Hollywood Hunter

Eaglet’s 1992 financial report was so eye-catching, even if many people wanted to keep a low profile, they failed to do so.

The San Francisco Chronicle, a subsidiary of Hearst Group, published an article on the front page of the newspaper on the third day of the annual financial report with the headline "Internet Industry Explosion, Igreat Annual Growth Rate 400%".

It is not uncommon for a company with revenues of only a few million or even tens of millions of dollars to achieve an annual growth rate of 400%.

However, for a company with a revenue of 100 million dollars, its annual revenue jumped from 491 million US dollars to 1.937 billion US dollars, and it did not go through mergers, but the natural growth of the company itself, which is comparable in the history of global business. Called a miracle.

You know, according to Fortune magazine's 1992 top 500 American companies, the threshold for revenue is only 528 million US dollars.

Eaglet’s 1992 revenue of 1.937 billion US dollars, if it declares to participate in the "Fortune" magazine auction of the top 500 US companies, it is enough to rush to the position of 219. Even if the entry threshold reached US$2.329 billion in the world's top 500 list in 1992, Eaglet is very close.

Whether it is the top 500 domestic companies or the world's top 500, it is not so easy to enter.

Take the top 500 companies in the United States as an example. All of these companies had an average age of 42 on the list in 1992, while Eaglet was established in just four years.

Moreover, 4 years ago, most of the public did not even have any idea about the Internet industry. In other words, Eaglet Corporation is equivalent to creating a brand new industrial field.

This is basically true.

With the release of the front page article of the "San Francisco Chronicle", the media from all sides have been amazed, questioned, and attacked.

In recent years, Eaglet's operations through several outstanding news events have clearly made traditional paper media platforms feel threatened.

Although the advertising revenue from portals in Eaglet’s financial report only accounts for about 10% of the total revenue, traditional media is still facing a major enemy. The East Coast’s influential "Boston Globe" does not The covert attack on Eaglet’s financial report is grandstanding and a misleading of capital and the public. Therefore, the federal authorities are even required to investigate this article with ulterior motives.

No matter how fierce the outside question and attack were, with the publication of the article, the capital market quickly responded to the US technology stocks in the most direct way.

Eaglet is not a public company, but Cisco and AOL are.

Moreover, a complete Internet industry chain created by the three companies can be seen by anyone with a discerning eye.

As a result, the two companies that had just broken through the US$20 billion market value in early February, following the release of the same substantial increase in their financial reports and the disclosure of Eaglet’s explosive annual financial report data, the market value directly rushed to US$30 billion. .

One after another disturbed, the time entered March 1993.

Moreover, for the Internet industry, this is destined to be an extraordinary March.

The aftermath of Eaglet’s annual financial report data leak has not subsided. On March 2, Bill Clinton, who took office as president less than two months ago, officially launched a visit to Silicon Valley during his busy schedule, a one-day trip. In, Bill Clinton visited the headquarters of HP, Intel, Cisco, AOL and Eaglet, and delivered a speech about the "Information Superhighway Project" in the Stanford University campus auditorium that afternoon.

Bill Clinton’s visit to Silicon Valley, three of the five companies on the agenda belong to the Westeros system. Even if a young person did not appear during the entire visit, this arrangement is enough to show the dimension. There is an obvious close connection between the Strow system and the new president.

Therefore, on the second day after this visit, the technology stock sector was on the rise again, and Cisco's market value officially exceeded the 30 billion U.S. dollar mark. At the close of the day, the market value was fixed at 31.2 billion U.S. dollars.

This is just the beginning.

Then, in the second week of March, on March 8, the U.S. Senate formally voted to pass the "Information Superhighway Project" bill that has been promoted since last year.

When the bill was officially announced, the eyes of the whole world instantly focused on it.

The 20-year cross-century bill with a total investment of US$400 billion is planned to build a comprehensive information network consisting of communication networks, computers, databases, and daily electronic products to provide the public with a large amount of information.

