"Prior to this, although there were all kinds of personal websites on the Internet, these required a sufficient foundation of professional computer technology to be realized. Yahoo's profile business will break this limitation, whether you are a student, a chef, a painter, a singer, a model, a plumber, a housewife, as long as you want, you can open a personal page through Yahoo and show yourself to your heart's content. ”

As Jeff Locke said this, he pressed the remote control in his hand one after another, and the big screen behind him appeared personal page users from all walks of life, these people were invited to participate in the experience during the beta stage of Yahoo's personal homepage, including celebrities from politics, business, Hollywood, and the technology industry.

After briefly describing the general concept of the personal homepage, Jeff Locke switched to the big screen and continued: "Yahoo's personal homepage, through the two major means of interest and geography, closely connects users from the United States and even the world in an invisible big network, in this network, you can not only show yourself to everyone, but at the same time, we can find all the like-minded friends in other corners of the world through a personal computer, without having to travel far and participate in frequent social activities......"

When thunderous applause rang out in the auditorium, Bill Gates reacted from another contemplation, looked at Jeff Locke who nodded to everyone on the stage, and made up his mind.

Although it has missed the last chance to enter the browser software, Microsoft can still expand into the web portal, which is relatively easy to imitate, and Microsoft has tested most of Yahoo's top management these days, and Bill Gates knows that other tech companies interested in getting involved in the Internet industry are doing the same.

Ian Gnier, the chief executive of Yahoo, is responsible for Yahoo's overall corporate strategy. Jeff Locke is responsible for the operation of the Yahoo Portal and related software products. Steve Mitnick was in charge of Yahoo's technology development, and Tina Brown, the last late to join Yahoo, was in charge of Yahoo's information department.

Since it has been decided to develop the portal business, among these four people, digging Jeff Locke, who is familiar with the rules of portal operation, to Microsoft will undoubtedly be able to achieve twice the result with half the effort. And. In the early stage of the trial, Bill Gates also found that among several high-level executives, Jeff Locke is the one with the most ambiguous attitude towards Microsoft's poaching behavior, according to the information obtained, this is mainly because Jeff Locke is dissatisfied with the share of equity rewards he is about to get.

After the press conference, the guests walked out, and Yahoo will hold a reception banquet at a nearby hotel. Bill Gates got up and beckoned the assistant who was sitting nearby, and whispered to the other party to make an appointment with Jeff Locke. Then he smiled and walked towards Eric and the others.

The Yahoo Network product launch event was televised, followed by the Technology Alliance and Advertising Alliance conferences held in Boston over the next two days.

While attending related events, the rest of Eric's time was also occupied by dense affairs.

As Yahoo grows, the original office space becomes more and more rudimentary, and because of the need for secrecy, Yahoo is not suitable to continue to stay in the original office space.

Both Yahoo executives and Eric want Yahoo to build its own corporate campus, but this kind of thing can't happen overnight.

Picked. Eric finalized a 30-story office building on Massachusetts Avenue, which had just been completed. Before he could sell and rent it, Eric decided to rent the entire building and temporarily use it as Yahoo's headquarters, and then move out after the Yahoo Enterprise Campus was completed a few years later.

In addition, although Yahoo has temporarily canceled its IPO plan, Steve Case hopes that AOL will start the IPO plan. Yoma Ollila also wants Nokia shares to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In addition to raising some of the money, this behavior also helped Nokia break into the American market. Eric had to take the time to discuss each of these issues with them in detail.

In addition to these, Eric also interviewed several senior Yahoo executives about the results of the equity award package, and although some of them have shown a tendency to leave Yahoo, Eric hopes to keep them as much as possible.

in the process. The one who caught Eric off guard the most was Jeff Locke.

In the initial equity award package, the four key executives, Ian Gnier and Steve Mitnick, will each receive 3 million shares of Yahoo stock, Jeff Locke will receive 2 million shares, and Tina Brown will receive 1 million shares.

As the manager of the three companies before the merger, Jeff Locke's share of equity awards was 1 million shares less than that of Ian Gnier and Steve Mitnick, and it was not hard to expect dissatisfaction.

However, Eric does not feel that this plan is unfair, Ian Gnier controls the overall development of Yahoo, and is personally responsible for the establishment of the Yahoo Technology Alliance and the Yahoo Advertising Alliance, and many of Yahoo's current advertising partners and clients are personally negotiated by Ian Gnier. In addition, Steve Mitnick, as the chief technology officer, is responsible for the technical research and development of all Yahoo products, and he also has a genius technical talent, and the work of these two people is undoubtedly much better than that of Jeff Locke, who is only responsible for the operation of Yahoo's portal.

After all, Yahoo is different from its predecessors in that it is no longer just a separate web portal, but also has instant messaging software, browsers and other businesses. While the portal is undoubtedly Yahoo's brightest department at the moment, Jeff Rock has fallen behind Ian Gurnier and Steve Mitnick when it comes to its importance to Yahoo.

Five days flew by, and before I knew it, it was July 14th.

Yahoo's annual meeting officially ended this afternoon, and most of the guests have already left Boston.

Eric had planned to leave this afternoon, but had to put it off until tomorrow morning because some things had not been resolved.

It was already half past seven in the evening, and Eric and Chris left Yahoo headquarters and walked side by side on the sidewalk of Massachusetts Avenue, followed not far behind by several figures. It's the assistant and bodyguard of the two.

"So, he's already going to Microsoft?" asked Chris as he kicked a pebble under his feet to the side of the road and began.

