Chapter 718 Speculative Mentality

Throughout May, Eric and Chris spent campaigning for Firefly Investments' stake in telecom operator Sprint.

In early May, the two parties had already finalized the general transaction plan, Sprint issued 400 million shares to Firefly Investment in exchange for a $1.32 billion capital injection, and after the transaction was completed, Sprint's total share capital was expanded to 4 billion shares, with Firefly Investment's shareholding ratio of 10%, and two seats on Sprint's board of directors. As long as the deal can be successful, Sprint will also adopt Qualcomm's CDMA technology, driven by Firefly's investment.

However, after the two sides formulated the transaction plan, the matter is far from over, although the legal threshold of the communications industry is gradually relaxed, but as an industry that will be strictly regulated by any country, if you want to enter smoothly, you still need to pass layers of review.

Firefly and Sprint first need to submit their proposals to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for an antitrust review. Firefly Investment not only owns Qualcomm involved in the research and development of the underlying technology of mobile communications, but also controls Nokia, which produces mobile communication base stations and terminal equipment.

Ten years ago, the FTC would have rejected the deal as soon as it was submitted, but in recent years, the federal government has continued to relax legal restrictions on the telecommunications industry, which has made it possible for the deal to be approved.

After several in-person FTC hearings on the deal and private lobbying by Eric and Chris, the FTC finally approved the deal at the end of May.

In parallel with the FTC, Firefly Investments and Sprint filed petitions with the Federal Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). After passing the FTC hurdle, which is the most variable, the remaining two departments are much simpler. Almost a week after the FTC approved the deal, the SEC and the FCC approved both parties' trade applications.

On May 26th, the signing ceremony between Firefly Investment and Sprint was officially held at the Sprint Group headquarters in Manhattan.

At the press conference after the signing ceremony, Firefly Investment and Sprint executives officially announced that Sprint will cooperate with Qualcomm to build a nationwide mobile communication network using CDMA technology.

A month ago. After receiving a $300 million directional bond financing from Firefly, Verizon has announced that it has joined the CDMA camp. At this time, Sprint Group, which owns nearly half of the A and B mobile communication licenses, announced to join again, marking the dust of the dispute over the mobile communication technology standards in the United States for several years, and CDMA technology not only got rid of the fate that may be completely abandoned, but also successfully occupied more than half of the market in the field of mobile communications in the United States.

Qualcomm shares on the open market began to skyrocket as soon as the press conference ended, soaring 8% in a few hours before the day's close. The price per share easily broke through the $30 mark to $31.5, compared to the stock price of about $17 at the end of last year, Qualcomm's market value has risen by 85% in just half a year, and it is only a matter of time before it doubles.

"The last time I went to San Diego, Qualcomm's communications equipment manufacturing plant was just beginning to be located, and it was at least the end of the year before it could be put into production on a large scale. Although Sprint agreed to adopt CDMA technology, it could not wait half a year. They decided to temporarily roll out a GSM network in the Washington area. In addition, Qualcomm originally planned to cooperate with Sony to build a factory together, but the plan was rejected by me, and even if it was to cooperate, the object should definitely be Nokia, which is also a good time for Nokia to enter the US market. Qualcomm licensed a full set of CDMA technology to Nokia before we took a stake in Nokia in 1991, and although Nokia focuses on GSM research and development, it still has some foundation in this area, and they can also provide a group of professional management personnel to Qualcomm's equipment manufacturing plants......"

The time is the next day. It happened to be Saturday, and after a busy day yesterday, most of the things were finally over, and Chris took Emily with him to East Hampton.

However, the two soon went into Eric's study again and talked about business, and the topic of course started with Qualcomm, Chris knew very well that Eric's recent series of layouts was largely for Qualcomm.

Eric leaned back in his chair, listened to Chris, and said: "Speaking of GSM and CDMA, I was thinking that neither side will be able to drive either side out of the market in a short period of time, so the integration of these two technologies is the most correct path, just like this DVD format dispute, the two major DVD technology standard camps are very smart, and they did not waste another ten or eight years on R+ and R- to divide the winners and losers, but chose to support each other." ”

The standard for DVDs has been in place for some years, but several of Hollywood's major studios have been trying to delay the release of DVDs out of concern about the lower cost of DVD piracy.

But until now, it is impossible to delay any longer, with the experience of the Sony videotape lawsuit, Hollywood can no longer expect to stop the emergence of DVDs through lawsuits, and it is expected that after the summer, several major DVD manufacturers will launch DVD players.

Chris also knows a little about this information, and said: "The standards mastered by the two major DVD technology camps are actually the same generation of technology, and it is not difficult to support each other, but GSM and CDMA are already two completely different technical standards, and it is basically impossible to integrate." ”

Eric said: "I'm not talking about the integration of the operator level, but the integration of the terminal, Nokia has GSM technology, Qualcomm has CDMA technology, both sides have very deep technical accumulation in these two standards, so we want to launch a mobile phone that can support both GSM network and CDMA network, it is certainly not difficult." ”

Dual-Netcom and full-Netcom mobile phones that support a variety of network standards are very common in later generations. However, in 1995, the new generation of digital communication technology had just been widely popularized, and several major technology camps were thinking about how to squeeze each other out of the market, and did not consider coexistence or even integration at all, so the multi-Netcom mobile phone was definitely a very novel concept.

Chris's eyes lit up. "Eric, that's a great idea, I think, why don't we have a conference call tomorrow with Yoma?" Ollila and Owen? Jacob discussed the matter and supported both GSM and CDMA network mobile phones. There is certainly not much of a market in Europe, but North America has already established a situation where GSM coexists with CDMA, and this kind of phone will certainly have a lot to offer. ”

"You can arrange it, Jurassic Park 2 is coming out on June 2nd, and I can probably stay in New York for a week," Eric replied, and he also planned to meet with Nokia's CEO Yoma in the near future. Ollila talks in detail.

