I’m in Hollywood

A few years later, when the Internet industry began to explode, watching countless companies burn hundreds of millions of billions of dollars each year, but still could not shake the Internet empire built by the understatement of the young man who was not yet twenty-five years old. Only then did Na Brown realize how far-sighted Eric's decision was.

But now, in an exquisite coffee shop in Manhattan, Tina Brown heard Eric's crazy plan for the first time, but she was more hesitant.

Tina Brown's status and reputation in the media industry has reached the peak of her personal life. If she accepts the invitation of Condé Nast Group to run The New Yorker, she has nearly 20 years of experience in magazine operation. Ten's Grasp revives the fading magazine. But if she transfers to a completely unfamiliar field, even if it is only for a year, but if she fails to make dazzling achievements in this field, it will not be so easy to come back after a year and reintegrate into the original circle again. The thing is, she is only forty years old now, and she doesn't want to ruin her thriving personal career because of an adventure.

Hearing Eric's mention of Columbus and the Great Voyage, Tina Brown didn't have too many passionate emotions, but just smiled lightly, which was considered to be echoed. People only remember the glory of the Great Voyage Age, but no one has explored how many adventurers have died at sea because of storms, pirates and disease over the centuries.

Tina Brown originally thought that Eric would continue to persuade her to join Yahoo, or offer her a favourable offer that she could not refuse. She felt that with the brilliant qualifications she had accumulated in the media industry for more than 20 years, he would definitely do so. A truly successful superior will often spare no effort to win over talents for his own use. But after Eric said the last sentence, he became quiet, picked up the coffee in front of him and leaned back comfortably on the back of the chair, waiting patiently for her to make a decision.

Eric's unexpected reaction calmed down Tina Brown, who was worried about gains and losses.

The two quietly watched the traffic coming and going outside the glass window for a while, and Tina Brown finally made up her mind. Ask: Eric, what do I get if I join Yahoo?

Eric replied: I won't give you a too high annual salary. Your personal salary will probably be the same as during the Vanity Fair period. However. At the beginning of Yahoo's establishment, the company drew up a stock award contract , Before going public, Yahoo will distribute up to about 20% of the equity as a reward to the management and some employees who have made important contributions according to their contributions. If you join Yahoo and can meet my requirements after one year, then you will also will be included in this reward program.”

Tina Brown shook her head suspiciously: Eric, what you said is too general, I don't know if you will honor these in the future, if Yahoo can really grow and develop, 20% equity is not a small amount. Also, you didn't give any criteria, I don't know how to meet the requirements you said?

Eric smiled: You don't need to worry about this,

The contract about the equity incentive plan before going public was drawn up by a good friend and partner of mine. It is as many as dozens of pages, and it has been recognized by everyone. After you join Yahoo, you can sign this contract.

For a media giant such as Firefly, which has already established its status in the industry, the group's operating system has been quite complete. Although excellent management can bring more benefits to the company, it cannot determine the company's life or death. Therefore, shareholders do not need to make too many equity incentives for management. In the past few years, although Firefly was very profitable, Eric's equity used to reward management was less than 1% of the total equity.

But for the rapidly rising Internet industry, senior technical and management talents who have accumulated a lot of industry experience are crucial to the company's development. In the case of the company's rapid development, in order to prevent the management from leaving the company alone or being poached by competitors. Such win-win incentives are very necessary. Because once these talents who are crucial to the development of Internet technology companies leave, it may be like a high-speed train suddenly discovering that a section of the rail ahead has been removed, and the catastrophic consequences can be imagined. The reason why so many young billionaires can be produced in the early stage of the development of the Internet industry is because most investors understand this truth. Instead of naively pinning their hopes on their blood and loyalty. However, after more than ten years, the oligarchic pattern of the Internet industry will take shape, and the door to wealth that makes people rich overnight will also be closed. Except for a few lucky ones, most of them can toss up some innovative Internet companies. They can only obediently accept the oligarchs.

After explaining Tina Brown's first concern, Eric pointed to the ibm notebook that still displayed the homepage of the Yahoo portal, and said, In addition, regarding your personal work results, there are actually no criteria for judging, for example, Yahoo! The server background has a detailed record of the user's access data. Among them, there is a very important pv value, which means the user's page visits (page-). This data is the best reflection of the user's recognition of Yahoo's content. pv The ratio of the value to the number of users is the average number of page views per user, this ratio will represent your personal work to a certain extent, and the higher the ratio, the better your work.

After listening to Eric's patient explanation, Tina Brown suddenly smiled: I suddenly found that I can't seem to find a reason to refuse this job. At least, you are much more honest than my original boss.

Knowing that Tina Brown said this, Eric actually agreed, and also laughed: In this case, I need to be honest with you one more thing, compared to being the editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair, you are in Yahoo's workload will increase exponentially, because Vanity Fair only needs to be published once a month, but Yahoo's information needs to be updated daily or even hourly, and each content section and a larger number of subsections You need to coordinate.

Tina Brown was stunned for a moment before asking, How many people can I have in my hands?

