My Lord, you need to stand up!

Chapter 987 Mr. Qiao, you need to step up!
The core of this is that they control a CD production line.

To use the phrase we discussed earlier, this is the regulatory dividend.

This made Wei Dong realize that CDs were also publications and required a publication number or some other license. In any case, around the turn of the millennium, tax authorities and business inspectors would often go out together to crack down on them.

When they came back, they brought back huge boxes of illegally published CDs.

Those of you who aren't in the server room yet, take a look for yourselves.

One of my roommates even strung together a bunch of CDs to make a curtain.

It contains erotic films starring Qin Yuye and Yao Shuzhen, which are absolute bestsellers.

On the contrary, Zou Huimin has fewer roles, Lina retired from acting early, and Zhang Min seems to have disappeared after a brief appearance.

In short, the optical disc factory, which cost nearly 20 million US dollars, was the core support for the optical drive factory.

This thing is like a television station; it's a medium that can influence and decide what content to deliver to the public.

Once optical drives become widespread, DVD players will follow.

The CD cable is just like Jimmy from Hong Kong movies, a real goose that lays golden eggs.

Of course, for someone like Wei Dong, it's definitely not about making money by selling pirated CDs.

He wants to control what constitutes a legitimate copy!

The goal is to double the investment in this one deal, and then generate a continuous stream of net profit.

Even manufacturers that developed optical drives and optical disc production lines did not truly usher in the era of optical disc content.

Nobody cares about this stuff anymore.

Steve's personality is such that if he's interested, he'll spend tens or hundreds of millions of dollars on it; but once he loses interest, no amount of money will interest him.

That's why he was interested in the new lighting and shadow effects.

This generation of American citizens grew up watching Star Wars and Star Trek.

These science fiction dramas are also the originators of light and shadow special effects.

Steve's acquisition this time is of the original film studio for Star Wars.

It's like a middle-aged man who made a fortune and fulfilled his childhood dream by buying the equipment to work with his imaging technology talent to test and develop new technologies.

He still let Weidong paint a rosy picture for him, saying that Apple could explore this area.

At the time, this guy's goal was simply to get Apple involved in the project, which would definitely improve the overall effect.

To everyone's surprise, Steve was immediately captivated.

It was as if Steve, having escaped from his relaxed playtime, had returned to his role as an IT business tycoon. At least this gave Wei Dong something to be interested in, allowing him to reluctantly return to the business world.

After a quick wash and change into a shirt and tie with a suit vest, without even cutting his hair or shaving, he sat in the spacious reception room and had a friendly but incomprehensible awkward chat with Chrysler executives.

But they both proved that Pitt was an important partner to them.

This is enough.

With hundreds of thousands of employees, Chrysler is a long-established empire with its own R&D center in Los Angeles, where it will immediately begin adjustments to several models.

So we agreed that Pete would come to the R&D center in a few days to attend a product improvement meeting.

We also invited Pete to test drive and experience this Chrysler concept sports car. The head of the Chrysler brand even quietly reminded us that the car cost more than $500,000!
Chrysler had high hopes for this car, hoping it would make a splash in the high-end market and enhance the brand image.

Because Chrysler's most expensive model, the Imperial, had been discontinued in 83, and after regaining market share with its affordable Dodge 600 series of cars, it was clear that it would need to target the high-end market in order to avoid leaving behind the brand image of cheap cars.

This is a very well-practiced approach in North America, where automotive brand culture has been mature for decades.

Steve was merely observing to support Wei Dong. After politely seeing the Chrysler group off, he warned, "Their situation this year doesn't seem to be very good, and this president is not easy to get along with. I've heard from Wall Street that he doesn't have a high opinion of him."

It's really difficult for financial capital to reap huge profits from the real economy and manufacturing.

That's how Wei Dong saw it, but after Steve's financial assistant added information about the current market value, he suddenly had a bold idea: "Could I try to acquire as many Chrysler shares as possible on the market?"

Steve was baffled: "What's the point of acquiring it? You won't make any money. Control? You need at least a controlling stake, but that will bring you a huge financial burden. It's a super complicated mess."

Wei Dong chuckled: "Because of the current policies in mainland China, it's impossible for foreign capital to hold a controlling stake, and it's also impossible for me to hold a controlling stake. But if I were Chrysler, plus my original small shareholding, wouldn't I have a controlling stake?"

Steve then reminded him: "Chrysler is an iconic industry with a certain Citibank influence, and it's impossible to let foreigners, especially Chinese, hold a controlling stake so easily."

Wei Dong didn't care: "Then we won't take a controlling stake. We just need a shareholder with some say."

Car companies are currently not making money in North America, and it's even a huge black hole, because the regulatory advantages and cost advantages have disappeared.

The departure of manufacturing from North America is a deeply entrenched and irreversible trend.

However, there is still huge room for development in mainland China. Moreover, although Wei Dong appears to be just a chairman with an annual salary of one yuan in the Shanghai Automobile Industrial Park, he owns all the real estate.

