In fact, the issue of charity is a little sensitive for Simon. Amy Pascal just joked and stopped. Instead, she said, "I just got the news this morning that Vivendi has decided to promote sandy littwatt and bill michanik as the CEO and President of Disney respectively. Maybe next week, she will announce her resignation, and frank wells will retire. ”
Simon also got the news and nodded, "I know."
At the end of last year, Vivendi group has been looking for a suitable professional manager for the company. However, some of the candidates Vivendi is looking for have expressed their refusal, including CAA president Michael owitz, former Spielberg's right-hand aides Frank Marshall and Catherine Kennedy, Hollywood gold medal producer Joe silvo and even several senior executives of danielis entertainment group.
What the circle probably realized, coupled with Vivendi's conservative decentralization, these external candidates successively refused.
In desperation, Vivendi had to promote senior executives from within Disney.
Sandy littwatt is Disney's vice president and head of legal, and bill michanik is Disney's president of home entertainment, which distributes video and television.
They were respectively promoted to CEO and President of Disney, equivalent to two consecutive promotions.
However, in terms of actual functions and powers, they are only one level up.
According to Simon's information, after sandy littwatt was promoted to CEO, he was actually in charge of the business of former president Frank wells, mainly the administrative affairs of enterprise personnel and legal affairs. Bill michanik, as president, will directly manage the production business that was once run by Jeffrey carsenberg.
The core corporate strategic planning and financial power, which should belong to the CEO, are directly controlled by Vivendi headquarters.
This is not the result that Vivendi's board would like to see.
However, there are not so many good things in the world when we are unwilling to delegate power and want professional managers who are good enough.
In private, she has discussed how to deal with Disney after it was acquired by Vivendi group for more than one time. At this time, Amy just talked about it with Simon. When she saw that her boss already knew about it, she didn't say much, and then said, "Eisner is trying to invest in the Internet field, partnering with owitz, and has finalized a project. I had dinner with Nancy in Morton last night I met them in the dining hall and chatted with them. It's a very interesting idea. "
Simon was a bit surprised and asked, "is Eisner well?"
Amy nodded: "it's ok now. It's just that the original quadruple bypass surgery is very risky. It's ok if I can survive."
Michael Eisner had heard that danirey entertainment would have been able to establish a universal studios in Europe before her heart attack relapsed. At that time, he almost failed to rescue him. Simon had learned about it earlier.
Frank wells, Disney's president, who should have died in a skiing accident last year, escaped because of Simon's influence. If Eisner died unexpectedly because of the news he released, Simon would feel guilty. Just business competition has not reached the level of killing people, let alone Hollywood.
Simon nodded slightly, skillfully holding some Chinese fried noodles in the plate with chopsticks, and asked with a smile, "what project did Eisner invest in?"
Amy took a sip of the juice and said, "probably, it's a workplace social networking site. This is the idea that owitz came up with. As you know, owitz is very good at managing contacts. He thinks it's possible to move the real business model of contacts to the Internet. Unlike those recruitment sites that can only deliver their resumes, this workplace social networking site can let you know Users directly establish their own contacts in some circles and show their resumes more intuitively. Moreover, after forming one circle after another, they can get more accurate recruitment or application targets through mutual recommendation, and social network members can also recommend each other. "
Simon across the table became more familiar with it and soon understood it.
This is LinkedIn in my memory.
In the past, because of the failure of competing for power in Time Warner, Terry Semel left to be the CEO of Hollywood Yahoo. This time, because of the support of danielis entertainment, Semel has more and more advantages in Time Warner Group, and is likely to become the next chairman.
Unexpectedly, Michael Eisner, who left Disney ten years earlier, turned to Silicon Valley.
When Amy finished, Simon was silent and asked, "Simon, what do you think?"
Simon looked back, nodded with a smile and said, "it's a good idea. The key is whether they can find the right business model."
The former LinkedIn was acquired by Microsoft in 2016 with a huge sum of more than 26 billion US dollars, which shows the feasibility of the idea of this workplace social platform. The key is whether Eisner and owitz can find a business plan that can make the website sustainable in the future.
In the end, ideas are never worth money.Just like LinkedIn, Simon doesn't believe that there will only be one workplace social networking site in Silicon Valley. It's just that LinkedIn finally stands out.
Across the table, Amy listened to Simon and said, "so, Simon, are you interested in this project?"
Simon looked up at Amy as if he understood something and said with a smile, "esner, they asked you to ask?"
Amy shook her head and said, "no, but I think since they told me so much last night, I just want you to know. Maybe it's better if you're willing to invest. "
Simon said, "isn't there a shortage of money for the two eisners?"
Amy shrugged: "you know, it's not just about money."
Simon thought a little and understood.
First of all, Amy Pascal, Michael Eisner, Michael owitz, they are all Jewish.
This is a typical mutual help between Jews without conflict of interest.
Secondly, as Amy said, if they didn't mean to let Simon know, Eisner and his wife would not have explained their projects in such detail at a casual dinner, which is obviously to attract Simon's attention.
As for money.
Of course, Eisner and owitz are not short of money. It must be easy to take out millions of dollars to start up. However, the two apparently still maintain a certain habitual thinking of Hollywood.
The first rule of Hollywood film investment: never spend your own money.
The same is true for Silicon Valley.
You can only see the success of Yahoo, Google and Amazon, but you don't know that behind these successful websites, more than 90% of the projects have gone astray in the end, and the hundreds of millions of investors haven't even heard.
Moreover, if Simon is willing to invest in Eisner, it can not only ease some of the friction between the two sides in the past, but also get the support of the westero system.
That's what matters.
Now there are more than one image sharing website in Silicon Valley. Why instagram, which has been established for only half a year, is the business model of this website so excellent?
