At Eric's insistence, the funding talks with Qualcomm were finalized on January 21, the day of the Golden Globe Awards.

Qualcomm's shareholders and management also understood that the sooner an agreement was reached with the powerful Firefly Investment, the better it would be to promote the CDMA technology, so they did not open their mouths because of Firefly's urgency, but only demanded that the final amount of Firefly's capital injection be determined according to Qualcomm's stock price the day before the deal was concluded.

After the news of Firefly's contact with Qualcomm broke, Qualcomm's stock price rose 21% in just one week, reaching $23.8 per share, and Firefly Investment finally needed to pay $238 million for Qualcomm's private placement of 10 million shares, which was far from Eric's affordability, so he personally rushed from Los Angeles to San Diego early in the morning.

After the signing ceremony in the morning, Eric, Chris, and Qualcomm's Owen Jacob and other senior executives went into the conference room to discuss the next steps.

After a detailed discussion of the lobbying strategy for telecom operators and the plan to build Qualcomm's CDMA equipment factory, it was already five o'clock in the afternoon.

Chris and Owen Jacob had already agreed with Verizon's CEO for a meeting tomorrow, and they couldn't wait to board the plane to Verizon's headquarters in New York after the afternoon meeting. Eric drops Chris and Owen Jacob off and returns to Los Angeles with his entourage.

With the acquisition of Qualcomm, Eric once again laid an important chess piece in the high-tech industry that has begun to rise.

In the original time and space, although Qualcomm is much more obscure than high-tech companies such as Cisco and Yahoo that once had their own moments, in fact. Qualcomm is the most profound of these companies. Because it has an almost complete monopoly on an entire generation of mobile communication technology. Even if you really accidentally encounter the day of decline, you can respond to the old saying that there are still 3,000 nails when a broken ship is broken, and you can make a lot of profits every year just by relying on the licensing fees of the thousands of patents you hold in your hands.

Thinking of this, Eric couldn't help but turn to Firefly Investment's already owned companies Cisco, Yahoo, Nokia and AOL, if the original historical development process is followed, in addition to Cisco, the remaining three companies will gradually decline in the next few years.

Eric had read about why Nokia had fallen so badly. In the process of development, these high-tech enterprises do not lack either capital or technology, and the fundamental reason for their decline is that there have been major mistakes in the direction of enterprise development. As long as he can maintain sufficient control over these companies in his opponents, with the advantage of the Reborn, Eric is confident that he will be able to keep these companies on the right path for at least the next two decades.

A black Rolls-Royce hurtles down the Pacific Rim Highway between Los Angeles and San Diego, the setting sun crumbling over the distant sea level, dyeing everything in view a magnificent orange hue.

In the carriage, Eric kept his eyes closed and meditated all the way. Kelly, who was sitting next to her, didn't bother, quietly flipping through a document in her hand.

I don't know how long it took. Noticing that Eric suddenly opened his eyes and straightened up, Kelly looked up and asked, "Eric, what's wrong?"

Eric turned to Kelly and asked, "I remember seeing a merger and acquisition proposal submitted by Cisco executives a few days ago, do you remember?"

Kelly nodded: "Well, they plan to acquire a network switch company based in Seattle, and the initial negotiated price is $1.9 billion, in the form of a share exchange merger." ”

"What will be our shareholding after this transaction?"

Kelly thought for a moment and said, "Cisco's current stock market value is about $16 billion, and it will exceed $18 billion after the merger, and our shareholding will be reduced from 23% to 20.5%. ”

Eric shook his head, although the shareholding ratio dropped to 20.5%, Firefly is still the largest shareholder of Cisco, but the control will become weaker and weaker, although Cisco has maintained a strong industry position in the previous life, Eric will not deliberately interfere in corporate management, but he also realizes that he can no longer continue to let Firefly Investment in the hands of Cisco equity be diluted, even if this diluted share will still be a huge wealth in the future.

"It can't go down, no, not only can't it go down, but we have to increase our stake in Cisco again, and you contact Chris tomorrow to ask Cisco management to change the way this merger is made, to cash and stock, to make sure that our shares can't be diluted again." In addition, you can discuss a plan to increase our shareholding, preferably to 30%. “

Kelly wondered, "Eric, aren't you planning to invest in the telecommunications industry, given the current size of Verizon and Sprint, any one of them agreeing to the Firefly's investment would require more than $1 billion." If you increase Cisco's shareholding to 30% as you said, it is likely that you will need to invest $2 billion considering the premium factor, and there may not be any investment institutions willing to transfer their shares. ”

Eric couldn't help but be generous in his heart, 2 billion US dollars, which is more than 20 times the amount of Firefly's first investment in Cisco, but at this time, he can only get less than 10% of the shares, and it seems that the good days of 'picking up leaks' in the future will be gone forever. But given Cisco's future value, the additional investment is definitely worth it at this point.

