America’s Road To Fame

Chapter 61: Can we talk about it alone?

After talking with the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and seeing his future mentor, after the two sides had a preliminary understanding, Chen William left here.

All the other admission procedures were handed over to Erica. Now he has more important things to do, and that is to go to Netflix to meet Reed Hastings.

After leaving NYU, William Chen went directly to the office of Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix.

Netflix is ​​headquartered in Los Gatos, California. William Chen took the bodyguards directly to the airport, and the Nielsen team had already arrived there ahead of schedule, waiting to meet with William Chen.

Before coming, William Chen had read the information on Reed Hastings compiled by Nielsen. Through his past, William Chen had a general understanding of the character of the other party.

Reed Hastings is known as "The Beast", which can also be seen. He is blunt and rebellious, has a strong opinion, dares to take risks and is easy to persevere.

In fact, from this period of time, from Chen William's experience, he also deeply felt the different styles of investment in the United States and the previous Huaguo.

The managers of enterprises in China place more importance on being a person. When choosing a partner, they will first consider whether you will be a person. Therefore, you can see many business leaders, and many of their evaluations are due to loyalty. , will be human.

In the United States, those geniuses are more respected, and they are more tolerant of their personalities. Simply put, they value interests more. As long as you can bring them benefits, even if your character is easy to offend others, it will not have much impact on cooperation.

Therefore, in the United States, people with great personalities like Zuckerberg and Musk are more likely to be successful.

Therefore, William Chen is constantly adjusting his investment methods. Often, if you act cautiously and deliberately, then it will be easier for the other party to feel that you are a threat and suspect that your investment purpose is to swallow them; It is easier to gain the trust of the other party.

Therefore, when William Chen saw Reed Hastings, he directly told him the purpose of his visit.

"Mr. Astins, I am very optimistic about the development of online video, and very much recognize Netflix's development strategy and your leadership of Netflix. I hope to be able to invest in Netflix to get returns and corresponding influence, which is That's why I'm here today."

"I learned that Netflix has a plan to produce its own content, which I support very much. This is definitely a good move. If I can invest in Netflix, I need a seat on the board with the corresponding seat to ensure that I have a good deal with Netflix. The right to know about Fei’s operations.”

"I really appreciate Mr. Astins' business strategy for Netflix, so in order to show my support for you, I can commit to the shares I hold. At the strategic and business level, as long as it is your proposal, I will only There will be a yes or no abstention, never a no vote, that can be written in the contract. I hope this will be the beginning of our mutual trust.”

William Chen's remarks made Reed Hastings very satisfied. Such remarks won his trust and convinced him that William Chen was indeed in the management of Netflix and had no other ambitions.

The introduction of William Chen's investment also helped him to control the power of the company. Therefore, Reed Hastings immediately turned to support William Chen's investment.

After this meeting, the previously interrupted investment negotiations between Nielsen and Netflix continued immediately.

Because of the way of investing in shares before, there is a result that both parties can accept. So the agreement was quickly reached.

After Alicia confirmed the contract, William Chen and Netflix signed and confirmed the contract.

According to the contract, Meta Investment Company will purchase 5.415 million additional shares from Netflix with US$200 million, accounting for 8% of the total share capital after the additional issuance.

After the contract was signed, Reed Hastings came over to shake hands with William Chen and said to him: "William, in order to celebrate the success of our cooperation this time, I will hold a reception at home tonight, I hope you can come over. , let me introduce you to some friends.

For this invitation, Chen William could not ask for it, so he naturally agreed. This time, he was able to complete the shareholding in Netflix, and he and the management headed by Reed Hastings were able to have initial trust. William Chen is still very satisfied.

8% of the stock is not much, but with this contact, when William Chen increases his shares later, there will not be much resistance.

Some people may say that William Chen can buy Netflix shares in the stock market without giving up part of his voting rights to get Reed Hastings to agree to his shareholding.

Yes, if William Chen just wants to buy a small part of the stock, it is okay to do so. But his expectation is to hold more than 20% of Netflix's shares, so that he can have a relatively large influence in the company. In that case, it is necessary to communicate with the management and obtain the consent of the other party.

You must know that on the one hand, the proportion of stocks circulating in the stock market is not high, and continuous acquisitions will push up the price. Moreover, according to the regulations of the United States, if you purchase shares of related companies in the secondary market, if the proportion exceeds 5%, you must put up a sign to announce your purpose.

