Rebirth of America, this is my era

Chapter 299: Extreme Wealth?

In fact, when deciding to produce home consoles, Ethan already knew that with the size of Michael Blanco Manufacturing Company at that time, it would be impossible to handle the crazy influx of orders.

Only by expanding, expanding, and expanding again can they meet market demand.

However, in order for the manufacturing company to generate a good self-operated ecosystem, Ethan did not participate in the reforms there, but simply pushed all the orders for the Destiny Game to them.

After that, he no longer cared about whether it was self-operated production or outsourced parts.

Judging from the current situation, people like Michael Blanco are doing a good job.

"Yes, the scale of production at the manufacturing company made me realize the role of Chrysler." Ballmer smiled and nodded without hesitation, "The bigger they are, the stronger we are."

Ethan agreed with this view very much. After browsing the financial statements, the operating income of more than one billion US dollars and the operating profit as low as two percentage points made him realize that Michael Blanco distributed most of the money the company earned and only kept a small part for the company's daily operations.

This decision brought great benefits to the workers. After a year of hard work, the workers' average annual income reached 7,630 US dollars. Although this number is not enough compared with the average wage of 9,451 US dollars in the United States in 1978, if compared with the median of the same year, the salary paid by Michael Blanco Manufacturing Company has exceeded the social average by more than 10%.

This salary is enough for many people to support a family of three.

It can also help them obtain a talisman to solve employment problems in the game of destiny.

"Good job." Ethan closed the report and said to Ballmer with a smile: "Since the manufacturing company is running well, the incentive plan can be officially launched."

"In the first phase, reward them with 5% of the equity. Spend some time writing a plan and try to get them the reward in the first half of the year. I think they will like this more than simple praise."

"Okay, boss." Ballmer nodded quickly, "I'll contact Michael later."

After browsing the financial report of Michael Blanco Manufacturing, the only company that can use numerical data to reflect its operation is Western Design. They sold a total of 8 million chips last year, with an operating profit of over 12 million. Of course, they can sell so many products thanks to the game of fate and Apple.

After deducting the 7.75 million chips purchased by the Destiny Game, the remaining 250,000 chips were the sales volume of Apple computers last year. And this was indeed the case. When Steve Jobs handed over Apple's 1979 financial report to Ethan in early February, the computer revenue of over 300 million perfectly matched the shipment volume of Western Design. If the external disk was added, their revenue last year was close to 600 million.

"Sorry?"

While reading the report, Ethan also asked questions casually.

"What do you mean?"

Student Xiao Qiao didn't understand.

"I asked you if you regret it?" Ethan shook the report in his hand and said, "If we negotiate with this result, Xerox will get even fewer shares."

“Oh—” Jobs understood, sighed, and said, “To be honest, I do have some regrets, but I know that even if I had to do it again, I would still make the same choice. The graphical user interface is so amazing that if I hadn’t incorporated it into the company earlier, I guess I would have suffered from insomnia.”

"Until you get it."

"Compared to the six months of insomnia, the financial cost is nothing."

"Moreover, the sooner we get it, the sooner we can develop it, which is more beneficial to us. More importantly, after we studied it, we found that although the minimum configuration of the graphical user interface is not high, it is not an easy task to successfully put it together."

"Take 16-bit chips for example. We may not be able to use Intel's processors yet..."

"Why?" This question puzzled Ethan. "Is it because its performance is not good?"

In Ethan's memory, Apple in its previous life embraced Motorola.

If this situation cannot be changed now, then there will be big problems.

As for the reason?

You know everything.

"No, No, No." Jobs shook his head in denial.

"Because it's too expensive." Jobs said bluntly, "Even if we told Intel that we could consume hundreds of thousands of chips a year, they still quoted us $69 a chip. If we calculate based on Apple's sales last year, the cost of the central microprocessor after switching to Intel chips will be as high as $17.25 million. Last year, we only spent $1.5 million on this because you supplied the products."

Jobs looked at Ethan seriously and said, "So..."

"We urgently need a chip of our own."

When Western Design took over Chuck Petrus's supply of MOS 6502 to Apple, the price of the chip that Ethan gave to Jobs was actually lower, only six dollars a piece.

