Rebirth of America, this is my era

Chapter 173 Send the guests away!

As the saying goes, those who are in authority are confused and those who are onlookers will understand.

In Ethan's previous life, there were countless street literatures that described the Rockefeller family's power as very awesome, saying that they were the real richest people in the world and the real masters of America. No matter whether it was the Donkey and the Elephant party or other families, they had to agree with them to breathe... Although this kind of speech was stupid at first glance, when Ethan came to this world and found that the Rockefeller family really dared to kill people in the street, the behavior of wantonly trampling on the law without any consequences still brought a huge shock to the young mind of this twenty-something child who had not experienced higher education. Therefore, when the people of Wenlock took out a golden business card in a very pretentious manner, he was very nervous.

But with Evelyn's interference, Ethan immediately realized that Rockefeller might have done some forced buying and selling in the past, but this time, Wenlock's people were definitely bluffing.

If Rockefeller really robbed, it would be a violation of the rules of this land. When the scientists who supported the continuous progress of America found that the people who controlled half of their own scientific and technological circles could not protect the achievements of their own people, what was the point of their research? Just give up! It’s better to escape! If it doesn’t work, it’s okay to go to Liao! Because no matter how hard they try, they won’t get a single morsel in the end!

If Rockefeller dared to force them to buy and sell, it would not be overturning the table, but smashing everyone's pot. Other big capitals would not allow Rockefeller to do so. Therefore, when the name of Fred Terman could stabilize the pot representing interests, the biggest gap in this war had actually been eliminated by the principal. The rest was -

"For the special code!"

Ethan slammed the table, ran to Cupertino, and stared at Steve Jobs to ask for the report.

Under Ethan's urging, Steve Jobs, who was still making holiday arrangements, took the stick and forced the company's finance department to work overtime to rush out Apple's 1977 financial report. A quick glance at the horrible report content made Ethan frown.

The first thing Ethan discovered was that there were huge problems with Apple's production process.

In the beginning, when the sales of the first generation of Apple were not high, Apple computers were all made by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs themselves, and there was nothing wrong with this approach at the time.

As market demand increased, that is, after Pac-Man was released last year and Ethan helped promote it, some people in the industry became increasingly interested in Apple computers, and the original homemade production workshops could not keep up with the strong market feedback, so Steve Jobs hired people to produce and assemble the products.

However, Steve Jobs did not manage this part of the manpower in a standardized manner. Apple did not open its own factory, but let them directly produce computers in the name of company employees, forcing them to get through the first product increment period. If the market demand for Apple computers stabilized after this, then this approach would be fine, but the problem is...

The market demand for Apple computers has been rising sharply.

After they launched the Apple II, the color display and games that could be played with simple programming once again increased the market's interest in them. As market demand increased, Steve Jobs also made his own reforms to Apple's production. While retaining the existing production staff, they used external factories for OEM. At first glance, this method is very similar to the operation of the Destiny game, but in fact there is a huge difference because the profit margins of both parties are different.

The profit margin of Destiny Game can be maintained at more than 50%, but Apple Computer is blessed by God to have 15 points. With such a huge difference in profit margins, they retain the company's production staff instead of directly outsourcing all production. In fact, it is indirectly raising the company's production costs. The products produced uniformly by outside factories also have a certain deviation in effect from their internal handmade products. Although they have not encountered any problems at present, something will definitely go wrong in the future.

“This is a thunder.”

Ethan threw aside the extremely chaotic production records within Apple.

"Whether we raise funds externally or not, this must be rectified."

"Oh oh——" Xiao Qiao sat aside like a primary school student.

Ethan's gloomy expression made him dare not breathe.

After inspecting production, the second problem Ethan discovered was finance.

Because Apple's cash turnover rate is really bad.

Currently, Apple’s capital expenditures fall into three categories: one is product advertising expenditures, one is employee salary expenditures, and one is product production expenditures. There are no problems with the first two of these three categories, but the last one, which is the capital expenditure on production costs, has big problems.

Apple's current external production model is to place an order with the OEM factory first, and then pay them a corresponding deposit based on the quantity of products. The remaining amount will be paid directly after the factory ships the goods.

There seems to be nothing wrong with this approach, it is simply a business transaction where money and goods are exchanged for goods.

But if it is combined with their payment collection speed, then the problem will be huge.

Apple's current external sales method is very simple. They have cooperated with some local stores in California and directly put their products on their shelves. Since settlement of a single unit is very troublesome, they collect the payment every other month.

Mail transactions through the U.S. Postal Service are even more troublesome. They will ship the goods directly after receiving the buyer's payment receipt. Although this method cannot be embezzled by a third party, the specific collection time is negotiated based on the transfer time of FedEx.