Firefly Group has just experienced a profitable fiscal year, Eric was still lamenting too much money some time ago, and now he finds that if he wants to continue to expand, the funds in his hands are still far from enough. In the past, Eric did not have the idea of making some large investments, but he always subconsciously felt that the returns were not high enough and resisted, but at this time, he also had a feeling of sudden enlightenment, and he had been thinking about 'picking up the leaks', which was definitely not the correct investment thinking, but speculation. Just like the war in the era of cold weapons, it's okay to occasionally send a few surprise soldiers to fight a few battles to win more with less, but if you keep thinking about winning by surprise, you can only lose in the end.

"Firefly Group's earnings should be able to cope with these plans, and even if it is not enough, I will consider financing from other sources, you just have to do it. ”

Kelly nodded. Write down Eric's instructions in the memo. Looked out the window. As he was about to enter downtown Los Angeles, he asked, "Eric, the Golden Globes should have begun, are you going to the Hilton?"

It was already dark outside the window, and Eric looked at his watch, half past seven, in his capacity, even if it was this time. He wouldn't be stopped outside the banquet hall, but there was really no need for this, looking at the female assistant who was wearing a black suit and skirt next to him and exuding an intellectual atmosphere, Eric smiled and asked, "I'm not going to join in the fun, is Nina at boarding school today?"

Kelly blushed and nodded slightly.

"Then let's find a place to have dinner first, and then go to your place. ”

The female assistant pinched the corners of her clothes, her cheeks were powdery, and her voice was like a mosquito: "Still, go directly to me." It's easy to get touched when eating out......"

"No problem, listen to you. ”

……

"There is no doubt about it. Nor is it a movie, it's just another male triumph. "Braveheart", a self-righteous film full of fictional historical facts, completely defeated "Saving Private Ryan", which is ten times better than it, simply because the director of "Saving Private Ryan" is a woman, and once again proves the deep-rooted sexism in Hollywood, where as long as you are a woman, even if you do something that a man can't necessarily do, you still don't get recognition. In the end, I just want to ask very weakly, is it really going to go on like this?"

The day after the Golden Globe Awards, a well-known female commentator in the Los Angeles Times published such a heated comment in her personal column, and received a lot of media discussion about sexism, including all kinds of Golden Globe shady questions and discussions. And the reason for this incident is that at the 52nd Golden Globe Awards, the much-anticipated "Saving Private Ryan" lost to "Braveheart" in the four nominations of Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Soundtrack, and only Tom Hanks successfully won the Best Actor award.

While many professional critics know that Braveheart and Private Ryan are artistically equal, instinctively a large portion of critics gravitate toward Private Rescuer, which has a stronger sense of cultural identity, because without a strong contender, Tom Hanks is almost certain for Best Actor. Before the ceremony, most of the discussion focused on the Golden Globe nominations for Best Picture and Best Director.

After "Saving Private Ryan" was nothing, the original sense of identity in some people's hearts turned into disappointment and doubt, because of the gender of director Catherine, many feminists also angrily protested to the Golden Globe Awards jury, and even called on Hollywood actresses not to attend the Golden Globe Awards ceremony anymore.

For the media's questioning, the Golden Globe Awards jury, as many times in the past, completely adopts a non-response attitude, this kind of questioning of the award happens almost every year, as long as it does not get out of control, not responding is the best way to deal with it, and responding will appear empty-hearted, thus making things bigger.

In the following days, the list of nominees for the 67th Academy Awards was announced, and "Braveheart" once again caused heated discussions in the media, but the focus of the controversy this time was focused on Mel Gibson's Best Actor nomination, and "Braveheart" at the Golden Globe Awards The nomination for Best Actor has already made many film critics slander, thinking that Mel Gibson's performance can only be regarded as passing, and there is still a large part of the way to be nominated for the award. The film critic was already angry because of the injustice of the Golden Globe Awards, and he did not hesitate to point his gun at the Oscars, which was another discussion of the fairness of the Oscars.

The general public, of course, did not know how much had happened during this period, but simply followed the debate with relish. With the increase in the degree of topicality, more and more media have begun to follow up, changing tricks to attract viewers or readers.

Most people didn't notice that with this upsurge of discussion, "Saving Private Ryan", which had been out of gear for a long time, silently sold 670,000 videotapes in the following week, which was equivalent to the sales of the previous two weeks combined, and brought $20 million in videotape sales to Firefly in one week.

At the same time, the weekly box office of "Braveheart", which is still in theaters, suddenly rose by 60% from more than $7 million before the Golden Globe Awards to 11 million. The cumulative box office easily exceeded the $73 million mark. The Weinstein brothers were naturally happy. Small movements are more frequent.

in the whole thing. Mel Gibson was undoubtedly the hardest, as the debate over the nomination for Best Actor and the media controversy over Hollywood's sexism sexist in Hollywood compressed his hopes of winning Best Director to almost nothing.

