The two daughters left for China the next morning, while Simon remained in New York.

I wasn't in North America during the New Year, and I had a lot of work here that I didn't expect to finish until next week.

The first is naturally from the IPO roadshow of Tinkobair.

With the final details finalized, the roadshow officially launched the next day, Wednesday, January 24, and the first roadshow event was held in New York.

Founded in 1991 and with the launch of the first iCam-10 digital camera in the same year, Tinkobar has grown like any other miraculous company in the Westeros system, and in less than five years, has become the undisputed electronics giant. Even though many in the industry have found that Tinkobar's success is closely related to Westeros' deployment in the new technology field, and even complements the core Internet business, the consumer electronics company's achievements are not watery at all.

Take, for example, 1995.

The latest digital camera product released this year, the iCam-50, is still popular, but the most dazzling is the iPlayer-10, a digital music player.

Throughout 1995, Tinkobar's iCam series shipped a total of 21.37 million units, and due to the success of the HDD version of the digital camera, the market share of Tinkobar's digital camera products not only did not decline due to the competition of other established electronics manufacturers, but rebounded from 53% in 1994 to %.

The success of iCam is still expected, and the iPlayer digital music player is completely out of nowhere.

The iPlayer-10 was released during Easter last year, and from mid-April to the end of 1995, in eight and a half months, the iPlayer-10 still sold 20.03 million units despite the limited production capacity in the early stage.

It took five years for the iCam series to break through 20 million units from its launch, but it only took one year for iPlayer-10.

Shocked the ground.

Study the success cases of iPlayer digital music players, and the results are also very simple.

Emerged.

First of all, the hardware, software, and network environment surrounding this product are already quite complete in North America.

Then, before the release of iPlayer, pirated music websites began to appear due to the rapid spread of the Internet in North America.

When iPlayer hit the market, it was discovered that this portable music player could not only easily hold hundreds of pieces of music, but also, with a little cracking, you could download almost any music imaginable from the Internet for free, whether it was a popular pop single or an off-the-beaten-path underground music.

It's an artifact!

As a result, in 1995, iPlayer-10 can be said to be the most dazzling star electronic product of the year.

Of course, it is also full of controversy.

In just one year, tens of thousands of pirated music sharing websites have appeared on the Internet, and preliminary statistics show that because of the rapid spread of piracy, global record sales have plummeted by more than 20%. Even without buying an iPlayer player, many people are starting to download free music more on the web instead of spending money on records.

Because of this demand, it has also promoted the rapid development of Igrete's Google search engine, which is no less effective than the adult type website that has quietly become popular.

Sensing the crisis, the major record giants began to try to suppress piracy and try to stifle iPlayer, but this was doomed to be in vain.

One of the biggest victims, Sony, who owns Columbia Records, has created 'case law' in North America that similar products are impossible to win. When Sony's VCR was released, it was sued by Hollywood giants such as Disney for fear of illegal recording leading to piracy, and the lawsuit was entangled for many years, and finally the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Disney and other plaintiffs lost the lawsuit on the grounds that it could not stifle technological progress on the grounds of copyright protection, and the VCR was justified in its popularity.

iPlayer, which is of the same nature as a video recorder.

In the past year, in the face of the pressure of public opinion from a number of record giants, Tinkobar has repeatedly used video recorders as an example as a rebuttal, and criticized the major record giants for just sticking to their own interests in the traditional record field and not following technological progress, and repeatedly called on major record companies to open their copyright resources to the Broadcast platform, so as to achieve a win-win situation.

In addition to these disputes, iPlayer has once again promoted the development of the Internet café industry in the United States, which Simon personally promoted.

Although the Internet penetration rate in the United States has far exceeded that of other countries in the world, there are still many people who cannot connect to the Internet, and these people choose to buy an iPlayer player, in addition to using a friend's computer, they can only go to an Internet café to select and download their favorite music.

And.

The robber's favorite looting target of the year.