Once this happens, the management of the relevant company will definitely be full of vigilance against you. If you don’t want you to continue to acquire, there are many ways to make you fall back. Especially for a strong manager like Reed Hastings, there will be no tolerance for uncontrolled increases in Netflix stock.

This kind of thing has not happened before. Carl Icahn, the famous "barbarian outside the door" in the United States, known as "Wolf King" and "Vulture", once suffered a failure in Netflix.

That time he suddenly announced that he owns 10% of Netflix's stock, which caused Reed Hastings to be furious. After all, after Carl Icahn bought the company, he did not know about the profit of spin-off and sale. How many times I did it, the reputation is really not very good.

Therefore, the management headed by Reed Hastings immediately announced that when an individual institution holds more than 10% of the shares and an institution holds more than 20% of the shares, the "poison pill" plan will be launched, and the "poison pill" plan will be launched, which will affect all parties except the other party. Shareholders issue additional shares at low prices.

Seeing that the other party's attitude was so resolute, Carl Icahn finally had to give up the action of continuing to increase his holdings of Netflix stocks, and finally had to withdraw and emptied all the stocks. Although he actually made a lot of money, his plans to take control of Netflix went bankrupt.

As a lesson from the past, William Chen did not necessarily want to seize control of the company and change the management, so there is no need to conflict with Reed Hastings at all. After all, he will invest in more companies in the future. It is impossible for him to manage all the companies himself, and hand them over to the most suitable people to make money for himself and increase his influence. This is his main purpose. .

And this time, he started to cooperate with Reed Hastings. After the two have more trust, as long as the other party understands that William Chen will support him in managing the company, they will also be more willing to support William Chen to get more Netflix stock. Since cooperation can bring more benefits, why is it necessary to shout and kill?

……

"Ms. Alicia, you don't seem to be doing well, do you need to find a place for you to rest first?" When leaving the Netflix headquarters, William Chen glanced at Alicia who was walking beside him and said.

"I'm fine, William, thank you for your concern."

Alicia came from New York after persuading Reed Hastings on William Chen's side to negotiate an investment contract. Chen William saw that her state was a little different than before, giving people a sense of fatigue, that's why she asked this question.

"That's good, you still have to pay more attention to your body." Hearing her answer, Chen William nodded and said, "If you're not feeling well, you can rest in your room at the evening reception. There may be other things to do these two days. busy."

Now that he has come to Silicon Valley and has completed his investment in Netflix, William Chen is also planning to go directly to Tesla in the future to meet with Musk. If things go well, an agreement may be reached soon.

"William, can I talk to you alone?"

When the group arrived at the hotel, Alicia walked up to William Chen and suddenly said to him.

When William Chen heard this, he glanced at her and said, "Go to my room and talk."

The two went up to the presidential suite together~www.wuxiaspot.com~ William Chen brought Alicia to the study. He walked to the window, opened the curtains, turned to Alicia and said, "Ms. Alicia, what's the matter? You can talk about it."

Alicia is wearing a burgundy low-cut dress, and her career line is very prominent at this time. She flipped her hair and said to William Chen, "William, I hope to get your legal and tax business here."

William Chen looked at her, walked to the sofa and sat down, and said strangely, "Isn't my current business handed over to your firm?"

"I mean I hope it can be handed over to me, not that firm. Because, I'm ready to leave that law firm."

"Alicia, are you going to change jobs, or..."

"I want to open a law firm by myself, so I beg you, William, to entrust me with your business here." Alicia sat next to William Chen, looked at him sideways, and said.

"Do you know why I gave you the business in the first place? Alicia." William Chen was silent for a while, then suddenly asked.

"Because of Pete?" Alicia's face changed slightly, and she asked with a bit of tentativeness. Seeing William Chen nodded, she took a deep breath: "Many people say that, but William, after working together for so long, you should have an understanding of my abilities."

"ability?"

William Chen turned his head and glanced at Alicia, and found that due to the height difference between the two, he could see some special scenery from this angle, but at this time he didn't have the heart to pay attention to these, Chen William looked at Alicia's eyes, said:

"But compared to ability, I care more about trust, Alicia. I don't want the confidential data of my own companies to be leaked one day."

Tap the screen to use advanced tools Tip: You can use left and right keyboard keys to browse between chapters.

You'll Also Like