Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 1384 Microsoft invites Ronald to shoot an advertisement

"So, why, why, Ronald, why is it like this? I asked Kevin many times why these people in Hollywood treated me like this, but he couldn't tell me any reason, so I had to ask you..."

After returning from Britain, Whitney Houston officially began organizing her "Bodyguard" global concert. Both the movie and the album were widely recognized around the world, which surprised and delighted her. As her fame reached its peak, she started making money directly.

But at this moment, a piece of news made her so angry that she flew directly to Los Angeles to confront her Hollywood friends.

Before and after the Oscar nominations were announced, the annual Golden Raspberry Awards also released the nomination list. "The Bodyguard" received seven nominations, of which Whitney Houston received three nominations alone. They were Worst Actress, Worst New Star, and Worst Original Song.

"Whitney, you have to know that no one in Hollywood really takes this nomination seriously..."

To be honest, Ronald understood Whitney Houston's anger. Anyone who made a movie for the first time and achieved great success, but failed to be nominated for an Oscar but won a lot of Golden Raspberries, would definitely feel that someone was deliberately targeting her.

"That's right, Whitney, you see, I was also nominated for Worst Actor, and Ronald also..." Kevin Costner felt that Ronald's words were more believable than his own, so he quickly took over.

"I was also nominated for the Worst Picture. And two of your songs won the Best Original Song Award. I think this speaks volumes. A theme song for a movie won both the Oscar for Best Original Song and the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Original Song. Anyone who has seen this will understand that the Golden Raspberry Award is an award that has no credibility..."

"But I still feel that they are targeting me. I have seen many stars nominated for the Golden Raspberry Awards in the past. Is the reason they didn't nominate me for an Oscar related to this?" Whitney Houston continued, she seemed to be overreacting a bit.

"Whitney, have you ever seen a gorilla in the zoo?" Ronald had to use an analogy.

"What do you mean?" When Whitney Houston heard the gorilla, she came to her senses. What does it mean?

"Gorillas sometimes make friendly gestures to tourists and do some very disgusting actions, such as picking up their own... uh... excrement and throwing it at tourists. But tourists won't do the same, right? The Golden Raspberry Award is a vulgar and disgusting white film critic named John J.B. Wilson. Some people use him to disgust celebrities..."

"Oh, so he's a white man...never mind..."

After Ronald's words, Whitney Houston was able to look at the matter from an objective perspective. She was not a guest singer and was not a Jewish Barbra Streisand. Being nominated for two Best Original Songs was a huge boost to her career.

"Thank you, your words are more believable..." Kevin Costner was relieved, otherwise he would not be able to bear Houston calling him every day.

"What are you doing?"

"Pandas, I'm planning to ask the San Diego Zoo to rent a pair of pandas..."

"This is a good thing, my children will be very happy." Kevin Costner also gladly signed his name on the open letter, which is a risk-free way to become famous. Who among Hollywood stars doesn't want to be labeled as a "good and powerful person" in the eyes of their children from an early age?
"What kind of animal is this? It's so cute, Panda. Do you want to bring in a pair? No Shxt? I want an autograph too..." Whitney Houston went to chat with Diane for a while and was very happy to discover this cute animal with black and white fur.

"Mr. Counselor, I'll leave this to you. I have collected signatures from more than 30 Hollywood stars. I hope to rent giant pandas for artificial breeding research."

"I have already reported it. Please wait for good news..."

……

"President William delivered his first speech from the throne to a joint session of Congress. His theme was the economic stimulus plan..."

In the evening, Ronald saw the president's slightly chubby face on TV again. When everyone expected the theme of his first speech to Congress to be related to the issues promoted by several major groups that were rumored to be "investing" in him in Washington, he insisted on the main theme of his campaign, the economy.

“The stimulus package is designed to reduce the federal budget deficit and will be done primarily through tax increases and government spending cuts. I am proposing an income tax increase on high earners while cutting funding for certain government programs.

Increase taxes on the wealthy and large corporations, including raising the tax rate on households earning more than $250,000, and reform the Social Security tax.

Encourage business investment and innovation. For example, through tax incentives and exemptions, encourage businesses to make capital investments and conduct research and development.

Improve the skills and competitiveness of the workforce through vocational training and education programs. These measures are designed to help displaced workers re-enter the job market and respond to changing economic needs.

......"

"This sounds pretty good...but David Geffen will be angry after seeing this..." After reading it, Ronald had a good impression of the new president.