Because not only can it be used for its own use, but also, due to the lack of production capacity in the early stage of the product launch, the supply exceeds the demand, and the robbers grabbed this player and can even sell it for a higher price than new in the second-hand market.

In the past year, there have been many cases of iPlayer shelves being ransacked by large mobs, and the San Francisco police even cracked an attempted robbery of the iPlayer warehouse in Palo Alto in the second half of last year.

The production base of iPlayer is mainly located in China.

However, after the player is assembled, it will be shipped back to San Francisco for further distribution, and the market is mainly in the United States at this stage.

When the gang of robbers was about to start an operation, the warehouse in Palo Alto, San Francisco, had more than $600 million worth of nearly $600 million, and the gang even prepared a 10,000-ton cargo ship in San Francisco Bay to pick it up, intending to ship it to Mexico first.

Of course it didn't work out.

After the matter was revealed, it caused a sensation, and it felt like an unfinished Hollywood blockbuster, but in fact, someone really started planning a movie with related themes later.

People are like that.

The harder it is, the more curious it is.

In fact, two months after the release of this player, the production capacity is enough to meet the market demand, however, because of the heat caused by various events, just like the case of selling a kidney for an Apple mobile phone in the original time and space, many American people, especially teenagers, are trying their best to get a very cool and very show-off and very practical iPlayer-10 player in everyone's eyes.

Finally, in the first year of release, iPlayer-10 created a miracle of more than 20 million sales.

In 1994, only one main product, Tinkobay, had some other trivial income with the sales of a series of digital cameras, with a revenue scale of 2.19 billion US dollars and a net profit of 270 million US dollars.

In 1995, the total sales volume of the two YER products with the same price reached 41.4 million units, which was equivalent to an increase of nearly 6 times compared with 1994.

The continued popularity of the iCam series and the rapid popularity of iPlayer, the two ace products, coupled with the blowout growth of corporate revenue, have also made Tinkobar's valuation climb all the way.

The last time the roadshow filed a prospectus with the SEC, the emerging electronics company has reached a valuation of $35 billion, more than double the total valuation of the two companies when Tinkobar acquired Broadcast in June last year, but from the feedback from the preliminary market research, this IPO, Tinkobar is expected to issue 130 million shares, is still in short supply.

130 million shares, of which 51 million were cashed out shares from major shareholders and 79 million were new shares.

In total, it represents 16% of the total share capital of 810 million shares after the IPO.

Of the 51 million cash-out shares, Westeros holds 30 million shares, or $1.29 billion based on the issue price of $43, which is also the first time that Simon has cashed out directly in several IPOs in recent years. Because it has held Tinkobar shares for more than 1 year, Westeros only needs to pay a minimum of 15% capital gains tax this time.

In addition to the shareholder cash-out portion, the amount of new shares raised for the next step of Tinkobar's development is $3.39 billion.

Tinkobar is not short of this money, and this IPO, on the one hand, is still the established integration strategy of the Westeros system, and on the other hand, it is also to facilitate Tinkobar to start the next step of the merger and acquisition plan.

In addition, even though the market has reached the highest level of anticipation for the Tinkobar IPO, the company is expected to hold another king bomb during this year's Easter press conference.

This is the iRec series of digital camcorders that are still in preparation.

Tinkobar's digital video camera project has been quietly preparing for two years, and the prototype has been completed at the end of 1994, but because all the conditions are not only complete, the original plan was released in the fall of 1995, but it still took the initiative to choose to skip the ticket, and finally decided to put it on sale at Easter this year with a new generation of YER and other products according to the normal rhythm.

In two years, compared with the initial prototype, the upcoming iRec-10 is not only more mature in technology, but also has a better software and hardware ecosystem.

For example, the rapidly increasing capacity of micro hard drives.

For example, Igrett has launched a YouTube video platform.

For example, USB interfaces, which are becoming more and more popular.

For example, Tinkobar, like iCam's free image viewing and processing software, will also be developed over a period of two years to develop a fairly complete and free video editing software.

