Technology invades the modern world

Chapter 365 Is it really that outrageous?
So this is a good thing after all?
John Morgan Jr. simply couldn't understand how this could be a good thing.

“Mr. Morgan, I now know the whole story, and this is indeed a good thing. Doesn’t this give you a perfect reason to ask someone for your money?”

Grove George went on to explain: "This is easy to explain. Just say that you asked Xiaomi for sponsorship, right?"
This Chinese company has a history of sponsoring spaceflight and previously purchased Armstrong's license from the Purdue University committee. So what's wrong with sponsoring General Aerospace now?
Moreover, this does not violate the Wolf Clause.

Even if someone tries to cause trouble and sue, I believe you can win.

John Morgan Jr. thought to himself, "Yes, since we have it, why not just openly admit to sponsoring it?"

Neither of them had considered whether Xiaomi would agree to this question.

From the former's perspective, would Chinese companies dare to refuse?
From the latter's perspective, the Morgan family has deep interests in China, so is it appropriate to just casually ask someone to handle this matter?

From this perspective, it is indeed a good thing, as it means there is now another target for extortion.

John Morgan Jr. couldn't help but sigh, "That bastard Grove may be a bit greedy, but when it comes to problems, he really knows how to solve them."

However, this is also a cover-up for him, to cover up the fact that the VIPER lunar rover was just a PowerPoint presentation from the beginning.

Now that the Xiaomi logo issue has been resolved, a new problem has arisen in John Morgan Jr.'s mind, and this problem is even more difficult to solve.

That is, which link went wrong, leading to such a basic bug, and what should be done in the future, and what kind of process should be modified to prevent similar basic errors from happening again?

Aerospace is a very demanding industry. Although SpaceX has lowered the bar for visual appeal, it is no longer the high-end scenes of the past, but rather scenes of screwing, welding, and stainless steel.

However, in reality, there are very high requirements in terms of technical requirements, manufacturing precision, and the rigor of the engineering team.

Now, John Morgan Jr. is wondering if his team can really handle it? Is it really going to run into problems?
"Could it be like what some people say, that doing manufacturing in America is just a waste of time?" For the first time, John Morgan Jr. wondered if his hard work in developing General Aerospace was a mistake.

"We have noticed that our company's brand logo appeared in the recent live broadcasts related to the US moon landing mission. This has attracted attention and questions from some netizens in China, and has even been misunderstood as our company sponsoring the moon landing project."

We deeply regret this and take the public's concerns very seriously.

Hereby, we solemnly declare the following:
Our company has never sponsored, participated in, or supported the lunar landing project in any form. The appearance of this logo was purely accidental and has nothing to do with our company. We have not provided any funding, technical, or product support to the project, nor have we signed any cooperation agreement with it. This was not our company's initiative or business decision at all.

"Mr. Lei, the announcement has been sent out," Xu Fei said in a low voice.

Lei Jun opened his phone, glanced at Weibo, and nodded, "Okay."

It's good that you've clarified things. We really didn't do it. Let's clarify this openly and honestly!
Rather than letting things remain unclear on the trending topics and being manipulated by competitors, it's better to clarify things yourself, because you really didn't do it.

To avoid speculation.

It's said that Xiaomi secretly sponsored General Aerospace, wanting to make a name for itself overseas but not wanting to offend Chinese netizens, so it kept it a secret.

Simplified Chinese netizens have such vivid imaginations that they've even come up with speculations like "secretly keeping the death a secret."

It's unclear where these online trolls came from, perhaps from competitors, or maybe from behind the scenes, but they've put Xiaomi in a very passive position. With the Xiaomi SU7 about to be released, Lei Jun urged the marketing department to quickly issue a statement to clarify the situation.

"Hello, Mr. Amon? What? They want us to sponsor General Aerospace?"

Lei Jun was dumbfounded. No sooner had the announcement been released than he received a phone call from Qualcomm's current CEO, Cristiano Amon, who was acting as an intermediary for John Morgan Jr., trying to persuade him to sponsor General Aerospace.

“Yes, dear Ray, you have a tradition of sponsoring commercial spaceflight. General Aerospace’s prices are very fair; they’re asking for very low prices, all because of me.” Amon’s tone on the other end of the phone was gentle, but full of implications.

"For my sake" is a phrase that is not commonly used in English. It clearly implies that you should agree for my sake.

“But,” Lei Jun wanted to argue.

Amon said, "Dear Ray, this time I'm the one who's going to convince you. If I can't convince you, next time it will be the CEO of Goldman Sachs, and the time after that it might be someone from China. In short, you must have full confidence in the Morgan family's determination and will to resolve this matter."

Or if you want to do everything yourself like Huawei, that's fine too.

Xiaomi is important to Qualcomm, but Qualcomm is more important to Xiaomi. After all, there are only Qualcomm and MediaTek among the high-end mobile phone chip manufacturers, while there are four mobile phone manufacturers, namely OPPO, Vivo, Xiaomi, and Rong, that can absorb Qualcomm's production capacity.

