Chapter 463： American Online

"Eric, even if you don't participate in Oscar, you can't leave Los Angeles at this time. After Oscar, there is a firefly theme party. Is this the first time for fireflies?" In the sharp corner manor, Drew lazily Kneeling on the big bed, looking at the two people packing their bags opposite.

Tina Fe helped Eric stack up her clothes, heard Drew’s words, and looked up at Erik, who was taking clothes from the closet. She is now Drew's assistant, basically inseparable from Drew, and even lived with Drew. Drew is going to send Eric to Los Angeles, and she will follow.

Eric handed a suit to Tina Fe, saying: "This thing Michael will arrange for himself."

"Or, will I go with you?" Drew got his body up, and some looked forward to it.

"I am not going out to play, so you still stay in Los Angeles, don't mess with me."

Drew’s dissatisfied squeaking, the soft body in a striped hip sweater squirmed to the bed like a big bug, jumped barefoot and leaned over to Eric’s suitcase to help stack it up. Clothes, looked at the quiet Tina Fei with black-rimmed glasses, Drew suddenly said: "Or, let Tina go with you, anyway, I have not much time during this time?"

When Tina Fei heard this sentence, she flashed a glimmer of expectation and sneaked at Eric's figure, but soon she shook her head and said: "I don't go, I can't do anything." ”

"You don't need anything," Drew leaned into Tina Fey, as if he was whispering whispering, but he didn't underestimate his voice: "You are by Eric. He won't provoke other women."

Tina Fe instantly understood the meaning of Drew. The face suddenly turned red.

Eric took the last few clothes and handed them to Tina Fe. I tapped on Drew's head: "Don't talk nonsense, and, when I'm not there, don't do anything in the manor."

Drew screamed in his head and said with a long, dissatisfied voice: "I know."

Packing up the luggage, Eric refused Drew to send himself, with Allen and four bodyguards, to the Los Angeles airport by car. Boarded a small Boeing private airliner. The airliner was originally rented exclusively by the Disney company for executives. After Disney was acquired by Firefly, the right to use the aircraft was also changed to the Firefly.

After the plane took off, Eric told Allen to take out the information and went to a lounge in the airport alone, sitting at the desk by the window and flipping the folder in his hand.

After Chris returned to New York, according to Eric's previous flaws, Firefly Investments began to focus on and collect information and materials about computer and network related industries. And a few days ago, I sent some of my favorite investment projects to Eric, and this pile of information. One company caught the attention of Eric, which is why he deliberately rushed to New York.

The name of the company is called AOL. It was the original time and space, in 2000, with the Time Warner Group and the merged AOL. At that time, Eric was just 25 years old and still graduated from college for a few years. Like many young people, this is very concerned about the $180 billion merger. At the time, the market value of the combined aol Time Warner Group even exceeded the US dollar. Eric remembered that it was a special comparison. In 2000, the mainland's gdp was only 99 trillion yuan, equivalent to 1.300 billion US dollars. That is to say, the market value of a company at the peak of aol Time Warner Group reached 26% of the mainland gdp.

Now, this information shows that although the American online company has been established for seven years, it is only an insignificant network service provider in Virginia. The company's valuation is only 300 million US dollars, with 120 employees and 15 Ten thousand users, the market share of the network services market is only 10%.

After Eric had carefully read the information in his hands, the plane had already landed at JFK airport.

"Eric, here," Out of the airport lobby, Eric saw Chris waving in his long black trench coat. Although it was already at the end of March, the temperature in New York was still only about ten degrees. Eric, who used to wear only a thin coat in Los Angeles, had to put on a trench coat.

"Chris, how are you doing?" Eric and Chris hugged, cold.

"Alright, oh, this is Mr. Steve Case," Chris nodded, then introduced to Eric to pick up the middle-aged man.

Eric has seen the information of Steve Case many times. Steve Case is the founder of AOL, wearing a khaki trench coat, round face, and looks awkward.

"Mr. Williams, I am very happy to meet you, I really like the film you shot," Steve Cases took the initiative to reach out to Eric to compliment, although he has accumulated hundreds of millions of wealth since he started from scratch, but with Compared with Eric, Eric is still a small witch.

Eric smiled and shook hands with each other, and introduced the entourage around him before returning to Manhattan.

Eric and Chris got on a car. When the car started, they asked, "How are you talking to him?"

Chris shook his head: "I haven't settled yet, he hasn't completely abandoned the listing financing plan, but he promised to talk to you."

Eric breathed a sigh of relief. When Chris collected the aol information, the other party had already prepared for half a year for the listing financing. However, in Eric's view, it is not the best time for aol to go public.

"As long as you can talk about it."

Chris looked at his watch. Eric started from Los Angeles at nine o'clock in the morning. According to the four-hour time difference between the east and the west, New York is now more than nine o'clock: "Yes, I will send you back to your accommodation. Or go directly to the company?"

If Steve Case didn't pick up the plane, Eric didn't mind going back to his Manhattan apartment first: "Go to the company."

"That's good," Chris rushed the driver to tell a few words. He also said: "Come to my house for dinner at night. Emily personally cooks."

"Okay." Eric nodded quickly, not seeing Chris saying this, his guilty conscience and embarrassment.

