"Eric, even if you don't participate in the Oscars, you can't leave Los Angeles at this time, right, after the Oscars, there is a Firefly Pictures theme party, this is the first time for Firefly?" In the Sharp Corner Manor, Drew was lazily lying on the big bed, looking at the two people packing their bags opposite.

Tina. Faye helped Eric fold his clothes, and when she heard Drew's words, she glanced up at Eric who was picking up clothes from the closet. She is now Drew's assistant and is largely inseparable from Drew, and even lives with Drew, who comes to see Eric out of Los Angeles, so she follows him.

Eric handed a suit to Tina. Fei said: "Michael, they will arrange this by themselves." ”

"Why don't I go with you?" Drew propped up and said expectantly.

"I'm not going out to play, so you'd better stay in Los Angeles honestly and don't mess with me."

Drew snorted dissatisfiedly, his soft body in a striped hip-wrapping sweater squirmed to the side of the bed like a big bug, jumped down barefoot, leaned over to Eric's suitcase to help fold clothes together, and looked at Tina, who was quiet with black-rimmed glasses. Fey, Drew said suddenly: "Why don't you let Tina go with you, anyway, I don't have much to do during this time?" ”

Tina. When Fei heard this, a trace of anticipation flashed in her heart, and she secretly glanced at Eric's figure, but soon shook her head a little unconfidently and said, "I won't go, I won't know anything." ”

"I don't need you to do anything," Drew leaned into Tina. In Fei's ear, he seemed to whisper secretly, but he didn't lower his voice at all: "With you by Eric's side." He won't provoke other women. ”

Tina. Faye instantly understood what Drew meant. His face suddenly turned red.

Eric took out the last few pieces of clothing and handed them to Tina. Phenanthrene. He knocked on Drew's head: "Stop talking nonsense, and don't do any messy things in the manor while I'm not around." ”

Drew covered his head and called out, and said in a long voice of dissatisfaction, "I see." ”

After packing his luggage, Eric refused Drew to send him, and took Alan and four bodyguards to Los Angeles Airport by car. Boarding a small Boeing private airliner. The airliner was originally leased by Disney for executive use, but after Disney was acquired by Firefly, the right to use the airliner was also rebooked to Firefly.

After the plane lifted off, Eric instructed Alan to take out the materials, went to a lounge at the airport alone, sat at the desk by the window and opened the paper folder in his hand.

After Chris returned to New York, Firefly Capital began to focus on and collect information and materials on computer and network-related industries, as Eric had previously instructed. And a few days ago, some of the investment projects he fancied were sent to Eric, and this large pile of information. There was a company that caught Eric's attention, which is why he rushed to New York.

The name of this company is American Online Ol. It was in the original time and space, in 2000, when it merged with Time Warner Group and the American Online Line, at that time in the previous life, Eric was just twenty-five years old, and he had not graduated from college for a few years, and he was full of ambition, therefore, like many young people, he was very concerned about this merger involving $180 billion, and the market value of the merged AOL Time Warner Group even exceeded ** US dollars at one time, Eric remembers very clearly, someone made a special comparison back then, In 2000, the mainland's GDP was only 9.9 trillion yuan, equivalent to 1.3 trillion US dollars, that is to say, the market value of AOL Time Warner Group reached 26% of the mainland's GDP at its peak.

Now, according to the information in hand, although AOL has been established for seven years, it is still only an inconspicuous network service provider in Virginia, with a valuation of only $300 million, 120 employees and 150,000 users, and only 10% of the network service market.

After Eric pored over the not-so-thick information in his hand a few times, the plane had landed at JFK Airport.

"Eric, here," Eric walked out of the airport hall to see Chris in a long black trench coat waving to him. Although it was the end of March, the temperature in New York was still only about 10 degrees, and Eric, who was wearing only a light jacket in Los Angeles, had to put on a trench coat.

"Chris, how's it going?" Eric hugged Chris and exchanged pleasantries.

"It's okay, oh, this is Steve. Mr. Keys," Chris nodded, and then introduced Eric to the middle-aged man he was picking up with him.

Eric has seen Steve many times. Case's Profile, Steve Brown. Keith is the founder of AOL, wearing a khaki trench coat and a round face, looking a little shy.

"Mr. Williams, it's a pleasure to meet you, I love your films," said Steve. Keith took the initiative to extend his hand to Eric and complimented, although he had accumulated hundreds of millions of fortunes from scratch, he was still a small amount compared to Eric.

Eric smiled and shook hands with the other party, and introduced the entourage around him before getting into the car and returning to Manhattan.

Eric and Chris got into a car, and when the car started, he asked, "How did you talk to him?" ”

Chris shook his head: "It hasn't been negotiated yet, he hasn't completely abandoned the listing plan, but he promised to talk to you." ”

Eric breathed a sigh of relief, when Chris collected AOL information, the other party had been preparing for half a year in order to go public and raise funds. However, in Eric's view, now is not the best time for AOL to go public at all.

"As long as we can talk."