The specific content of the bill includes'promoting information industry investment','increasing infrastructure construction','guaranteeing information security and network reliability','relaxing spectrum regulation', and'strengthening intellectual property protection'. In general, It is to promote the development of the information industry with the greatest power available to the entire United States.

In the past, the "Information Superhighway Project" was launched in 1993. At that time, Netscape browser was just born, AOL had not yet risen, and Yahoo was even missing. Although the Clinton administration did its best to promote the bill, it was still difficult. Let the public realize the importance of this bill.

This time, under the advance promotion of the Westeros system, AOL, Cisco, and Igreat have all risen in advance. Both the capital and the public have a very intuitive understanding of the coming of the information age to the entire society. influences.

Therefore, when the "Information Superhighway Plan" was officially released, the US technology stocks did not experience the brewing from 1993 to 1995, but directly began to take off.

AOL also broke the $30 billion mark on March 9, one week after Cisco's market value broke through $30 billion.

At the close of March 9, the market value of Cisco, which is an almost monopolist’s basic network equipment market, reached US$35.1 billion, and the market value of AOL reached US$30.9 billion.

Other important technology stock companies, such as Microsoft, Intel, Apple, SUN, etc., have also seen their stock prices rise rapidly these days.

This is crucial to the Internet industry in March, and of course it will not end with the publication of a bill that may take long-term effects.

On March 11, Microsoft held a press conference in Seattle and launched a new Windows 3.2 system.

In the past, the Windows 3.2 system was released in 1994, and compared to the Windows 3.1 system, the improvement was not much, mainly because of the increase of multi-language support including Chinese.

This time, the Windows 3.2 system, although released one year in advance, is a brand-new system specially customized by Microsoft for the advent of the Internet era, greatly enhancing its support for multimedia services such as network, image, audio, and video. Not only that, the Windows 3.2 system has also introduced the ‘Start’ menu which is vital to the Microsoft Windows platform in advance.

Simon already got the trial version of Windows 3.2 three months in advance. In his opinion, this operating system equipped with a ‘start’ menu in advance has a very small gap with the classic Windows 95 in his memory.

Next, the important breakthrough of Windows 95 is probably only the upgrade of 16-bit systems to 32-bit systems.

On the second day of Microsoft's Windows 3.2 release, March 12, Intel had already released the first-generation Pentium processor with basic parameters in October last year and officially began to market.

The Pentium era begins.

In the original time and space, it was relying on the Pentium series of processors that Intel completely ended the state of PC processor chip competition, and the x86 architecture unified the world.

After the two technology giants played a set of combined punches, as of the close of March 12, the market value of Microsoft reached 32.6 billion US dollars, becoming another new technology company with a market value exceeding 30 billion US dollars after Cisco and AOL.

Because of many competitors such as Apple, Motorola, AMD, Intel's market value has also been affected by the recent popularity of technology stocks, but it has not made much breakthrough. The market value of the day was fixed at 26.1 billion US dollars, which is still quite close to 30 billion US dollars. gap.

However, when the day was over, many media's eyes could not help but fall on these four companies that are heavily held by Westeros.

March 12 is Friday. Except for Microsoft and Intel, Cisco's closing market value is $35.6 billion, and AOL's closing market value is $31.7 billion.

According to Westeros’s 50.1%, 66.1%, 21.3%, and 15.6% shareholding ratios to Cisco, AOL, Microsoft, and Intel, the value of the shares of these four companies held by Simon Westero reached $17.8 billion, $20.9 billion, $6.9 billion and $4.1 billion.

Any shareholding of the first two companies has surpassed the US$15 billion in personal assets of Tiyoshi, the second-richest man in the world in 1992, the richest man in Japan.

The combined value of the stocks of the four companies has reached a staggering 49.7 billion US dollars.