Although this stimulus plan includes a plan to increase taxes on the rich, the new policy of reducing investment taxes for businesses is actually more beneficial to Ronald.

The ones who will really lose money from this tax increase plan are high-income professionals and corporate executives. Rich people like Ronald can get various tax breaks through their companies. And this time his investment tax incentive plan goes a step further, not only limited to previous investments in the capital market, but also includes investments and mergers and acquisitions in private companies.

This way, Ronald's investment in the Navigator can get greater tax deductions and refunds under the new tax plan.

"This is even better than when George was president. I hope Congress can pass this plan in March..."

Ronald found it very interesting. Although he was the leader of the Donald Party, he was actually more open economically than old George, and was almost the same as when old Ronald came to power.

As for the lobbying groups outside the House that had been arguing fiercely in Washington in the early days, such as the expectations of minority groups for equal rights within the military and equality for women, the President did not touch them. Instead, he directly gave a big cake to the general public and the middle class, allowing them to expect to enjoy the fruits of economic development.

The truly rich are also satisfied with this. They obtain tax incentives through investment and strengthening R&D to encourage the development of high-tech companies and direct money to high-tech industries, which is more efficient than government-led R&D.

Should I also buy more stocks of high-tech companies? Or invest in some high-tech enterprises? What high-tech stocks are there now? Does the Microsoft I bought count? Do the technology equipment manufacturing companies I own for the film industry count?

Ronald was lying on the bed, still thinking about these things, when Diane walked into the bedroom in her silk pajamas, took off the hairpins in her hair, and shook her head a few times, letting her long hair fall down.

"Honey, you look like Veronica Lake (a famous female star in Old Hollywood) today..." Ronald took Diane to the bed. This is the advantage of having an actress wife.

"Honey, I don't care, I'll just rely on you..." Diane imitated Veronica Lake's accent and moved her legs up and down quickly, acting coquettishly.

"Beep beep beep..."

At the critical moment, the phone rang.

"Hello?" Ronald answered the phone unhappily. Richard would usually only bother him at night when it came to the most important matters.

"Ronald, Mr. Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, wants to meet you..."

"I don't even know him, why should I meet him?"

"This concerns your advertising business. He came to you for this matter and called you personally."

"He is also a chairman. Why should he be in charge of so many things? Can't he let his subordinates handle it? Wait, who are you talking about? Bill Gates? Oh, the chairman of Microsoft? Okay, then you help me arrange it..." After saying that, he hung up the phone and hugged Diane and kissed her.

"Hey, hey, Ronald, did you agree? This is my reply..."

……

"He wants to advertise for Microsoft? Why did he ask me to interview him? Why did he ask me to go to Seattle? Can't he come to Los Angeles?"

The next day, Ronald got on the plane and was still wondering why he agreed to meet Bill Gates last night. He didn't remember any of the details, but Richard swore that he had agreed to it himself, so Ronald couldn't go back on his word, so he had to drink espresso and get on the plane early in the morning.

"He saw some of the Coke ads you made and thought that his company's new product needed you to take the lead in promoting it. And because he is a very introverted person and doesn't like to deal with strangers, he hopes to receive you at his home so that he can talk to you in detail."

"Okay, Ronald, close your eyes and go to sleep as usual."

"This is Mr. Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft." When they arrived at Microsoft's headquarters, it was the CEO who came to pick Ronald up in person.

"I like your products very much. Now I use your software on the computers at home and in the office..." Ronald expressed his friendliness.

"Oh, it's a pleasure, Bill is waiting for you at the top..."

Taking the chairman's special elevator to the top floor, Ronald met this young emerging rich man in the American IT industry.

"Welcome, Mr. Li, or should I call you Director Li?"

As people say, Gates feels a little reserved when meeting someone for the first time.

"Just call me Ronald. We look about the same age." Ronald had met many such technical experts, so he chatted with him in a relaxed manner. These people would regain their confidence as soon as they talked about their strengths.

"Oh, then you can just call me Bill. I was born in 1955..."

"Then we can all be considered the last of the baby boomers. How did you come up with such a good idea as selling software?"

As expected, Bill Gates relaxed immediately when talking about Microsoft. He talked a lot about how he founded Microsoft and asked Ronald about Hollywood. The two communicated very smoothly.

Ronald also felt that this guy was not just a pure top technical talent as he had imagined, but also a top business genius. Many of his business ideas were beyond the reach of ordinary entrepreneurs.