Chris looked at his watch, Eric set off from Los Angeles at nine o'clock in the morning Western time, according to the four-hour time difference between the east and west, and now it is more than nine o'clock in New York: "By the way, should I take you back to your residence first, or go directly to the company?" ”

If Steve. If Keith hadn't come to pick him up, Eric wouldn't mind going back to his Manhattan apartment first: "Let's go to the company." ”

"Alright," Chris instructed the driver. Then he said, "Come to my house for dinner in the evening." Emily cooks herself. ”

"Okay." Eric nodded briskly, not seeing the weakness and embarrassment in Chris's eyes when he said this.

……

"If you don't pay attention to user experience, even if a company's technology is advanced, it will often be eliminated by the market, so AOL's business strategy is to focus on users, and we will count the satisfaction of all users every quarter. And collect the user's build yì to improve it...... "Firefly Investment Company in the conference room, Steve. Case is very passionate about explaining his business ideas.

After being approached by Firefly Investment, Steve Brown. After all, if you choose to go public, AOL will have to accept a lot of supervision, which will definitely limit the pace of development of a company to a certain extent. However, the reason why he has not opened his mouth until now, and he also proposed to interview Eric, the owner behind Firefly Investment, is nothing more than waiting for the price to sell. Want to get more benefits from fireflies.

"Mr. Case, I heard. You're still more inclined to get AOL listed, right? Eric waited for the other party's speech to end before asking.

Steve. Keith nodded without hesitation: "Yes, if you choose to go public, AOL can more easily draw development funds from the capital market, and in our development plan, AOL is very thirsty for funds." ”

Eric smiled if Steve. If Case insisted on choosing to go public, he wouldn't be here at all today, but there is no need to debunk it in person.

"I'm not opposed to AOL's listing," Eric said, "but I don't think it's the best time to go public." ”

Steve. Keith looked puzzled.

Eric said: "If you pay more attention to current events, you should have noticed the last few Democratic presidential candidates, William Brown. Clinton's election speech, in which he proposed a plan for an information superhighway. ”

"I did hear about some," said Steve. Keys nodded: "However, although I support some of Clinton's ideas, I don't think he has too high a chance of winning, last year's victory in the Gulf War brought President Bush a high prestige, and Clinton's Democratic Party is also scattered, if Clinton cannot be elected president, many of his governing ideas are just empty words." ”

It cannot be said that the reason why Clinton proposed the information superhighway plan is precisely because his campaign sees great prospects for the development of computer networks. I think this is an irreversible trend of the times, and even if Clinton loses the election and President Bush is re-elected, it will not be able to change this trend, so it is very unwise for AOL to choose to go public so early. ”

"Mr. Williams, although I am also very confident in the popularization of computer networks, I ......"

"$60 million."

"What?" Steve. Keith asked uncertainly, stunned.

"I know that AOL is going to sell 30% of its shares this time, and I plan to raise $5,000 in funds, and I can contribute 60 million, and in the next few years, if AOL lacks funds, Firefly can still invest," Eric said. ”

Hearing Eric start quoting straight away, Steve. "Mr. Williams, $60 million seems like a little less, and while it's true that our company is planning to raise $50 million, if the market responds well, it's certainly more than that," Case said. ”

"Very good," Eric smiled, "It seems that you have agreed to talk to Firefly about the capital injection, so the specific amount can be negotiated by our two teams." ”

Steve. Keith was stunned, and soon realized that Eric had taken himself into the ditch: "Mr. Williams, I was just talking about a possibility, and I didn't agree. ”

"It's okay, let's talk then," Eric sat up straight, the smile on his face still the same.

Chris also interjected with a smile at this time: "Mr. Case, Eric not only has to take care of Firefly Pictures, but also has a few movies to operate, and besides, it will be the Oscars in a few days, you said that you want to talk in person, but he canceled his attendance at the Oscars and came to New York, so you should be able to see that we are very sincere." ”

"Okay," Steve. Keith also felt that it might be self-defeating if he continued to be hypocritical, and said, "However, I have some of my own conditions regarding the scale of Firefly's capital injection and the management of the organization in the future?" ”

"Please?" Chris stretched out his hand.

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

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

Steve. Keith obviously knew something about this as well, and nodded, "One more thing, I hope Firefly will give me the voting rights of the shares they hold." ”

Hearing this condition, Chris looked at Eric, not interfering in the daily management of AOL and the voting rights to transfer equity are two different things, and giving up voting rights is equivalent to Firefly completely losing the power to control the direction of AOL. Keith can toss as much as he wants.

Eric thought quickly in his heart, then raised three fingers and said, "Three years, within three years, Firefly will hand over the voting rights of the shares held by Fireflies to you." ”

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

"No, five years is too long," Eric shook his head, "three years at most, and I hope AOL chooses to go public in three years." ”

Three years later, in 1995, it was the beginning of the Big Bang and the beginning of the bubble.

Because of the merger between AOL and Time Warner, Eric still paid a lot of attention to AOL, and AOL's most glorious period was only five years after 1995. This is because AOL's main business is dial-up Internet services, and after 2000, with the bursting of the Internet bubble and the popularization of broadband Internet access, AOL has declined rapidly at a rapid rate, and its market value has shrunk by more than 90% in just a few years, so the reason why Eric now attaches so much importance to AOL is that he is completely interested in AOL's net worth in the five years between 1995 and 2000.

"Steve, the amount of capital injection can still be discussed, but in three years, I will never give in." (To be continued......)