Unlike the year-end blockbuster news focused on the media and entertainment section, Yahoo's IPO is a news event at the level of the whole society. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

While the Nasdaq crossed 2,500 points this week, the market capitalization of major technology companies also reached new highs.

According to Eric's closing data when he arrived in New York on Wednesday, Microsoft, the undisputed king of the Nasdaq market, has reached a staggering $335.9 billion in market capitalization. In addition, among other star technology stocks, Intel has a market capitalization of $157.2 billion, Cisco has a market capitalization of $133.5 billion, AOL has a market capitalization of $66.7 billion, and SUN has a market capitalization of $38.6 billion......

Among them, even Microsoft, which has the most outstanding profitability, has reached a price-earnings ratio of more than 100 times the bubble level, so the Nasdaq market at this time can only be described as "crazy".

Although Yahoo has achieved revenue of $1.296 billion in the first three quarters, more than double the $636 million in the whole of last year, the company's full-year revenue growth rate is still expected to be close to 200%. However, even if it is only calculated based on the issue price of a single share of $33, Yahoo's market capitalization of $33.7 billion, combined with Yahoo's earnings expectations, will still bring a price-to-earnings ratio of about 200 times.

Normally, unless you are extremely bullish on a company's growth potential, it is difficult for the company to attract investors if the price-to-earnings ratio exceeds 30 times.

It is conceivable that there are basically no more rational investors in the current NASDAQ market. Lured by huge short-term arbitrage trading profits, everyone is betting frantically and secretly praying that they will not be the last receiver before the Nasdaq collapses.

It was in this tense state that Yahoo went public, and the timing was extremely sensitive. Although more than 15% of the shares issued were successfully subscribed during the pre-IPO process, no one, including Eric himself, was sure that the official listing of Yahoo shares would be the last straw that broke the camel's back.

Therefore, everyone is mindset to do their best to prepare for the worst. Approaching the last day of the listing, the entire Firefly system is still in full swing for Yahoo to make final preparations for the listing.

After a busy day, in the evening, Eric had planned to invite the executives of the Firefly system companies who had come to Yahoo to ring the bell for dinner, but he received a call and had to rush to the Nasdaq exchange in Midtown.

Although there are more than 12 hours to go public tomorrow, the Nasdaq exchange on 42nd Street in Midtown is already crowded with reporters from all sides.

As soon as Eric's car stopped outside the exchange building, a group of sharp-eyed reporters immediately frantically surrounded him, countless hands holding cameras and recorders crossed the bodyguard guarding Eric and stretched out towards him, and a reporter with a loud voice tried his best to stretch the voice recorder in his hand forward, suppressing all the noisy voices around him and said loudly: "Mr. Williams, we just got the news that the Yahoo team in the exchange seems to have a conflict with the top management of the Nasdaq group, are you here to solve this matter?"

Hearing this reporter's sudden question, the other media people around were stunned, and then gave up the question just now, and at the same time hoped that Eric would be able to answer the question just now.

Struggling to enter the building surrounded by a crowd of reporters, Erekla took off his torn suit, looked around him, and turned his head with some concern to ask his bodyguard captain, Carter Moen, "Where is Mary?"

Carter said, "Miss Mayer is still in the car, the crowd is too chaotic, I just suggested that she wait for you to come in and come over." ”

Eric nodded, waved his hand at Steve Mitnick's assistant who greeted him, and quickened his pace and walked straight to the NASDAQ Exchange lobby.

Unlike traditional stock exchanges such as the New York Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange, NASDAQ is actually the abbreviation of the National Association of Securities Dealers Automatic Quotation System, which is the world's first electronic stock securities trading platform, and users basically trade stocks by phone and computer.

Therefore, the NASDAQ exchange in the 42nd Street building is more like a symbol, and the exchange does not have the complete hardware and software securities trading facilities of the New York Stock Exchange, and the lobby is surrounded by a number of sets of photographic equipment and live broadcast facilities that broadcast the news of the exchange to the world in real time, and it looks more like a television studio.

Unlike the New York Stock Exchange, which is a non-profit social public service organization, although it has long been able to compete with the New York Stock Exchange in terms of the size and trading volume of listed companies, in fact, the NASDAQ is a private for-profit company owned by Starkey Group.

Seeing Eric appear, the two parties who were originally facing each other immediately walked over together.