This process is not a problem for small businesses, but for large companies with hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, the collection of payments is extremely slow, and the capital turnover rate is also very low.

and so--

"This link must be optimized." Ethan made a decision.

His words were somewhat incomprehensible to the two Steves beside him.

“Ethan, I don’t think I understand what you mean. There should be no problem with our process because it seems that all companies on the market do this.”

Jobs said: "We pay the factory, they help us produce goods, and then we sell the goods they deliver and collect the money from the customers. This should be our entire sales process. I don't know where the problem you are talking about is."

"Right, Stephen?"

He turned his gaze to Woz.

Wozniacki also nodded in confusion and cast an inquiring look at Ethan.

Ethan was stunned by the question, then shook his head helplessly and said, "The speed of capital turnover has a great impact on the company's development and risk resistance."

“If one company can turn over its funds twice a year, and another company can only turn over its funds once a year, then even if the profit rate of the former is only half of that of the latter, with the same initial capital, they will still make the same profit.”

"The advantages brought by this high turnover can be reflected in all aspects, such as price reduction. The room for price reduction under high turnover is greater than that under low turnover. They can occupy the market through cost-effectiveness, or in other words, they can create more profits under the same profit margin."

"It doesn't matter if you don't understand these things. These matters can be handled by others."

Ethan didn't expect Jobs and Wozniacki to figure it all out, because even after the former returned to Apple, he was not in charge of these things. According to Ethan's understanding, Tim Cook personally discussed Apple's production line, supply chain, sales channels, etc. What Jobs did was to show the ideas in his mind to the world. As for how to bring them to the world? That was the job of his subordinates. Not to mention Wozniacki, he was a technical genius, simple as that.

Following Ethan's statement, the two who didn't understand just let it go. But when Ethan opened Apple's salary ledger, the way it was distributed on the account made him feel dizzy...

"Mr. Jones, I think these financial statements can prove that your company has many terrible operating problems, right?" When Wenlock's people received a call from Steve Jobs again and were invited to Cupertino to discuss investment in Apple...

When they saw Apple’s annual report, they immediately laughed.

The guy in the lead was about sixty years old. After taking off his gold-rimmed glasses, his wrinkled face showed confidence. "If before this, we only doubted whether you had the ability to manage a company, now we are sure that if you continue to run Apple in this way, it will definitely fall into the abyss."

"I think this is why you invited us here, right?"

"Perhaps you have realized that your abilities are still lacking?"

The old man smiled at the three people across the conference table and asked, "So you have accepted our offer now? Twenty percent of ten million? And you also have the right to operate the company?"

The continuous questioning made the people on Wenlock's side stop what they were doing one after another.

Those who could work for Rockefeller were all industry elites.

After they saw Apple's financial statements, they knew the deal was 80% likely to go through.

As for the remaining 20% failures?
It's nothing more than the unwillingness, reluctance and dying struggle of young people.

"You think our financial statements are ugly?" Ethan, who was sitting between Joe and Wozniacki, asked with a smile.

"Yes." The old man representing Wenlock nodded decisively.

"What's ugly about it?" Ethan continued to ask.

"Uh - it's ugly everywhere." The old man said bluntly.

"What are the details?" Ethan asked.

"..." The old man frowned at this behavior of asking questions, but within two seconds, he laughed, "Okay, Mr. Jones, I think I understand what you mean."

"You want to have a normal negotiation between investors, right?"

"Yes, I can satisfy you."

As he spoke, he picked up the report in front of him and said, "There are three problems in your company that are visible to the naked eye. They are in the three aspects of production, capital flow, and wages and salaries..."

The old man talked incessantly.

What he said was exactly the same as the problem Ethan found when he looked through the report before.

Facing his attacks and criticisms, Ethan, who was sitting opposite him, was not at all flustered:
"We have discovered the production issues and are working on resolving them. The current manifestation is that there is a functional conflict between the employees in the company and the outsourced projects, so in the future we plan to start from two aspects. First, we will officially cut off the production department in the company and reduce the production expenses in the company. Second, we will properly place the original production employees. If they are qualified for other positions in our company, we will transfer them to other positions. If they are not qualified, we will directly lay off employees to reduce the company's operating costs..."

"We have actually discovered the capital flow you mentioned. We did not deal with it, not because it cannot be handled, but because we need to use the current status quo to maintain operational stability. Our labor costs in America are skyrocketing due to social factors. If we willfully default on payments to manufacturers, it is very likely that the manufacturers will go bankrupt. At that time, we will be forced to find new manufacturers, and the speed of capital recovery is controlled by the U.S. Postal Service. I think even your boss, Mr. Lawrence Rockefeller, cannot change this situation for the time being, right..."

