The Industrial Giant Reborn

Chapter 172 Investing in Apple
"It will definitely take a long time to achieve this. In fact, your approach is correct. It must be commercialized first. If there is no commercial value, how can you do it for civilian use, unless you only want it to be used for entertainment purposes. , that can avoid the competition of commercial computers." Chen Zhiwen continued.

"No, a personal computer has many uses, and it must not be turned into a gaming device." Jobs shook his head quickly and said.

"The idea is right, so we need to continue to work hard." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said, although even in later generations, the main function of mobile phones and computers is entertainment, but it is absolutely impossible to only entertain. It can only be brave for a while.

Jobs brightened his eyes and asked, "Mr. Chen, I don't know, are you willing to invest in my company?"

"Investment is not a problem, the problem is that you need to make a suitable product, which can truly be regarded as a personal computer product." Chen Zhiwen said.

Jobs asked: "What does Mr. Chen mean, let us make a suitable product, and you reinvest?"

"That's not true. It's okay to invest today, but you have to form a company. The Apple name you just mentioned is fine. Then you need a comprehensive development plan, R&D plan, goals, etc., and a modern company's development route. Then there is recruiting, Woz is considered a part-time job, and you need to go out to find business, so the time is too slow." Chen Zhiwen said calmly.

Since they decided not to grab Apple's slogan of "the first company to propose a personal computer", they naturally chose to invest, and since they have invested, they naturally need to help them, at least in the initial stage to develop faster, so theoretically speaking , you can go to market earlier, and you can get rewards earlier.

"Okay, then I will register the company tomorrow, no, this afternoon." Jobs smiled happily.

"Then have you thought about how much money you need?" Chen Zhiwen continued to ask.

"At least $50." Jobs thought for a while and said, "No matter what type of computer, it must rely on mass production to reduce costs. This is the same as the automotive industry, and this requires a lot of investment. R&D of new computers and publicity costs."

"It's about the same. I guess 50 US dollars may not be enough, but let's invest so much first." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said. In fact, Jobs didn't know much about computers. Compared with Woz, Bill Gates and others, he More like the founder of Oracle, Larry Ellison, this kind of person is not strong in technology, but has a keen sense of the market, and then has a very good talent to promote this project.

"Are you sure about your own internal shareholding ratio?" Chen Zhiwen continued to ask.

Jobs replied: "We haven't registered the company yet, because we wanted to wait until we found a stable customer before registering the company, but we have already thought about the share ratio. Woz and I are 50% each. If Mr. Chen In terms of investment, the three of us each get 33.3%, how about it?"

"The same ratio for the three people?" Chen Zhiwen smiled inwardly, but still said: "Okay, after you register the company, I will deposit the funds into the account. In addition, you need to find a suitable manager to manage the company. "

Woz is technical, and Jobs is sensitive to the market and good at developing the market. For a start-up company, the only thing that is lacking is an excellent management talent. If this person is in place, the framework of the entire company can be built. In the early stages of development, this may not be important, but as long as it reaches a certain scale, it is necessary.

"Okay, let's discuss it together at that time." Jobs said very excitedly. With the investment of hundreds of thousands of dollars, his business plan can finally develop normally.

Although the first-generation Apple computer is of great historical significance, its use value is not very high. Chen Zhiwen is naturally not interested in it, and said: "If you develop a suitable new computer in the future, I will ask Costco to buy it in bulk. , it's good for you and me."

Costco definitely needs to go electronic gradually. Although the current electronic technology is relatively low-level, it is much better than manual data recording. As long as the electronic management system can further reduce logistics costs, storage costs, and labor costs, it will be It is an extremely effective new development method, and Costco can also expand faster by relying on high-quality cash flow.

"That's really great." Jobs said with a smile, and he won another future major customer, which was a stroke of magic for Apple.

After watching in the study for a while, Chen Zhiwen and Woz came to the balcony on the second floor. The sun is not bad today. Although it is a bit cold, it is bearable.

"Eric, it doesn't seem right for me to work two jobs at the same time?" Woz said a little embarrassedly.

"It's nothing, Midea, you know it's not very busy, and there are no new games to be developed. Costco's supermarket management system development plan, you are just guiding, and the processing of the database is not yours. Its strength is hardware development. You can arrange your time reasonably. If Apple needs you, you can come here. Besides, I am also a shareholder of Apple. I can also benefit from the Apple computer you made. "Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.

For the computer age, his prophet is very useful, but it is the computer after 85 years, not the ancient computer of today, he does not know any problems, technology and market changes, etc., besides, this era itself It is also the beginning of many giants competing for the personal computer market, and getting caught will only cause headaches.

