Chapter 274 Desire to change the world's first step
"So, see you next year?"
"See you next year? Are we not talking about our project this year!"
"Oh, sorry, I drank too much last night..."
"Okay, don't rush him, he still has a lot of work on his hands... What's more, if he really forgets, you can also ask Charlie to find him on the set, anyway, he will be filming in New York for the second half of the year..."
On May 4th, after Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, and Bill Gates came back from the CNBC program, they officially bid farewell to Roland before boarding the plane and rushing home.
Although he only stayed for three days, for Roland, the gains definitely outweighed the sacrifices.
Because after this general meeting of shareholders, the development route of the company under the name will undergo earth-shaking changes.
Before, under Roland's conception, the entire group walked on the three legs of the Internet, film and television entertainment, and game entertainment. While vigorously developing around the core line, it also looked forward to music entertainment and built the entire group into an entertainment kingdom.
Now, everything has changed, and the first thing to cut off is the clueless music entertainment.
In Roland's opinion, the easiest way to develop music entertainment is to acquire one of Sony Music, Universal Music or Warner Music, but this is a goal that is absolutely impossible to achieve in the short term, and the second easiest way is to sign a company called The guy from Taylor Swift, after forming market influence, will go to acquire the Big Three, but this is also a fantasy that cannot be completed in the short term.
After cutting out these two methods, Roland would never do the thing of confronting a music giant.
In this way, in the current environment, Interstellar Records can only be left aside and eaten ashes.
At most, it is to obtain the copyright of the movie track invested by the company and release the original soundtrack of the movie.
So, Roland announced that Interstellar Records would be OUT in advance, and the profits of "My Heart Will Go On" will be completely withdrawn.
Unless he can satisfy his stomach in one step, otherwise, he will not waste time and money on music entertainment.
Secondly, it is his main business, film and television entertainment.
Roland had previously thought about whether to launch his own production line while Warcraft Films was cooperating with Disney, Warner, and Universal, because for so many years, Warcraft Films has actually followed the path of a copyright management company.
There is no venue, no equipment, no personnel, and the whole is a three-no company.
It is completely consistent with Berkshire Hathaway's operating philosophy.
If you want to get rid of this, you must buy land to build a shed, purchase equipment, and recruit a team. At the same time, in order to support people, follow-up projects are essential, because having a team means having costs, and having input means no output. That is a loss.
Roland's mind is full of projects, and he is not afraid of not being able to pull up the team at all, but there are advantages and disadvantages after pulling up the team.
Although independent production can double his influence in Hollywood, it will also create gaps in the minds of those who are used to working with him and waiting to collect money. Even if Roland doesn't care about these gaps, he wants to use them again It seems whimsical to suppress some things under the control of media resources...
If Roland will continue to think about this issue before attending the shareholders meeting, then it is the most correct choice for him to let Warcraft Film and Television maintain the operation mode of the copyright management company.
Because there are many places to spend money now, there may be a lot of noise.
If he turns against the six major media that control the media at this time, then Roland will no longer want to develop in a low-key manner like before, and under the publicity of the media, his actions will definitely become a thorn in the eyes of some people, and a thorn in their flesh.
Since this is the case, film and television entertainment, which was previously identified as one of the three thighs, must continue to lurk.
By means of a copyright management company, the corresponding profits can be obtained, and at the same time, the six major companies can obtain the cheapest but very important public opinion protection from them, so that the development of the group company can disappear in the eyes of the public as much as possible. inside.
Of course, freezing the development of Interstellar Records and letting Warcraft Movies and Television continue to operate in its current posture is actually to avoid making enemies in Hollywood, which has solidified its class.
First of all, it is the content provider Blizzard Entertainment.
As the largest content asset in hand, the development of Blizzard Entertainment must not be lost.
So after returning to Los Angeles, Roland did not rest, but rushed to Irvine without stopping to meet the Big Three.
"I once promised you that I would never interfere with the company's content development, so I came back this time not to talk to you about the research and development of the company's projects, but to learn about the latest status of the company's operations and future plans."
Although Roland came suddenly, the two sides had only had contact with each other on the development of "StarCraft" and Battle.net not long ago. They had talked about some relevant content at that time, but now they just sorted it out systematically.
