The price of houses in Atherton, Silicon Valley, kept climbing.

Su Yehao’s yard spanned more than eight thousand square meters. This spacious mansion, large enough to raise white-tailed deer, was currently worth around $12 million, almost three times its purchase price.

The current situation was that many newly rich Silicon Valley millionaires were hoping to buy such a house, but few owners were willing to sell.

After all, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, a major shareholder of Sun Microsystems, the co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, and investors in Amazon, all owned property in this community, and none of them were short of money. Since they needed a place to live, there was no need to cash out.

Compared to the beginning of the year.

With the soaring stock prices of major tech companies, the popularity of Silicon Valley was growing stronger.

The average salary of major companies in the first half of the year had exceeded $100,000, and there were also many professional managers with millions of dollars in annual salary, plus stock and stock option rewards.

In order to seize market share and crush competitors, countless companies were pouring money into advertising.

There were huge billboards by the highways, bus stops also had billboards, and even beverage bottles were co-branded by Internet companies spending money.

Under these circumstances.

Yahoo's advertising revenue had just broken new records, and Google's business growth was also quite good.

According to relevant calculations, more than 40% of American households owned at least one personal computer, although some were old-fashioned machines, and some were not connected to the Internet.

Sales of brands such as Dell, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard showed explosive growth, with sales repeatedly hitting new highs. No wonder the procurement process for Huangzuan computers was not satisfactory, and the supply chain of component manufacturers had not yet caught up.

Compared to the lukewarm mainland, the United States in this era was indeed ahead, leading a new round of technological revolution, with all walks of life flourishing.

The polar bear had dissolved, Southeast Asia had just been harvested, and markets in Europe, South America, and other places were also being fleeced by the US interest rate hike.

To say that the United States was at its peak in this era... Su Yehao agreed with this statement.

As for Yanwenzi Group.

The second-quarter financial report had been tallied, and quarterly net profit exceeded $10 million for the first time, barely achieving profitability.

This was mainly because Su Yehao deliberately increased expenditures, exchanging profits for new markets. On the other hand, it could also prevent the stock price of Yanwenzi Group from rising further due to the financial report being too beautiful.

After all, the bigger the bubble, the greater the power after the explosion.

Market value was irrelevant anyway, it was all inflated. Su Yehao held nearly 80% of the shares in this company, and he was not prepared to make the financial report flashy just to make other investors happy. Only a solid market share was the foundation for Yanwenzi Group to go further.

Back then, Su Yehao bought a small building for the TVT instant messaging software for office use. Now, even the value of the office building had more than doubled.

In mid-June, he had just placed an order for a supercomputer, costing about $90 million.

When he went to the small building for inspection, he found that the vacant lot next to it had been bought and was under construction for a supercomputing center and a new server center...

At this moment.

After finishing talking to Larry Page at Google.

Linda Yun got into the car and said to Su Yehao, "Since we're here, can I take a few days off to see my old friends? My college classmate is getting married and invited me to be her bridesmaid."

"No problem, I took you on vacation in Europe for more than a month, you must be tired of playing, right?"

Hearing Su Yehao's teasing, Linda Yun knew she was in the wrong and smiled, "Arranging accommodations and restaurants is also tiring, okay? If anyone's tired, it should be you. Now you've called Miss Yin Liuli to the United States, it's seamless. I feel sorry for you."

"This is probably called worrying and being happy at the same time..."

After Su Yehao finished sighing, he asked Linda Yun, "When are you planning to take a vacation, and what other arrangements do I have next?"

Many businesses were handled through the assistant's office. He didn't know how his subordinates had arranged things. He usually focused on the big picture and didn't have the energy to do everything himself.

Linda Yun took out her notebook and told him:

"Tomorrow, we will go to Qualcomm with the team from the mainland to conduct an inspection. They are preparing to sell their mobile phone business. In addition, we will also discuss chip foundry for Qualcomm and the construction of a joint venture factory. It is said that AMD also has the idea of ​​spinning off its production business and looking for foundry companies. The team is led by Mr. Zhang Rujing, who is quite famous in the United States."

"Find orders before investing? That's fine, both sides won't be delayed. Qualcomm's chips have just started to be developed, right? If we can win its order, the business will definitely be smoother, but if it's a joint venture, it deviates from my original intention."

Su Yehao thought for a moment, and felt that without these big companies as a cover, it would be easy to be targeted by the relevant US authorities.

Thinking that he shouldn't be in a hurry to run before he learned to walk, he joked:

"I knew I shouldn't have rushed to sell Qualcomm's shares. If I were also a shareholder, the negotiation would probably be easier. Where are Mr. Zhang and the others now? Have they already arrived in Silicon Valley?"

"Not yet, I was only notified a few hours ago, they should still be flying."

"Oh, please ask for me, I want to pick them up to show my importance."

As soon as Su Yehao finished speaking, Linda Yun looked at him with a strange expression and tentatively asked:

"When they were busy, you were traveling in Europe. Mr. Zhang Rujing wanted to talk to you in person last month, but in the end, he only had a phone call and didn't even invite him to dinner. Is it a little late to show your importance now?"

"... A full one million dollars in annual salary, plus stock option rewards worth tens of millions of dollars. Mr. Zhang is such a great person, he shouldn't care about these small details, right? I think I've already been very sincere."

Su Yehao knew that Zhang Rujing had single-handedly built SMIC in his previous life, igniting a small flame in the mainland. Although he was stuck by the lithography machine, this was different from the chip foundry field. It couldn't be said that he wasn't great.

In fact, Mr. Zhang Rujing had participated in the construction and production of more than a dozen global wafer foundries and was a definite expert in the foundry field.

As for lithography machines.

In this era of global division of labor and cooperation, with major companies splitting their businesses and evolving into IC design,

In the IDM full industrial chain and foundry manufacturing environment, even in the full industrial chain model, no company's business covers everything from research on components and raw materials to the final chip production stage.

The old Americans had no shame. As long as they wanted to cut off someone's head, they would use any means and always find a way.

At the beginning of the year.

Mr. Zhang Rujing originally wanted to do it alone, but unfortunately, he didn't raise enough start-up capital.

Later, after multiple contacts with Su Yehao's people, he learned that the initial investment here was at least one billion US dollars, and there would be stock option rewards in the future. At the same time, he would also be given a car and a house, so he was recruited to help.

For such a talent who could solve the immediate problem and continue to let Su Yehao be a hands-off boss, an annual salary of one million US dollars seemed very affordable. He actually valued the other party very much...