In the first two years, most of Yahoo's energy has been devoted to the research and development of website technology. At present, there is only a simple editorial team of 50 people. The original editor-in-chief used to be the editor-in-chief of an ordinary newspaper in Boston. I am very dissatisfied with his work, so I just invited you, Eric said, looking at IBM's Yahoo homepage, counting, and saying, You will be responsible for a total of eight content sections in the future. After you join the job, you can also follow the popularity of these content sections yourself. The degree of adjustment, for me personally, according to the average of five sub-columns per section, five editors per column group. You can expand the editorial team to 200 people. Yahoo must do its own news content, this is A team of reporters is needed, and at the same time, there are departments such as logistics support, which are also a group of people. Of course. These are things you need to consider after you join the job. If you feel that you need to expand the editorial team to 500 people, as long as you can give Reasons that convince me, I can approve your plan.

Tina Brown subconsciously felt that five editors for each sub-column were too few, but she hadn't officially joined the job, and she didn't know the specific situation, so she didn't ask for anything immediately.

One last question, Tina Brown said, Firefly Group is now the largest media group in North America, with a wealth of information content, I want to know. How much support can Yahoo get from Firefly?

Eric smiled and said: I can give you all the support you can think of, the highest priority movie and TV information, star interviews, sports news from espn, the latest trends in Hollywood, etc., but the premise is that you need to let Firefly's banner department feels that you are qualified to work with them. When they hear the news of working with Yahoo, their first reaction is better to be 'Oh, Yahoo, that's a great site' rather than asking 'Yahoo!' What is it?'

There's an endless loop in your logic, Tina Brown laughed. If Yahoo can't get enough support first. How can I make other people treat the site differently?

Eric said: Although you have a bit of a sneaky change of concept, well, I just have a good opportunity here, and it's the same as when you caught the Reagan couple's Foxtrot incident and brought Vanity Fair back to life. This will This is yet another potentially sensational event, and if it works properly, Yahoo News will get another big boost in its profile.

Tina Brown recalled last year's box office hit Jurassic Park and asked curiously, Is it your new movie?

No, Eric shook his head and said, But it's also another show that I personally directed. A grand fashion show.

Tina Brown still wanted to ask, but Eric just smiled and shook his head: This will be the end of the year, and many things are not convenient to disclose in advance. But believe me, the news brought by this fashion show is enough for Yahoo to operate for a few days. months, and I'll try to give you all the first-hand information.

Then I'll just have to wait and see, Tina Brown smiled and reached out to Eric across the coffee table.

Eric shook hands with the other party and said, I will go to your Boston on the plane the day after tomorrow to see where you will work in the future?

Of course there's no problem. Tina Brown said, Even if you don't invite me, I'll go there in person before joining the job.

...

In Eric's plan, this trip to Boston was crucial to his layout in the Internet industry. He originally hoped that Chris could go to Boston together, but Chris needed to fly to Finland to attend Nokia's board meeting. Eric's investment agent, Chris also holds directorships in many companies including Nokia, Cisco, and America Online. Eric's personal work schedule is also quite tight, and the schedule cannot be arranged, and the plans of his peers can only be In the end, Eric just took two entourages and Tina Brown to board the plane to Boston.

Before leaving, Eric also personally called and invited two other people, John Chambers of Cisco Group and Steve Case of America Online, who also readily agreed.

The small Gulfstream business jet under Firefly Group slowly landed at Boston General Edward International Airport. Eric and Tina Brown got off the plane together. When they walked out of the airport, they saw three men of different ages walking towards them. The three people are Ian Grenier, the head of the browser company, Jeff Locke, the head of the Yahoo website, and Steve Mitt, the head of the online mail company who occasionally chats with Eric on the Internet. Nick.

Ian Grenier was originally a product development manager of the database software giant Oracle. He was in his early 40s, tall, but somewhat bald, wearing a neat gray suit.

Jeff Locke was recommended by Tim Berners Lee to serve as the head of Yahoo Portal. He is about 30 years old and has a master's degree in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also worked for Sun Software for two years.

The last Steve Mitnick, who was in charge of the online email service, was Chris' classmate at the University of Pennsylvania. Although arranged by his parents, he majored in finance like Chris, but he was very interested in computer technology. Obsessed, and finally did not get a finance degree, but the study of computer and information technology reached the point where the professors of the Department of Computer Science at Penn were amazed. The professor at Penn also wanted Steve Mitnick to do his own student, but he rejected the suggestion on the grounds that the other party had nothing to teach him. According to Chris, Steve Mitnick had been working in a small company run by his father in his hometown in Dallas. When Chris said that someone was willing to spend a lot of money on computer technology that he was interested in, he immediately dropped everything. to Boston.

A group of people introduced each other, and when they left, Steve Mitnick pulled Eric into his inconspicuous black Buick sedan. Tina Brown also seemed to want to talk to the person in charge of Yahoo right away, so she got into Jeff Locke's car, and Carter Moen and another of Eric's bodyguards got into Ian Grenier's car. Benz.

Eric, I have another good idea recently, and you will definitely be very interested, Steve Mitnick said impatiently as soon as the Buick entered the airport expressway: Now ie is trying to adapt, , and the operating system of personal computers of companies such as Apple, have to develop several different versions at the same time, I think, why don't we develop a network operating system based on ie by ourselves, with the advantages of our browser software, maybe in the future Maybe it will surpass Microsoft, and I have recently written a simple system kernel, as long as you agree to this plan, I promise to come up with a brand new system for two years, oh no, a year and a half.

Eric withdrew his gaze from the red building of the Hilton Hotel near the airport expressway, looked at Steve Mitnick's obviously ill-fitting suit, and said with a smile, You should have discussed this plan with Ian. Right? (To be continued.)

ps: [Starting today, the daily update time is fixed at 8:30]

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