In this way, after learning of Roland's needs, the Big Three of Blizzard took out batches of materials and piled them on the conference table.
Mike Mohamy, "This year, the department launched "StarCraft". Due to the good sales momentum, the sequel has also successfully entered the production plan. It is expected to launch "Brood War" in December."
"Battle.com's current average daily traffic has stabilized at one million people. According to the current development momentum, by the end of the year when "Brood War" is released, it will reach 1.3 million people. In 1999, we There are no plans for a sale."
“We plan to stop the project of “StarCraft” after the release of “Brood War”, and turn to the development of “Warcraft 3”, and then…try to hold competitions on Battle.net.”
"Okay, I have no problem." Roland nodded, "The next Blizzard North?"
“Blizzard North has only one porting project this year, and they want to port Diablo to the PS platform.”
Alan Adhan picked up the document with the Blizzard North logo, opened it and said, "After the porting work is over, they will formulate a development plan for "Diablo 2" according to the situation, but at the earliest, it will be in the It takes two thousand years to meet the public."
Porting "Diablo" to PS?
Roland glanced at the project arrangement and shook his head in his heart.
In his memory, Blizzard seemed to have a natural conflict with the host, and none of the games it developed were suitable for the host, and all of them left the game dismal.
It is precisely because of the disastrous failure of "Diablo" after it was launched on PS that the headquarters and Blizzard North are torn apart. The headquarters believes that focusing on PC is the best choice, but Blizzard North does not admit its mistake.
Then, at that time, Blizzard happened to be in the hands of Vivendi. Because of its crazy expansion, Vivendi had financial problems, so they kept saying that they wanted to package and sell the game division to EA.
Upon hearing the news, Beibei, who did not want to be deprived of the right to speak about the product, went to the headquarters to negotiate, but because of disagreement, the headquarters did not tell them that Vivendi gave up selling the game business group because EA's asking price was too low. Looking for a buyer for Universal, so Beijing, with asymmetrical sources, submitted a resignation to Vivendi, threatening them not to sell Blizzard to EA, but unfortunately, Vivendi didn't get used to them and let them go. …
On the surface, Vivendi is the last straw that crushes the north, but the ideological dispute between the north and the headquarters is the root cause of the civil strife. Of course, Roland will not care about this kind of thing at all.
After all, at the beginning of the year, the North wanted to make "Diablo" a turn-based game, and it was only with the intervention of the three giants in the headquarters that they changed the game to a real-time system.
Especially the last CG where the protagonist inserts the soul stone into his head, which is the handiwork of the three giants in the headquarters. The North only discovered that those three guys dared to do things so crazy after the finished disc came out.
Because of this, even if the two sides quarrel, Roland is still on the side of the Big Three.
Without the North, the headquarters can still produce "Warcraft", but after leaving Blizzard, the Big Four in the North can't even produce a decent work.
In addition to the headquarters and the North, Naughty Dog, which was acquired from Universal, has a sequel "Crash Bandicoot 3" to be released this year.
The remaining studios had no projects in 1998.
There were more in 1999, including "GTA: Guilty London 1969" and "GTA2" by Rock Star, "Siphon Warrior" by Bender Studios, and "Rocket" by SuckerPunch, among which "Rocket" is for Nintendo 64. built by the platform.
No way, before the acquisition, they signed a contract with Nintendo.
And CDProjekt, which was also acquired?
He is now working as an agent with all his heart!
Roland has no objection to these project arrangements. The only point he wants to emphasize is the development platform of each company. "The headquarters and the north only develop PC games."
"Naughty Dog, Rockstar, Bender Studios, SuckerPunch, only develop games based on the PS platform."
"If possible, we can actually sign a five-year supply contract with Sony, which will end in 2001."
“As for CDProjekt, let them set up their own game development team while doing European distribution.”
As the most important content provider, it is natural to have two hands and two hands.
PC is the future, and Roland can't let go of it. As for the console, although he promised to be an XBox exclusive, he couldn't help but make money before the XBox came out, right? Using the PS platform first, they will continue to strengthen the brand concept of "Blizzard's product is a boutique" for players. After the XBox engineering machine is released, they will draw their salary from the bottom of the pot and give Sony a righteous backstab.
