On the evening of January 22, 2044, a plane stopped and landed on the runway of Beiping Daxing International Airport. After a few moments, Xiang Shan and another old man left through the exit.

Xiang Shan restarted the AR smart glasses that hung in his breast pocket. Soon, the glasses found the target in the crowd and displayed a hint icon.

This locking system, which is said to have been created by a top game designer hired by this generation of R&D team, is quite in line with human instinct. With the help of glasses, Xiang Shan locked onto the assistant who came to pick up the airport in the crowd - this logistics staff should be the first time he has seen him. But he didn't need to be acquainted with this subordinate. The APP in the assistant's mobile phone is linked to Xiangshan's AR smart glasses.

The company sends the task to the assistant's phone. As long as he stands at this pick-up gate, Xiang Shan's glasses will show his presence.

It can be said that this system, to a certain extent, has replaced the facial recognition mechanism of Xiangshan's brain to build another kind of interpersonal relationship.

"Boss, you're really impersonal." The old man said, "They are also staff members who are in frequent contact, and it is not difficult to remember their personal situation a little. ”

"It's a very evil thing to envelop employees with feelings that go beyond the labor contract." Xiang Shan said as he waved at the employee. The employee also saw the two of them, waving their hands in the air.

Other assistants were responsible for picking up the salutes for both of them. Led by the assistant employee, Xiang Shan and the old man got into an extended version of the business car. This car has been treated with special treatment. When necessary, it can shield the transmission of electromagnetic waves inside and outside, forming a relatively private space to prevent eavesdropping. His driver's seat is also isolated from the back seat, and the middle is also soundproofed. The back seat of this car is a four-seater sitting opposite each other, with a small coffee table in the middle.

It's just that Xiang Shan and this old man didn't plan to discuss any trade secrets, so they didn't activate those advanced functions.

The assistant employee asked through the intercom in the car: "Mr. Xiang, do you want to go back to the company or go directly to your house?" ”

"Company." There was a hint of tiredness in Xiang Shan's tone.

"Aren't you going home? Boss. The old man was a little surprised: "Today is the lunar Chinese New Year's Eve of the Republic, and I thought you were in a hurry to return to China just to reunite with your family." ”

"My home is in Beiping, and I don't lack time to get together." Xiang Shan said: "And now when I go home, I haven't prepared my dinner at home." ”

The van slowly departed the airport. The old man skillfully took out a bottle of sweet sherry from the Xiaoice cabinet below and poured himself a small glass. He held up another empty cup to the mountain. Xiang Shan shook his head.

"What a waste. However, you can't appreciate sour, astringent, and bitter wines, so you put a bunch of sweet wines here. The old man put the bottle back down, and drank half a glass slowly. He put down his wine glass, looked at Beiping City, which was getting closer and closer on the side of the highway, and said: "Hey, I didn't expect that after seeing this scene, I had a feeling of 'relief' - obviously I just came back from my motherland." I suspect that if I go to the United States a few more times, I will become an enemy of the people. ”

"How is that possible?" Smile at the mountain.

"Sometimes I suspect you never go online, boss." The old man took another sip of wine: "What kind of image am I having over there now?" The spokesman of the devil, the careerist who destroys the world, and the destroyer of the medical industry...... If I appear in public with a dignitary, I even run the risk of having my eggs thrown away! ”

"That's just a handful of extremists." Xiang Shan disagreed: "Over here, I am an officially certified pillar of the country." In the same way, there are still a group of fools who greet my whole family on the Internet every day, saying that I 'intend to pollute the human blood' and that I am a 'great sinner of the nation'. Minority. ”

"It's really different. There's so much stupidity over there - you're not going to forget about the guys who threw rocks at us in Silicon Valley, are you? ”

Xiang Shan smiled: "Yes, but you called a whole team of riot police with a phone call." I think it's more pitiful on the other side. ”

"Hey...... You are really ......" The old man shook his head again: "Again, I advise you to pay more attention to your business reputation, corporate image, ......"

"Our company is based on R&D. All activities exist to support R&D institutions. Xiang Shan blocked the old man's words back.

The old man's name was Bernard Dubois. In the Republic, he gave himself a localized name, "Di Bernard". Sometimes Xiang Shan also calls him "Lao Di".

