Wall Street Legend

The United States is a large territory, and most people can’t even recite the names of all fifty states, let alone visit them all.

For example, New Hampshire, Virginia, Arizona, etc. have almost no sense of existence. Unlike California, the GDP created by this state alone can even be included in the list of the top ten economies in the world. Here, if New York is the richest city in the United States, California is the richest state in the United States, and its influence is self-evident.

Ye Dongqing has never been to Silicon Valley, but he has been to San Francisco and Los Angeles. In the past, he often traveled around and received guests personally due to business needs. He was first arrested in Los Angeles, and then spent several months in a high-end prison.

As a man, he would have a favorable impression of Los Angeles. The famous Hollywood is there, and the girls are quite open-minded. If it wasn't too far away from his base, he even had the idea of ​​settling in Beverly Hills for a while.

We came to San Francisco with Mr. Alfred. It is not far from San Francisco to the Silicon Valley area. There is no airport there, so it is most convenient to get there.

The idea of ​​online calling might help Facebook attract more users. It was worth flying so far. They took a taxi and did not plan to stop in San Francisco. They took the road near San Francisco Bay and went directly to the pre-booked place. Good Hilton hotel.

He didn't know who to turn to, and he didn't know if he could help. Ye Dongqing was still confused, but he was already ready to allocate a sum of funds from the Freshwater Fund, and he still had some funds in his pocket. Money can't be said to be at a loss.

After arriving at the hotel and checking in, it was already dark. He had no chance to ask anyone today. He contacted a headhunting company and planned to spend money to hire a few software engineers with experience in this field.

Don't underestimate the strength of these headhunting companies. As long as they can make money, they can find any talent they want. Mr. Alfred will be responsible for the specific communication. Ye Dongqing is more like getting tired of staying in New York and running to Come to the West Coast for a relaxing trip and plan to go back after having fun.

People often say that paparazzi are powerful, but in the business field, when it comes to investigating and collecting data, major consulting firms and headhunting companies are powerful. As long as they are willing to pay, they can find out anything.

I don’t understand the specific technical essentials, nor do I know which person is most suitable for me. These are not in the way, as long as someone understands. He only needs to provide sufficient financial support and do a good job in promotion, management and other aspects...

There is a generation gap with Mr. Alfred, and the age gap is equally huge.

I originally wanted to ask the person to have a drink with me, but I was told that I needed to conduct an investigation first. I tried to use the connections I had accumulated in the past to ask again to see if there was a ready-made development team.

This was a good thing, so Ye Dongqing took a car alone and walked around Stanford University. Along the way, he saw many familiar company signs. Amazon’s headquarters is in Seattle. Silicon Valley has its data service R\u0026D center. Silicon Valley and Netflix The headquarters of these two companies are nearby. As a shareholder, Ye Dongqing needs to go and see them in person.

To invest so much money, he should at least know where the company is. Unknowingly, the shares in his hands, plus the shares underlying the warrants, accounted for 4% of all Apple shares, based on the current market value. , which is equivalent to just over 200 million U.S. dollars. The current total market value of Apple is only over 5 billion U.S. dollars.

Considering that before Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, the company only had a market value of more than 2 billion US dollars and almost went bankrupt due to lack of funds, it is quite good to reach the current figure a few years later.

It was not yet certain whether he could successfully talk to Jobs face to face. Ye Dongqing walked around Stanford University and then entered a tavern.

I have been thinking too much in the past few days and it is always difficult to fall asleep. Plus, I am jet lag today. If I don't drink some wine, I will definitely have insomnia again.

The customers of the small bar near the university were naturally mainly students. The name of the university was not among his considerations. If he chose Stanford, he might as well apply directly to Harvard. That school was near Boston and closer to New York.

I often hear how great Silicon Valley is, but seeing it with my own eyes, it’s just that. There are no high-rise buildings, and it’s not lively. The advantage is that the planning is relatively reasonable, and small cities have been developed around each area. If you don’t look at those company signs, you will It feels like a strong country style.

…

He had no intention of finding an affair. He was sitting at the bar drinking wine alone. He had not changed out of his black formal clothes, and he looked out of place in the crowd.

The atmosphere around them was very lively. Stanford students were sitting in groups, chatting about internships, studies, and more about relationships, life, etc., which was quite interesting in Ye Dongqing's eyes.

The unattractive-looking female bartender would occasionally take the initiative to chat with him, maybe because she saw that she was different from ordinary customers. She had the opportunity to hook up with him, but she was not interested. After a few drinks, she paid and left, and took a taxi back to the Hilton Hotel.