......

"If you don't pay attention to the user experience, even if a company's technology is advanced, it is often eliminated by the market. Therefore, AOL's business strategy is that everything is user-oriented, and we will count the satisfaction of all users every quarter. And collect user suggestions to improve..." In the conference room of Firefly Investment Company, Steve Cases is very passionate about his business ideas.

After the firefly investment contacted him, Steve Keys had already had the idea of ​​introducing firefly investment funds. After all, if you choose to go public, AOL would have to accept a lot of supervision, which will definitely limit a company to a certain extent. The pace of development. However, the reason why I have not spoken so far, and also proposed to talk with Eric, the owner of the firefly investment, is nothing more than waiting for the price. I want to get more benefits from the fireflies here.

"Mr. Case, I heard. You are still more inclined to let AOL go public, right?" Eric and other parties gave their speeches before they asked.

Steve Case nodded without hesitation: "Yes, if you choose to go public, AOL can more easily draw development funds from the capital market. In our development plan, AOL's thirst for funds is very large. ""

Eric smiled. If Steve Case insists on choosing to go public, it will not appear here today. However, everyone knows what is going on, and there is no need to dismantle it.

"I don't object to AOL's listing," Eric said. "But I don't think it's the best time to go public."

Steve Case showed a confused look.

Eric said: "If you are concerned about current events, you should notice the election speech of the recent Democratic presidential candidate William Clinton. He proposed an information highway plan."

"I did hear some," Steve Case nodded. "But although I support Clinton's claims, I don't think he has a high chance of winning. The victory of the Gulf War last year brought President Bush. There is a high reputation, and Clinton’s Democratic Party is also a loose sand. If Clinton can’t be elected president, many of his ruling ideas are just empty words.”

"Can't say that, Clinton will propose the information highway plan, and it is precisely because his campaign team saw the huge development prospects of the computer network. I think this is an irreversible trend of the times, even if Clinton is unsuccessful, Bush. The re-election of the president cannot change this trend. Therefore, it is unwise for AOL to choose to go public so early."

"Mr. Williams, although I am very confident about the popularity of computer networks, but..."

"60 million US dollars."

"What?" Steve Case groaned and asked indefinitely.

Eric said: "I know that AOL intends to sell 30% of the shares this time. It plans to raise $5,000. I can get 60 million. And, in the next few years, if AOL lacks funds, fireflies can still do. investment."

When I heard Eric directly start the offer, Steve Case said: "Mr. Williams, it seems that the $60 million is a little less. Although our company plans to raise 50 million dollars, if the market reflects good, The scale of financing is definitely more than that."

“Very good,” Eric smiled. “It seems that you have promised to talk to the fireflies about the capital injection. The specific amount can be negotiated by our team.”

Steve Cases stunned and soon realized that Eric had brought himself into the ditch: "Mr. Williams, I just said one possibility and didn't agree."

"It doesn't matter, then let's talk about it," Eric sat up straight, his face still unchanged.

Chris also smiled and said: "Mr. Case, Eric is not only going to take care of the Firefly movie, there are still a few movies to operate, and, in a few days, it is Oscar, you said to talk face to face. He canceled attending the Oscars ceremony and specially came to New York, so you should be able to see that we are very sincere."

"Well," Steve Case also thought that it would be self-defeating to make it happen again. "However, I have some of my own conditions about the size of the fireflies and the management rights after the organization?"

"Please say?" Chris stretched out his hand.

"First of all, fireflies can't intervene in the day-to-day management of AOL."

"You can rest assured," Chris replied. "You should know that Firefly Investment is currently Cisco's largest shareholder, but we don't intervene in Cisco management except for the more important corporate issues."

Steve Case obviously knew something about it and nodded. "The other thing, I hope that Firefly can give me the voting rights of the shares I hold."

Upon hearing this condition, Chris looked at Eric, not intervening in AOL's day-to-day management and voting rights to transfer equity is a different matter. If you give up voting rights, it would mean that Firefly completely loses control of AOL's direction, Steve. It’s okay for Case to think about how to toss.

Eric quickly thought about it, then raised three fingers and said: "In three years, within three years, the fireflies will give you the voting rights of the shares held."

"Three years is too short, at least five years," Steve Case bargained.

"No, five years is too long," Eric shook his head. "Up to three years, and I hope that AOL will choose to go public after three years."

Three years later, it happened to be 1995. At that time, it was the beginning of the big bang of the Internet, and it was also the beginning of the formation of the Internet bubble.

Because of the merger of AOL and Time Warner, Eric has a lot of attention to AOL, and the most glorious period of AOL is only five years after 1995. This is because AOL's main business is dial-up Internet service. After 2000, with the bursting of the network bubble and the popularity of broadband Internet access, AOL has rapidly declined at a rapid rate, with a market value of just a few years. It has shrunk by more than 90%, so Eric’s current emphasis on AOL is entirely due to the fact that AOL’s five-year period between 1995 and 2000 has passed the golden age of these five years. AOL has no value.

"Steve, about the amount of money you can talk about, but in three years, I will never give in." (To be continued, please search for astronomical literature, the novel is better updated faster!

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