Instead of this, it is better to use the current own capital to properly purchase the shares of some famous brands. For example, the current Apple can get hundreds of millions of dollars in return in a few years, and when Apple is in crisis, Dell should also start Start a business.

And the computer itself is only a small part of the computer industry chain. Desktop control systems, various office software, entertainment software, and signal equipment were the bigger players in the 80s. It is actually very simple to profit from them. Just find a way to buy shares, or wait for them to go public and then buy stocks in the secondary market.

The premise of all this is that the golden finger of the prophet is still useful. The beginning of the entire computer industry chain is when Apple first proposed the concept of personal computers. Therefore, no matter what, Chen Zhiwen will not compete for this reputation, because once he gets it, history will change. Yes, completely changed.

Let’s not talk about various side effects, nor whether we can compete against giants such as HP and IBM in the future. The likely outcome is that new companies such as Weiruan, Cisco, and Dell will never appear again, and this loss will be too great. Yes, most of the technology gold fingers in the 80s failed.

It is also for this reason that Chen Zhiwen knew that the graphical interface system was the best reason for the popularization of personal computers, but he did not tell Jobs and others that what he needed was for history to develop as far as possible according to the original route, and he himself made profits through investment in the process. Give it a push.

Woz nodded and said, "That's fine too."

"I said a long time ago that you will become a billionaire, maybe a billionaire soon." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.

He is not a stingy person, the Costco team, he distributes the shares once a year, which is basically about 2%, which is what they deserve. For Woz, it is actually the same, giving shares is actually not a problem, But in his plan, he just needs Woz to start a business for Apple. In this way, Chen Zhiwen can also benefit from it, and Woz can also get hundreds of millions of dollars in return, which is what a capable person deserves. .

And if Chen Zhiwen is asked to give him so much money, it is really impossible. Even if Midea monopolizes the arcade market in the next few years, it can earn hundreds of millions of dollars at most. Good direction, it would be best to let the market distribute benefits to its employees for itself.Even the employees in Hong Kong, Chen Zhiwen, encouraged and supported them to buy houses by means of interest-free loans, and the market gave him bonuses, which is still very good.

"Apple's future is so good?" Woz asked.

"The future of Apple is not certain, but personal computers must be. Whether you can catch it depends on your ability." Chen Zhiwen said with a light smile.

For the trillion-dollar market, it is impossible to say that there is no interest, but I need to stabilize my prophetic advantage and not change the history of recent years too much, and wait until the computer market is in Apple, IBM, HP and other new companies. After scrolling into the interface he is familiar with, Midea will naturally enter. Not to mention other things, just investing in Apple now, and the hundreds of millions of dollars in return in a few years are enough for him to develop new technologies and promote them on a large scale .

Moreover, in the terminal retail market, the current Costco and Wal-Mart are still a little weak, but in a few years, it will be completely different.

"Jobs is very capable, and I think he will succeed." Woz nodded.

"He is indeed capable, but you are not bad either. One of our three parties provides funds, one provides technology, and the other provides the market. In addition, this is a new market that has not yet appeared. It is indeed not difficult to think about it." Chen Zhiwen smiled. Said: "Christmas is coming soon. After a few years, your main job is to make Apple's new computer first. For the supermarket management system, you just need to help recruit suitable talents. They will not set up other interviewees." Ability."

"Supermarket management system, will it be considered Costco or Midea?" Woz continued to ask.

"It's considered beautiful. The technology of this system is actually not difficult. The main thing is to continuously optimize it according to the actual situation. It takes a long time, so now I use Costco to gain relevant experience. When it matures, Midea can use these experiences to develop It is also a very good market to create a management system suitable for global supermarkets, but the development time will be in years, so there is no rush." ​​Chen Zhiwen said.

The enterprise management system, which is the most famous ERP in later generations, is Oracle's top brand software. A piece of software costs millions of dollars, but it works very well for various enterprises, but the research and development time is too long and consumes a lot of resources. In an era when various technologies have not yet met the requirements in Chen Zhiwen's mind, it is a good choice for Midea to spend a little energy on this kind of data, especially by borrowing Costco's platform, which not only costs money, but also saves Costco Cost, kill two birds with one stone.

"Understood, then I have to recruit enough talents." Woz nodded and said. Although he doesn't understand management and marketing, he understands technology. Maybe he is not very proficient in databases, but how many people are needed? , he still knows, after all, he has worked in HP for several years.

"You don't need to be frugal in recruiting people. You can recruit as many people as you need. It's the same with Apple. Only people can develop new computers as soon as possible." Chen Zhiwen said.

(End of this chapter)