I am Hollywood

[Chapter 1107: Reverse Push]

"Right now, a lot of people on Wall Street are gnashing their teeth at us. Within a week, Yahoo's stock price jumped 17%, causing the major short-selling funds to lose over $3.1 billion. Many highly leveraged shorts were directly liquidated; it's a disaster zone out there."

In a small conference room at Firefly Studios, Chris, connected via video conference from New York, spoke up.

Eric lounged in his leather chair, waiting for his secretary to bring coffee for himself and Jeffrey Katzenberg before turning his attention to the multiple screens in the room. The conference room was linked to Yahoo's headquarters in Boston, ABC's headquarters in New York, and Chris's office.

"But I'm sure there are people extremely grateful for us. $3.1 billion is not a small amount," Eric raised his coffee cup, noticing Emily's silhouette appear behind Chris. He smiled and greeted her, "Hey, Emily, it's Saturday. Aren't you home watching the kids?"

Emily reached for a folder from Chris's desk, threw a playful eye roll at the camera, and said, "Vicky and Joan already found out that you secretly had Edward sign that girl. You might want to think about how to explain it to them. Vicky mentioned she's set up the couch for you; you can sleep on it when you come over for Easter."

Eric immediately raised his hand in surrender, "Stop, Emily, I'm the boss here; cut me some slack."

The room erupted in laughter as Emily continued to ignore him, clutching the folder and disappearing from the frame.

Once his wife left, Chris revealed a rare hint of curiosity, lowering his voice to ask, "By the way, Eric, what's going on between you and that girl?"

"About that," Eric shrugged, "Do you honestly think that lowering your voice will keep everyone from hearing?"

Another round of laughter echoed.

After some jokes, Eric clapped his hands and said, "Alright, let's get down to business. First, regarding the acquisition proposals submitted by Yahoo."

As he flipped open a file in front of him, his expression turned serious. "I remember saying before the IPO that the bubble in the Nasdaq market is bound to burst. Once that happens, the entire tech sector could fall into a funding winter. Although we raised over $5 billion through the IPO, that amount is essentially just Yahoo's 'winter provisions,' so I expect every penny to be well spent.

Now, let's look at your proposed acquisitions. For example, this one -- a software solution aimed at speeding up browser page loading. That's a great product. But $20 million? Are you kidding me? Pull ten engineers from our team and give them a month. I don't believe they couldn't whip that up. Ten people, a month; can someone tell me how much that would actually cost?"

In the conference room of Yahoo's headquarters in Boston, Ian Gurney hadn't expected Eric, who had just been joking with Emily, to suddenly show signs of fury. He quickly explained, "Eric, it also involves patent issues."

"Then find a way around it, or seek alternatives. If you can't, why should I keep you on?" Eric shot back dismissively, tossing the file away. "In any case, I won't approve any of the proposals you submitted. I know the whole industry is anxious and eager to burn cash. You all think that since the company went public, we have to adhere to the rules of public companies -- burning cash, making acquisitions, and expanding aggressively, or we risk criticism from the market and pressure from investors. But you're wrong. I'll tell you, Yahoo only needs to proceed steadily along the established path. We don't need to be accountable to stock prices or Wall Street. If anyone needs to be accountable, it's just to me."

As the sound of papers fluttered from the speaker after the file flew out, Ian Gurney awkwardly nodded. Steve Mitnick, who had been casually tapping on his laptop, straightened, while Tina Brown slightly bowed her head, gently pinching the corner of the document in front of her, seemingly trying to flatten it.

Everyone in the meeting was seasoned; they had all encountered their boss blowing up at some point. Among them, Eric was definitely one of the milder bosses. But at that moment, as Eric erupted, everyone sensed how genuinely angry he was, so no one dared to make a cheeky remark.

Eric sipped his coffee, calming himself before continuing, "The pace of Yahoo's expansion in recent years has indeed been quite large, with 6,000 employees, surpassing every other pure internet company. Also, after the IPO, many became millionaires or billionaires and might start feeling complacent, thinking they could enjoy life now. Or they may feel that holding a few million in stock doesn't match their current positions. I understand all that, but I won't tolerate it. So, I need you to prepare in advance; after the tech stock bubble bursts, Yahoo will have to undergo layoffs, eliminating those who wish to enjoy life. Yahoo still has a long way to go, and we can't afford complacency in our ranks. Of course, they've contributed before, so when the time comes, the company will buy back their shares, allowing them to enjoy life or start anew."

