existing production staff. Profit margins are not the same.

The profit margin of the Destiny game can be maintained at more than [-] points, but it is God's blessing that Apple Computer can have [-] points. With such a large difference in profit margins, they retain the company's production personnel instead of directly distributing production. All outsourcing is actually changing the direction of raising the company's production costs, and the products produced by the outside factories are also inconsistent with their internal handmade products. Although they have not encountered any problems so far, in the future, it is Something is bound to happen.

"It's a thunder."

Ethan put aside the chaotic production ledger inside Apple.

"Regardless of whether we have external financing or not, this must be rectified."

"Oh——" Xiao Qiao sat aside like a primary school student.

Ethan's gloomy expression made him dare not breathe.

After inspecting production, the second problem Ethan found was finances.

Because Apple's cash turnover ratio is really bad.

At present, there are three types of Apple's capital expenditures, one is the expenditure on product advertising, the other is the expenditure on employee wages, and the other is the expenditure on production of products. The first two types of these three types are no problem, but The last category, that is, capital expenditure on production costs is a big problem.

Apple's current external production model is to place an order with the foundry first, and then pay them a corresponding deposit based on the quantity of the product, and the remaining payment will be paid directly after the factory delivers the goods.

There seems to be no problem with this method, and it is completely a matter of money and goods in business.

But if it matches the speed of their payment, then the problem will be serious.

Apple’s current external sales method is very simple. They have cooperated with some local stores in California and directly put their products on the shelves of the other party. Because single billing is very troublesome, they collect the bill every other month. money.

The postal transactions through the US Postal Service are even more troublesome. They ship directly after receiving the buyer's payment receipt. Although this method cannot be corrupted by a third party, the specific collection time is Negotiated based on FedEx delivery time.

This kind of process is not a problem for small businesses, but for such a large company with hundreds of millions of dollars, it is quite slow to pay back, and the affected capital turnover rate is also very low.

and so--

"This link must be optimized." Ethan made a decision.

And his words made the two Steves around him a little bit incomprehensible.

"Ethan, I don't think I understand what you mean. There should be no problem with our process, because all companies in the market seem to do this."

Jobs said: "We pay the factory, they help us produce products, and then we sell the products they deliver, and get the money back from customers. This should be the whole process of our sales. I don't know what the problem you are talking about is. where."

"Right, Stephen?"

He turned his attention to Woz.

Woz also nodded with a confused look on his face, and cast a probing look at Ethan.

Such a question stunned Ethan for a moment, then shook his head helplessly, and said, "The speed and slowness of capital turnover have a great impact on the company's development and ability to resist risks."

"Assuming that one company's funds can be turned over twice a year, and another company's funds can only be turned over once a year, then even if the former's profit rate is only half that of the latter's, with the same initial capital, their profit is also the same. identical."

"And the advantages brought by this high turnover can be reflected in all aspects, such as price reduction, the room for price reduction under high turnover will be larger than that under low turnover, they can occupy the market through cost performance, or in other words, the same profit rate, they can create more profits."

"It doesn't matter if you don't understand these things, these matters can be handled by others."

Ethan didn't expect Joe and Woz to figure it out, because even after the former returned to Apple, he wasn't in charge of these things. According to Ethan's knowledge, Apple's production line, supply chain, sales channels, etc. All of the content was talked about by Tim Cook himself. What Jobs did was to show the ideas in his mind to the world. As for how to bring them to the world?That's a subordinate's business.Not to mention Woz, he was a technical genius, simple as that.

Following Ethan's statement, the two who didn't understand it were fine, but when Ethan opened Apple's salary and salary account, the distribution method on the account made his eyes dark...

"Mr. Jones, I think these financial statements can prove that your company has a lot of appalling operating problems, right?" When Wenlock's people received a call from Steve Jobs again, they were invited to Cupertino to discuss When it comes to investing in Apple...

They laughed when they saw Apple's annual report.

The guy at the head was about sixty years old, and after taking off the gold-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose, he raised a confident look on his wrinkled face, "If we say before this, we just doubt whether you have the ability to manage a family." The ability of the company, now, we have been able to confirm that if you continue to operate in this way, Apple will definitely fall into the abyss."

"I think that's why you invited us over, right?"

"You may already know that your abilities are still lacking?"