"You really surprised me. I didn't expect a Hollywood director to have such a deep insight into business. Anyway, I came here mainly to ask you to make an advertisement. There is a new computer storage method now. A CD can only hold a dozen songs, but if it is used to store text, it can hold the entire Encyclopedia Britannica..."

Gates got back to the point and talked about the original intention of looking for Ronald this time. He originally wanted to promote the new storage medium of CD. A CD can hold 650 megabytes of content, which is amazing compared to those floppy disks and hard disks.

"In addition to text, CDs can also contain music, images, movies, and so on. We call it..." Gates continued to introduce and put a CD into the computer's CD-ROM memory to demonstrate to Ronald.

"Multimedia CD?"

"Oh, it seems you know this emerging media format..." Bill Gates was a little surprised, but he quickly came to his senses. Hollywood was the pioneer in the use of this media storage medium.

"Actually, I have a company that produces this kind of multimedia CDs. They are all educational content, including classical music, modern rock music, history, geography, rare animals, etc..." Ronald laughed. Isn't this a coincidence?

"Oh yeah? Give me some to see. If they're good, Microsoft can be your sales channel..." Gates just wanted to promote this CD format, and it was a great success that a content provider came uninvited.

Ronald immediately called back and asked them to bring a full set of Navigator educational multimedia CDs over, while he continued to chat with Gates.

"I'd like you to create a memorable ad for the CD format, like your latest Pepsi ad..."

"Huh?" Ronald thought to himself, he didn't expect that the technological elites were similar to him and could not resist beautiful women.

"This kind of advertising doesn't really require any creativity, because the product itself is a very good demonstration. A CD, a set of Encyclopedia Britannia..."

Ronald picked up a CD with one hand and gestured the length of the Encyclopedia Britannica with the other.

"According to my calculations, if the text contained in a CD were printed on letter-sized paper with normal font, it would be more than 17 meters long if stacked up..."

Bill Gates calculated it on the computer and immediately gave the answer.

"I really can't stand you smart people..." Ronald complained in his heart. When dealing with these smart people with extremely high IQs, he always felt a little stupid.

"If that's the case, then it's very simple. We can actually build this 17-meter-high paper tower, and then have your spokesperson hold a CD in one hand for comparison."

"This sounds pretty simple. It seems like it doesn't require any acting skills..."

"Of course, even if you come, Bill, it will be... No, it should be said that it will be more effective..."

When Ronald heard this, he felt a little proud. The film and television industry also has a strong appeal to ordinary smart people.

"It's settled then. You will help me shoot an advertisement like this..."

Gates was very straightforward and paid a huge price to invite Ronald to shoot an extremely simple advertisement. Then he personally drove Ronald to his home to play.

"cheers……"

When he arrived at his house, Ronald found a lot of interesting things. These highly intelligent people actually have a wide range of interests. Ronald also saw a periodic table with real elements in each grid.

But what these people are doing is rather boring. Maybe in Gates' eyes, partying is just wearing a plaid shirt and drinking beer on the sofa with friends...

"Ronald, we hit it off right away. I think we're already like friends..."

"Of course, Bill, we are friends. As Confucius said, friendship is not measured by the length of time, but by the depth of two people's thinking..." Ronald felt that Gates also had something important to ask him, but he was a little hesitant to speak.

"Very good, I didn't expect Confucius to say this..." Gates moved closer seriously and asked shyly, "How should someone like me date a Hollywood actress?"

"Hahahaha..." Ronald didn't expect Gates to ask this question, and couldn't help laughing for a moment. But when he saw the other party's face flushed, he knew that he had embarrassed Gates.

"You won't like those Hollywood stars. There's probably only one out of ten who you wouldn't feel bored talking to. Many of them just have a good face and a good figure."

"Oh?" Gates was a little annoyed.

"However, if you really want to date a female star, I can say it's actually very simple. It's just that they spend most of their time dealing with producers and directors. This is their career..."

"Oh..." Gates expressed his understanding, but also felt a little regretful.

Ronald felt that some of this guy's thoughts were very much like the way an ordinary person thinks. "For a successful person like you, the easiest way might be to invest in a movie or an advertisement, so that the female stars will have a reason to communicate with you for career development. You can also take this opportunity to observe whether they really have brains..."

"Oh?" Gates became excited again.

"You're not serious, are you?"

"I actually admire Audrey Hepburn very much..."