Tao Liangchen

Chapter 571 Bluntly Speaking, They're Just Robbers

Chapter 159 No Worries

No need for Soyeah Hau to worry.

After he confirmed the upcoming financing, Google's COO, Danielle Kenning, immediately released the news, telling everyone that Yahoo was trying to acquire Google for $1.2 billion.

This was considered a preheating for Google's financing, first setting a floor price. When the time came to actually contact representatives from venture capital firms, the offers would only be higher than $1.2 billion.

Larry Page and the others could see that Jerry Yang and his team had already begun to fear Google's performance and were trying to nip it in the bud.

And how could those venture capital managers who rely on their discerning eyes fail to realize the key to this?

Soyeah Hau had a premonition that Google's financing would be quite lively next, so after receiving the report call from Danielle Kenning, he proactively contacted Lin Youfeng, the vice president of KOKO Venture Capital's Silicon Valley office, asking him to assist Google at that time.

Financing is risky, so he gave advance instructions not to agree to any valuation adjustment mechanisms, and at the same time, to publicly announce a target price of $2 billion as a trial balloon. This would help weed out institutions that lacked sufficient strength...

At the same time.

Jerry Yang and Hiromasa Masamori, the senior vice president of SoftBank Group Japan, finished their Texas Hold'em game and went to lunch together.

Today's game was originally prepared for Soyeah Hau. He excused himself early, and the others quickly dispersed.

Hiromasa Masamori is only thirty-four years old this year. He studied at the University of Tokyo and later pursued advanced studies at the Yale School of Management. He is an old employee who joined SoftBank as soon as it was established. Now he has become Sun Zhengyi's right-hand man, staying in the United States for many years to manage the business.

Just then.

Hiromasa Masamori asked in English:

"Jerry, do you think Google's boss will sell us the shares? Recently, I have been using Google's search engine, trying to know myself and the enemy. I must admit that in terms of user experience and search accuracy, it has begun to surpass Yahoo. What's scary is that it has an algorithm that becomes more and more accurate as the number of users increases."

"...You're asking me, I don't know either, but making more than ten times the profit in half a year, I might sell it if it were me. The problem is that Soyeah Hau is particularly rich, and he grew up in an environment where he didn't lack money. Considering the market prospects, the odds of agreeing or disagreeing are probably fifty-fifty."

Google has shown sufficient potential, but its user base is only about one-eighth of Yahoo's. Jerry Yang has been making money hand over fist in the past two years, and his mentality has become more and more Buddhist. At this moment, he said calmly:

"Just two years ago, I was still thinking about providing the best service for users. Later, I had to consider the interests of shareholders and the evaluations of institutions and the media, so I could only continue to increase advertising. Back then, Yahoo's usage reviews weren't also very good? They're just repeating the same path. Even if the acquisition is not successful, striving to attract more new users to join us can still guarantee our significant leading advantage. Whether it's reserve funds, total revenue, or profits, Yahoo is crushing Google in all aspects."

After listening, Hiromasa Masamori nodded and smiled:

"Nietzsche said that whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. That Hong Kong City business tycoon has seen how Yahoo makes money, and their financial pressure should already be increasing. Once they start trying to increase revenue, the core advantage of page simplicity will disappear. For example, his Yanwenzi Group is also trying to increase advertising."

"Yes, that's the idea..."

They thought Soyeah Hau would need to consider it for a while, thinking of waiting patiently for news.

After talking with Jerry Yang, SoftBank's senior vice president, Hiromasa Masamori, returned to his office and sent an email to Sun Zhengyi. There was a time difference between the two places, and the matter was not important enough to disturb the boss's rest.

In the past two years, the market for high-tech companies in Silicon Valley has been too good. It is not only Soyeah Hau who has made money from it. SoftBank Japan has relied on bringing rich returns to investors and has raised a large amount of funds through private placements during this period.

This time, targeting Google was actually led by Hiromasa Masamori, who introduced it to Sun Zhengyi at the beginning of this year. However, they never found an opportunity to participate in financing because they ran into Soyeah Hau, who was not short of money.

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Soyeah Hau had a rough idea in his mind about Google's future development plans.

He put this matter aside for now, went home and stayed in the study to process documents, with a box of Phoebe zhennan wood beside him, containing four seals.

The seals were given by Grandpa Tang.

The materials are Tianhuang stone, chicken-blood stone, imperial green jadeite, and Hetian jade, respectively.

The inscriptions underneath are "Soyeah Hau's Seal," "Be Vigilant in Times of Peace," "Priceless," and "Contentment Brings Happiness, Supreme Goodness is Like Water." The latter three are more like aphorism seals, belonging to the teachings from his maternal grandfather.

He still remembered that his mother had helped his maternal grandfather buy an ancestral seal two years ago. This belonged to the old tradition.

As one can imagine, the seal Soyeah Hau used the most was, of course, the Tianhuang stone seal engraved with his name.

The Longquan inkpad made of lotus silk has a very pleasing color. After signing some important documents, he stamped them with the seal, which was both formal and had anti-counterfeiting functions.

After finishing his business, he turned on the computer, replied to messages from Xiao Nizi and the others, and tried out the new game developed by the company.

Valve Game Company, which developed *Half-Life*, released the *Half-Life: Opposing Force* game disc two months ago. Now, sales have officially exceeded 500,000. This company is now applying for $10 million in funding to develop a new generation of game engines.

Although Soyeah Hau has no idea what a game engine is, it doesn't stop him from thinking that Valve Game Company's new game is better than before, so he quickly approved the application from the company's management and sent an email to the assistant office to let them know.

He stayed at home until evening.

Lin Youfeng, the vice president of KOKO Venture Capital, called to say that the plan was ready, and some data needed to be discussed with Soyeah Hau.

Therefore, he went out again, found a Western restaurant to meet, and Yin Liuli accompanied him.

The so-called data is nothing more than how many integrated chips to purchase from Qualcomm, a commitment to produce how many mobile phones in how long, and so on.

According to Qualcomm's regulations, in addition to obtaining development authorization for Cdma mobile phones in the production process, it is also necessary to pay an intellectual property transfer authorization fee equivalent to 2.5% of the selling price, a license fee for upgrading and supporting chip software, and a mandatory requirement that mobile phones using the Cdma network can only purchase Qualcomm's chips.

It seems that there is no full Netcom in this era, and Cdma and gsm are in a competitive relationship.

To put it bluntly.

Qualcomm is a robber, relying on its patents to force sales.

Unfortunately, even knowing this, Soyeah Hau still has no way to get around it, thinking of first seizing the opportunity to accumulate some experience in producing mobile phones, and then slowly considering how to break free from Qualcomm's framework.

He decided to agree to produce 20 million mobile phones within five years, with a total purchase amount from Qualcomm of no less than $1 billion.

The premise is to reduce the acquisition price to $100 million...