The old man looked at the three people across the conference table with a smile, and asked, "So you have accepted our offer now? 1000 million 20.00%? At the same time, you have the right to manage the company?"

The continuous inquiries caused the people on Wenlock's side to stop their actions one after another.

Those who can work for Rockefeller are industry elites.

As soon as they saw the Apple statement, they already knew that the deal was a close call.

As for the remaining [-]% ​​failure?
It's just the unwillingness, reluctance and dying struggle of young people.

"You think our report is ugly?" Ethan, who was sitting between Xiao Qiao and Woz, asked with a smile.

"Yes." Wenlock's representative, the old man, nodded decisively.

"Where is it ugly?" Ethan continued to ask.

"Uh—everywhere is ugly." The old man said bluntly.

"Specifically?" Ethan asked.

"..." This behavior of breaking the casserole and asking the end made the old man frowned, but within two seconds, he laughed, "Okay, Mr. Jones, I think I understand what you mean."

"You want to have normal negotiations between investors, right?"

"Yes, I can satisfy you."

As he spoke, he copied the report in front of him and said, "There are three problems in your company that are visible to the naked eye, namely in the three aspects of production, capital flow, and wages..."

The old man talked incessantly.

And what he said was exactly the same as the problem Ethan found when he looked at the report before.

Facing his criticism and criticism, Ethan, who was sitting opposite him, did not panic at all:
"We have discovered and are working on solving production problems. Currently, there is a functional conflict between the employees in the company and the work of outsourced projects. Therefore, we plan to start from two aspects in the future. First, we will It is to formally cut down the production department in the company and reduce the production expenses in the company. Second, it is to properly arrange the original production employees. If they are qualified for other positions in our company, we will transfer them. If they can't, then we will simply lay off staff to reduce the company's operating costs..."

"In terms of the flow of funds you mentioned, we have actually discovered that we have not dealt with it, not because it cannot be dealt with, but because we need to use the current status quo to maintain operational stability. Our employment costs in America are due to social factors. And soaring in a straight line, if we wantonly default on the payment of the manufacturer, it is likely to cause the manufacturer to go bankrupt. At that time, we will have to find a new producer, and the speed of the return of funds is controlled by the US Postal Service. I think even your boss, Mr. Lawrence Rockefeller, can't change this situation for the time being, right..."

"As for the wages and salaries you mentioned... Yes, I admit, this is a very big problem, but the reason for this problem is to deal with IRS inspections..."

The problem of Apple’s wages and salaries that Ethan found is exactly the same as his own products in the Destiny game. In order to cope with the random inspection by the IRS and not give them any clues to tax evasion, so in the development cost of the Destiny game, Ethan Both Sen and Evelyn will increase their own income and increase product research and development funds by taking a cut of product sales.The same is true for Apple. Woz and Jobs will take part of the sales revenue of Apple computers.

From a legal point of view, there is no problem with this approach. If the founders’ own interests cannot be guaranteed, then they still have to start a shitty company!

The real problem is that Apple's current profit margin is not as high as that of the Destiny game. No matter how much Ethan and Evelyn draw, the net profit of the product will not be lower than [-], but when Jobs and Woz start to draw , even if they smoked very little, they still dragged Apple Computer's net profit very ugly.

And this kind of problem...in fact, it can be solved.For example, the problem of offsetting the founder's low income during the company's founding by means of stock option awards.

For example, a company has 500 million registered shares, all shareholders have 250 million shares, and the remaining 250 million shares are actually diluting all shareholders' equity and at the same time are low-wage founders, founders, etc. Employees, important employees, and positions similar to CEO provide a certain salary guarantee, because there are few industries in the world that are full of huge profits like video games. Salary is inevitable.

Of course, this can also improve the cohesion of employees.

After Ethan gave his own solution according to the problem, all the Wenlock delegation sitting opposite laughed, and the old man at the head put his hands down and said: "Mr. Jones, I appreciate your efforts. I admit that the method you just mentioned can indeed solve many problems."

"But... this does not mean that your company's operations are perfect."

"I can understand that you want to keep the right to appoint and remove the CEO and CFO, but we really don't believe that you can run a company well, and the three problems I just mentioned are just the most superficial problems. Apple Computer still has the problem of market infringement and your single purchase of the main production materials..."

