Chapter 2973 Proposal (Part 2)

They all understood what Feng Yiping meant. Was he trying to get the United Fund to buy Facebook's original shares?

Jobs looked at Page and Brin with a slightly probing look. He knew that they were closer to Feng Yiping than he was to Feng Yiping.

He saw that Page and Brin had the same reaction as him, with some surprise and disbelief.

Apparently, this was the first time Feng Yiping had talked to them about this issue.

Everyone knows that going public is generally a process of creating wealth. The main way for those venture capitalists on Sand Hill Road to create profits is to support the startups they invest in to go public, so as to exit and cash out.

Their difficulty is to find a suitable startup and IPO at a suitable price.

A suitable startup mainly refers to not only being able to obtain a large number of users, but also having a very clear business model - that is, how to make money.

Of course, the operation of the IPO is also critical. Like Google, it has users and can make a lot of money, but because of the targeting of Wall Street and other institutions, if it were not for Feng Yiping's help, the IPO might have failed. At least, the issue price would definitely be the lowest price.

Facebook has more than 1 billion users and a very effective business model. With Feng Yiping leading the listing process, its IPO is definitely a process of wealth creation.

Therefore, the companies headed by Feng Yiping, including Facebook, have always been the fat meat that the American financial community and even the world financial community have been eyeing closely. However, so far, they can only watch and drool.

But for the United Fund, this is not a problem at all - as long as Feng Yiping agrees.

And if the United Fund can purchase Facebook's original shares, then the fund's return rate next year, no, the return rate in the future, will be very considerable.

"Do you mean that the United Fund purchases part of Facebook's shares?" Page asked.

"Yes," Feng Yiping led everyone back to the fireplace, "I have always had an idea, that is, how to make our three companies work together to a certain extent,"

Page and Brin are clear about this, because in recent years, Google and Feng Yiping's companies have been developing in collaboration.

"I always think that from the development of our three companies, the competition among us is not the most important problem. The competition among us will only make us grow rapidly and become better and stronger,"

"The main problem we will face in the future will be mainly policy-related,"

Jobs and Page all agree with this.

For Microsoft, is it the competitors that give it the most headache?

No, it is the regulators of various countries, especially Europe.

European regulators have repeatedly imposed heavy fines on Microsoft in the name of monopoly, and have been calling for Microsoft to be split up. The European Parliament has also passed proposals to split Microsoft many times.

Although such proposals are only symbolic and have no legal significance for American companies like Microsoft, the impact on Microsoft cannot be said to be not huge.

Under the influence of Europe, several states of the US government also submitted a plan to split Microsoft into two companies. The plan was once approved by the US court in 2001. Of course, Microsoft is not a pushover. It finally let the federal appeals court overturn the previous decision to split them into two.

——Speaking of which, this also involves Apple and Jobs.

When Jobs returned and Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy, why did Bill Gates agree to lend Apple $150 million?

Was it because of his friendship with Jobs? Was it a chivalrous rescue?

Wrong, he did that just to reverse the unfavorable situation that the court determined that Microsoft had formed a monopoly. Look, I support my mortal enemy so much, okay?

If I wanted to monopolize, would I still help it? ...

Although Microsoft finally withstood the fate of being split, the shadow of being split has been there all these years.

At the same time, related fines are endless. In 2004, the European Commission sentenced Microsoft to a fine of 497 million euros on the grounds of "substantial monopoly", but this is not over yet. In 2006, the European Union believed that Microsoft did not comply with the agreement, so it fined 280.5 million euros. Microsoft was angry, I was not convinced, I wanted to appeal, but the matter became more and more serious. Not only did I lose the case, but the next ticket came again.

In 2007, the EU believed that Microsoft was still charging developers unreasonable licensing fees for compatibility, so they threw a fine of 899 million euros to Microsoft...

This set a record for a single fine at the time.

But this is still not the end. Now, the EU is investigating Microsoft again, on the grounds that it "failed to comply with the European Commission's regulations that users must be allowed to more easily choose commonly used web browsers..."

Next, Microsoft seems to be inevitably bleeding again.

Of course, Microsoft is now much more relaxed, because finally someone is ahead of it.

At present, Apple is ranked second in the world with a market value of nearly 300 billion US dollars, second only to ExxonMobil, and Google, with a market value of nearly 200 billion US dollars, is also very close to Microsoft, so the EU will naturally not let them go.

The investigation into Apple is reportedly still ongoing, or in other words, they are preparing a big move to tear off a big piece of meat from Apple - everyone in Apple is a little worried about this.

The action against Google has already begun. At the beginning of last year, after successfully fining Intel 1.06 billion euros in 2009, the EU's antitrust agency announced that it had received complaints from several companies about Google's monopoly. By the end of last year, the European Commission officially launched an antitrust investigation against Google.

So Page and his team now have another job - lobbying the EU and the US Department of Justice for a settlement.

"It is also in view of this situation that I have to temporarily put aside some of my original ideas," Feng Yiping said with a smile, "I really considered letting Google and Facebook merge in various ways in the end."

Jobs was really shocked this time. You actually thought about this?

He looked at Page and Brin again. This time, he did not see the surprised expression on their faces. Obviously, the two knew about this idea.

Page and his team certainly knew about it. They had discussed many times what kind of way to merge the two companies.

The reason why it has been discussed many times is that in addition to technical means, how to value Facebook is also a big problem.

The current valuation of Facebook by all walks of life is more than 100 billion US dollars. If the two companies merge, it certainly cannot be just 100 billion US dollars. It must be a premium, that is, Feng Yiping must not suffer a loss. It is precisely based on his understanding of them and his determination that they will definitely do so that Feng Yiping made such a proposal.

But recently, they all gave up this idea. In the United States, they are confident that they can pass such a merger and acquisition, but in Europe, as Facebook's ability to attract money in the field of online advertising becomes stronger and stronger, it has become another pole in this field besides Google. It is impossible for the European Union to approve such a merger and acquisition!

Jobs couldn't help but pick up the water cup and take a big sip. How can you be so calm?

If such news spreads, it will shake the entire market!

"In the case that such cooperation had to be temporarily shelved, I have been thinking about how to reduce internal friction among the three of us, so that we can have more energy and resources to deal with those more troublesome problems,"

"We all know that in the future, we will definitely compete in more fields. As mentioned earlier, such competition is of course beneficial, but some competition is unnecessary,"

"In short, the acquisition of some startups,"

This point hit everyone's heart again.

Silicon Valley is not like the BAT in China later. In some emerging fields, such as food delivery and taxis, each invested in a company and burned money crazily, but they often bid for some promising startups.

"... We must also consider that sooner or later, we will always let go of our own company," he smiled and looked at everyone, "I don't think our successors can have such friendship and tacit understanding as us,"

"So, you not only want the United Fund to hold shares in Facebook, but also hope that it can hold shares in Apple and Google?" Page asked.

"Yes, I think this is a very good platform, what do you think?" Feng Yiping looked at them with a smile.

ps: Oh, I need to ask for a vote, dear, don’t forget to vote if you have one!