He has already been paid $18 million and will take another 10 percent of the profits in the future, and Fox doesn't owe him anything. Harvey was trying to spread the word about his Jewish discriminatory tendencies, but I stopped him, huh. If it weren't for the fact that everyone is Australian, I wouldn't have cared. ”

In Beverly Hills, Julia and Elizabeth's hilltop mansion, Elizabeth leans back on a beach chair by the pool in a crisp white shirt and jeans, and sunglasses, and says to Eric who is flipping through the script on another deck chair.

Eric flipped the page of the script in his hand, but nodded his head to indicate that he had heard.

Elizabeth pursed her lips with some dissatisfaction and said, "Eric, I heard that you have used two more rookie directors. And handed over "The Matrix" to one of them, aren't you afraid of messing up?"

"Be precise. It's three," Eric corrected casually.

"Of course I know, that, the Wachowski brothers, eh, is there anything special about them?"

Listening to Elizabeth's little voice that became a thief, Eric smiled and said, "Don't worry, the two of them, oh, three, have signed an option contract with Firefly for three films, at least for five years, they will definitely not accept other companies' films, of course, unless I take the initiative to release them." ”

Now that the decision was made to use the Wachowski brothers and Michael Bay, Eric certainly didn't give them the chance to shoot a film that was a box office hit, but signed a Hollywood option contract with the trio beforehand, stipulating that they would have to direct at least three films for Firefly before they could move elsewhere.

Of course, in order to maintain a good relationship with three directors with good potential for future appreciation, Eric did not stipulate a low director remuneration in advance, as many option contracts do. Although Eric advocates suppressing the ultra-high salaries of Hollywood superstars, he will not do his best to let the creators of the film only work but do not get the due remuneration, and win-win is the fundamental principle of a virtuous circle in the industry. Eric's option contract was not demanding, and the Wachowski brothers and Michael Bay were happy to sign.

Elizabeth, however, thought Eric was talking about the traditional option contract, snorted twice, and said, "I think you're the kind of 'greedy Jew' that Mel Gibson calls you." ”

Eric didn't mind the racial ridicule at all, shrugged his shoulders and said, "Who knows, don't everyone who goes to Hollywood want to be Jewish." ”

While the two were talking, Julia walked over with a plate of cut fruit platter, placed it on the small round table to Eric's right, and gently pushed Eric to the side, huddled together with Eric, and lay down comfortably on the large beach chair.

Elizabeth dissatisfied, "Julia, where's my fruit bowl?"

Julia put her arm around Eric's waist, twisted her body to find a more comfortable position, felt Eric's heartbeat and warm sunshine, and said lazily, "You can do it yourself." ”

"Tsk, it's like a cat, it's still a spring cat. ”

Julia ignored it, and Eric smiled and touched Julia's face on his chest: "Kitten, bark." ”

"Meow ......"

"Hey, I'll be disgusted to death," Elizabeth made a retching motion, looked at the script in Eric's hand impatiently, and said, "When will you finish reading it, what do you think?"

"You know, I've never been able to lift my spirits about things that I'm not interested in. ”

"Is this script terrible, I spent a lot of effort and looked up a lot of information about small animals. ”

The script in Eric's hand was an idea similar to "Robbing a Nut Shop" that Elizabeth brainstormed in a short period of time after he and Elizabeth saw a little squirrel in the open-air restaurant that day, and Elizabeth found several screenwriters to work out the story together.

"It's not bad, but it's not very eye-catching at all. If you want to see it, I'll ask you to give you a copy of the script of the story that Disney Animation is working on, so that you can see what imagination is. ”

Elizabeth leaned back on the recliner and said, "Since you don't like this story, then what do you want that Chris Wetch from Blue Sky Studios to do, I looked at the resume of that studio, although he has done some special effects for big-name movies, but he has not set foot in the field of animation, he can't compare to Pixar's gang, right?"

Eric closed the script in his hand, picked up a piece of apple in the fruit bowl and ate it, and said, "Although your story is ordinary, it can be used by them to practice their hands and make a short film to train the team." ”

"You might as well give me some more people from Pixar, like Disney Animation. ”

Eric shook his head and said, "Don't worry about Pixar, but I don't give you this studio, we will divide it equally, I have thought about it, leaving 10% of the shares to the management, and the remaining Fireflies and Fox each have 45%. ”

"You already have two animation studios!"

Eric laughs, "If it weren't for some animation ideas that didn't fit Disney's distribution style, I wouldn't mind having another animation studio under Firefly." ”

"Wow, you greedy Jew!" (To be continued.) )