The old man waved at the people around him.

In a short while, the two documents were distributed to the three of them.

When the three saw the content on the document, the dazzling data made them frown instinctively.The old man put his elbows on the table, leaned forward, and said with a smile: "Your Apple company's market infringement has appeared in the field of video games. The video game programming cards you distribute have actually infringed on the intellectual property rights of other companies. If nothing else, you will definitely face class action lawsuits in the future."

"At the same time, your company's dependence on MOS 6502 has reached a level of madness that ordinary people can't imagine. If MOS company cuts off the supply of chips to you, then you will be finished."

"No, are these two problems?" Steve Jobs was shocked.

Although he did not understand the specific content of the company's issues that Ethan and Wenlock's people talked about, but now, he really has something to say.

"Why is the video game programming card infringing?"

"We don't sell that kind of cards! We don't sell games outside either!"

"All we do is teach ordinary people how to program!"

"Also, regarding the issue of MOS 6502 you mentioned, Ethan is a shareholder of that company! Unless the other person is gone! Otherwise, it is impossible for us to encounter the problem of cutting off the supply!"

The raised voice reflects Xiao Qiao's anxiety.

And his rebuttal made Wenlock's people shake their heads.

The old man at the head spread his hands and said, "Look, this is why we asked for the right to manage the company. You don't even understand these things, how can you manage a company well?"

"If it is a mature CEO, they may use your game programming card method when promoting computers, but they will definitely not spread everything in front of the world like you."

"They will sell computers normally, and then promote programming cards secretly. For example, they communicate with offline stores and let the boss tell the users who come to buy computers the highlights of your machine through word of mouth. This is an opportunity to send out the programming card."

"After the programming cards have been delivered to a certain scale, invite the media to report on this matter, and spread the news that your computers can be used for game programming and that there are already samples on the market."

"In this way, the effect may be slow, but at the same time you can avoid legal troubles."

"Because on the bright side, game sharing on computers is a spontaneous behavior of the public and has nothing to do with you. In this way, when the infringed party wants to sue you, it will be confused by the messy information in terms of evidence collection alone. drag, and sometimes they can’t sue because of insufficient evidence. Even if they really sued successfully, you can still claim that it’s a false accusation, because you never told the public publicly that our machines can play existing games .”

'...' This action stunned Steve Jobs.

Wenlock's old man continued: "Your crazy dependence on MOS 6502 has a solution for a mature CEO."

"I'm not asking you to replace the chip, but I'm asking you to use existing resources to force MOS to open up the chip license to the outside world, so that other companies can obtain 6502 production agents."

"Doing this allows you to source the same chips from different companies."

"Once a company has a problem, such as a factory burning down and workers going on strike, it doesn't matter, because the supply capacity of other companies still exists."

"This is actually the risk control in industrial production."

"Maybe for others, this thing is difficult to do, but for you, it should be very simple. Just like what you just said, Mr. Jobs, the 6502 chip company has shares of Mr. Jones. You can It's easy for them to license chip production to others."

"But even if you could do all this, you didn't do it!"

"When this fact is before us..."

"What do you make us believe that you can run a good company?"

"Ok?"

The old man spoke with his nose, and looked at the three of them seriously.

Under his glance, Jobs opened his mouth and said nothing, but Woz...

The little fat man was sleepwalking from beginning to end.

Such a situation made the old man smile and purse his lips.

And when he refocused his gaze on Ethan, the others in Wenlock also spoke.

"Mr. Jones, we believe that your ability in game production is unparalleled. But in terms of company management, we do feel that some professional advice is needed here."

"Mr. Jones, we don't understand why you are full of resistance to our proposal. Isn't our goal now the same? We are all for the good of this company."

"Mr. Jones, please believe in our expertise? You are serious about making products, and we will find someone to help you sell them. If you don't trust us, don't you trust Rockefeller?"

The support from colleagues made the old man headed by Wenlock laugh even more.

He leaned back and said, "Mr. Jones, accept it."

"Our intervention can make you more money."

"According to this rhythm, you will be able to go public within two years."

"Maybe you don't care, but these two people beside you..."

"The guarantee is also a billionaire."

"I could swear on our boss' last name, Rockefeller, on that."