Eric nodded, and although he finally opened the price to 2.2 million shares, he still couldn't keep Jeff Locke.

The other party insisted on 3 million shares equivalent to Ian Gnier and Steve Mitnick in order to stay. Eric couldn't pay the other party so much, and smiled helplessly, Eric said: "Actually, it's okay to let Microsoft have a direction to work towards, and Gates won't jump out and make trouble with us." ”

Although strong technical and patent barriers have been formed, Eric's fear of Microsoft has not diminished in the slightest.

After all, a lot of Yahoo's software will need to run on Microsoft's operating system platform in the future, once Microsoft is forced to rush. Forcibly tear your face, and Yahoo will definitely get into big trouble. Although this is not very likely, it does exist. In the memory of the previous life, after dominating the field of operating systems, Microsoft's attitude towards competitors in the same industry has always been to kill everything.

Chris could also understand Eric's concern, nodded, and said, "Now that the matter is done, what do you think of the effect this time?"

There has been such a big commotion in Boston these days. It's just to lead other competitors astray, although Eric has explained a little to him. But Chris wasn't sure if it worked.

"Didn't you already see that," Eric said with a relaxed look on his face, "Since Microsoft has chosen to poach Jeff Locke, at least, he won't pose much of a threat to us for the next two years." ”

Based on the experience of previous lives, later Yahoo and Google. In fact, they are two Internet companies with completely different concepts.

Yahoo is more of a media company than a technology company. And Google, which focuses on search engines, is an authentic technology company.

In reality, media companies still have various thresholds, but in the Internet world, this threshold is terrifyingly low, even later. A single individual can operate an Internet media business, which is the so-called self-media.

In this situation of extremely low entry barriers, websites based on media information will become more and more proliferated in the future, and it is almost impossible to become an Internet giant simply by virtue of content advantages. A search engine business like Google, which focuses on the integration of huge information on the Internet, is the mainstream of Internet companies in the future.

The main reason why Yahoo in the previous life failed to get rid of the fate of doomed decline after many reforms is that it has never been able to make a decision on its own media attributes and technological attributes.

Eric's series of actions in recent days is to guide other competitors to focus on developing the Internet media business, that is, the portal.

To this end, Eric also deliberately talked nonsense at an industry exchange meeting two days ago, comparing the portal with the three major TV networks in reality, describing the relationship between the portal and its advertising alliance partners as a cooperative relationship between the TV network and the franchised TV station, and hyped its development prospects, predicting that as long as the number of Internet users reaches half of the real TV users, then the revenue scale of the portal will exceed that of the real TV network.

Judging from the reaction at the scene, many people obviously believed it, and even after the exchange meeting, Steve Caseh communicated with Eric, hoping to increase investment in the online portal business in the United States.

Although Steve Case, persuaded by Eric, had determined that AOL would focus on the role of an Internet service provider, Eric did not ask AOL to abandon the portal business, which could have boosted AOL's stock price in the dot-com bubble a few years later.

Eric didn't hit Steve Keys at the time, readily agreeing to the other party's request, and willing to provide some technical support to the other party.

While many people are delving into the doomed portal, in fact, everyone probably doesn't know that what Eric cares about most is the seemingly inconspicuous Yahoo search tool at the top of the Yahoo portal. In the past few years, he has been consciously or unconsciously inviting Steve Mitnick, who is in charge of technology research and development, to increase the development of intelligent search engine technology.

The two chatted, and soon walked outside the hotel where they were staying, Chris raised his eyes to look at the brightly lit restaurant on the second floor, and said to Eric: "Jeff Bezos should already be up there, you suddenly missed the appointment two days ago, he was very unhappy, and it took me a lot of effort to negotiate the terms with the other party." ”

Eric originally planned to meet with Jeff Bezos the night before yesterday to discuss increasing investment in Amazon, but was delayed by other things, and originally planned to return to the hotel at eight o'clock, but in fact it was delayed until half past eight, and the meeting between the two naturally failed, and there was no time for these two days, Eric could only entrust Chris to contact Jeff Bezos, fortunately, the effect was good.

According to the agreement reached between Chris and Jeff Bezos, in the next few years, Firefly Investment will be directly responsible for the financing of Amazon's e-commerce website, Firefly promises not to participate in Amazon's operation, and in order to show good faith, Firefly Investment will inject funds into Amazon in exchange for Amazon's convertible preferred stock.

Preferred shares are stocks that do not have voting rights but have the right to preferential dividends.

The Amazon convertible preferred shares held by Firefly Investment will be automatically converted into common shares with voting rights after Amazon's IPO.

This agreement can prompt Jeff Bezos to delay Amazon's IPO as much as possible, and Firefly Investment can also get more Amazon shares in the process. Chris expects that before Jeff Bezos decides to go public, Firefly Investment will be able to get about 40% of Amazon's shares, and after the listing, Firefly's shareholding will be maintained at more than 30%.

The two walked into the hotel and went to the restaurant on the second floor, although Eric was not late this time, Jeff Bezos was already waiting.

Eric's reason for delaying his departure until tomorrow morning was to take the opportunity to meet with Jeff Bezos.

Now that the agreement has been reached, the two sides did not talk too much about cooperation, the atmosphere was quite pleasant, and they chatted casually for about an hour, and they got acquainted with each other, and the two sides dispersed.

Before entering his hotel room, Eric said to Kelly, "Let's go to New York tomorrow morning and then go back to Los Angeles, and I'll have to see the two little guys, as well as the progress of the production of "America's Top Model" and "The Pride of the Flyover." (To be continued.) )