Hollywood Hunter

San Francisco Bay Area.

Eaglet headquarters near Stanford University in Palo Alto.

Simon arrived in San Francisco on April 23, and a meeting room in the company's office building was occupied, and people came and went to the meeting every day.

In addition to the senior executives of Igreat, AOL CEO Steve Case and others also flew here. Occasionally, executives from companies such as Cisco, Oracle, SUN, and Microsoft were invited to attend the event. After this discussion, even the Bay Area media noticed the incident.

Simon did not disappoint the media. On the second day of his trip to San Francisco, he released a valuable news that Westeros will invest an additional 50 million US dollars in exchange for another 50% stake in AOL.

After the transaction was concluded, Westeros’ shareholding in AOL increased from 25% to 75%, achieving absolute control.

Speaking of it, this matter has been promoted since Simon came to San Francisco.

In the next few years, Simon's layout in the Internet field may lose the original opportunity if he takes a wrong step. Therefore, he must ensure absolute control of AOL, the most important part of his layout.

In order to achieve this goal, James Leibald made a strong statement when the offer was initiated. If other shareholders of AOL disagree with this capital injection, Westeros will withdraw from AOL and support others. Same type of enterprise.

AOL executives and shareholders such as Steve Case originally disagreed with Westeros' request to suddenly and forcefully expand its shareholding ratio.

However, because Simon did not require a wholly-owned holding, he also reserved 25% of the shares for the original shareholders. In addition, Westeros was determined to weigh the pros and cons, and AOL accepted Westeros' terms.

After completing this capital injection, AOL headquarters will also move from the East Coast to San Francisco.

In a villa in the Woodside Mountains in the western suburbs of Palo Alto, after a week of meetings and discussions, the time came to April 28. On Saturday, Simon still did not return to Los Angeles.

Approaching noon, James Rebald drove to this mountain mansion, Jennifer welcomed her father into the villa in the courtyard.

The father and daughter went upstairs. In a seemingly empty study room on the second floor, Simon was standing in front of a large writing board with his arms in his arms, thinking about something. The white writing board was densely written with various words with a black pen.

James Rebold roughly scanned the whiteboard.

Portal, instant messaging, e-mail, personal homepage, online news, e-commerce, online forums, online games, cloud computing, big data, search engines, firewalls, online payments...

Some vocabulary James could understand at a glance, but some vocabulary made him a little confused.

It was not until many years later, when many of the ideas on this whiteboard were realized one by one, did James Rebald truly understand how valuable the various ideas on the whiteboard are.

Seeing that his daughter didn't mean to interrupt Simon's thinking at all, but looked at the young man in front of him with a little admiration in his eyes, James Rebald sighed inwardly about the outgoing girl, and had to cough lightly.

Simon heard the movement behind him, turned around, smiled and stretched out his hand: "Good noon, Jim."

Shaking hands with Simon, James motioned to the whiteboard and said, "This is the result of your recent discussions with everyone."

"Some are, some are not," Simon said: "For the time being, only a few of them can be implemented."

Simon said, letting his body go, and James took a step forward and looked at the blackboard in front of him more closely.

James Rebald has fully proved his personal ability in recent years. Simon has not concealed most of his things from him. He actively pointed to some key words that he had circled and said: "The next few years, With the cooperation of AOL, Eaglet will focus on the business of portals, e-mails, personal homepages, online news, online forums and online games. Some of these functions have been developed by Eaglet last year. You must know."

James nodded.

The portal website is basically the homepage setting of the graphical interface browser which has been named IE (InternetExplorer) by Eaglet, which acts as a portal guide for Internet surfing.

However, James also knows that the current Internet content is very scarce, and Simon's envisioned portal website needs to produce a lot of content independently.

In comparison, e-mail is a very practical function developed by Yigrete.

Hollywood’s demand for mail delivery is very large. Major studios and talent agency companies have their own special mailing rooms. The first step for talent agency employees is often to practice in the mailing room.

If the e-mail system can be extended to these companies, it can greatly enhance the convenience of these companies.

Daenerys Studios in Malibu, which will be officially opened next month, has specially customized the e-mail system of Eaglet. James found that if this business can be promoted, in the next few years, it can definitely become the revenue focus of Eaglet.

Any company that wants to develop and grow needs solid revenue and profits as support.

Thinking about this, James said again: “In addition to the basic software services of Eaglet, e-mail, online news, and online games can all be charged. Portals, personal homepages and online forums rely on advertising revenue, but this requires It is hopeless in recent years that Internet users have reached a sufficient volume. Moreover, Simon, if you plan to release the authorization of the World Wide Web technology, these applications developed by Eaglet are easy to be imitated. "

"It's good to have competition. If a company lacks competitors, it is destined to fall into a situation where it is not enterprising, and it is not good for its own development." Simon said with ease: "Moreover, we have already taken advantage of it. With so many advantages, you can only blame yourself for losing to your own competitors."

As a professional manager, for the benefit of employers, James Rebold has repeatedly suggested that Simon restrict the authorization of World Wide Web technology or adopt a fee-based model, just like some other commercial networks that are already in operation.

However, Simon understands that Yuanshikong, officially because of the completely free opening of the World Wide Web in 1993, promoted the explosion of the Internet industry. Whether it is Cisco, AOL or Yahoo, they all rose rapidly under this background.

If the authorization of the World Wide Web is restricted or a charging model is adopted, then this technology is likely to be gradually eliminated like other charging networks.

The two chatted for a while, until Jennifer reminded that lunch was ready, and then went downstairs together.

Sitting down in the restaurant, James saw the two tall girls who were bringing lunch in, and he couldn't help but hate the iron and steel, and glanced at his daughter who was sitting quietly next to Simon.

Fight, silly Nizi.