“As for the salary issue you mentioned… Yes, I admit that this is a very big problem, but the reason for this problem is to deal with the IRS inspection…”

The salary problem Ethan found with Apple was exactly the same as his own commission on the products of the Destiny game. In order to deal with the random inspections by the IRS and not let them catch any evidence of tax evasion, Ethan and Evelyn would increase their own income and product R&D funds by taking a commission on the product sales in the R&D costs of the Destiny game. The same is true for Apple. Woz and Jobs would take a commission on the sales revenue of Apple computers.

From a legal perspective, there is nothing wrong with this approach. If the founders’ own interests cannot be protected, then what’s the point of running a company?

The real problem is that Apple's current profit margin is not as high as that of the game Destiny. No matter how much Ethan and Evelyn take, the net profit of the product will not be lower than 40. But when Jobs and Wozniak start taking their cut, even if they take very little, they still drag down the net profit of Apple Computer to a very ugly level.

This problem can actually be solved, for example by using stock option awards to offset the low income of the founder during the company's founding period.

For example, a company's registered stock is 15 million shares, and all shareholders hold 12.5 million shares. The remaining 2.5 million shares actually dilute the equity of all shareholders while providing a certain salary guarantee for low-paid founders, employees, key employees, and positions similar to CEOs. This is because there are few industries in the world that are as profitable as video games. When a company cannot make enough cash, paying salaries in stocks becomes inevitable.

Of course, this can also improve employee cohesion.

After Ethan gave his solution to the problem, the Wenlock delegation sitting opposite laughed. The old man in the lead even put his hands down and said, "Mr. Jones, I appreciate your efforts. I admit that the method you just mentioned can indeed solve many problems."

"But... this doesn't mean your company's operations are perfect."

"I can understand that you want to keep the right to appoint and dismiss the CEO and CFO, but we really don't believe that you can run a company well. Moreover, the three problems I just mentioned are only the most superficial ones. In addition, Apple Computer currently has market infringement issues and single sourcing issues for major production materials..."

The old man waved to the people around him.

In a moment, two documents were distributed to the three people.

When the three of them saw the contents of the document, the glaring data made them frown instinctively. The old man put his elbows on the table, leaned forward, and said with a smile: "Your Apple company's market infringement behavior is in the field of electronic games. The electronic game programming cards you distributed have actually infringed on the intellectual property rights of other companies. If nothing unexpected happens, you will definitely face a class action lawsuit in the future."

"At the same time, your company's reliance on MOS 6502 has reached a level of madness that is hard for ordinary people to imagine. If MOS company cuts off the supply of chips to you, you will be finished."

"No, are these two also problems?" Steve Jobs was surprised.

Although he did not understand the specific content of the company issues that Ethan and Wenlock's people discussed, now he really has something to say.

“Why would a video game programming card be considered an infringement?”

"We don't sell those cards! We don't sell the game to anyone!"

“All we do is teach ordinary people how to program!”

"Also, regarding the issue of MOS 6502 that you mentioned, Ethan is a shareholder of that company! Unless he is gone, there is no way we will have a supply cut!"

The raised voice reflects Xiao Qiao's anxiety.

His rebuttal made the people of Wenlock shake their heads.

The old man in the lead spread his hands and said, "See, this is why we want to take over the management of the company. If you can't even figure out these things, how can you manage a company?"

"If they were a mature CEO, they might adopt your game programming card approach when promoting computers, but they would never lay everything out to the world like you do."

"They will sell computers normally, and then secretly promote programming cards. For example, they will communicate with offline shops and let the shop owners tell the users who come to buy computers about the highlights of your machines by word of mouth, and use this as an opportunity to give away programming cards."

"Once a certain number of programming cards have been sent out, invite the media to report on this matter and spread the news that your computers are capable of programming games and that samples are already on the market."

"It may take a while for the results to show up, but at the same time you can avoid legal troubles."

"Because, on the surface, game sharing on computers is a spontaneous act of the public and has nothing to do with you. As a result, when the infringed party wants to sue you, they will be hindered by the disorganized information in terms of evidence collection. Sometimes, they cannot sue due to insufficient evidence. Even if they succeed in the lawsuit, you can still claim that it is a false accusation because you have never openly told the public that our machines can play existing games."

'……' This operation made Steve Jobs stunned. The old man Wenlock continued: "Your crazy dependence on MOS 6502, for a mature CEO, there is also a solution."

"I'm not asking you to replace the chip. I'm asking you to use your existing resources to force MOS to open up chip licensing to other companies so that they can become the production agents for 6502."

"By doing this, you can buy the same chips from different companies."

“If one company has problems, like a factory burns down or workers go on strike, it doesn’t matter because other companies can still supply.”

"This is actually risk control in industrial production."

"Perhaps this is difficult for others to make, but it should be very simple for you. Just like what you just said, Mr. Jobs, Mr. Jones has shares in the 6502 chip company. You can easily let them license the chip production to others."

