San Francisco Bay Area.
Ygritte Company headquarters near Stanford University in Palo Alto.
Simon arrived in San Francisco on April 23rd, and a conference room in the company's office building was occupied; people came in and out for meetings every day.
Besides Ygritte's top management, Steve Case, CEO of America Online, whose headquarters is on the East Coast, also flew in. Occasionally, executives from Cisco, Oracle, Sun, and Microsoft were invited to participate in the discussions. Eventually, even the Bay Area media noticed.
Simon did not disappoint the media. On the second day of his trip to San Francisco, he released a piece of valuable news: Westeros Company would invest an additional $50 million in exchange for another 50% stake in America Online.
After the deal was reached, Westeros Company's stake in America Online increased from the original 25% to 75%, achieving absolute control.
Speaking of which, this matter had been in motion even before Simon came to San Francisco.
In the next few years, if Simon made a single wrong move in his layout of the internet field, he might lose his original advantage. Therefore, he had to ensure absolute control over America Online, the most important link in his layout.
To achieve this goal, James Raybould made a strong statement when the offer was launched: if the other shareholders of America Online did not agree to this capital injection, Westeros Company would withdraw from America Online and turn to support other similar enterprises.
Steve Case and other America Online executives and shareholders originally did not agree to Westeros Company's sudden demand to forcibly increase its shareholding ratio.
However, because Simon did not demand full ownership and reserved 25% of the shares for the original shareholders, combined with Westeros Company's firm attitude, America Online accepted Westeros Company's terms after weighing the pros and cons.
Upon completion of this capital injection, America Online's headquarters will also move from the East Coast to San Francisco.
Inside a villa in the hills of Woodside, on the western outskirts of Palo Alto, after a week of meetings and discussions, the date was April 28th, Saturday, and Simon still had not returned to Los Angeles.
Near noon, James Raybould arrived at this mountain mansion by car. Jennifer greeted her father in the courtyard and entered the villa with him.
The father and daughter went upstairs. In a somewhat empty study on the second floor, Simon was standing in front of a large whiteboard with his arms crossed, thinking about something. The white board was densely covered with various words written in black marker.
James Raybould scanned the whiteboard roughly.
Portal websites, instant messaging, email, personal homepages, online news, e-commerce, online forums, online games, cloud computing, big data, search engines, firewalls, online payments... James could understand some of the terms at a glance, but others left him a bit confused.
It wasn't until many years later, when many of the ideas on this whiteboard were realized one by one, that James Raybould truly understood the immense value of the various concepts on the board.
Seeing that his daughter had no intention of interrupting Simon's thoughts and instead looked at the young man with a bit of admiration in her eyes, James Raybould sighed inwardly about how daughters always look outward and had to clear his throat himself.
Hearing the movement behind him, Simon turned around and reached out with a smile: "Good afternoon, Jim".
Shaking hands with Simon, James gestured toward the whiteboard and said, "Is this the result of your recent discussions with everyone?"
"Some are, some aren't", Simon said. "For now, only a small part of them can be implemented".
As Simon spoke, he stepped aside. James took another step forward to get a closer look at the board in front of him.
James Raybould had fully proven his personal ability in recent years, and Simon did not hide most things from him. He pointed to some of the keywords he had circled and said, "In the next few years, Ygritte Company, in cooperation with America Online, will focus on portal websites, email, personal homepages, online news, online forums, and online games. You surely know that Ygritte Company began developing some of these functions last year".
James nodded.
A portal website was basically the homepage setting for the graphical user interface browser that Ygritte Company had already named IE (Internet Explorer), serving as a portal guide for surfing the internet.
However, James also knew that internet content was currently very scarce. The portal website Simon envisioned would still need to produce a lot of content independently.
In comparison, email was a very practical function developed by Ygritte Company.
Hollywood's demand for mail delivery was very high. Major studios and talent agencies had their own dedicated mailrooms. The first step for employees joining a talent agency was often an internship in the mailroom.
If the email system could be promoted to these enterprises, it could greatly enhance the office convenience of these companies.
Malibu Daenerys Studios, which is set to officially open next month, has specially customized Ygritte Company's email system. James realized that if this business could be expanded, it could definitely become a major revenue source for Ygritte Company in the coming years.
Any company that wants to grow and expand needs solid revenue and profits as support.
Thinking this, James added: "In addition to Ygritte Company's basic software services, email, online news, and online games can all adopt a fee based model. Portal websites, personal homepages, and online forums rely on advertising revenue. However, this requires the number of internet users to reach a sufficient scale, which probably won't happen in the next few years. Moreover, Simon, if you plan to open up the licensing of world wide web technology, these applications developed by Ygritte Company will be easily imitated".
"Competition is good. If a company lacks competitors, it is destined to fall into a state of stagnation, which is not good for its own development", Simon said in a relaxed tone. "Besides, we have already taken the lead. If we still lose to our competitors with so many advantages, we can only blame ourselves".
As a professional manager, considering his employer's interests, James Raybould had suggested more than once that Simon limit the licensing of world wide web technology or adopt a fee-based model, just like some other commercial networks that had already begun operating.
However, Simon understood that in the original timeline, it was precisely the completely free opening of the world wide web in 1993 that pushed the explosion of the internet industry. Whether it was Cisco, America Online, or Yahoo, they all rose rapidly against this background.
If the licensing of the world wide web were restricted or a fee-based model were adopted, then this technology would likely be gradually phased out like other paid networks.
The two chatted for a while until Jennifer reminded them that lunch was ready, and then they went downstairs together.
Settled in the dining room, James saw the two tall young women bringing in lunch and couldn't help but look at his own daughter, who was sitting quietly next to Simon, with a sense of disappointment.
You have to fight for it, you silly Girl.
