Chapter 310: The $600 Million Murder Case and Project Reserves Caused by Three PPTs
"Mr. Li, do you plan to set up an investment company here?" Dr. Mao Siming asked while driving.
"Well, I initially had this idea. I feel that the current Bay Area is really a good place to start a business and invest. After a quick walk, it seems that there are good projects everywhere!" Li Xiaofan said with emotion.
"Indeed, I have also felt that the current Bay Area seems to be full of entrepreneurial passion. Recently, when I was gathering with some alumni and friends from the mainland, everyone was talking enthusiastically about entrepreneurship and the Internet..." Dr. Mao Siming laughed. road.
"Dr. Mao, do you know a person named Zhu Min here in the Bay Area? He is also a fellow from Mingzhou. He should have graduated from Stanford University and started his own business here in the Bay Area."
"Yeah, I know. I met this Zhu Min at the last party. He seems to be working on a multi-point data collaborative processing software project called Future Labs..."
The Zhu Min that Li Xiaofan and Dr. Mao were talking about was the well-known founder of Cybernaut Investment. Zhu Min, who once joined a military team and went to the countryside, went to study at Stanford University when he was 36 years old. Now in his forties, he is starting to start the Future Labs project. After the Future Labs project was sold for more than 10 million US dollars, he founded the WebEx project It was later acquired by CISCO for a cash premium of US$3.2 billion and became famous in one fell swoop.
After Zhu Min received this huge amount of cash, he founded Cybernaut Investment Group. His identity also changed from a farmer, construction worker, township entrepreneur, college student, international student, entrepreneur, to a successful investor...
At the moment, Li Xiaofan is thinking that the success of Zhu Min, Yang Zhiyuan, Huang Renxun and others is inseparable from one school: Stanford University. I feel that Stanford University is simply the natural cradle and best incubator for high-tech companies in Silicon Valley. A number of world-class IT giants such as HP, Cisco, Sun Microsystems, Yahoo, Google, Intel, MIPS, SGI, NVIDIA, Microsoft, eBay, and Tesla were all founded by Stanford University professors or their alumni.
Therefore, Li Xiaofan feels that it is best for his new projects or companies to be centered around these well-known universities in the future, and to build his company next to these universities.
Fortunately, my current company office in Singapore is located in the Singapore Science and Technology Park, taking advantage of the resources of the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
If there is a suitable candidate, Li Xiaofan is thinking that he can come to the Bay Area to set up an American Yifan Investment Company. There are too many good projects in the Bay Area today that are worth exploring and investing in...
"Mr. Li, we're here, let's get off the car!" When Li Xiaofan was thinking a lot, Dr. Mao reminded him that he had gone to this "Bandit Hunan Cuisine" Chinese restaurant.
This "Bandit Hunan Cuisine" Chinese restaurant is well-known in the local area. Hunan cuisine emphasizes oil and color, and the taste is spicy, sour, fresh, and tender. Hunan cuisine is particularly spicy. Due to its geographical location, Hunan has a mild and humid climate, so people like to eat chili peppers to refresh themselves and remove moisture. At the same time, stir-fry is also a specialty of Hunanese cooking.
The two ordered several special dishes such as fish head with chopped pepper, fried pork with pepper, Xiangxi grandma's dish, Chenzhou fish meal, Ningyuan stuffed tofu, etc., and ordered a bottle of Beidahuang white wine.
Dr. Mao Siming's hometown is in Heilongjiang, and he likes to drink Beidahuang Baijiu from his hometown. Li Xiaofan found that sometimes in the Bay Area, it feels like he has never gone abroad. As long as you have money, you can buy many domestic things here.
After finishing half a bottle of white wine, Li Xiaofan toasted Dr. Mao Siming and asked, "Dr. Mao, do you have any idea of returning to China to start a business and develop the hard drive industry in China?"
In his previous life, when Li Xiaofan was drinking with Dr. Mao Siming, Dr. Mao often lamented that domestic industries such as hard drives and chips were too backward and relied on imports and "borrowingism"...
After Dr. Mao drank a glass of wine, he loudly said: "Of course there is! But in China, I estimate that the industrial foundation for the development of hard disks is relatively poor at the moment, and the hard disk industry not only requires a lot of investment, but also involves chips, magnetic heads, and precision electromechanical integration. Chemical control and other core technologies are not that simple!”
"Dr. Mao, could you please give me a brief introduction to the latest hard drive technology today?" Li Xiaofan asked.
"no problem……"
Speaking of the hard drive industry, which he is best at, Dr. Mao talked eloquently:
The world's first hard drive was invented and produced by IBM in 1956. Although the capacity was only 5MB, its size was outrageous and it weighed several tons.