Simon waited for the maid to leave the restaurant, picked up the tableware and asked James, "How's the talk at Cisco?"

According to the original development trajectory, Cisco should be listed in February this year.

However, because of Westeros' intervention, Cisco's IPO was postponed to the present.

After completing the absolute holding of AOL, James' focus immediately shifted to Cisco.

The current Cisco’s shareholding structure is also very simple. The founders Leonard Bosak and Sandy Lerner hold 30% of the shares, Sequoia Capital holds 30%, and Westeros holds 15%. The two Silicon Valley venture capitalists hold 15% and 10%, respectively.

Therefore, this is an equity structure that is very easy to privatize.

In addition to Westeros and the founders, Bossac and his wife, venture capital institutions such as Sequoia Capital, because of their business nature, are more inclined to cash out as soon as possible, rather than holding shares in a company for a long time. Therefore, when Sequoia Capital invested in Apple, Cisco, Oracle and other companies have risen, Sequoia Capital has long been no longer among the major shareholders of these companies.

The nature of these venture capital investments by Sequoia Capital also gave Westeros the opportunity to directly buy more shares in Cisco.

In fact, the reason why the shareholders agree to Westeros' request to delay the IPO is largely out of this consideration.

According to the Federal Securities Law, there are many restrictions on the reduction of major shareholders after a company is listed.

Although the equity can still be sold through private transfer at that time, no one can determine the specific trend of a company after the IPO. Maybe, for some reasons, the market value of the company after listing will be lower than under privatization.

After James concluded negotiations with AOL shareholders, he began contacting Cisco’s shareholders for the acquisition.

Hearing Simon’s question, James let go of his hatred of iron and steel for his daughter, and said: "The three Sequoia Capital companies have agreed to sell half of the equity to us. After this transaction is completed, our shareholding in Cisco will increase. To 42.5%. However, there is a better chance now."

Simon nodded and waited for James to continue, and did not rush to ask about the price.

Regardless of whether it is listed or not, with Simon's current strength, there is no problem even if it is completely bought Cisco. The company's current revenue scale is only about 50 million US dollars. According to some previous estimates, even if it goes public, the market value is only about 300 million US dollars.

For US$300 million, whether it is to mobilize some funds from overseas or continue to adopt a bank loan model, it is easy for Westeros.

Therefore, Simon is not too concerned about how much money is spent, he believes that James will not let himself suffer. Moreover, considering the development prospects of Cisco, it is definitely worthwhile to pay a premium of 100% or more.

James continued: “That’s it. Cisco’s founder, Leonard Bossack, has recently had a worsening relationship with Cisco’s CEO John Murrich. Several venture capitalists are also very dissatisfied with Bossack. He It is very likely to be kicked out of the company by the board of directors in the near future."

When Simon heard James say this, he immediately remembered something.

In memory, because of the conflicts between the founders Leonard Bossac and Sandy Lerner and Cisco’s shareholders and management in their ideas, the two left Cisco in 1990, and then they sold out. The majority of holdings.

James’ subsequent words proved this point: “I’ve been in contact with the Bossacs and they probably anticipated that it’s inevitable to leave the company, so they are considering selling their shares.”

Simon stopped eating and said, "All?"

James shook his head and said: "Probably, it will only be half. If we were not interested in this company and other private equity shots, Sequoia Capital would definitely be happy to cash out in advance. Now, because of Westeros. Intervention, other shareholders have more expectations of Cisco. Therefore, they will not completely let go. Of course, on the other hand, we want to get control of this company without much hindrance."

Simon knew immediately.

Westeros Company has become a golden sign because of the wealth miracle that Simon personally rose rapidly in just a few years. Now, most of the companies involved in Westeros Company have gained many benefits from this halo.

Therefore, neither Cisco nor AOL shareholders, out of interest, will not insist on the control of these two companies, because they believe that giving control to Simon should be able to get more benefits. Similarly, in order to obtain more benefits in the future, they will naturally not completely let go of their holdings of company equity.

This phenomenon has actually started since Simon's acquisition of Gucci.

In this world, after all, not many people are fools.

Even if Bill Gates and Paul Allen agreed to transfer 10% of the shares in Westeros before, and Intel and other companies have not rebounded much from Westeros’ continued increase in their own company stocks, basically This is the reason.

Simon actually never thought about owning these companies completely.

For companies such as Microsoft and Intel, Simon’s holdings are mainly for investment purposes. He is very aware of the future development potential of these companies, but he also knows that he does not have the experience and ability to manage these companies and does not intend to compete for the control of these companies. right. In order to express this attitude, Simon had also directly delegated the voting rights of his holdings to Bill Gates after completing the increase in Microsoft's holdings.

However, for Cisco, AOL and Igreat, Simon intends to be in full control.

The three companies, Cisco is a network equipment provider, AOL is a network service provider, and Eaglet is a network content provider. This actually represents a complete Internet industry chain.

If it is 10 years later that Simon wants to do this, he will definitely face strong anti-monopoly pressure. The federal government will never allow him to control these three industry giants that can influence the Internet industry structure. He probably did not have enough capital at that time. Control these three companies.

Now, similar resistance does not exist.

The Internet industry is in the ascendant. Some people can see the prospects for the development of this new technology field, but no one is sure how large it will be.

Simon is now starting to lay out. When the Internet industry reaches a peak at the end of the century, his control of the three companies will become an established fact.

Moreover, although it is now necessary to achieve absolute control, Simon does not intend to be like Bill Gates and Paul Allen, who has been firmly controlling most of the shares of these three companies, and all three companies are going to conduct IPOs.

At that time, even if you encounter antitrust investigations again, as long as you make arrangements in advance and draw in enough allies, the three companies should be under much less pressure than Microsoft.