Of this, there are two dollars in production costs, one dollar in production profit, which belongs to Michael Blanco Manufacturing Company, one dollar in design commission, which belongs to Western Design, and two dollars in subsequent R&D support, which will enable Bill Mensch to obtain R&D funds.

When Ethan pushed the price of chips down to this point, all chips from the outside world were expensive to Jobs! Especially when he learned that after changing his company, the price of Intel's chips was 11.5 times that of Western Design, he even felt that Intel was robbing him!

Even though he knew that chip research and development required a lot of manpower and material resources, when the application methods were not widespread and the research and development costs could not be shared, those who wanted to use the chips would have to bear huge expenses.

But even so, he still thinks Intel sells too expensively!

He wants cheap chips!
It would be best if it is the same as MOS 6502. The cheaper the better while ensuring the performance is not too different!

But this kind of thing...

"We can't have such cheap and easy-to-use chips just because you want them, right?"

Ethan spread his hands helplessly and said, "Bill Mensch is already developing chips, but this process takes a lot of time. It's not like he can get better just because I want him to."

"Besides, even if Bill Mensch could come up with the chip that Wozniak wanted in a short period of time, the price of this chip would definitely not be as low as six dollars as it is now."

“Why is MOS 6502 so cheap?”

"Because it has almost no R&D costs, all the expenses are paid by Motorola."

"Now, the research and development of new chips is funded by us. Even if I will use them in large quantities in the future, even if I can cover all the costs of the new chips, it is impossible for Apple not to pay."

"If there are only three of us shareholders in the company, I can give you the lowest price."

"Because I don't care about this little money, and every time I need your help, you always come to help me, but when there are more and more shareholders in the company..."

"Steve, you should understand what I mean, right?"

Ethan winked at Jobs.

"Of course!" Jobs nodded.

“We can negotiate among ourselves, but others have to pay!”

"Yes, that's what I mean." Ethan put down the report.

Just when he thought that the discussion about chips would pass like this and Steve Jobs would find a way to solve the chip cost problem himself, Jobs suddenly stood up, opened the door of Ethan's office, looked around, and then carefully closed it.

Ethan's eyelids twitched when he saw this.

Jobs returned to his seat and lowered his voice, saying, "Ethan, although Bill Mensch cannot produce a 16-bit chip for the time being, even if he does, we at Apple cannot get it at a low price. But this is not important because I heard a piece of news recently."

"News about getting Intel chips at a low price."

"..." Ethan was stunned by the thief-like words. The next second, the corners of his mouth twitched, and an ominous premonition came to his mind.

"Steve, you don't want me to poach people from Intel, do you?"

"Just poach their entire R&D team?"

It's no wonder Ethan would think so!

Because high-end business wars are so plain and boring!
95% of OpenAI's R&D staff had just threatened to resign and asked the company's board of directors to bring back Sam Altman, but Microsoft had already offered a whopping $10 million per person, a total of $8 billion, to poach them. And because the incident happened in San Francisco, California, it was completely legal.

When a minimalist approach that can wipe out the entire development team emerges, if you want to get Intel chips at a low price, you only need to empty Intel's R&D team!
Let them do it again what they have done before!

This is much more cost-effective than acquiring Intel directly!
Ethan's words made Jobs fall into deep thought.

After a few seconds, he nodded with difficulty and said, "If you are willing..."

“Get lost!” Before Jobs could finish his words, Ethan kicked him. “Stop having these dangerous ideas! It will make you lose your ability to innovate!”

Ethan would not admit that he really wanted to take Intel into his own hands.

The real reason for not doing so is that we can’t afford it.

Intel's current market value has exceeded 2 billion. Everyone in the core R&D team has shares. If you want to poach them all, you can't just rely on the cash in your hands. You can only use shares to do all this, but unfortunately...

It's impossible for Ethan to poach people by using shares.

After forcibly suppressing Jobs' crazy idea, Ethan finally heard what Jobs wanted to say about how to obtain cheap chips, and this matter was related to Bill Gates.

After obtaining the WYSIWYG patent license from Xerox and technical support for presentations from HP, Steve Jobs called in Bill Gates, hoping that he could tailor a set of office software with Apple characteristics for Apple.

Since this office software needs to run on a graphical user interface, Jobs showed Bill Gates Apple's latest technology, and then...

Just like the countless little stories Ethan had heard in his previous life.

This top student who dropped out of Harvard...

