Tao Liangchen
Chapter 920 Instagram
News arrived that Shenzhou 5 had been successfully launched, marking a new stage in manned spaceflight.
Looking at the astronaut, whom he didn't recognize, in the newspaper, Su Yehao felt a sense of dislocation, yet wasn't at all surprised.
His influence had already greatly disturbed the entire world, affecting it in various ways.
However.
The overall development of the world was almost identical to what Su Yehao remembered, still within his realm of understanding.
The Americans were once again mired in the Middle East, their entire economy becoming increasingly virtual, while the mainland was focused on development. Recently, they had even developed the J-10 fighter jet; he wondered if there would be a "J-10 upgrade."
Thinking of the jokes about the Strategic Deception Bureau from later generations, Su Yehao even felt like helping to sling mud in the future, making most European and American elites genuinely believe that the North was failing.
Only by doing this could the attention of those jackals and tigers be diverted, continuing to win the opportunity for low-key development.
The stronger the accumulated strength, the more freely one could act in the future.
Compared to some personal gains or immediate interests, Su Yehao was indeed gradually adapting to viewing issues from a higher perspective.
For example, the entire industrial structure: labor-intensive and resource-intensive enterprises had successfully provided countless people with jobs, but relying solely on these wasn't enough. The key was to prioritize high technology.
Therefore.
After discussing with Apple, Su Yehao planned to locate the headquarters of the jointly established "Apple Intelligence" in Hong Kong.
Only a research and development center would be left in Silicon Valley, responsible for some software and partial hardware development. A research and development lab would also be established at Cyberport in Kai Tak.
In the future, parts would be purchased from around the world, with the assembly stage taking place in the mainland, perhaps also supporting a batch of local enterprises in the process.
Development in other industries had already fallen behind. The mobile smart era that followed closely was the key in Su Yehao's eyes. Not to mention blocking the Americans' path to wealth, he could at least snatch food from the mouths of the Japanese and Koreans.
KOKO Ventures now had several teams specifically keeping a close eye on cutting-edge technologies in mobile smart terminal equipment around the world, such as displays, microelectronics, batteries, and operating systems, and was willing to spend heavily on investment, even if it didn't gain management control, to try to create a relatively secure supply chain.
Compared to this business, although others were also very profitable, no business was more important, such as real estate and baijiu (white liquor), all of which had to take a back seat, even above the interests in the financial industry, with only the internet business comparable.
Speaking of high technology.
ASML's immersion lithography machines had already delivered six units to Hong Kong Microelectronics Group, and they were still in the installation and debugging phase.
In addition, there were two prototype machines for testing purposes, now busy assisting major chip manufacturers in tape-out trial production.
In the few months since this new business was launched, it had brought a total of US$110 million in gross profit to Hong Kong Microelectronics, with an estimated net profit of around US$85 million.
This was what allowed Su Yehao to see a return on his investment.
The cooperating customers included ARM, Qualcomm, Intel, Nvidia, AMD, and others. After all, for quite some time to come, only Hong Kong Microelectronics Group would have immersion lithography machines, and no one wanted to fall behind, so they were competing to arrange tape-outs at high prices.
Some commercial secrets therefore came into Su Yehao's sight.
For example, Intel was recently researching a dual-core processor using a sixty-five-nanometer process, and its technology was clearly a cut above its competitor, AMD.
Out of commercial interests, these companies would certainly not release their trump card technologies. Intel was only cooperating with Su Yehao for the time being, hoping to start producing processors using a ninety-nanometer process from the end of the first quarter of next year, the performance of which was obviously not as good as the latest model being researched.
In this era, everyone was still mainly busy engaging in fierce competition in the personal computer business.
Su Yehao quietly started cooperating with British ARM Semiconductor, setting up a team in Silicon Valley in advance under the name of Apple Intelligence to research and develop microprocessors needed for smartphones.
Steve Jobs kept a tight lid on things. When a reporter asked the reason, he only said that he was preparing to develop a handheld computer for reading books, listening to music, and preferably watching videos.
This explained why it was necessary to develop a microchip independently.
There were countless failed handheld computer projects. Most people would think it was very unreliable after hearing this, and even some fairly optimistic analysts believed that this concept still existed in science fiction.
Some media even dug up the failed example of Apple's Newton handheld computer from ten years ago, accusing Apple of not understanding innovation and should put more effort into the personal computer business.
Su Yehao secretly found someone to say hello and pushed a lot of such negative news on the Internet.
This was mainly to reduce the impact on Hong Kong Microelectronics Group, worrying that Qualcomm would be wary of it, creating a gap between the two parties.
Facts proved that Su Yehao was overthinking it.
Qualcomm was still immersed in further developing its communications solutions business and didn't care at all about the "handheld computer" business of a small company like Apple. It had already firmly occupied the initiative in the communications market, and its revenue for the whole year was expected to exceed US$4 billion, with a net profit margin of over 35%.
Making money hand over fist, how could it care about everything? Moreover, Apple was notoriously closed, which in many people's opinion was simply courting death, which was why sales of Apple's personal computers had been slow to rise.
Su Yehao held a stake of up to 67% in Apple Intelligence, while Apple held a 33% stake with its operating system. Perhaps because the total investment was only over US$100 million, it was so small that it was simply invisible.
He and Steve Jobs were both happy to see this happen, fearing that someone would steal their good idea before they succeeded...
—————————
November 9, 2003.
Jack Ma of Lin'an sent an email with the final plan for the Double Eleven promotion.
Su Yehao was receiving John Chow at home when he received the email.
This chief operating officer of Yanwenzi Group was one of the most senior employees under his command. Although his ability was not as good as the top professional managers, he was reliable and made people feel at ease.
It can be said that John Chow's personal interests were closely related to the interests of Yanwenzi Group. Moreover, even John Chow himself did not believe that he would have the opportunity to achieve greater success than now after leaving Su Yehao. Therefore, he worked more steadily and had no other thoughts.
Sitting opposite Su Yehao, John Chow glanced at the scenery outside the window, an old tree with a huge canopy, and the red leaves looked particularly pleasing to the eye.
He told Su Yehao:
"Since you handed over the picture business to us and the video business to Google, I think they are both doing very well now. The network loading speed is getting faster and faster. The number of active registered users of the subsidiary Instagram has exceeded three million, and the valuation is around one billion US dollars. People like this kind of pure picture social platform. The valuation of Google this year has increased very dramatically. When it was financed at the beginning of the year, it was only 12 billion US dollars, and now it has risen to about 23 billion US dollars. Boss, your vision is still so sharp."
Su Yehao smiled and replied, "Now is not the best time for Photo Wall to expand. The focus is still on ICQ and TVT. I see that Yanwenzi Group's revenue in the first three quarters of this year exceeded 1.46 billion US dollars. How is the situation in Silicon Valley?"
John Chow boasted and nodded with a smile:
"Very good. A batch of companies have found new revenue models, and investors are pouring in like crazy. Just look at the increase in Yanwenzi's stock price. It just broke 26 billion US dollars yesterday. And unlike 2000, this time it has actual revenue to support it..."