Chapter 271 You must not have the heart to harm others, and you must have the heart to guard against others
How could Roland not know NVIDIA?
This is one of the most powerful military enterprises in the world!
The 690 tactical nuclear graphics card they produced can destroy an aircraft carrier battle group in one shot!
Okay, I can’t continue acting...
╮(╯▽╰)╭
As a player, Roland has a deep memory of Nvidia, because looking around the future PC chip industry, the only things that come to mind are toothpaste factories, Nvidia and massage parlors.
Since the transistor was invented in 1955, the semiconductor industry has been booming. The Baxiantong that appeared in 1957 was the hotbed for incubating Silicon Valley companies. In 1969, Sander, who was the sales director of Fairchild Semiconductor, Si led seven people to break away from the original company and set up an AMD company, which is also a massage shop. Before that, the two founders of Fairchild Semiconductor, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, also left The company established a toothpaste factory.
At the beginning, the two sides helped each other. After the AM2900 series of the massage shop came out, they became the second supply source of large-scale integrated circuits for the toothpaste factory. After that, they even became copy ninjas. With the support of the toothpaste factory, in 1976, it successfully reverse-engineered the famous Intel 8080 processor at that time.
It's like asking what should we do if the enemy's plane is too good.
Take a closer look, hey! We'll make it.
Because of the competition with IBM, the toothpaste factory did not deal with the massage shop immediately, but after the massage shop surpassed the blue in terms of processors in 1982 and launched Am286, and the price was much lower than that of the toothpaste factory, the toothpaste factory also tore up the contract up.
So far, the original good brothers have become rivals who are very popular.
At that time, Huang, the founder of Nvidia, was in the massage parlor and witnessed this history with his own eyes.
In 1983, Lao Huang, who saw that the massage shop was able to beat the toothpaste factory, submitted his resume and entered the job, but before he could show his strength, the massage shop was taken to court by the toothpaste factory in 1985 and pinned to the ground. Friction, Lao Huang, who once dreamed of going to the end of the world with a sword, was defeated by reality. After finding that he couldn't do anything, he resigned and went to LSI, and then worked until 1993.
In 1993, graphics cards and sound cards had not yet been separated. At that time, the graphics chip market was even blank, and the customers were all companies. The two most famous ones were Industrial Light & Magic and Pixar.
Under such a general environment, Lao Huang, who saw a blank market, resolutely chose to resign, just like Jeff Bezos, who found out that e-commerce is so special that no one is doing it, and called Silicon Valley analysts to ask them Those guys told him, 'The whole northwestern Shanxi has been smashed into a pot of porridge! Now there are nearly thirty companies, you better not do this. '
Boss Huang was very moved, and then established Nvidia.
May you go away for half your life and come back as a teenager.
Boss Huang’s father is an engineer, and he studied electrical engineering with the intention of stepping into his father’s career. When he graduated, it was the time when Silicon Valley was booming. With Wang An’s role model, it’s normal for him to do it himself.
But the market was really chaotic at that time. Although 3Dfx became the first industry monopoly in the history of graphics cards, SIS, the traditional king, was watching it, not to mention Trident, who took the lead. The pressure on Nvidia was actually very great.
In the beginning, Nvidia aimed at game consoles. The first product released by Nvidia received mediocre market response, and then fell into a financial crisis. If Sega hadn’t given the order, they would have died a long time ago, but unfortunately, with Sega’s Collaboration also fails.
At this time, Microsoft launched the DirectX interface, and all the graphics chip manufacturers on the market at that time were busy setting their own standards. Only Boss Huang, who had no money, no power, and no one, decisively gave up game consoles, devoted himself to PCs, and hugged Microsoft’s thigh. .
Ever since, Nvidia has made a fortune.
The RIVA128 launched in 1997 was very popular in the market.
And the reason is very simple...
Because Microsoft has monopolized the entire market!
Holding this thigh is equivalent to taking the first step in research and development before everyone else.
When people have already accepted Windows, how many people will choose a new operating system because of a graphics card? Those who think they can set standards and force Microsoft to accept themselves really have a brain...
