Reborn Tech Maniac

Chapter 320 The Magic of Gerstner
Boss Tang is not arrogant, he is really rich now, not the paper wealth like bubbles blown out by stocks.

With the help of Tang Huan, Christina's family capital structure has been adjusted to initial results and is trying to build a new consortium center in Paris.

As for the San Francisco-Los Angeles, Silicon Valley-Hollywood, technology-entertainment industrial structure that Tang Huan operates in California, it has already taken shape and is beginning to look impressive.

This is the macro aspect, and the micro aspects change even more day by day.

Let’s take Tang Huan’s personal income as an example. In addition to dividends from shares, salary from positions, and copyrights of works, etc., the scale of profits from speculative operations in the capital market behind the scenes has even made him more and more afraid.

As this profit-making model gradually formed a system, the intelligence collected by his subordinates was compared with the memories of hundreds of elites in Tang Huan's mind, coupled with professional capital operations, resulting in a huge profit for every speculation.

Tang Huan didn't want to attract attention, so he had to control the scale of speculation, and spread out this part of assets, throwing them into money-losing departments such as football teams and TV stations, or traditional industries managed by his own women.

It is precisely with this confidence that Tang Huan is now a famous venture capitalist and angel investor in Silicon Valley.

Now that he has taken a fancy to the prototype of Jamina's multimedia platform, Atari will not be allowed to make trouble, and throwing money is the most powerful way to fight back.

According to Tang Huan's idea, the Jamina team was first circled and cultivated, and when the sensitive time limit for peer competition avoidance was almost over, they were pulled over and assimilated.

Compared with the achievements that can not only eliminate a future market competitor, but also strengthen its own technical strength, wasting some money in front of it is nothing.

After all, Recasa, the CEO of Atari, is just a wage earner for Warner and its owner, Steve Ross. If he really wants to become rich, how can he be as confident as a big boss like Tang Huan? , it is doomed to be bullied by the big and the small and forced to retreat in desperation.

In fact, although Atari was taken away by Tang Huan's EA as the leader, its second place position in the market still allowed it to make a lot of money and won the favor and value of Warner.

This is due to Tang Huan's out-of-the-box intervention, not relying entirely on plundering to squeeze Atari's space, but expanding the space of the entire video game industry.

For example, more than half a month after the release of "For Your Eyes Only", its video game derivative "007" was also officially released by EA. The response from dealers and users was very enthusiastic. It can be said that it has set a good example of success for the industry. , let everyone have an extra source of income, Atari quickly followed.

After "Raiders of the Lost Ark" won the first weekend at the box office, "Superman 2" and "For Your Eyes Only" grabbed the limelight in the middle. It took the No. 7 position at the box office, and it was still a jaw-dropping $5 million.

What this phenomenon means, even a layperson can figure out, is that "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is going to be such a commercial success that it will continue to be shown in theaters until all its value is squeezed out.

With EA's successful example of operating the "007" video game, and the "Raiders of the Lost Ark" being so beautiful, Atari began to seek authorization.

As the publisher, Paramount did not have the advantage of being close to the water, and benefited Sega in this respect, but handed it over to Atari.

It has to be said that Paramount's boss, Charles Bludorn, did not manage to integrate the company's resources under his own name to take advantage of the advantage of one plus one greater than two. In the face of this rare video game market, Many opportunities were missed.

With the leadership of industry leaders EA and Atari, everyone seems to see the infinitely bright prospects for the combined development of Hollywood and Silicon Valley, entertainment and technology, and the restlessness of capital is becoming more and more irresistible.

Regarding this kind of madness, Tang Huan could only smile wryly. Strictly speaking, he also played a role in fueling the flames.

This is the general trend, and the individual is extremely insignificant in front of it.

But Atari, which is also the top existence in the industry, either followed EA's footsteps, or jumped in front of EA to rob the house. Its performance really disappointed Tang Huan.