In recent months, many media have predicted that Simon's personal assets in 1993 will exceed the 100 billion mark, becoming the world's first billionaire man.

Many people were skeptical about this.

Even if Westeros' personal assets reached 65 billion US dollars in 1992, how could it be so easy to reach the 100 billion US dollar threshold?

Now, only the four technology stock companies held by Westeros have brought Simon’s personal wealth to 49.7 billion US dollars, plus Westeros’s Daenerys Entertainment and Cersei Capital There is no need to wait for the “Forbes” rich list in the second half of the new year to be released. Simon Westero’s personal assets have clearly exceeded 100 billion. Dollar.

When some media had begun to count Simon's personal wealth in order to gain some attention and sales, another news came out the following weekend.

Westeros, Inc., which is tied to Cisco and AOL, will conduct its first external equity financing with a sale of 10%.

Offer, $1.5 billion!

When many people saw this news in the media, the first reaction was that the lion opened his mouth.

However, there was silence immediately.

A 10% stake, US$1.5 billion, means that Westeros’ valuation of Igreat is US$15 billion.

For companies with similar market value in the market, based on a higher price-earnings ratio of 3 billion US dollars, the scale of revenue and profit should also be around 5 billion US dollars and 500 million US dollars.

Eaglet’s 1992 revenue was only $1.937 billion, and its loss in the past year reached $139 million.

However, Eaglet is obviously impossible to classify as a traditional enterprise.

This is an Internet company that has been highly sought after recently.

And almost controlled the World Wide Web portal.

The industry is not without the news that other technology giants are looking for new network technology standards to circumvent the patent barriers of Igreat’s World Wide Web technology. It’s just that the development of the World Wide Web is too rapid. At this stage, 90% of Internet sites use the World Wide Web. Technology, so that for ordinary people, the World Wide Web is actually the Internet.

Therefore, even if other network technology standards are introduced, the first thing to achieve is to be compatible with the World Wide Web.

Otherwise, your network cannot connect to 90% of Internet sites, so what is necessary.

To achieve compatibility with the World Wide Web, it is impossible to bypass World Wide Web patents.

Therefore, everyone with a discerning eye knows that if you want to create a network standard that can compete with the World Wide Web technology, it is as difficult as creating a compatible DC system in the AC power grid system that has been widely used in the world. There is no realization at all. possibility.

Since it cannot compete with the World Wide Web, if you want to get a share of the industry, you must join it.

In the past few years, Eaglet has also shown a fairly open attitude. Apart from some patents related to core business interests, Eaglet’s free-of-charge World Wide Web technology is enough to allow other new companies interested in this field. Technology companies develop their own businesses.

However, the market created by this kind of opening can never be the same as the value contained in Eaglet.

Therefore, since Eaglet has emerged, many people have been watching the development of this company closely, and have tried to the Westeros system more than once to test whether they can invest in this company.

The past answers are naturally specific.

Relying on the profits contributed by companies such as Daenerys Entertainment and Cersei Capital, the Westeros system’s demand for funds is not urgent. Moreover, even if there is a lack of money, the foundation of the Westeros system is enough to easily learn from the major players. The bank received a loan of US$1 billion.

As a result, many people felt that Eaglet might remain absolutely private for a long time.

Because they couldn't get involved in it personally, some forces have already been brewing during this time how to'remind' Simon Westero not to eat alone.

Unexpectedly, following the occurrence of a series of major events related to the new technology field in March, the Westeros system took the initiative to release the news that Igreat will conduct external financing.

This is the long-awaited news for many people.

However, the results deviated from imagination.

A 10% share, 1.5 billion US dollars, is too expensive.

Even if it is clear that Eaglet is really worth the price, it is only 1.5 billion US dollars, not 150 million US dollars, let alone 15 million US dollars.

Such a huge amount of capital can only obtain 10% of a company's shares. Any capital interested in Eaglet will inevitably hesitate over and over again.