Lao Di is a true United Statesman, the standard "old white man" - that is, old, white, male. Just as there are homeless people with the surname "Fujiwara" in Japan, there will also be poor people from the lower class among the "old white men". However, Bernard, a wealthy old white man, thinks that he has deep-rooted social connections and broad network resources.

Bernard is a professional manager who was hired to join Xiangshan's company two years ago as one of several senior managers in the company. Prior to that, he held senior management positions in numerous high-tech companies and has extensive experience.

However, few people know Bernard's other identity - that of a political broker. He had personal relationships with a wide range of politicians and knew which agencies were closely associated with United States politicians. He knew how to properly use "donations" to maintain friendly relations between his business and the political forces of the United States.

It may sound like a bit of a "no-brainer", but it's actually a high art. After all, it is also a science to spend money reasonably, legally and efficiently. Even on Wall Street, there is a large number of managers who don't understand it, and companies that have been swept out of the free market because they don't understand it.

For most of the 43 years, he has been traveling around the United States for the companies under the names of Xiang Shan and others, and fighting for bills or policies that are more favorable to the company.

In addition to this, he was also responsible for acquiring equity interests in specific technology companies for the business.

According to Bernard's understanding, the R&D team, headed by Yögmov, is working on a huge project. There are a lot of "front-end technologies" in this project - and what is more embarrassing is that some of these front-end technologies have been developed and patented.

There are some companies that are so confident in their confidentiality that they don't even apply for patents, but secretly use them in their production processes.

However, what makes Bernard a little incomprehensible is that the Xiangshan team seems to have a perverted obsession with this matter. They are not going to buy licenses, nor are they going to accept a sharing agreement in the form of "technology stake".

Xiang Shan's train of thought seemed to the manager to be sand sculpture and unreasonable.

This uncle either buys the patent he likes and then licenses it to the world for free.

Either that or even through forced acquisitions, the patent holder's company will be eaten, and then the patent will be licensed to the whole world free of charge.

Of course, the financial resources of a business are not endless. So, that's where Bernard comes in.

Bernard's task is to push for legislation that limits the revenue cap that can be derived from patents on medical prosthetics.

To put it simply, it is to use legislation to set an upper limit on the profit margin of medical prosthetics, or even to keep this ceiling as low as possible.

For Xiangshan, this calendar means that some medical technology companies are expected to have lower revenues. He can negotiate a patent acquisition or a compulsory equity acquisition as much as possible.

Of course, there are also supporting policies. For example, some medical prosthetic companies are given high subsidies to compensate for their R&D expenses.

However, in the eyes of discerning practitioners, this is just a "soft knife". After all, the uncertainty of "subsidy recipients" and "subsidy scope" is too great – far greater than their behavior of analyzing demand and manufacturing demand from market research.

In the eyes of conservatives, this line of thinking is simply incomprehensible. They believe that this behavior will undoubtedly affect the enthusiasm of developers for the medical industry and hinder the progress of medical technology.

It is precisely because of this that Bernard, who is operating in the shadows, has also been picked up by conservative reporters and branded as "Satan in the medical industry".

"Believers in the free market." Xiang Shan didn't care: "Don't pay attention to them." And as a developer, I have to be honest with you, this approach does not hinder the enthusiasm of developers to improve medical technology. It will only discourage capitalists from investing in the relevant industries. ”

"It doesn't sound very 'free', but it's very much 'equal'. As you yourself said, a little search will reveal a large number of politicians from the Donkey Party who are hoping to make this a success. ”

"Boss, I can hear the slightest hint of sarcasm in your tone." Bernard sighed: "Do you know how the Kingdom of France in the early 18th century completely lost the competition with the Britta Empire? ”

"Huh? Now is the time to talk about history? ”

Lao Di shook his head: "The kingdom has established a 'Mississippi Company' to benchmark the Empire's 'East India Company'. It's just that the French king did not respect the objective laws of finance at all and blew a huge bubble inside his own country. As a result, France was in a state of decay throughout the eighteenth century, and then missed the whole reality – and then the Revolution as we all know it. ”

"Their opponents, on the other hand, are more respectful of the general laws of economics."

"Mr. Karl, whom you respect very much, believes that economics is a very objective law. It is foolish to challenge the laws of nature. Although our company's R&D team is the greatest in the world, it should not go beyond objective laws. You have to respect a little bit of objective law. If you insist on destroying it, you will definitely be hit on the head one day."