Don't you realize that if the market develops in a disorderly way without any mechanism of checks and balances, everyone will die together, and the death will still be ugly.

If EA falls into a trough, I still have mature and stable Zheru and Fangyuan Computers, but you only have Atari as a bargaining chip, and you just rely on burning money to open factories and R&D centers in Silicon Valley. What little qualifications you have in the personal computer field are basically useless. Can't stand any longer.

In Tang Huan's view, Atari and EA are fighting back in the market, and they also need to cooperate tacitly to crack down on speculators who break into this industry, and upgrading the existing hardware platform is one of them, so that more customers can get A better gaming experience, thus dislike those crudely made things.

But what Atari is doing now does not have the awareness of the industry leader at all. Like other followers, it is expanding wildly while staring at EA to figure out how to make money.

In order to improve the ability to resist risks during the future industry depression, Tang Huan ordered EA to increase resources to develop the personal computer platform in addition to home consoles, arcades, and handheld platforms. In fact, it only included Apple Computers and Fangyuan Computers, and even Some projects are outsourced to software developers for both hardware platforms.

The biggest beneficiary of this initiative is undoubtedly Apple Computer, because the basic model of the second-generation Fangyuan computer with a memory capacity of 64KB has basically no room to continue after being reduced to about US$3000.

We can only continue to approach the low-end market after the authorization of compatible machines is released and the cost of common parts comes down.

Obviously, few people will spend $3000 to buy a second-generation Fangyuan computer for commercial use to play games. Apple IIe is currently the most suitable hardware platform.

It is precisely with so much help from Tang Huan that Apple has become the target of IBM's fire, and the two companies are fighting to the death.

Especially when Jobs's taunting skills are activated, the hatred is firmly held, and Don Estridge is often stimulated to pinch him in the air.

Now when the media reports on the dynamics of the personal computer industry, they often list the photos of Jobs and Don Estridge together, as if they regard these two as the absolute protagonists of this personal computer war.

It was under this circumstance that the media accidentally missed that the monthly shipment volume of the second-generation Fangyuan computers exceeded [-] units at an alarming rate.

At present, the front desks of many hotels in North America are equipped with second-generation Fangyuan computers, printers, card readers, digital fax machines and other equipment. This is the most representative application field of Fangyuan computers.

The second-generation Fangyuan computers connected through Ethernet have further aroused the interest of large companies and institutions.

After a period of time, after Yipeng/Holder workstations and servers are launched, the second-generation Fangyuan computer will have its own backend server, and its application fields will undoubtedly expand further.

As the saying goes, planting a sycamore tree will attract a golden phoenix, Tang Huan is now digging out high-level talents, which makes it easier for him.

For example, Louis Vincent Gerstner, the president of IBM in the 1990s, who created the miracle of "making elephants dance"—Louis Vincent Gerstner, defected here.

Born in 1942, Gerstner has a remarkable professional resume. After obtaining an MBA degree from Harvard Business School in 1965, he directly entered McKinsey Management Consulting Company.

This company is very famous, and the companies under Tang Huan's name have hired their consultants to provide services.

Gerstner stayed at McKinsey for 13 years, became the youngest partner of McKinsey at the age of 28, and became the youngest director of McKinsey at the age of 33.

By 1978, Gerstner was invited by McKinsey's client, American Express, to serve as executive vice president.

The current president and CEO of American Express is James Robinson III—James Robinson III, who often made promises to his subordinates that "you will take my seat". As a result, in the original time and space, he himself worked from 1977 to 1993.

In the 1980s, American Express's credit card business developed very successfully, and it was also actively expanding its investment banking business.

Just this year, American Express spent $9.3 million to buy Shearson Loeb Rhoades, the second largest securities firm in the United States after Merrill Lynch - Shearson Loeb Rhoades.

The company’s president, Sanford Weill—Sanford Weill, also got the promise of “passing on the throne” from James Robinson III, but in the original time and space, after the man found that he had no such hope, he patted his ass in 1983 leave.

