"That's right, hackers would never do something like this. It's suicidal. No matter how deeply they hide, they'll be torn to shreds by angry capital, unless they're Russian!"
"Moreover, this deletion happened silently. Unless they gained all the permissions for Google's backend and completely controlled Google's servers. But is that possible? Google isn't stupid enough to let an opponent control their computers like that. Even if they really couldn't stop the other party, they could just pull the power plug."
"Although that would cause a service outage, it's better than losing a massive amount of user data!" the supervisor muttered, immediately ruling out the possibility of hackers.
After excluding the possibility of Google deleting it themselves, the only remaining possibility surfaced: Yahoo did it.
After all, Yahoo, as the controller of the servers, could easily delete the data within those servers. They were responsible for keeping these servers running, but their department was only responsible for monitoring server status. They had no control over the servers, so the company could directly delete the server data without notifying them.
As for why they would hide it from their own people, the answer was simple: the act was very unethical, and Yahoo probably didn't want to bear such a reputation, so they intended to shift the blame to hackers or similar individuals.
In that case, the fewer people who knew the situation, the better.
Yes, this was definitely done by themselves; there were no other possibilities!
After realizing this, the supervisor became even more confident in his intelligence. The next step was how to handle this matter with even greater wisdom.
Of course, reporting it upwards was a certainty. Such a major incident could not go unreported, regardless of the motive; it was something company higher-ups would not tolerate.
So, how to report it became very important. He could send an email to his supervisor's inbox as usual.
Or he could call directly and inform the higher-ups immediately.
After hesitating, the supervisor decided to start writing an email to report this matter.
However, the email was not finished until more than an hour later. As for when his supervisor's supervisor would see this email, only heaven knew.
As it turned out, two days after this email was sent, Jerry Yang still didn't know that Google had cleared all its data from Yahoo's servers. He was still waiting for Google to surrender.
As it turned out, Google couldn't hold on any longer.
About 10 days prior, when the three-day deadline arrived, before Jerry Yang could urge them or issue a final ultimatum, Google's Chairman and CEO, Larry Page, personally visited Yahoo. With a humble smile plastered on his face, he found Jerry Yang and requested a few weeks' extension, stating he needed to reach an agreement with all shareholders before considering the acquisition of Google further.
Jerry Yang saw through the other party's intention to stall for time. Therefore, Jerry Yang said very directly, "He would only give Larry Page one day. After that day, all Google shareholders must reach a consensus, otherwise, he would directly cut off the servers and completely call it quits!"
Thus, Larry Page left with a troubled expression. A day later, Larry Page returned, unwillingly stating that after intense negotiations with shareholders, Google could accept Yahoo's acquisition and even slightly lower the price. However, $3 billion was too low; $4.8 billion was a reasonable price for Google.
Hearing that Larry Page was still unwilling to comply obediently, Jerry Yang wasn't too angry, as he understood Larry Page very well.
This was a very stubborn fellow. Getting $200 million out of him was already a great success. It would be a ghost if he readily agreed to $3 billion.
So, what he had to do next was to continuously attack the other party, like a small knife, chipping away at his defenses bit by bit, and driving down the price.
Thus, Jerry Yang threatened the other party fiercely again, finally stating that they could each compromise. Yahoo could offer $3.2 billion, but that was the limit, with absolutely no room for further negotiation.
Then Larry Page still had to unify opinions with his shareholders. Seeing the other party making concessions, Jerry Yang didn't push too hard.
As a result, after waiting another day, Larry Page came and lowered the price to $4.5 billion, and then refused to budge.
In the following days, Yahoo and Google were locked in a tug-of-war.
Ultimately, Google had lowered its price to $3.9 billion, while Yahoo's acquisition price had risen to $3.6 billion. The two sides were only $300 million apart, and it was estimated that only one more meeting was needed to reach an agreement.
"I will offer him $3.7 billion this time, but this is the final price. Not a single cent more can be added. If the other party still doesn't yield, then I will directly cut off Google's servers, letting them understand that I can no longer tolerate such drawn-out negotiations!"