After the maids left the dining room, Simon picked up his utensils and asked James, "How are the talks going with Cisco?"
According to the original trajectory, Cisco should have gone public in February of this year.
However, because of Westeros Company's intervention, Cisco's IPO was delayed until now.
Having completed absolute control over America Online, James's focus immediately shifted to Cisco.
Cisco's current shareholding structure was also very simple: the founders, Leonard Bosack and Sandy Lerner, held 30%; Sequoia Capital held 30%; Westeros Company held 15%; and two other Silicon Valley venture capital firms held 15% and 10% respectively.
Therefore, it was a shareholding structure that was very easy to privatize.
Aside from Westeros Company and the founders, the Bosacks, venture capital firms like Sequoia Capital tended to cash out as soon as possible rather than hold a company's shares for the long term due to the nature of their business. Therefore, after companies like Apple, Cisco, and Oracle, which Sequoia Capital had invested in, rose one after another, Sequoia Capital was no longer among the major shareholders of these companies.
The business nature of venture capital firms like Sequoia Capital gave Westeros Company the opportunity to directly buy more shares in Cisco.
In fact, the reason the various shareholders agreed to Westeros Company's request to delay the IPO was largely out of this consideration.
According to the federal Securities Act, after a company goes public, there are many restrictions on the reduction of shareholdings by major shareholders.
Although shares could still be sold through private transfers at that time, no one could be certain of a company's specific performance after the IPO. Perhaps, for some reason, the company's market value after going public would be lower than in its private state.
After finishing negotiations with America Online's shareholders, James began to contact Cisco's shareholders regarding acquisition matters.
Hearing Simon's question, James set aside his disappointment in his daughter and said, "The three venture capital firms, including Sequoia Capital, have all agreed to sell half of their shares to us. Once this transaction is completed, our shareholding in Cisco can increase to 42.5%. However, there is an even better opportunity now".
Simon nodded and waited for James to continue, not rushing to ask about the price.
Regardless of whether the company went public or not, with Simon's current strength, it wouldn't be a problem even if he bought Cisco entirely. The company's current revenue scale was only about $50 million. According to previous estimates, even if it went public, its market value would only be around $300 million.
Whether it was mobilizing funds from overseas or continuing to use the bank loan model, $300 million was easy for Westeros Company.
Therefore, Simon didn't care much about how much he spent; he believed James wouldn't let him lose out. Moreover, considering Cisco's development prospects, even paying a 100% or even higher premium now would definitely be worth it.
James continued, "It's like this: Cisco's founder, Leonard Bosack, has a worsening relationship with Cisco's CEO, John Morgridge. Several venture capital firms are also very dissatisfied with Bosack, and he is likely to be kicked out of the company by the board of directors soon".
Hearing James say this, Simon immediately recalled some things.
In his memory, because of the conflict in philosophy between the founders, Leonard Bosack and Sandy Lerner, and Cisco's shareholders and management, the two left Cisco one after another in 1990. Subsequently, they sold most of their holdings.
James's subsequent words confirmed this: "I have already been in contact with the Bosacks. They probably also anticipate that leaving the company is inevitable, so they are considering selling their shares".
Simon stopped eating and asked, "All of them?"
James shook his head and said, "Probably only half. If we weren't interested in this company and other private equity firms were involved, Sequoia Capital and the others would certainly be happy to cash out early. Now, because Westeros Company is involved, the other shareholders have higher expectations for Cisco. So, they won't let go completely. Of course, on the other hand, there won't be much resistance to us wanting to take control of the company".
Simon understood immediately.
Because of Simon's personal miracle of wealth rising rapidly in just a few years, Westeros Company had become a gold-standard brand. Now, most of the companies Westeros Company was involved with benefited greatly from this halo.
Therefore, out of interest, the shareholders of both Cisco and America Online would not insist on control of these two companies, because they believed that handing over control to Simon would likely result in higher returns. Similarly, in order to obtain more returns in the future, they naturally wouldn't completely let go of their shareholdings.
This phenomenon actually began during Simon's acquisition of Gucci.
In this world, after all, not many people are fools.
Even the fact that Bill Gates and Paul Allen agreed to transfer a 10% stake to Westeros Company, and that companies like Intel did not react much to Westeros Company's continuous increase in their company's stock, was basically due to this reason.
Simon actually never thought about fully owning these companies.
For companies like Microsoft and Intel, Simon's shareholding was mainly for investment purposes. He was well aware of the future development potential of these companies, but he knew even better that he did not have the experience or ability to manage them, and he had no intention of fighting for control. To express this attitude, after Simon completed his increase in Microsoft shares, he directly authorized the voting rights of his holdings to Bill Gates.
However, for Cisco, America Online, and Ygritte, Simon intended to have complete control.
Among the three companies, Cisco was the network equipment provider, America Online was the network service provider, and Ygritte was the network content provider. This actually represented a complete internet industry chain.
If it were 10 years later and Simon wanted to do this, he would definitely face strong antitrust pressure. The Federal Government would never allow him to control these three industrial giants that could influence the layout of the internet industry. He probably wouldn't have enough capital to control these three companies at that time either.
Now, similar resistance did not exist.
The internet industry was just beginning. Some people could see the development prospects of this new technology field, but no one could be sure how large it could grow.
Simon was starting his layout now. By the time the internet industry reached a peak at the end of the century, his control over the three companies would be an established fact.
Moreover, although absolute control was needed now, Simon did not intend to hold onto most of the shares of these three companies forever, like Bill Gates and Paul Allen. All three companies were to undergo an IPO.
At that time, even if he encountered an antitrust investigation, as long as he made a layout in advance and recruited enough allies, the pressure on the three companies should be much less compared to Microsoft in his original life.