Chapter 396： Investment and blocking

Chapter 396 Investment and Blockade

In the morning, the weather in Los Angeles was good, and the outdoor temperature was warmer than yesterday, about above 18 degrees Celsius.

Link wore a long-sleeved sportswear and ran for 14 to 5 kilometers along the long asphalt road, sweating all over.

When returning from the Jetty Pier, we happened to see the rising sun rising from the top of the Hollywood Hills, plating the city of Los Angeles with a dazzling golden edge.

“Good morning, Link!”

When he ran to Villa 1072, he happened to encounter Schwarzenegger running from the opposite side. He was wearing sportswear, with his hair slicked back, and was followed by a burly bodyguard.

Seeing Schwarzenegger, he couldn't help but think of the recent news.

After the governor left office in January, media revealed that he had an illegitimate child with his nanny, which caused a stir. Because of this, Schwarzenegger separated from his wife, which is probably why he lives here.

“Good morning, Arnold!”

Link slowed down and said hello. He wanted to continue running forward, but when he saw Schwarzenegger stopped and stood on the side of the road, he could only stop to see what the other person wanted to talk about.

“Hey, Link, the newspaper said that you are going to enter politics and run for president in the future. Is this true?”

Schwarzenegger grinned.

“Sounds like a good idea, but I don’t have any plans yet.”

Link said helplessly.

He has also seen relevant news in newspapers recently. Some said that he is a Republican and is funding Republican congressmen. Some said that he is actively involved in politics and will run for president in the near future.

Compared to the news that he is a Republican, the news that he is running for president is even more exciting.

He is a beach boy who crawled out of the slums. After becoming a world boxing champion, a world superstar and a billionaire, if he becomes the president again, it will be such an 'American dream'.

For this reason, many people left messages on his fan website, encouraging him to run for president, saying that they would definitely support him and donate to him.

In less than three days, there were more than 500,000 related messages.

Because of these news, he now receives more than ten calls a day.

 Most of the time, acquaintances called to confirm the authenticity of the news. When he said it was false, everyone encouraged him to try it, maybe he could succeed, and everyone regarded it as a piece of fun.

Link did not expect that Schwarzenegger would ask this question in person. Thinking that the other party was a Republican governor who had just resigned, he guessed that the conversation might have political meaning.

“Haha, Link, I have read your resume and your speeches in interviews with the media. You are very suitable to be a politician, and you may even have the opportunity to run for office. I think you should give it a try.”

Schwarzenegger said.

Link was noncommittal. He had never participated in politics and did not know what abilities were required to be a politician. However, considering the presidents who had been assassinated in history, he felt that he needed to be more cautious on this matter.

“If there is a chance, I will consider it.”

“Very good, I like you.”

Schwarzenegger punched his chest with his fist and continued running with his bodyguards.

Link just saw some regrets on the other party's face. Although Schwarzenegger had served as the governor of California for two terms and had good political qualifications and reputation, he was born in Austria and has both Austrian and American citizenship. According to the U.S. Constitution, his birthplace is not Citizens of the United States are not eligible to participate in the general election.

—

When she returned to the Bay Villa after running, Ivaca also got up. She was wearing a **** T-shirt, khaki cropped pants, and white shoes. She was waving a badminton racket left and right on the lawn.

Seeing him come back, Ivaca picked up a racket from the ground and handed it to him, asking him to play badminton together.

“Are you sure you can play badminton?”

Link looked at the full curves of her chest. At her size, whether she was taking off or swinging, her speed would be affected.

“I am not your opponent in tennis, and you are not my opponent in badminton.”

Ivaca raised her racket sideways provocatively.

“I’ve never played badminton, but I think it won’t be a problem to beat you.”

“Stop bragging and serve quickly.”

Ivaca bent down and lowered her chest, stared at him and shouted.

Link smiled softly, picked up the water bottle on the ground and took a few sips before picking up the badminton and sending it over. It missed the net for the first time, making Eva Kammi laugh.

The second time he successfully passed the net, he was quickly intercepted by Ivaca and hit to the left corner. Link took a few steps back and hit the ball back. Unfortunately, the arc was too low and hit the net, losing a point.

“I’m making rapid progress, keep up the good work.”

Ivaca raised the corners of her lips and said.

Link knew that she was feeling proud, so he took the badminton and swung it over.

After fighting for half an hour, the two were barely even.

It was just Evaca who was running around on the court, panting from exhaustion and dripping with sweat. She was hit twice in the chest by badminton balls. She rubbed her left chest and stared at him coldly, saying that she would be deducted five points for being a hooligan while playing.