"Of course, this time I can't be too harsh on Google, otherwise if Google really loses a lot of users, it will be ourselves who suffer the loss from buying it."
"So, this server cutoff is just a threat, lasting about 10 minutes. This way, not only will Google not lose a large number of users, but that damned Larry Page will also understand that without Yahoo, they are nothing."
Jerry Yang pondered the details of the upcoming negotiation with Larry Page, even considering how to break Larry Page's psychological defenses step by step and win great victory. Jerry Yang had everything planned out, just waiting for Larry Page to physically execute his plan.
What made Jerry Yang a bit uneasy was that it was already past 10 o'clock, and Larry Page had still not appeared.
Usually, after 9:30, Larry Page would definitely show up. That guy's state would become increasingly anxious and haggard, driven to the brink by him, like a dead man.
But now it was 10 o'clock, and where had Larry Page gone?
"Go call that guy and ask him if he's coming today!" Jerry Yang said impatiently to his secretary. The secretary nodded and was about to make the call, but Jerry Yang stopped her.
"No, if I urge him to call, it will make me appear more anxious, which is detrimental to the negotiation momentum!" Jerry Yang mused. "How about this, if he still hasn't shown up by 10:30, immediately cut off Google's servers for 10 minutes to let him understand our power!"
Jerry Yang nodded, thinking his idea was brilliant. Once the servers were cut off, Larry Page would come crawling back.
Unfortunately, by 10:30, Larry Page had not shown any intention of appearing. So Jerry Yang hardened his heart, nodded to his secretary, and the secretary directly issued an order to the server department to cut off all of Google's server data traffic.
At the same time, Jerry Yang opened his computer, opened Google's webpage, and boredly kept hitting F5, expecting to see the server disconnection prompt.
However, after five minutes of refreshing, he still hadn't seen the screen. This made Jerry Yang impatiently question, "Did you make the call? What are the server department people doing?"
"Yes!" The secretary made another call and after a long conversation, said with a strange expression, "The server department says they cut off all of Google's servers five minutes ago."
"Nonsense, isn't Google still accessible?" Jerry Yang hit F5 again. Google's homepage was still… gone.
This time, Google's homepage finally disappeared, along with a server disconnected prompt. Jerry Yang's expression immediately improved, and he grumbled, "The people below are getting more and more ridiculous. They dare to delay my orders by five minutes and then lie to me saying they executed it five minutes ago. Do they think I won't refresh Google's page?"
After scolding, Jerry Yang felt much better and said to his secretary, "You can wait with my phone. In at most three minutes, that guy Larry Page will call!"
"Yes!" The secretary nodded. After three minutes, there was no reaction from the phone.
"This guy is really stubborn!" Jerry Yang chuckled.
After five minutes, the phone remained silent.
"Does this guy think he's qualified to compete with me?" Jerry Yang's expression was calm.
After ten minutes, the phone was still…
"This guy, it seems I have to teach him a harsh lesson. Call the server department and tell them I want to cut off Google's servers for an hour!" Jerry Yang ordered. As the secretary was about to make the call, the phone rang.
"I knew it, this guy couldn't resist!" Jerry Yang smiled again. However, the secretary said helplessly, "President, it's a call from the product department."
"Product department? What do they want me for?" Jerry Yang muttered and then answered the phone.
"What? You say you've received a large number of customer complaints that the Google search link on our Yahoo homepage is unusable and all lead to 404 errors?"
"This is normal. We cut off Google's servers, so of course Google can't be connected. Go explain to the customers that even if Google's own servers have problems, it has nothing to do with us Yahoo…" As Jerry Yang spoke, he habitually pressed F5 on his keyboard.
Then, Google's page refreshed. The familiar green search bar reappeared in the center of the webpage, and Google's homepage was reconnected.
However, the Google homepage at this moment seemed to be slightly different from the previous Google homepage.
For example, the direct link button to Yahoo's homepage, which was always located directly below the Google search bar, had disappeared…