******************

After a comfortable sleep, just like the American way of life, I took a shower the next morning and put on the same clothes as yesterday.

After cleaning up, I went to the next room. When I was about to knock on the door, I accidentally heard a woman's voice inside. I looked at the house number and found that it was right. Well, I originally thought that Mr. Alfred was upright, but I can only say that he usually disguised himself too well. I lost my stuff when I traveled far away.

I didn't mean to disturb him, so I went downstairs to eat the buffet breakfast alone. There were not many guests. It seemed that the market in Silicon Valley was really bad. Even the hotel had no business. I felt that the time was almost up, so I called Alfred. Ask him what he plans to do today.

Yesterday on the road, Mr. Alfred told Ye Dongqing that he had heard something.

About half an hour later, the two met with people from the headhunting company and discussed recruiting talents to develop new programs. Then they went out to find a well-known expert. The other party only said that it was theoretically possible, but did not give an accurate answer. .

His personality is a bit arrogant. If Mr. Alfred hadn't known that the other party was capable, Ye Dongqing would have even thought he was a liar. Overall, it didn't help much. He visited a small company by the way. They were developing voice input methods and Not the technology he needed.

It didn't go as smoothly as expected. Except for some guys who are big-eyed but low-handed in theory, almost no one here in Silicon Valley develops instant voice messaging programs. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. It means that no one can compete with him for the time being, but it is not easy to organize a team to develop it yourself. , the technical requirements are higher than the price.

…

It was a waste of time. There was no news from the headhunting company, and Mr. Alfred had no good solution.

So Ye Dongqing entrusted his old friend Paul Kutcher to help and asked him to find out if there was any information in this area. He did not plan to devote all his energy to this matter. In the early morning of the third day after arriving in Silicon Valley, Ye Dongqing rented a car. I drove my Ferrari sports car by myself and visited the companies invested by Freshwater Fund.

Netflix was a little far away, so the first stop was Apple. After identifying himself at the front desk, a middle-aged white man who was the deputy director of product received him personally. With the shares in Ye Dongqing’s hands, he was already qualified to let people of this level Management reception.

He didn't choose the right time. Jobs went to Seattle for a meeting. Ye Dongqing missed another opportunity to see him in person. In his memory, this technology tycoon had passed away long ago. Now he is still in good health. Michael Jackson and Hawking Others are also there.

At this moment.

Ye Dongqing, accompanied by an Apple executive named Brad Walton, entered the product research and development department for a visit. This was his own request and he tried to give some good suggestions to get Apple on the right track early. .

Considering the product development cycle, he has enough time to acquire more stocks during this period. Once Apple is allowed to spend less money on research and development and produce more popular products, it will directly affect the future of Tamsui Fund. income.

In this era, prototypes of Apple's products have emerged, and the operating system is full of Ye Dongqing's familiar shadow.

As early as 2001, an Apple laptop named PowerBook-G4 was launched. The product adopted a metal body and wide-screen design, and was equipped with the Mac-OS-X operating system. It can be said that PowerBook-G4 is the predecessor of MacBook-Pro and established the future product design style of Apple's notebook series, but at present, it is still an immature product.

In addition to it, iMac-G4 is undoubtedly a milestone in the history of Mac design. It adopts an ultra-thin LCD screen and is undoubtedly very eye-catching among many CRT display computers. After its launch last year, major computer manufacturing companies have also followed suit. Produce ultra-thin LCD monitors.

According to Brad Wharton, a more powerful console will be launched this year and will be available for sale soon. Some people say that Jobs has a paranoid personality. This is not a lie. It is that kind of serious personality that leads to This company's products are constantly innovating.

However, it has to be admitted that the sales of these two products can only be considered average. Apple missed the opportunity for development, and due to its own reasons, users have become accustomed to the Windows operating system. The key to the problem is that they do not have many bright spots to attract people. Highlights for users to purchase them.

The portable music player iPod was launched in this way and has become Apple's current main product. Because downloading songs is too troublesome, sales last year were unsatisfactory and it was not compatible with Windows systems. Annual sales were only about 100,000 units.

Ye Dongqing could not see the problem at first. After listening to Brad Walton's various introductions, he found out a key problem that restricted Apple's development - he did not want to open up the system ecology, but he could not open up this closed system. Do a good job, and lack an overall and long-term development goal.

It's more like a hammer in one thing and a stick in the other. An attempt has been made, but it's far from enough...