Link didn't care either. After knowing how to add points, he was not interested in five points or ten. He was thinking about adding a hundred points and picking off this thorny rose.

When they returned to the villa, the servants had already prepared breakfast. Link and Ivaca washed off their sweat, put on dry clothes and went to the restaurant to eat.

“This villa is a bit small and the security situation is average. Should you consider moving to another place to live?”

Ivaca said as she stirred the fruit salad with a spoon.

“If you live here too, I agree to move to a bigger building. If you don’t live here, it will be the same wherever I live alone.”

Link said while eating bread and flipping through the newspaper.

“I have started to establish a link music branch in Los Angeles and bought a large recording studio. The company’s work can also be handled here in the future.”

“No problem, it’s all up to you, I’ll be responsible for giving likes.”

Link said while looking at the newspaper.

“In addition, last year our company’s profit reached 180 million U.S. dollars. After dividends, we had a balance of more than 60 million U.S. dollars and no debt at all. As a company, this situation is unreasonable.

Wall Street consulting firms also said that the structure of our Link music industry is too single and its development is relatively conservative. The consulting firm suggested that we diversify our development and try to get involved in the downstream industries of the music industry to increase the company's industrial scale, such as music players. Headphones, or music sites, do you have any suggestions? "

“Is link music single? Don’t forget that we also have SBproject management company, but it’s not good to have too much balance on the books. We should make some investments.”

Link thought for a moment and said.

“Oh, what are you going to invest in? I trust your judgment more than the people on Wall Street.”

Ivaca put down the silver spoon and looked at him seriously.

"While eating, I said, don't use the dining table as a conference table. There is no need to invest in the music player you just mentioned. Nowadays, it is very convenient to listen to music on mobile phones. There is no market for music players. When it comes to headphones, we don't understand this business. There’s no need to intervene.”

“We can acquire a niche headphone brand, or cooperate with a big brand company to create Link music brand headphones, mainly for fan groups. Based on the number of fans of you and Link Music’s singers, the market size is as high as hundreds of millions.”

Evaka explained the operation process of the brand’s headphones. Link thought about it for a moment. It is similar to selling celebrity peripherals. The investment is not much. If it works well, it will be no less than selling records.

“Okay, you can give it a try, and the music website you mentioned, are there any good goals?”

“At present, the main paid music websites are iTunes, Amazon Music Store, Universal Music website, etc. These platforms are supported by groups such as Apple and Amazon, and we have no chance to invest.

However, there are several free streaming music service platforms that are doing well. I have inspected four of them. The best one is Pandora Radio, which is currently the most popular music provider in the United States. It has gone through three rounds of financing and has a market value of 2.5 billion. US dollars.

Ranked second is Spotify, founded by the Swedish. This company was founded in 2008 and has conducted a round of financing. It is currently about 800 million US dollars. However, due to copyright issues, last year Steve Jobs teamed up with record companies such as Warner and Universal. , trying to prevent Spotify from obtaining song copyrights in the United States. Spotify's development in the United States has been hindered and its prospects are unclear.

 There are also Aspiro and Wrapster, two new streaming media websites established in the past two years. They are modeled after Napster, the earliest music download website. They have also received a round of financing and have a market value of about 200 million. "

He was very impressed by the fact that Iwaka could accurately reproduce the information and data he had read without holding a tablet. He was eating breakfast.

Link thought about the four streaming music platforms she mentioned.

 The first Pandora Music Box was translated and founded in 2003. It automatically pushes songs based on users' music preferences. It is currently the largest streaming music platform in the United States and has certain investment value.

However, the potential is lower than that of Spotify.

The current market value of Spotify is less than 1 billion, but it will grow into the world's largest streaming music platform in the future.

This platform is divided into two modes: paid and free. The paid mode is that users pay 10 US dollars per month and listen to songs for free that month, or pay 0.006 to 0.0084 US dollars per song.

 Link knew that this company had seen the news about Taylor’s falling out with Spotify. Due to music channel issues, Taylor removed all his songs from Spotify in 2014, which caused a lot of controversy in the international music scene.

By 2014, Spotify's market value has reached US$8 billion, and by 2020, its market value will exceed US$60 billion.

From this point of view, Spotify is more worthy of investment.

The third Aspiro is a music platform invested by Jay-Z. It is committed to providing high-fidelity music and music videos, taking a high-quality route. Taylor also has two albums of songs on the Aspiro platform.

Link doesn’t know if Jay-Z has made any move yet, but relatively speaking, Spotify’s investment value is greater.

 He ​​told Ivaca his opinion. He could talk to Spotify's representatives in the United States. If they agreed to invest, songs released by Link Music could also be released simultaneously on Spotify. He could also talk to Aspiro.