The key is the full support of instagram in terms of hardware, software and network traffic.
Simon has always admired Eisner and owitz.
After the rise of the westero system, Simon occasionally considered inviting owitz to join, because the huge westero system needs to reconcile and maintain a huge number of interpersonal relationships, and owitz is just an expert in this aspect.
However, after all, ideas are just ideas. There are many obstacles to putting them into action.
Like loyalty.
Because it's not Amy Pascal's lineage that has risen from scratch, lacking the identification and loyalty formed by long-term running in, it's very rash to invite the other party to maintain a very sensitive system relationship.
In any case, Simon appreciates owitz.
As for Eisner, there was no friction between the two sides before, just because of some information in memory. Simon didn't like Eisner very much.
Now, a lot of things have changed. Simon has never been a fussy person. He thought about it for a moment and said, "in that case, you can ask me if you are free at the weekend. Let's have a coffee and have a chat."
Amy nodded to write it down.
Simon saw that Amy's order was coming to an end, and he was interested again. He said, "in this way, for their website, I can give a name, LinkedIn first." he also wrote down the word on the dining table, with some joking tone: "the most troublesome thing in Silicon Valley now is to give a name, because over the years, the slightly normal words have been used by all kinds of people What kind of company registration, I guess this certainly does not have
Amy noticed Simon's gesture.
LinkedIn, obviously, is a combination of the two words LinkedIn. The literal translation is "connect", which is quite in line with the idea of a workplace social networking site.
Realizing that her boss's nominalism broke out again, Amy said with a smile, "I'll tell them."
So chatting, lunch time ended, the two returned to their respective offices.
In the afternoon, the work was other than danielis' entertainment.
Simon returned to the office, and the female assistant reminded Celia Miller, who had already returned to New York, that she was on the line and that all the papers she wanted to read in the afternoon had been listed on her desk.
First, there are several important cooperation achievements negotiated with Ukraine during this period.
With regard to the nuclear power plant in Rovno state, under the lead of the westero system, the First Boston team finally concluded a bond issuance contract of up to US $1 billion with Ukrainian nuclear power company for the construction of unit 4 of the nuclear power plant in Rovno state and the renovation of the power grid between the nuclear power plant and Livni city.Now in Ukraine, no investor dares to lend the other party $1 billion.
Therefore, in addition to the credit guarantee of vistro system, Ukrainian nuclear power company has also carried out the actual pledge operation, with the goal of 50% equity of the nuclear power plant in Rovno state. Once Ukrainian nuclear power can not repay the principal and interest of the bond on schedule, First Boston will have the right to auction 50% equity of Ukrainian nuclear power to raise funds to repay the investors.
Moreover, the annual interest rate of the 10-year bond of US $1 billion is as high as 12%, far exceeding the average level of the industry.
We need to know that the interest rate of 10-year Treasury bonds in the United States is only 2.8%, and the interest rate of 10-year bonds of high-quality enterprises is generally only about 5%.
Although Ukraine's economy is not good, in fact, the repayment ability of Ukrainian nuclear power is very guaranteed. With the power generation of other traditional power plants in Ukraine plummeting one after another, only Ukrainian nuclear power maintains a stable annual power generation of 50 billion kilowatt hours, with an annual revenue of about US $3 billion.
As long as the repayment of such a monopolistic state-owned enterprise with stable income can be guaranteed, even if the annual interest rate is 5%, no one will take over.
On the one hand, it is obvious that Ukraine lacks experience in dealing with the national financial giants, and instinctively puts itself in a weak position with no confidence. He is an international financial giant, and of course, what he says is what he says.
On the other hand, probably, enough money.
Simon often heard similar stories in his memory.
Now to conclude such a contract is nothing more than cutting off the funds that can be handed over to the state finance for the national economy and people's livelihood every year for debt repayment. Anyway, Ukraine's finance is already full of holes, so it doesn't care if it's a bit stretched.
Moreover, according to the initial estimate, this $1 billion is totally unnecessary, and $700 million is enough.
Now the increase of 300 million dollars is mainly used to purchase the power generation equipment of Westinghouse. Because compared with the Ukrainian production, the quotation of Westinghouse equipment is twice as high.
Simon also knows that this can be negotiated, and the bargaining range is quite large.
However, obviously, if enough money is given, no one wants to bargain. Anyway, it's all the money of the state.
Not only that, high price imported equipment from the United States can also be used for publicity. Of course, the safety of equipment from the United States is higher. You can rest assured that there will never be a second Chernobyl accident.
This is not Simon's conjecture, but the direction of public opinion released by the local newspapers in Ukraine.
The effect is very good.
Because of the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the national economy, Ukraine's national mood is still in the mindset that the United States is good at everything and its own country is good for nothing. It is doomed to be difficult to get rid of it for many years to come.
None of this has anything to do with Simon, of course.
In the telephone discussion, Simon only asked Celia to set up a special financial supervision team to ensure that the $1 billion bond financing goes where it should go. After all, whether it is the construction of unit 4 of the nuclear power plant in Rovno or the transformation of the power grid between the nuclear power plant and Livni, it will ultimately be used in the layout of the westero system in Rovno.
In the process of this bond financing, the westrow system did not pay for anything, but because it relied on its own reputation, it still had the power of supervision.
Even if all parties have their own small plans, they will certainly hope that the money will be spent as much as possible.
In addition to the nuclear power plant, there is also a case for Nokia to set up a mobile phone factory in rivney.
After negotiation, Nokia successfully obtained a series of preferential policies from the Ukrainian government, mainly a 10-year preferential tax agreement and 150 hectares of free land in the north of Livni city for factory construction.