Nokia was the first communications equipment manufacturer to bet on GSM technology, which is the key to its rapid rise in recent years, although it does not have a complete monopoly on CDMA technology patents like Qualcomm. But Nokia also has the largest number of patents on GSM technology among the world's major telecommunications equipment manufacturers.

A few months ago, after the news of Firefly's investment in Qualcomm broke, Yoma? In an email, Ollira wondered about Eric's approach, saying that it was in Nokia's interest to block Qualcomm's CDMA technology. Now, instead of doing this, Eric has vigorously supported CDMA technology to grab half of the mobile communications market in the United States. Ollila's reaction even on the surface was not intense. There will definitely be a pimple in my heart.

Although in phone calls and emails, Eric had explained to him his intentions for doing so. But more communication is definitely beneficial.

Only by maintaining sufficient communication and understanding of each other's intentions can Eric feel at ease to hand over his business to the managers, and he will be able to spend more time on other things.

Chris habitually took out a small memo from his shirt pocket and solemnly wrote it down before saying to Eric, "This matter is settled." I think we should talk about Yahoo. ”

"I've been talking to Ian and the others lately, and I understand their general idea," Eric said, nodding.

When the equity incentive contract expired this year, Firefly Investment's team had begun to evaluate the work of Yahoo's key executives. In order to determine the share of equity awards they can receive.

Eric's initial plan was to launch Yahoo's IPO plan after the end of this equity incentive plan.

But in recent times, several executives have unanimously hoped that Eric will push back Yahoo's launch date. Their reasons are also quite good, the capital market is extremely profit-oriented, once Yahoo goes public, the company will have to face performance pressure, and abandon the current step-by-step stable development strategy.

Under repeated lobbying by Yahoo's management, Eric also began to think carefully about this issue.

A few years ago, Eric's original idea was to take Yahoo public in 1995, and when the dot-com bubble exploded and his Yahoo stock passed the lock-up period, he could take advantage of Yahoo's inflated stock price to cash out a large amount of money from the capital market.

At the end of the day, Eric's original plan was still very speculative, and he subconsciously only wanted to cash out and get out of the market, rather than running Yahoo well.

After several years of mental precipitation, Eric also realized that if he kept this mentality, his career would definitely be bottlenecked one day in the future.

Seeing Eric's thoughtful look, Chris asked, "So, Eric, what do you think now?" ”

"What about you, you agree with their ideas, right?" Eric smiled and asked rhetorically.

Chris nodded unabashedly: "Now the capital market is very popular for Internet investment, so I think we can delay the listing for a few years, and when Yahoo has a clearer profit prospect, we will definitely be able to obtain greater returns." ”

Eric recalled that in the original time and space, the Nasdaq market began to exponentially in 1998, and in just two years, it skyrocketed from more than 1,000 points to the 5,000 point mark.

If Yahoo goes public after 1998, the funds raised by the initial issuance of shares are definitely several times that of now, but under the strict financial regulatory system, the funds will be used for the development of Yahoo itself, and do not belong entirely to Eric personally.

Cash-out, cash-out, cash-out......

Eric repeated the word in his mind for a few years, and suddenly realized that he was not short of money to spend now, and no matter how much money he cashed out, he still had to use it as an investment.

The bend in his mind was suddenly straightened, and Eric also had a sudden feeling of enlightenment, a smile appeared on the corner of his mouth, and said to Chris: "Then so be it, postpone the IPO plan, but in any case, we should complete the IPO before the contract with Microsoft takes effect." ”

"Of course," Chris also laughed relaxedly, if Eric insisted, he really didn't know how to persuade: "Speaking of which, Microsoft's Windows 95 will be officially released in August, but, I think you should have used this system, Microsoft's stock price has been rising recently, and the market seems to be very optimistic about this new system?" ”

Although Microsoft's Windows 95 is set to be released at the end of August, in fact, many beta versions have already been leaked out, and pirated discs have become widespread outside the United States.

Eric also used this set of operating systems that he was very familiar with in his previous life as a matter of course, and said: "I think this system may allow Microsoft to monopolize the operating system market, so in the next few years, we are likely to have to go toe-to-toe with Microsoft, Microsoft has completed its dominance in the operating system market, and will definitely enter the Internet market." I'm not even sure, Bill? Will Gates forcibly tear up that agreement, after all, Microsoft will most likely not be willing to wait until 1999. ”

"I think Microsoft is starting to get restless right now," Chris smiled and said, "Steve called me the other day and said that Microsoft had contacted him and wanted him to leave Yahoo and join Microsoft's soon-to-be-established Internet division." ”

Is Steve the one Chris talking about being the Steve in charge of Yahoo's tech department? Mitnick, Chris's best friend from college. In Eric's view, several of Yahoo's key managers, Ian? Gnier, Jeff? Locke, Steve? Mitnik and Tina? Brown, out of four, Steve? Mitnick is the most important thing to Yahoo, because he is responsible for the core technology development of almost all of Yahoo's major Internet products, and if he is poached, Yahoo will definitely be in turmoil for a long time.

Eric was surprised, "Really? ”

Chris nodded, saw the worried look on Eric's face, and smiled: "However, you don't have to worry, I know Steve's personality very well, and since he called me, it means that he will definitely not leave Yahoo." ”

Of course, Eric couldn't just be so completely relieved and asked, "What about the others?" (To be continued.) )