The serious words made Jobs' eyelids twitch twice.

Even Woz turned his head and cast a probing look at Ethan.

When this aboveboard estrangement appeared, Ethan, who was sitting opposite the old man, chuckled lightly.

He tilted his head and glanced at the two Steves, and with just one sweep, he could capture the desire in his heart.

'A young man is a young man—'

'Discouraged ang--'

He sighed, tapped his index finger on the table, and with the clicking sound, a rhetorical question also appeared.

"May I ask, what is Mr. Lawrence Rockefeller's annual salary?"

'? 'Wenlock's people don't know why.

The leading old man said: "Mr. Jones, I don't understand what you mean."

"Oh—what I mean is very simple—" Ethan smiled and said, "I want to say, if I were your boss, I would fire you all."

'! 'The provocative words made Wenlock's people stern.

"Mr. Jones, you—"

"Listen to me, Okay?" Ethan interrupted with a wave of his hand: "Do you think the game card promotion plan proposed by Steve is an infringement? Will it lead to a class action lawsuit?"

"Oh—let me put it this way—"

"Based on the vision of you people, you can only see these things!"

"There is a saying that I don't know if you have heard, the demand of the society is more important to the progress of science and technology than ten universities! The demand of the society is the first driving force for production!"

"Why was the computer born?"

"I think Stephen can give a good answer to this question."

Ethan turned his attention to the little fat man.

Not knowing why he suddenly became the focus, the little fat man was stunned for a moment, and then he said: "During WW2, the military's ballistic calculations have exceeded the limit of manual calculations. In fluid mechanics, manual slide rules are simply not enough. The requirement for ballistic calculations, so the computer came along."

"Yeah!" Ethan took the topic and said, "This is why computers were born!"

"I believe that the information you have obtained can prove that Stephen is not lying."

"Because his dad studies missiles."

After a pause, Ethan said: "For a long time in the past, computers were used by the military for scientific calculations, but there are not so many problems in this world that need to be calculated, so In spare time, video games were born."

"Bored scientists give computers entertainment."

"But even so, computers still haven't entered people's homes."

"There are reasons for the high cost, and there are also reasons why the public can't use it."

"But with the advent of the CPU, everything changed, because Altair came."

"Altair brought microcomputers into the public eye, but their sales have always been in a tepid state, and there has never been a sharp increase in sales."

"Do you know why?"

"the reason is simple!"

"That's because people don't know what they can do with a computer when they go back home."

"And this question..."

"Solved by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak."

"When they took the game programming card and announced it! Ordinary people can also make games on the computer and taste the game! The public's demand for computers appeared!"

"This is where the two of them are greatest!"

"They blazed a path between society's needs and computers!"

"They turned a high-tech machine for engineering into a consumer product!"

"That's what they're really changing for the industry!"

"Although so far, people's demand for computers is still very limited, but the first step taken by the two of them is the real value of this god's apple!"

"It's also the real reason why people are crazy about it!"

"Their actions will be remembered by the world!"

"And now—"

"You say—"

"Will their actions lead to a class action lawsuit for the company?"

"Wow! If you can only see this, then I advise you not to invest!"

"Because you're wasting the Rockefellers' money!"

"It's an embarrassment to the identity of an investor!"

"Crack!" Ethan pressed his hands on the table.

He looked straight at Wenlock's representative.

The old man stared at by him frowned, and the two Steves beside him...

"Ethan..." Little Qiao muttered to himself, his eyes shining.

"Oh oh oh..." The little fat man of Woz's mouth grew wide and he couldn't speak.

Following Ethan's roar, the huge conference room fell into silence.

After a while, Ethan, who was staring at the old man, took a deep breath and said, "Do you want to invest?"

"can!"

"But you have to show some sincerity!"

"We can solve all the problems you raise!"

"I think it's a testament to our ability to manage the company."

"So, please go back and tell Mr. Lawrence Rockefeller."

"Come up with a price that matches your Rockefeller net worth!"

"If you can't get it out, then it doesn't matter..."

"I can tell you what we want!"

After finishing speaking, Ethan patted a stack of documents in front of them.

Then yelled, "Ballmer!"

Steve Ballmer, who was guarding the door, got in.

Then, he saw his boss wave his hand and said, "Send off!"

(End of this chapter)