For example, the Broadcast platform will also simultaneously open free or paid audio copyright services, providing video editing enthusiasts with genuine BGM resources for making more exquisite videos.

And so on.

This is actually the application ecosystem.

If it is only a digital video camera, no matter how good the hardware is, it will not be too big a market at all, lacking the software and hardware support of these peripherals, and lacking enough playability.

Now, thanks to the improvement of the application ecosystem, just as iCam users can publish pictures on the Internet as much as they want, iRec users will be able to display their images on the Internet in the future.

Not only that, but you can also become famous and make money.

With the official release of iRec-10, YouTube will open the video upload service for individual users, although the upload capacity of users will be limited in the early stage, but the platform will directly open advertising shares. YouTubers can earn as long as they post videos and get clicks.

When the time comes, Tinkobar and Igrete will officially take the initiative to create a group of popular YouTubers, which will definitely be able to bring a wave of trends.

Tinkobair's IPO was in full swing, and after attending a roadshow in New York, Simon did not show up again, instead concentrating on other matters accumulated here in New York.

A big part of it is about Daenerys Entertainment's television business.

After the completion of the merger and acquisition of the Metropolitan ABC Group, the integration of the two companies has been underway, and a major move during this period is that ESPN's headquarters has moved from Bristol, Connecticut to New York, which borders the north of New York, and Greenwich City, which is home to the rich and rich, belongs to Connecticut, so the original headquarters in Bristol is not too far away.

However, this relocation is more symbolic.

Prior to this, ESPN was not considered the core business of Metropolis ABC Group, even if it grew rapidly, because of the conservative nature of old-school shareholders and executives such as Warren Buffett and Tom Murphy. Simon, who knew the future potential of the professional sports station, certainly wouldn't make that mistake again, so he took it upon himself to relocate the ESPN team from Connecticut to New York.

Not only that, but negotiations to buy out the American football game have also officially begun.

As long as it successfully monopolizes the right to broadcast football in the United States and operates it properly, ESPN can start charging a 'ESPN tax' from operators that is much higher than the share of other basic cable stations, as it did in the original space.

In addition, although the broadcast plan for the new year is usually finalized during the TV promotion season in May, from the beginning of the year, major production companies and TV stations will start sourcing TV programs and producing pilot episodes for the promotion of the promotion season.

Before Daenerys acquired Met's ABC, Simon knew that the combined Daenerys Entertainment Group would be caught in some sort of Catch-22 loop in the TV production business.

The main reason is that the purchase of Daenerys Entertainment TV division by external TV stations will inevitably be greatly reduced, because other TV stations will inevitably think that Daenerys Entertainment will inevitably save the best TV shows for their own TV stations, and Daenerys Entertainment's TV production department will not be able to prove that it will not do so.

So, since you've saved the best for yourself, how is it possible for other TV stations, especially direct competitors like this, to buy the rest of the projects that Daenerys Entertainment's TV production division has already picked out by ABC?

Simon didn't initially conceive of a solution to this strange circle, and re-signing long-term contracts with other broadcasters for shows such as "Friends" was one of the measures. Because Simon doesn't want Daenerys's TV business to completely switch to self-production and self-sales, the internal digestion system can certainly save costs, but it is also easier for people to slack off.

It is difficult to produce high-quality products in the integration of production and broadcasting, which has been proven since the emergence of television, so the separation of production and broadcasting will become the mainstream of commercial TV stations.

Eventually, though, Simon gave up on some of the ideas.

Because the 'Catch-22' cycle really can't be broken at all, instead of working in vain, it is better to focus on how to avoid systematic internal rigidity after the integration of production and broadcasting.

It's not that difficult.

Introducing external competition is sufficient.

However, the ratio of self-produced programs and external procurement needs to be carefully controlled, after all, Daenerys Entertainment's current TV production department is still very strong, and what Simon needs to do is to continue to maintain the activity of its own production department by appropriately introducing 'catfish', and not too many catfish will harm the fish in his own pool.

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