Are there more people playing games or more people using computers?
Can't figure out such a simple thing?
What's more, Bill Gates is not the kind of easy-going person.
This, Steve Jobs has a deep understanding.
It is precisely because of this understanding that after hearing Nvidia, Roland smiled and said:
"I know Nvidia, their market share is growing very fast."
"But even so, they don't seem to be able to threaten the status of 3Dfx? Doesn't the Voodoo series also support the DirectX interface? In this case, as long as they work hard, they can regain the market share that Nvidia has robbed. "
As soon as Roland said this, the three old men who were still laughing that he was cheated by Bill Gates were even happier.
"Look, this guy is just pretending, right?"
Charlie Munger shook his head, "He said he was looking at people's investment, is it exposed now?"
"Steven taught well, young people should not be too proud."
David Gottesman nodded with a smile, "Steven has suffered from this, and you, pretending to be like..."
‘What is this all about! '
Roland's head was full of black lines.
And the old men just continued to chat about business after simply 'exploding' Roland's lie.
"3Dfx is dead, they are negotiating acquisitions with the board supplier STB, and those guys think that buying Nvidia's largest board supplier will kill Nvidia, but they are still too young."
"They want to control the entire industrial chain, but manufacturers such as Diamond, Innovation, Leadtek, Gigabyte, MSI, and Asus all want to eat, and hardware monopoly is not something I want to see, because it will give Microsoft The game consoles will bring a lot of cost increase, so 3Dfx will eventually die, and they will die because of their incompetence but their ambition to monopolize the market.”
Now that Warren Buffett mentioned Nvidia, Bill Gates has nothing to hide, and his two-sentence life-and-death behavior made Roland secretly complain in his heart-'You monopolize the market by yourself , but not allow others to monopolize? '
‘Isn’t this just that state officials are only allowed to set fires, and the common people are not allowed to light lamps! '
However, Roland admitted that the old man does have the ability to determine life and death.
Nvidia is now the younger brother of Microsoft, and 3Dfx is now a disobedient careerist, and the easiest way to help the younger brother kill the opponent is to shake people! Just let the toothpaste factory not provide support for 3Dfx, isn't it over?
No one else can do this.
But Bill Gates can.
"It's more than that, isn't it?" Roland didn't refute the old man's words, but added one more, "I heard that Nvidia is researching Graphics Processing Unit (graphics processing unit)? This thing can make the graphics card less dependent on the CPU?"
'Um? '
Hearing these words, Bill Gates, who was still elegant and easy-going when Warren Buffett revealed what he had done, frowned, and looked at Roland in surprise, "Where did you hear the news?"
"Blizzard is making games, of course we can find that the current graphics card is too dependent on the computing power of the CPU."
Roland didn't answer directly, but said with a smile: "The "Genesis" launched by EA last year gave us the concept of MMORPG, but those in our company said that the current graphics card only contains simple memory and frame buffer. In fact, they only play the role of storing and transmitting graphics, and all operations must be controlled by the CPU. If this problem cannot be solved, games with complex scenes and 3D scenes cannot be developed, so..."
"The concept of GraphicsProcessingUnit was not proposed, but we knew that someone would do these things."
"Right?"
Roland's words calmed down the three old men who were still smiling.
Although they don't know what a GPU is, let alone what MMORPG is.
But they can see that Bill Gates is serious about the young man's words.
‘Something on my mind. '
‘It’s not professional, but it’s definitely not a fool. '
‘There is a reason for being able to make it big. Maybe dropping out of school is just like William, thinking that Harvard has nothing to teach him. '
The three old men have known each other for many years, and after a while of eye contact, they reached a consensus.
If they thought before that there was nothing to talk about with people like Roland, then now, everyone can sit down and get to know each other seriously. Although the topic may not be the right one, it doesn't matter, there is a specialization in art...
Many things Bill Gates understands, they don't understand either!
And what they understand, Bill Gates doesn't understand either!
But this does not prevent them from becoming friends, because they feel that they are dealing with smart people, and they can learn something from each other that they don't know, but may use in the future, instead of wasting time with fools.