"But even if you could do all that, you didn't do it!"

"When this fact is placed before us..."

"Why do you want us to believe that you can run a good company?"

"Ok?"

The old man spoke with the tip of his nose and looked at the three people seriously.

As he glanced at him, Jobs opened his mouth but didn't say anything, and Wozniak...

This little fat boy was sleepwalking from beginning to end.

This situation made the old man smile.

And when he refocused his attention on Ethan, the other people from Wenlock also spoke.

"Mr. Jones, we believe that your ability in game production is unparalleled. But in terms of company management, we do feel that we need some professional advice here."

"Mr. Jones, we don't understand why you are so resistant to our suggestions. Aren't our goals the same now? We are all for the good of this company."

"Mr. Jones, please trust our professionalism. You make products seriously, and we find people to help you sell them. If you don't trust us, do you trust the Rockefeller brand?"

The support from his colleagues made the old man led by Wenlock laugh even louder.

He leaned back and said, "Take it, Mr. Jones."

"Our involvement will enable you to make more money."

"At this pace, you will be able to go public in less than two years."

"Maybe you don't care, but these two people beside you..."

“The bottom line is he’s also a billionaire.”

"I can swear on this by our boss's last name, Rockefeller."

The serious words made Jobs' eyelids twitch twice.

Even Woz turned his head and cast an inquiring look at Ethan.

When this blatant alienation occurred, Ethan, who was sitting opposite the old man, chuckled.

He tilted his head to glance at the two Steves, and with just a quick glance, he could capture the desire in their hearts.

"Young people are young people."

"I'm disappointed."

He sighed and tapped the table with his index finger. As the tapping sound appeared, a rhetorical question popped up.

"Excuse me, how much annual salary did Mr. Lawrence Rockefeller offer you?"

'? 'The people of Wenlock were confused.

The old man in the lead said, "Mr. Jones, I don't understand what you mean."

"Oh - my meaning is very simple -" Ethan raised the corner of his mouth and smiled: "I want to say that if I were your boss, I would fire all of you."

'! ' The provocative words made the people of Wenlock frown.

"Mr. Jones, you—"

"Listen to me, okay?" Ethan interrupted with a wave of his hand: "Do you think Steve's game card promotion plan is an infringement? Will it lead to a class action lawsuit?"

"Oh - let me tell you this -"

"With the vision of people like you, you can only see these things!"

"I don't know if you have heard of this saying, but social demand has a greater impact on scientific and technological progress than ten universities! Social demand is the primary driving force for production!"

“Why were computers invented?”

"I think Stephen can give a good answer to this question."

Ethan turned his gaze to the fat boy.

The fat boy, who didn't know why he suddenly became the focus, was stunned for a moment, and then he said: "During WW2, the military's ballistic calculations had exceeded the limits of manual calculations. In fluid mechanics, manual slide rules simply could not meet the requirements of ballistic calculations, so computers appeared."

"Yeah!" Ethan took over the topic and said, "This is why computers were born!"

"I believe that the information you have obtained can prove that Stephen did not lie."

"Because his father studies missiles."

After a pause, Ethan said, "For a long time in the past, computers were used by the military for scientific calculations, but there are not so many problems in the world that need to be calculated, so in leisure time, electronic games were born."

"Bored scientists gave computers entertainment capabilities."

"But even so, computers still haven't entered people's homes."

"This is partly because of the high cost and partly because the public cannot use it."

"But with the advent of the CPU, all this changed, because Altair came."

"Altair brought microcomputers into the public eye, but their sales have always been tepid and have never seen a dramatic increase."

"Do you know why?"

"the reason is simple!"

"That's because people don't know what they can do with a computer after they buy it."

"And this question..."

“Solved by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.”

"When they took the game programming cards and announced to the public that ordinary people could also create and play games on computers, the public's demand for computers emerged!"

“This is the greatest place for both of them!”

"They have opened up a path for society's needs to move toward computers!"

"They turned a highly sophisticated engineering machine into a consumer product!"

“This is their real revolution in the industry!”

"Although people's demand for computers is still very limited so far, the first step taken by the two of them is what makes this God Apple truly valuable!"

“That’s why people are crazy about it!”

"Their actions will be remembered by the world!"

"And now-"

"You said-"

“Will their actions earn the company a class action lawsuit?”

"Wow! If that's all you can see, then I advise you not to invest!"

"Because you are wasting the Rockefeller family's money!"

"It's even more embarrassing for the identity of an investor!"

"Snap!" Ethan pressed his hands on the table.

His eyes were fixed on the representative of Wenlock.

The old man he was staring at frowned, and the two Steves beside him...

"Ethan..." Student Xiao Qiao muttered to himself, his eyes shining.