This is also the principle of who holds the initiative in negotiations.

After thinking for a moment, Lei Jun said, "Okay, I understand. I will sponsor General Aerospace." This phone call also made Lei Jun understand what was going on. To put it bluntly, it was General Aerospace's own mistake, and now he needed to take responsibility.

It would be one thing to make him take responsibility, but he had to do it at this time, after already issuing a clarification announcement, and now he's going to take back the announcement and have to pay out of his own pocket.

It's like slapping yourself in the face and having to pay for it yourself—what kind of situation is this?! Lei Jun was filled with grief and indignation, and his determination to develop Xiaomi's own chips grew even stronger.

If the Surge S2 hadn't failed and my path to high-end chips hadn't been thwarted, would I be in such a passive position?

"Xu Fei, come to my office right now and delete the clarification announcement immediately."

"Yes, you heard right, delete it immediately!"

When Xu Fei arrived at the office, he saw Lei Jun with a very pale face. The atmosphere in the entire office was extremely tense, and Xu Fei felt like he couldn't breathe.

She walked into the office without daring to speak or ask what was wrong, for fear of incurring Lei Zong's wrath at this moment.

"That's right, we need to quickly develop an emergency public relations strategy, mainly to explain that we actually sponsored General Aerospace's lunar rover, which is why the Xiaomi logo appeared."

Xu Fei's brain was working frantically. He roughly understood what was going on. It turned out that they had indeed sponsored General Aerospace's lunar landing project. It was just that President Lei had only just finalized the deal. The secrecy was handled so well. No wonder it was President Lei.

"Mr. Lei, brilliant, absolutely brilliant!" Xu Fei said, giving a thumbs up. "Your publicity strategy has truly maximized the marketing effect of the moon landing! It's amazing!"

Now it was Lei Jun's turn to be completely baffled, but he remained outwardly calm, wanting to hear how Xu Fei would continue his story.

"Mr. Lei, because of the Apollo moon landing, people's threshold for space exploration has increased. If we simply sponsor the moon landing project, the publicity effect will be increasingly limited."

The sudden appearance of Xiaomi's logo, as it is now, has immediately sparked a public outcry.

Then clarify things first, and then say that we actually sponsored it. This will further expand our publicity, and our competitors will be more willing to use their valuable publicity resources to help us promote our business.

This isn't about achieving twice the result with half the effort; it's about putting in one unit of effort and getting ten units of benefit.

Mr. Lei, regarding the explanation, it's easy to explain. You just shift the blame to me, saying that you were in seclusion, fully dedicated to Xiaomi's car manufacturing business, and didn't even check your phone, so you had no idea about this.

The reason I issued the clarification announcement was because I took it upon myself to do so.

You yourself admitted that there were shortcomings in your work. Because you were busy building cars and trying to bring a perfect car to Mi Fans so that you could have a good start, you even forgot to tell your marketing team about sponsoring such a big project as General Aerospace's lunar rover.

You only found out what happened after we issued a clarification statement and John Morgan Jr. from America called.

Finally, we can ask Xiaomi's KOLs for help to whitewash the situation by citing Xiaomi's clever marketing strategy, and then the matter will be over.
At the same time, it highlights two key points: you are fully committed to building cars, and Xiaomi's unconventional marketing strategy has achieved unparalleled results.

Since General Aerospace's moon landing, Xiaomi has been consistently trending on social media, which is a real and tangible result.

As for our concerns, the sponsorship of America's companies will be portrayed as a purely commercial activity, and it will be emphasized that America's moon landing used Chinese technology. Our reason for sponsoring America's companies, which used Apollo technology in the past, will be to continue sponsoring their moon landing.

Although Xu Fei's acting skills are poor, he has a memorable scene where he says things like, "We don't run a business to make money. We make mobile phones so that we can sell them to everyone without making a profit."

But he is quick-witted and can come up with a near-perfect solution on the spot. With the help of Xiaomi's KOLs, this strategy is more than enough. He truly deserves to be called Xiaomi's Chief Marketing Officer.

After thinking for a moment, Lei Jun said, "Okay, let's do it this way. I'd like to add something: film a short video for me on Douyin (TikTok), and I'll explain this to you personally."

Meanwhile, Lin Ran and Li Xiaoman, who knew exactly what was going on from the beginning, watched as Lei Jun explained the whole story on the computer screen.

Li Xiaoman muttered, "Aran, is it really that outrageous? From beginning to end, didn't a single person from General Aerospace or NASA notice anything wrong?"

Lin Ran took a deep breath: "Of course, it's that outrageous."

Throughout history, since the moon landing, and especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union, NASA has made numerous similar mistakes. You've always known about the Hubble Telescope, right?

After its launch, scientists worldwide were stunned because the photos were extremely blurry. It was later discovered that the lens was faulty, its shape completely incorrect, and that NASA's numerous quality control procedures had failed to detect the problem.

(End of this chapter)