Of course, Roland didn't know what the old man was thinking. He only knew that Bill Gates was about to stab himself to death with his eyes.
Staring at Roland for a while, the benevolent old man laughed, but his words were not polite, "This is a secret."
"What has been, will be again; what has been done, will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun."
The words in "Bible Ecclesiastes" were pulled out by Roland.
When he used this as a shield, the four old men were all relieved.
The so-called confidentiality is just that you don't stand high enough.
Roland may not be obvious, but his net worth is real.
"Since you know so much, I don't seem to have anything to say."
"And you didn't invest in Nvidia after knowing so much, is it because you don't want to make hardware?"
Bill Gates looked at Roland with playful eyes. At a certain moment, he was full of curiosity about what was in this kid's head—"In the past ten years, filming has taken up most of his time, but even In this way, he can still reach a consensus with Steve? Turn your life into a brand? Still making Steven feel comfortable in the game field? '
‘This is too difficult. '
As for Roland, he didn't care about the other party's opinion.
The reason has been given, whether you believe it or not, anyway, I believe it myself.
As for the Nvidia car?
To be honest, Roland didn't really want to go.
Because in his memory, Boss Huang put Microsoft together after going through a difficult period holding Microsoft's thigh.
Knowing this, Roland didn't think about voting for Boss Huang.
He is now Bill Gates' Sweetheart. If the old man wants Yahoo, then give him Yahoo. If the old man wants content, then he will vigorously develop the content. Its moldy head.
What's more, Boss Huang and Jerry Yang are both members of the 'Commission of 100'. Roland secretly put forward the matter of Yahoo behind his back, and people will eventually find out, even though the scale of the 'Composition of 100' is increasing. Several times, they can't beat the "old people's group" around them, but after the Dongchuang incident, this group of people will definitely guard against Roland.
As Lu Xun said: ‘When you choose your teammate, you also choose your opponent. '
As the saying goes, thieves don't go empty-handed, ah bah, it is a pious learning attitude, and the spirit of exploring and researching the unknown, so even if a serious businessman like Roland doesn't do insider trading, he still wants to know what Bill Gates thinks about it. The attitude of hardware manufacturers.
Which includes ATi.
"ATi? ATi is very comprehensive, but the content is very complicated..." Bill Gates thought for a while and said, "They not only make graphics cards, but also video capture cards and TV tuner cards. They not only do design, but also make their own factories. .”
“On the surface, it seems that their development path is very broad, because various businesses are involved, and there are many potential profit growth points, but in fact, their funds do not support this kind of expansion.”
"Then you mean, you don't like them?" Roland asked.
Regarding this issue, Bill Gates has reservations, "If they have sufficient cash flow, then I will be optimistic about them, and if they can win a large long-term full amount of orders, I will also be optimistic about them. "
Come on!
What Roland was waiting for was this sentence from Bill Gates!
Many people may not have heard of ATi, because this company was acquired by a massage parlor in 2006.
But since its birth in 1985, it has been an important display chip company in the world, as famous as Nvidia.
Well, this eponymous name is actually supported by Microsoft.
Because he hugged Microsoft's thigh and called Dad.
As I said before, Nvidia successfully turned around by relying on the DirectX interface, and then in 1999, they launched the world's first GPU, which not only greatly promoted the development of the PC game market, but also completely changed parallel computing and announced the **** of 3DFX But even so, they still have an opponent, and the opponent is ATi.
Actually, ATi couldn’t beat Nvidia at that time, but after Lao Huang caught his opponent all the way, he was a little bit flustered.
Microsoft asked this little brother who was supported by himself to do XBox graphics chips, SoundStorm sound chips and motherboard solutions. After seeing the 200 million orders, the little brother took the business from his thigh very sensiblely, and then...
The price starts from sitting on the ground.
After the first batch of goods was delivered, the cost of the second batch of goods increased by 1.4 times compared with the first batch.
Moreover, during the negotiation process, Lao Huang relied on his status as the overlord of the industry to raise the price every time.