Hey, that’s right, it’s Capcom!
Since they decide to fight Sony, they have to let them taste the sweetness first, and then jump and reverse their opponents.
Only in this way can they affect their revenue in a short period of time.
After all, of the three series "GTA", "Siphon Warrior", and "Crash Bandicoot", the sales volume of the last single generation is 5 million.
A masterpiece of a generation is just a little bit, just cut off a third and a quarter for you, if it doesn’t hurt, then there is something wrong!
Of course, the radicalization of gaming entertainment is not the end, but only the beginning.
After confirming the company's platform path with the Blizzard Big Three, Roland asked them about two acquaintances.
Hearing Roland's question, Frank Pierce immediately said, "They? Aren't they doing Google in college?"
"Huh? The company has already been established?" Roland's eyes lit up.
"No, they just set up a Google.com domain name with the help of Stanford. Now they are doing the same thing as when we used credit cards to start a business. They paid for their own servers to start a search engine."
"What, you're interested?" Mike Mohamy asked.
"Ah... no, Amazon is interested in them." Roland smiled, concealing his intentions, "Jeff Bezos found that with the increase of merchants, the merchant search function inside the website must be put on the agenda , and the current search engines on the market are too rubbish, so they want to hire people to write their own..."
"At the annual meeting last year, didn't you tell me that they wrote search software for IMDb? So I asked."
"Huh?" Alan Adham understood, and said, "But now that they have registered a domain name, it seems inappropriate to poach people again, right?"
"It's a bit inappropriate." Roland nodded and said in agreement.
But after that, he changed the topic again, "It doesn't matter if we can't recruit people, we can cooperate..."
"Go and ask me, do they lack start-up capital? If so...I can invest..."
"Of course, like you, I will not interfere with their development ideas, let alone merge them into Amazon. At most, I will contact them when both parties have needs."
Roland felt that he was very sincere, but after he finished speaking, the faces of the Big Three of Blizzard all had 'weird' smiles.
"You really want to vote for them?" Mike - Mohamy asked.
"Of course, is there any problem?" Roland was very strange.
"The problem is big..." Frank Pierce said with a smile: "Because... they are now a startup company supported by Stanford, and under normal circumstances, they will not accept outside investment..."
That's right!
Like Amazon, Google didn’t start out of nothing!
In September 1997, Google's domain name was born, and since it was registered with the help of the school, Google naturally came under the umbrella of Stanford.
The so-called Google couldn’t get sponsorship in the early stage, and Sun Company looked at them poorly, so it gave them 100,000 yuan in venture capital. One of the sponsors of the Student Entrepreneurship Office, this deal was brokered by Stanford.
Not only that, but Eric Schmidt was also recommended by the Suns.
With his intervention, those venture capital companies were able to enter the market.
And those engineers who came from Bell Labs and raised Google were all recruited by Eric Schmidt forcibly based on his relationship with Bell Labs.
Like Amazon, Google doesn't accept outside capital at all.
The so-called PepsiCo in the early days of entrepreneurship is just a fabricated American dream for ordinary people.
Companies that can live for decades and become more and more prosperous have their own thighs.
After hearing such an explanation, Roland smiled helplessly and shook his head.
It's really a pain in the **** to have money but not spend it!
However, this money must be spent!
It’s not because investing in Google can make his net worth skyrocket, but if he doesn’t invest in Google now, then under his own influence, Microsoft will change from father to grandpa, and then become the ancestor of all technology companies...
"Whether you accept it or not, you all go and contact me."
"Of course, when contacting, you can tell them that besides money, I can also let Yahoo sign a long-term contract with them and outsource the search business to them for a long time..."
Yes!
The fundamental purpose of investing in Google is to drain Yahoo!
Since it is decided to sell all the Yahoo shares in its hands, a new substitute must appear.
Google is the best alternative, and at the same time, it is the only one that can keep Microsoft from covering the sky with one hand.