Iwaka expressed understanding and will continue to follow up on these three projects.

Jingle Bell!

Before breakfast was over, the phone rang from the living room. Link put down the newspaper and went to the living room to answer the phone.

"Boss, I just received a call from the producer of "Time Planning Bureau". They are planning to replace your role."

Ms. Anna said on the phone.

“Oh, what’s the reason?”

"Originally, the crew planned to shoot in May, but because you were busy with work, they had to postpone it to June. The crew originally agreed, but now the producer, New Regency Pictures, refused to agree to the extension and asked the crew to replace your role. I am working with you. Producer communication of "Time Planning Bureau".

"I understand. You continue to communicate with them. If the crew does not agree, then give up the role."

Link thought for a moment and said.

Jingle Bell!

Just after hanging up the phone, the phone rang again, and the caller was Catherine.

“Link, director Will Gulle just contacted me. Due to your schedule issues, Screen Treasures Pictures is giving up cooperating with us on the film "Friends" and will instead cooperate with Weinstein Films.

In addition, Mandy called and said that the crew of "The Hunger Games" is also planning to change its mind and let other actors play the heroine. Link, why do these problems occur at the same time? Is someone deliberately targeting us? "

Catherine asked.

When Link heard about Weinstein Pictures, he immediately thought that this matter might have something to do with Harvey.

Last time at the party, Harvey suddenly darkened his face and showed some hostility. Now he suddenly made these highly targeted actions regardless of the fact that he still had his "dark material" in his hand.

Did Harvey guess that he didn't have any "dirty material"?

Link thought for a while and said to Catherine, forget about the issue of "Friends in Bed". Palm Beach Pictures currently has no shortage of good scripts, so missing one project is not a big problem.

What needs to be done now is to continue negotiating with the crew of "The Hunger Games" to keep Jennifer as the heroine.

Catherine said she knew.

Link told Catherine about his conflict with Harvey again, asking the company to be more careful. Miramax Pictures laid off employees last year, and several executives joined the newly established Palm Beach Pictures.

Miramax was first founded by the Weinstein brothers. Mira is their mother’s name, and Max is their father’s.

In 1993, it was sold to Disney for 80 million. In 2005, the two parties ended the cooperation, and Miramax also became a subsidiary of Disney.

Be careful that Harvey contacts old employees from the past and digs holes in the company.

Hang up the phone, he saw a missed call on his phone, it was from Ms. Mandy.

He called back and told Mandy that he knew it, don't worry, take your time, just a few roles and a few movies would have little impact on the company, work as usual, save Jennifer's role first.

Ms. Mandy was relieved after hearing this and said that she was communicating with director Gary Ross. They were very optimistic about Jennifer and did not want to change the role. It was just that the second largest shareholder of Lionsgate Pictures put pressure on the crew and hoped to adjust the role.

Link said that he understood and would communicate first and report back when there is new information.

"What happened?"

Evaka held a glass of milk and handed it to him.

Link drank it in one gulp and talked about Harvey's actions. He was first put off by the crew, and then unilaterally terminated by his partners. Even the artists under the Palm Bay Management Company were affected.

Link suddenly understood that the weight of Harvey, the most powerful person in Hollywood, was greater than he had imagined.

Those people know that they are worth more than 2 billion and have high box office appeal, but they choose to support Harvey at this time, which shows that Harvey is more important to them and can bring them more benefits.

“Eva, is there any chance that I’m going to kill Harvey?”

“Based on his scandals?”

Ivaca crossed her arms, pondered for a moment, and said, "It is extremely difficult and the cost is also very high. First of all, most of the sexual assault incidents and sexual harassment in Hollywood are related to transactions.

Thousands of similar cases have occurred in Hollywood over the past century or so. Only three people have been sentenced, and they were only small producers with little power.

Harvey currently has great power in Hollywood, and many people rely on his fame and money. If something happens to him, he will get help from many people.

The Weinstein Films has also weathered the financial crisis, and there is no shortage of money in their pockets to hire lawyers.

In addition, the Democratic Party is currently in power. If something happens to Harvey, his allies will take the initiative to provide legal, political, media and other assistance for their own interests. To defeat him will be very costly, and both parties may lose.

It would be better to wait a few more years, wait for the Democratic Party to step down, or wait for the Weinstein Film Company to fail to manage well. At that time, it would be easier to defeat Weinstein than it is now. "

Eva pulled him and gently persuaded him.

Link thought about the time of Weinstein’s downfall and nodded.

“Then just wait! Even without the scandal, I can beat him in the movie.”

Seeing his confident look, Ivaca couldn't help but raise the corners of her beautiful lips.

(End of this chapter)