Ever since, the unbearable Microsoft and its court case, not only that, they also lost the XBox business to ATi, excluded Nvidia from the list of DirectX9 specifications, and combined with the toothpaste factory by the way, cut off a bunch of Nvidia and Nvidia. Orders, turned to support ATi, and in just a few months, Nvidia's stock price fell from 22 to 2!
The market value has shrunk by 90%!
Seeing that it was about to be delisted, Lao Huang approached Microsoft in a hurry, and took the initiative to admit defeat and take the order again.
Microsoft didn’t want to kill this little brother with core technology, so while reaching a settlement with Nvidia, they asked the toothpaste factory to open a patent cross-licensing agreement with him. Since then, Nvidia has developed “honestly”.
Of course, the so-called development is actually looking for content manufacturers to bring goods.
The graphics card specially customized for "World of Warcraft" allowed them to regain the market that was eaten by ATi.
And ATi, which got the order from Microsoft, also gradually gained a foothold with the support of funds, and was finally acquired by a massage shop, making it the only company in the market that can do both CPU and GPU.
Although massage parlors are the second in the two industries, it doesn't matter, you can eat if you obey!
Because of this, massage parlors have become the first choice for XBox and PS in the end. Not only that, they also use the X86 architecture to facilitate game manufacturers to develop games, because in essence, PC and host are actually one platform.
Low cross-platform cost is something that Sony and Microsoft must consider, otherwise, game manufacturers will rebel.
Before Roland crossed, the massage shop and the toothpaste factory had already competed in terms of performance.
Only in terms of GPU, it is still catching up with Nvidia.
In this way, as Roland, who owns Blizzard, leans on his huge thigh, and thinks about killing Sony, of course he doesn't want Nvidia!
The massage shop that owns ATi is his first choice, because it is a complete industrial chain!
Let the massage shop do CPU+GPU+bridge for Microsoft!
Let Blizzard provide Microsoft with quality content!
When Microsoft is killing all sides in the host field, what they really control is actually only one system and the outer shell!
Roland can’t make a system, but he believes that if he can get Bill Gates, Steve Jobs will be very happy to make a system!
Change the system and change the shell, XBox, it is not XBox...
Of course, Roland doesn't want to fight against Microsoft, but he also knows that he will eventually fight against Microsoft.
Because Apple is going to make mobile phones after all! Steve - Jobs will not give up their own operating system! Not only that, but Apple actually wants to enter the smart home industry of the Internet of Everything just like Microsoft!
And he is the major shareholder of Apple!
Roland will never be able to get more than 10% or even nearly 20% of Microsoft's shares, but he can get Apple, Amazon, and a bunch of companies that will compete with Microsoft in the future!
How can there be development without competition?
The current laughter is just that there is no conflict of interest for the time being.
As Lu Xun said, ‘You must not have the heart to harm others, and you must not have the heart to guard against others. '
Even if you don't want to fight, you have to be prepared.
Because a content company without core technology is too easy to be manipulated.
It's like a studio without a distribution channel.
In front of the boss, you can only be a grandson!
Of course, Roland is not afraid that he will not be able to eat ATi and massage shops.
Because at least now, in the eyes of these old men, he is a very, very obedient child.
Yahoo just throw it away?
This kind of behavior will make those old men think that Roland will communicate better than Boss Huang Renxun.
Supporting him is more beneficial to the company.
Not only that, but if Microsoft is furious and hates Nvidia, and its market value is reduced to less than 500 million, he has cash in hand, and he actually has a chance to swallow Nvidia...
And the so-called opportunity...
Of course, the favorability of Bill Gates must be filled up first!
As long as Microsoft does not let go, as long as they think that Roland is a very obedient little brother, then Nvidia will only have two options to let Roland enter the supervision or go bankrupt!
As for the Antitrust Act?
Fill up the market first, and consider this issue!
Thinking of this, Roland smiled, and said, "I'm relieved to hear you say that. I was still thinking about which company to invest in. Since you said that ATi has a complete industry but lacks development funds, then I will Invest in this company."
'uh-huh? '
This kind of words surprised the four people present.