Later, the company used the latest MR magnetoresistive head technology to increase the capacity of the 3.5-inch disk to 1GB. Subsequently, IBM's 1R giant magnetoresistive head technology last year increased the disk density by 17 times on the original basis. The size of a single hard disk was greatly reduced, and the hard disk capacity was further expanded.
At present, the Seagate head technology R&D team led by Dr. Mao Siming is developing the latest GMR giant magnetoresistive technology head hard drive, striving to overtake IBM in GMR giant magnetoresistive head technology.
In the previous life, it was the Seagate team led by Dr. Mao Siming that surpassed IBM in the latest GMR giant magnetoresistive and TMR magnetic tunnel resistance magnetic head technologies, making Seagate the leader of the global hard disk industry.
Dr. Mao said that from a physical perspective, a hard drive is mainly composed of important components such as hard drive platters, magnetic heads, transmission components, spindles, underlying PCB circuit boards, and interfaces.
Most of the components in the hard disk products of companies such as Seagate or IBM are not produced by the hard disk manufacturers themselves, but are outsourced, but the core key component "hard disk head" in the hard disk must be developed and produced by themselves...
"Dr. Mao, I roughly understand. That means that if there is enough capital investment and a team like yours, we can also develop and produce the latest GMR giant magnetoresistance technology hard disk in China, right?"
Dr. Mao Siming replied: "It should be possible in theory, but if you really do this, it may involve some intellectual property rights and supply chains. The process of producing GMR giant magnetoresistance technology heads is, to some extent, like producing high-precision chips, and the requirements for equipment are very high..."
Li Xiaofan feels that Dr. Mao is very cautious about intellectual property protection at the moment.
In his previous life, Dr. Mao told Li Xiaofan when he was drinking with him that the intellectual property infringement lawsuit with a target of US$600 million that he caused when he jumped from Seagate to Western Digital involved eight trade secrets:
The first item: TMR read/write heads add tantalum metal layers. Later, this item has been confirmed to be an existing technology in the industry.
Item 2: The magnesium/magnesium oxide protective layer of the TMR read/write head is plated with a 2.5 angstrom magnesium metal. This item was later confirmed to be the existing technology in the industry.
Item 3: The TMR read/write head is plated with magnesium, magnesium oxide and another layer of magnesium in sequence. This item was later confirmed to be the existing technology in the industry.
Item 4: A slide about the six clean surfaces. Controversial.
Item 5: A slide about the fishbone diagram of the design method used internally by Seagate. Controversial.
Item 6: A slide about the design rules of Seagate permanent magnets. Controversial.
Item 7: The use of small and negative free layer magnetic resistance values in Seagate design rules. This item was later confirmed to be the existing technology in the industry.
Item 8: The use of synthetic anti-magnetic field when the read/write head is fixed. This item was later confirmed to be the existing technology in the industry.
That is to say, in the lawsuit filed by Seagate, the most core items 1, 2, 3, 7, and 8 were all later confirmed to be the existing technology in the industry, and the controversial items 4, 5, and 6 were the ones that ultimately led to the failure of Western Digital's lawsuit.
In addition to serving as Vice President of R&D at Western Digital, Dr. Mao Siming was also a senior member of the IEEE International Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a reviewer of IEEE Applied Physics, Applied Physics Information, and Magnetism, and a member of the IEEE Technical Committee.
As an authority in the field of magnetism, he was often invited to attend some professional academic conferences and give some professional speeches.
It was precisely because he accidentally used some seemingly insignificant content from his old employer Seagate in the PPT slides he used during his speech that Seagate seized the handle and kept it as evidence, which eventually led to the failure of the entire $600 million intellectual property lawsuit.
It can be said that details determine success or failure, and it is better to be safe than sorry!
In his previous life, when talking about this lawsuit that was inexplicably found to be infringing, Dr. Mao Siming was often indignant.
"Dr. Mao, have you ever estimated how much investment would be required to independently develop and produce GMR giant magnetoresistance technology heads or produce the entire hard disk in Singapore?"
"I haven't really estimated this. Why, Mr. Li, from what you said, are you interested in investing in the hard disk industry?" Mao Siming asked back.
"I have this idea, and I want to get a preliminary understanding of it. At the beginning of next year, some of the high-tech projects I invested in may be listed on the Nasdaq market, and I will have more money on hand at that time. So, I am also looking for some good projects as my reserve pool of investment projects..."
"Oh, I see. Mr. Li, if you really have this idea, I will find out the investment data when I have time, and we can talk next time."
"Great, Dr. Mao, come on, cheers!"