In Roland’s previous life, Yahoo let people know that the Internet is free, and after that, Google carried it forward, and Google’s market share in the search field was expanded through cooperation with Yahoo.
To put it bluntly, if Yahoo didn't list Google as a fixed search engine for the website, then Google might still be successful, but definitely not so fast. Just like Yahoo sucked the blood of Netscape to achieve crazy expansion, Google is also sucking Only after getting Yahoo's blood can it become the leader in the search engine field in a short period of time.
But now, the possibility of Google sucking Yahoo's blood has been reduced to zero without limit.
The reason is simple, Roland sold Yahoo shares to Carl Icahn, and Carl Icahn is helping Microsoft make acquisitions!
If this deal is really done, then after discovering that the search engine is the future Microsoft, it will definitely not allow Google to **** Yahoo's blood like in the previous life, and as long as MSN and Yahoo use Microsoft's own search engine, That…
Roland believes that Google will definitely explode in place!
The three-party chaos is the opportunity for Google's rise. One-on-one, it will be beaten by Microsoft!
After all, the success of every product depends on whether the product is easy to use or not!
In the face of monopoly, even if consumers are served a pile of shit, they still have to hold their noses and eat it!
And if Microsoft eats the portal first and then the search engine, then this kind of company can no longer be sanctioned!
What is too big to fail?
Microsoft, which controls the data of netizens, swallows government orders, and cooperates with the US military, is too big to fail!
Windows+Yahoo! +MSN+Search Engine...
Which other company can beat this special code!
Butterfly flapping its wings, directly turning Bill Gates into Napoleon?
Turning Microsoft into a behemoth that controls both the operating system and the Internet?
Then isn’t he the most humiliating time traveler?
Doing nothing, nothing serious, wanton tossing, Microsoft will eventually be the winner?
Isn't this special code just like a tiger in one operation, and the record is zero bar five?
If this is the case, Roland simply doesn't bother, just buy stocks and become a rich man!
Because tossing is also a waste of tossing!
That's exactly the case, Roland, who felt that he didn't have much time, wanted Google.
Of course, only he can do things like pull Google.
Because I can see that the search engine is the guy of the future, and I can't make it blood-sucking with a top-notch like Yahoo!
And those guys who can show Yahoo's top level to make it **** blood, now none of them find that search engines are the future!
After Roland carefully offered the cooperation price, the Big Three of Blizzard immediately expressed their willingness to give it a try.
After obtaining this guarantee, Roland chatted with them about the shares again.
According to the agreement reached at the time of the acquisition, every time Blizzard launches a blockbuster game, they have the right to repurchase 2% of the shares at the original purchase price, with an upper limit of 11% for each person.
After launching "Warcraft" and "StarCraft" in succession, the three each got 4%, for a total of 12%.
Facing this kind of 'free' shares, even though the company has not yet been listed, the three of them are still quite happy.
And when he learned that Roland would buy land and build a building for the crazy-expanding Blizzard Entertainment, and that he would give them three statues in the center of the square, he said "guaranteed to help you bring Google back" and "there are people we know at Stanford." , 'We will definitely let them understand that choosing Shouwang Venture Capital is the most correct choice' and a series of words, like those who don't want money, said it out.
'Hey...that's right...'
Roland was satisfied with their guarantee.
At the same time, he is also full of expectations for the final result.
As long as they can successfully invest in Google and drain Yahoo, then Microsoft will not be invincible at any rate.
Note: ① Not everyone can invest in Google, or in other words, apart from Yahoo, those companies that are still alive and growing bigger and bigger are not something venture capitalists can invest in if they want. Just like Tencent’s investment in TimHortons this year, when they invested, they spread the rumor that ‘if you invest in it, you will be successful’. While Stanford helped Google, it also got 0.7 of the shares (data at the time of IPO, 1.8 million shares). The so-called begging for Yahoo is just because Yahoo is also from Stanford. As for other non-Stanford companies and venture capital ? These people won't even look for them, even if those people are willing to give money. ②Amazon really wanted to acquire Google, even more than Yahoo, but was scared by the sky-high price of one billion. This is what Dr. Wu Jun wrote in the Google blackboard newspaper.
(end of this chapter)