"Didn't you and William reach a consensus? Both think Nvidia is amazing, so why don't you vote for it?"
Warren Buffett finds it difficult to understand Roland’s operation thinking of not investing in leading companies.
"Yes! William told you that they will cooperate with Nvidia!"
Charlie Munger also found it strange.
David Gottesman and Bill Gates also frowned.
This kind of behavior of knowing inside information but not playing cards according to the routine made them a little confused.
"Hey, didn't I sell Yahoo to Carl? This behavior may cause me to have some small conflicts with Huang Renxun's boss, so it's not that I don't want to vote for Nvidia, but that it may be counterproductive after I vote."
"It's not good for William, it's not good for me."
After Roland explained this, the four old men understood.
Not only that, they also cast regretful eyes on Roland.
This is actually the drawback of using nuclear weapons.
Pushing a company with nuclear weapons and forcibly taking it into the bag is indeed the simplest behavior, but at the same time, if there is no capital like Microsoft and General Motors, it is easy to be hated.
This kind of resentment may gradually disappear with the passage of time, but during this period, other businesses in the same field are indeed difficult to develop.
"Look, I said William is too bad, right?" Warren Buffett spread his hands.
"Then you really can't do anything about it." Charlie Munger pushed the glasses on the bridge of his nose, "If you want not to reveal your identity, then you can only take less than 5% of the shares, but this kind of small company has 100% of the shares. If the shares are less than five-fifths, then it is meaningless..."
David Gottesman shook his head, "The purpose of investing in ATi or Nvidia should be to build suitable graphics cards for your own games, right? You know us better."
Bill Gates, the 'culprit' who caused Roland to fail to invest in Nvidia, sighed, and threw a helpless smile at Roland, and did not comment on this result.
Since Roland can't get a foot in Nvidia, everyone won't be entangled in this topic.
Between a few words and a few words, they chatted about other things.
It wasn't until after seven o'clock when Warren Buffett's nanny and lover Astrid Monks came over to ask them to have dinner, the group of people stopped the topic of not knowing which country they went to, and waited for everyone to eat. After dinner, under the guidance of the servant, Roland went to the villa next to him and arranged to check in.
Maybe it's because we talked a lot during the day, but it's more like the mental pressure after starting two projects in a row, so after taking a hot bath, Roland and Kate fell on the bed while talking on the phone, The endless sleepiness made him fall asleep first.
Listening to the sound of constant breathing from the mobile phone, Kate in Los Angeles shook her head helplessly and hung up the phone. Although she could call Roland to wake him up, but...
No need...
"I don't know what he did during the day?"
"It's really worrying..."
Notes: ① Nvidia got up with Microsoft’s thigh in its arms, and it was also because of fighting against Microsoft that there was only a trace of blood left. If it wasn’t for Lao Huang’s confession, Nvidia would have died a long time ago. It is no exaggeration to say that ATi surpassed Nvidia in product progress only with the support of Microsoft. It is no exaggeration to say that before 2006, Microsoft would step on whoever it wanted to step on, and whoever did not order anyone would die. ②The Committee of 100 is an American Chinese organization with members including Yang Zhenning, Yang Zhiyuan, Lee Kai-fu, Huang Renxun and so on. ③Smart home, the first thing to do is Microsoft, followed by Sony, and the third is Apple. start. Unlike XBox and PS, Apple, which found that the game market has been saturated, released AppleTV, a tofu block the same size as an iPod, but it can store thousands of hours of songs and dozens of hours of movies, and can be connected to the Internet. To put it bluntly, it is the current Internet box, but unfortunately, because the content is not enough, Apple's box is not successful, and after the failure of the box, there is an iPhone. In the smart home field, Microsoft, Sony, and Apple are actually losers, and the leader is Amazon, which cooperates with Netflix. The current mainstream view is that if there is no content, it is impossible to make a smart home.
PS, ah! I'm done studying! But I still can't go home... Don't ask, just ask for 14 days! Originally, I wanted to play "The Last of Beauty 2" during the Dragon Boat Festival, but in the end I didn't even give it to me when I got home.
(end of this chapter)