Frank Saab, CEO of Nasdaq Group, looked very excited, waved his arms and took the lead in speaking: "Eric, it's hard for me to understand your thoughts, why do you want to temporarily carry out technical overhaul and stress testing of NASDAQ's trading system, this is simply vexatious. I know you value Yahoo's IPO deal, but the NASDAQ platform has been around for 27 years, and we have never delayed the listing of a company due to technical reasons, so your request is completely unnecessary. And, taking a step back, even if we do this, it should be done by our own technical team, and we can't open the server to outsiders for testing. ”

Eric listened to Frank Sabo's complaints, raised his wrist to look at his watch, and interrupted: "How long does it take for your technical team to overhaul and test?"

Frank Saab paused as he waved his arms before saying, "Eric, it's completely unnecessary. ”

"I insist," Eric's voice became cold, and his eyes were fixed on Frank Saab, "Or, you continue to refuse, and then I cancel tomorrow's listing, there is a large group of reporters outside, and now we can hold a press conference to announce this news." So, how long does it take for your technical team to overhaul and test?"

Eric's insistence on the NASDAQ exchange to overhaul and test the system equipment is naturally not vexatious or unfounded.

In the past, Facebook suffered a sudden failure of NASDAQ system equipment on the day of listing, which ultimately caused billions of dollars worth of Facebook stock trading orders to be unable to be successfully completed, and even caused Facebook's stock price to fall below the issue price to a large extent on the day of listing. Because of the bad start, Facebook's stock price continued to slump in the following year, and the company's market value was only more than $30 billion at the lowest point, less than one-third of the market value on the day of listing.

So if Frank Saab really insists on not compromising on the matter, Eric doesn't mind holding an impromptu press conference to urgently cancel Yahoo's IPO tomorrow.

Eric's sudden burst of pressure made Frank Saab's momentum soften, if Yahoo's listing operation is really temporarily canceled, although Firefly may face unpredictable losses, he, the CEO of the Nasdaq Group, will definitely be swept away by the board of directors.

Subconsciously swallowed his saliva, and Frank Sabo finally didn't dare to spit out another hard word.

However, as the leader of the group, he really doesn't know how long it will take for the NASDAQ's trading system platform to be overhauled and tested. After hesitating for a moment, he gave an indefinite time: "Probably, it will take five or six hours." ”

"Since the market closes at 4 p.m., you have been delayed for an hour and a half. Eric raised his hand and knocked on his watch, and said, "So, call your technical team immediately, Steve, they must also assist and carry out the necessary supervision, whether it is six hours, or twelve hours, in short, before tomorrow's transaction, give me this matter, is there any problem?"

Frank Sabo shook his head in a somewhat harsh tone, "No, no problem. ”

"That's it, let's get started," Eric said, looking around, sitting down on a chair next to the camera, and looking at the crowd with his arms up.

Frank Saab didn't dare to make any more sloppy eyes, and took out his mobile phone and began to dial on the spot.

Steve Mitnick waved everyone away, walked to Eric's side, pulled a chair and sat down, and said with a wry smile: "I quarreled with the original person in charge here for an hour, Frank Sabo rushed over, and after another half an hour, I can only call you over." ”

Eric shook his head to say that it was okay, and said, "I'll have dinner with Ian and John later, and you will probably have to stay here." ”

"It's nothing," Steve Mitnick laughs, "and I'm still a little bit incredulous about to become a billionaire all of a sudden." My parents always disliked me for studying computers, thought it was a bad job, and even worried that I would end up on the streets. ”

After the last stock split and the last equity incentive plan before the IPO, Ian Gnier and Steve Mitnick, the two most important veterans of Yahoo, both held 16 million shares, and at the issue price of $33, both of them were worth more than $500 million at this time. In addition, Tina Brown holds 6 million shares, which are also worth nearly $200 million.

That is, before it even went public, Yahoo had already created three billionaires. In addition to the three core executives, there are another 48.5 million shares distributed in the hands of Yahoo's management and elite employees at all levels, once listed, Yahoo will create more than a dozen multimillionaires and hundreds of millionaires at once, which is very rare in the entire history of the world's corporate development, and has also been called one of the symbols of the technology stock bubble by some media.

Looking at Steve Mitnick, who had an emotional expression, Eric smiled, "Well, you can tell your parents about it now and surprise them." ”

"My mother was already surprised," Steve said with a more teasing smile on his face, "and she thinks your boss must be in his right mind to give so much money to his employees." ”

"yes, I'm actually quite distressed," Eric joked, clutching his chest.