If someone had the status of a Chrysler shareholder, wouldn't that completely protect the chairman's interests?
Steve then instructed his financial assistant to pay closer attention to this information.

Then he mentioned to Wei Dong himself: "That's right. If you want to get involved in financial capital on Wall Street, then take the opportunity to list Kungfu Software. This new product launch should be the best publicity for the software company."

He also owns 20% of the shares, not for the money, but to provide regular software support to Apple.

Wei Dong, however, was not very interested in going public. He thought it would be better to follow along and profit from others, like Apple and Chrysler. Going it alone would mean supporting a bunch of people in North America. Twenty years later, he could send many mainland employees to learn from them. Right now, just the thought of whether or not to go out was a huge hassle.

Moreover, listed companies have to focus on performance. He has so many things going on in mainland China, and now he's causing trouble in Hong Kong too.

Why bother creating a listed company through Citigroup?

So he didn't care about the money: "You can handle it. It doesn't matter if you control this company. I'll provide services for you in Asia. Here, let me introduce you. This is Mr. Di Kun, a fiber optic scientist and the president of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He's my partner in Hong Kong. We are currently advancing the research and development of network computers, which can serve as the next step in Apple's computer exploration."

If Wei Dong hadn't helped Steve make a comeback, he would have angrily cashed out and left after the board ousted him, given that he only owned 15% of the shares.

He's just an ordinary billionaire with a net worth of one or two hundred million US dollars.

He then followed his interests and acquired a film and animation R&D studio. After spending more than ten years away from home, he returned to lead Apple.

This skipped precisely the pioneering stage of the internet age.

Before he left, Apple computers had no trace of the internet. When he returned, the market was dominated by the internet. It wasn't until the launch of the iPhone that he regained control of the mobile internet and the regulatory benefits.

This is truly amazing; it's about seizing, losing, and seizing again.

It's quite an achievement for a person to catch the crest of a wave even once in their life.

This can be done repeatedly.

Now, upon hearing about fiber optics, I immediately become focused.

Dikun simply expressed the current state of fiber optic technology with a scientist's attitude.

He communicated in English, of course.

Rang Tai had to painstakingly piece together various technical terms to explain to Rang Weidong.

As a result, Wei Dong was able to participate in the discussion simply by hearing a summary:
"In short, our first step is to build a fiber optic connection between the Chinese University of Hong Kong and my Asia Television. The next step is to connect Hong Kong to neighboring cities, and simultaneously connect them along the Pacific Ocean using submarine fiber optic cables, linking them to the existing Citibank network..."

At this point, it wasn't called Intel yet; it was at most a local area network within Citibank's domestic network, not yet on the international internet.

Steve's eyes indeed grew brighter and brighter as he listened.

At Citibank, the internet is currently just an academic local area network. Apart from a very few official sites, it is mainly used by major universities to connect via telephone lines and network cables to share libraries and conduct academic research.

What Wei Dong was trying to say was that if every Apple computer had the ability to connect to the internet, that would open up a whole new world.

But that's all he said.

He only knew about the current state of Citibank's network from Di Kun and Lin Wangfu.

As for the specifics and future direction, let Apple explore that.

Just follow behind and suck blood.

Steve started getting excited, clearly showing signs of being hyped up: "Okay! Let's go back to Silicon Valley right away..."

Wei Dong said lazily, "What am I supposed to do? Bob is waiting for you over there with 200,000 CD drives and hundreds of thousands of CDs. Hurry up and confirm the architecture of the 88 computer models. At least add a CD drive bay, CD drive interface, pricing, supplier contracts and other agreements need to be finalized. We also need to arrange production. Aren't we going to produce and stock up on the new computers? Tens of thousands of people in the contract factory are waiting for their meals and extra dishes!"

His secretary, university president, and CEOs of technology and insurance companies all held him in high esteem.

He finally gave himself away: "My basketball team is training in California, I need to go check it out..."

Steve laughed heartily, revealing the kind of disdainful look one gives a friend—"Look at you, you're just as good at doing nothing."

Wei Dong retorted dismissively, "I've made it into the HK Olympic team. You... you have even greater prospects, but right now it's really not feasible. The machine's computing power isn't enough; everything is difficult..."

Later, even a regular mobile phone could handle video effects, but now computers can't even play videos properly. What's the point?

Let's focus on making the money we can first.

Steve then shook off the "vixen" label: "Okay, I'll go get the computers first. You're in California, so keep in touch. Also, keep an eye on the animation and video production for me. If there's anything that needs improvement, I'll give you some shares too. We'll discuss the IPO with the expert team when they come over..."

Wei Dong then had to ask where the basketball team was located in California.

Although it's called a prefecture, this place is similar to Ganzhou Province in the interior, stretching for thousands of kilometers.

Running around like that is exhausting.

(End of this chapter)