In fact, these are the tricks and transactions often played by Shang Haili, and it is impossible to talk about who is right and who is wrong.

Anyway, during the tenure of James Robinson III, American Express had a good momentum of development, otherwise Tang Huan would not have purchased shares of American Express through Shennong Fund and cut off the fortune of stock god Buffett.

After Gerstner found out that Sanfordville had also received the "transition" promise from James Robinson III, one can imagine the loss in his heart.

In the original time and space, this workaholic endured until the end of the 1980s. Although his position has been improved, it has reached the ceiling.

In this time and space, through the Shennong Fund, Tang Huan could naturally understand the big move of American Express, so he asked the headhunting company he cooperated with to try to contact him, and finally hooked up the other party.

Needless to say, Tang Huan likes to appoint celebrities from the original time and space, and the bigger the better, because it is easy to do so, and the other party's temperament, temper, ability, integrity, etc. are obviously traceable.

For example, Simone, Chambers, and Hawkins who Tang Huan recruited into Silicon Valley are now multimillionaires on paper, but the three of them still work hard like old scalpers, and Gerstner also belongs to this group. A kind of good subordinate.

Another point to mention is that Hawkins, who is in charge of EA's daily affairs, is a relatively late follower of Tang Huan, but the wealth he obtained has surpassed the former two.

Regarding this kind of "unfairness", Tang Huan directly spoke up, "Don't worry about the temporary allocation, the next target for listing is Fangyuan Computer, and everyone can share the fruit again by then."

And the next situation was what Tang Huan hoped to see. These people didn't have any grievances, and they still cooperated seamlessly, which is really commendable.

Tang Huan has always liked Gerstner because he came from a poor background with a simple background, and his tough work style is what Tang Huan's senior team needs.

In other words, with the increasing expansion of the Silicon Valley industry, Tang Huan increasingly needs a black-faced iron-blooded prime minister who can deal with some jobs that he is concerned about the image of a leader with a strong hand, and it is not easy to directly give instructions.

In addition, in terms of business division of labor, Gerstner's arrival can be regarded as a timely rain.

With the gradual increase of various information management systems developed around the database EBase, Zheru's penetration in the ERP application field is getting deeper and deeper, and the business knowledge in finance, management, etc. that it needs is also separated from Zheru's technology. Old business.

In particular, the scale of this department has expanded too fast, to the extent that it cannot be ignored. Tang Huan even intends to set up an ERP company similar to Germany's SAP.

Gerstner, who has 13 years of working experience in McKinsey and 3 years in American Express, just meets the standard in Tang Huan's mind.

Of course, Tang Huan also has a bad taste that cannot be publicized. If he can follow the historical development track and export Gerstner to IBM in the future, he will definitely have a lot of fun.

Based on these reasons, Tang Huan showed great enthusiasm for Gerstner's arrival. He took Gerstner to visit, hold meetings, watch games, and even play golf for several days in succession, in order to actively interact with him on different occasions and deepen mutual friendship. understanding.

After the communication came to an end, Tang Huan asked Gerstner to serve as vice president. He would temporarily manage the ERP department and be responsible for the disciplinary supervision of the entire consortium.

It goes without saying that Tang Huan will look at Gerstner's specific work performance before deciding how to add more responsibilities to him.

During this period, Jodie Foster took the initiative to come to the door.

Seeing the other party wearing big sunglasses and walking cautiously, Tang Huan couldn't help laughing, "You have dropped out of school, and now there are still paparazzi chasing you?"

"If only I could get rid of these troubles so easily, but I can't be quiet at home." Jodie Foster sighed melancholy, "I heard that you are in San Francisco, so I came here to borrow your money." Big Boss Light, take a break."

"Didn't you work in France before? Why don't you go to Europe to avoid the limelight?" Tang Huan asked sympathetically.

(End of this chapter)