Senseless.

Like Steve Jobs, he couldn't believe his eyes!

Like Steve Jobs, he feels the future is within reach!

When Bill Gates also felt that the graphical user interface was the future, he asked technology guru and Apple chief scientist Steve Wozniak about the technological progress.

He wants to know how Apple's research and development is going.

He wanted to know, when would Apple embrace the world?
Since the patent was already held and there was no possibility of plagiarism, and Bill Gates was their current partner, Wozniak did not hide it and directly stated that Apple would not be able to bring this stunning product to market in a short period of time because they lacked hardware support.

Especially the most critical central microprocessor support.

Then--

"William said he could handle this matter."

Steve Jobs looked at Ethan with eyes wide open.

"Although he didn't tell me the method, I believe him, and I guess he might come to you in the near future to discuss this matter with you under the pretext of showing you the financial report."

"I can even guess that he wants the license for the graphical user interface. Because now in the world, apart from Apple, only you can make this product."

Having said this, Jobs suddenly stopped.

His eyes were already red.

"Ethan, I think you should know my attitude on this matter."

"The graphical user interface will allow Apple to sweep away all competitors and become the real No. 1 that General Electric and others cannot achieve, so I don't want to give this patent to others."

“Even if we have to face antitrust bills!”

"Even if we have to face the entire Federation! The entire world!"

“I don’t want anyone to taste the same success as us!”

Jobs's guess was completely correct. As soon as Jobs left Palo Alto and returned to Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, Bill Gates came to the Game of Destiny and showed Ethan Microsoft's financial report.

On February 10, Ethan saw Microsoft's 1979 annual report. Last year, they sold nearly 270,000 spreadsheets and had operating revenue of nearly 27 million.

In addition, they have some other insignificant income, such as writing a disk operating system for Benzi Electric and designing command line operating interfaces for some other computer companies, but the total income from these things is less than one million US dollars, which cannot be compared with spreadsheets at all.

Of course, these things are not what Bill Gates wants to show. After quickly reporting on last year's work, this gentle-looking guy smiled and mentioned the new technologies that Apple has.

And while praising Apple, he also decisively stated that he could help Apple.

"I can help Apple get cheap Intel chips. My request is very simple. I want to embrace a better future with Apple."

"Of course, I know that the graphical user interface is a great technology that no company is willing to share, so my goal will not be too high. As long as we Microsoft can obtain the development license, we will not be allowed to sell our own new products to the market within two years after Apple releases the graphical user interface product. In addition, I can promise that I will continue to provide Apple with market-leading electronic office software in the future, as long as Apple is willing to license the product to us."

Bill Gates' desire for a graphical user interface was obvious to everyone, and Ethan was also curious about how this guy could lower Intel's chip prices. Or, in other words, why did he think he could make Intel suffer?
And when Ethan asked what was in his mind...

A happy smile immediately appeared on Bill Gates' face.

He knew that when Ethan became curious about this matter, it meant that Ethan had the possibility of licensing the graphical user interface, even if the chance was only one in ten thousand! But that was much better than having nothing! So he said, "Ethan, this matter is very simple. Although I can't make Intel lower the price, other companies can force Intel to lower the price..."

"This matter actually has nothing to do with me, but if you need it, I can immediately intervene in their negotiations. The specific situation is... IBM wants to get involved in the personal computer industry."

"The boom in the personal computer industry made them want to get involved, but they also knew that it was too late for them to get involved, so they did not plan to develop their own products, but wanted to purchase technology from various companies to launch commercial products in the shortest possible time."

"Then... my mom helped me get the order for the disk operating system."

“At the same time, in the future, their machines will be pre-installed with our spreadsheets when they leave the factory.”

"The price is ten dollars cheaper than the market price, and that's their profit."

"Because the disk operating system needs to be written specifically according to the use of hardware, I know that IBM wants to use Intel's chips, but at the same time, IBM also feels that it is risky to let Intel supply chips alone, so they have an idea, which is to force Intel to license the patent..."

At this point, Bill Gates suddenly stopped talking.

There was a gleam of pride in his eyes behind the lenses.

And his words also made Ethan's pupils shrink suddenly!
Because he knows what Bill Gates is talking about!
That is the enormous wealth that belongs to the massage parlor!

(End of this chapter)