That being said, Eric has never been reluctant to give up on such a large-scale equity incentive plan, and high equity incentives will naturally be tied to strict non-compete restrictions.

In this era when Internet companies have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain, these elites within Yahoo Group, who have been crawling in the Internet industry since the establishment of three companies in Eric, can easily attract venture capital and quickly accumulate enough wealth through IPO if they lead the team to leave Yahoo and go it alone, and may even become Yahoo's competitors.

But in reality, this has not happened, and Yahoo has maintained its absolute hegemony over the mainstream Internet business such as web portals, email, instant messaging, browser software, and more recently, search engines. With the exception of Jeff Locke and others, who left three years ago when the first equity incentive plan was launched, there have been few core executives leaving Yahoo in recent years, mainly because of the company's generosity in equity incentives and strict non-compete restrictions.

Although the book value of the equity incentive plan totaling 96.5 million shares so far exceeds $3 billion, Eric has gained $30 billion.

Chatting with Steve, and watching the exchange for a while, it wasn't until Mayer came over with his phone and received a call from Ian Gnier and others from the Plaza Hotel, and Eric left for tonight's banquet.

Early the next morning, Eric woke up in his penthouse on Sixth Avenue, and it was already seven o'clock.

Downstairs in the dining room, Mayer had already prepared breakfast, and saw Eric sitting down at the table, and the female assistant handed over a stack of sorted newspapers.

"I'm not going to watch it today," Eric said, shaking his head, "We're going to be on 42nd Street before eight o'clock." ”

Mayer put away the newspaper, served breakfast for the two, sat down opposite, and said: "Mr. Mitnick sent a message at four o'clock in the morning, they have completed the overhaul and test of the NASDAQ trading system, and the technical teams of Yahoo and NASDAQ are still there to ensure that there will be no accidents throughout today's trading." Also, Mr. Katzenberg arrived in New York at nine o'clock last night, and you were still having dinner with everyone, and Katzenberg said that he would go directly to the NASDAQ exchange today. ”

Eric added some milk to the cereal and nodded, "Well, is there anything else?"

Mayer continued: "The midnight box office of "Mission Impossible 3" is about $9.2 million, which is lower than the summer "Breaking Bad" and "The Matrix 2". ”

"It's already good. ”

Eric wasn't disappointed, North America had just experienced a massive cooling in recent days, and it was already snowing in many parts of the East Coast, and many people were reluctant to go outside during the day, let alone watch a midnight movie in the early hours of the morning. In this case, the box office of "Mission Impossible 3" can still maintain more than $9 million at the midnight show, and it has even been a bit extraordinary.

After listening to Mayer's report on a few more things, Eric looked at the girl opposite and said, "Speaking of which, it's Thanksgiving soon, I'll give you a holiday today after you're done, go back to spend Thanksgiving with your family, next week, well, just come back next week." ”

Caroline was still recuperating from her injuries, and Mayer subconsciously wanted to ask Eric what he would do if he left him, but suddenly remembered something, closed his mouth again, and just nodded slightly.

After breakfast, Eric took Mayer to the NASDAQ exchange on 42nd Street. Compared with yesterday afternoon, although it is not yet eight o'clock, today's NASDAQ exchange is more lively inside and out, and many guests who came to stand for Yahoo's listing even appeared in the exchange hall before Eric.

Greeting everyone warmly, Eric then found two beautiful figures in the crowd with some surprise, and said in surprise: "Why are you two here?"

Cindy picked up her badge and shook it at Eric, "I'm a star user of the Yahoo blog, and Ms. Brown personally called to invite me to stand for Yahoo." ”

Eric smiled and looked at Linda next to Cindy, "Where's your brand?"

Linda reached out and wanted to snatch Cindy's badge, but it was opened, and she raised her chin a little depressedly, and said, "No, you can kick me out." ”

Cindy walked over and gently grabbed Eric's arm, leaned into his ear and whispered with a smile, "She subscribed for 1.5 million shares, and all her savings in the past few years have been smashed into it." ”

"Big customer," Eric reached out and grabbed Linda, who was in a little mood, and said, "Okay, wait for me to ring the bell on stage." But first, I don't care if I'm trapped. ”

"I've seen through you a long time ago," Linda leaned over reluctantly, pinched Eric lightly on the waist, and said, "Irresponsible man." ”