Having said this, Eric took the reorganized file handed to him by the secretary without waiting for Ian Gurney and the others to respond and added, "Okay, let's move on to the next topic: the merger between America Online and Time Warner. The situation has become quite delicate; I'm sure you've all read that article in The Washington Post. This week, all stocks within the Firefly system went up, but America Online's stock actually rose even higher than Yahoo's. Clearly, many are optimistic about the merger, believing that if these two companies unite, Firefly will face a formidable competitor, which is beneficial for us.

But at the same time, we must change our established strategy. At least publicly, we need to firmly oppose the merger between America Online and Time Warner. The more vehemently we oppose it, the less resistance they'll face in the merger. So, what should we do specifically?"

With the release of the Forbes Billionaires List this year, Eric's personal fortune, exceeding $300 billion, finally unleashed pent-up emotions in North America that had been brewing for years due to his skyrocketing wealth.

While capital pursued profit driven by Eric's impressive investment vision, nearly all stocks related to the Firefly system skyrocketed, but calls to limit its continuous expansion grew louder.

Of course, in a mature capitalistic society, no matter how vast Eric's personal fortune was, the federal government would not dare to ruthlessly strip him of his private property; that would touch on fundamental systemic concerns. However, given the current state of affairs, it's not hard to foresee that Firefly's every step of expansion would face rigorous scrutiny and restrictions -- not out of the federal government's wariness over overwhelming private wealth, but due to other capitalist forces in society instinctively striking back to protect their interests.

In the short term, establishing a powerful competitor for the Firefly system, like America Online-Time Warner, was something many would welcome.

To be fair, Eric hoped for such an opponent, one he could foresee and control to some extent.

As for longer-term expansion of the Firefly system, Eric would need to either eliminate the competition or bring them into the fold.

In addition to discussing Yahoo's business strategy and how to reverse-engineer the merger between America Online and Time Warner, there were discussions about Eric's personal asset control issues and a variety of other matters, making the meeting last all morning. By the time it ended, it was already afternoon on the East Coast.

...

Stepping out of the conference room, Marissa Mayer handed over a phone, indicating that Paul Roland was on the line.

Eric and Katzenberg walked towards the dock to have lunch together, and after exchanging a few words on the phone, he hung up.

Thinking back to Emily's earlier reminder, he realized he had quite a dilemma on his hands.

Initially, it was just a spur-of-the-moment decision to bring Carmen Kass on board; however, Eric overlooked the potential feelings of the women in his life. Virginia and Joanna had generally avoided his outside activities, but the last time Carmen attracted attention, it had genuinely scared the kids.

He was momentarily caught up in these thoughts before brushing them aside.

When trouble showed up, he would deal with it.

Moreover, with the recent outside pressures weighing on him, Eric felt considerable stress.

...

Arriving at the restaurant aboard the ship, after ordering lunch, Katzenberg brought up The Blair Witch Project.

"In its second week, it grossed $61.5 million. The cumulative box office for two weeks stands at $82.78 million, with production costs being a mere $60,000. In the coming weeks, the total box office might surpass $150 million. Everybody's saying this could be why you became the first billionaire to exceed $300 billion in personal wealth. There probably won't be another film that surpasses the investment return of The Blair Witch Project."

Eric took the bottled water handed to him by Amy Adams, smiled at her, then replied to Katzenberg, "That's not necessarily true. Hollywood is never short of miracles. Speaking of which, we can certainly give bonuses to those two young directors now, along with the marketing team from last time."

Katzenberg nodded, saying, "Actually, Kenneth asked me to check your thoughts on this. I believe $1 million each would suffice, since the box office success primarily stemmed from our marketing strategy."

"Let's give each of them $5 million. A million feels a bit too stingy," Eric shook his head and smiled. "If you're reluctant, I can just write them a personal check."

"Fine, $5 million it is. However, since we're not planning to greenlight a sequel to The Blair Witch Project in the short term, it's reasonable to have those two sign on for two more films. The Blair Witch Project has been a box office hit, and even if they make traditional films, they will likely attract more attention than new directors."

"That's between you and Kenneth; I don't have the energy for it right now."

"By the way," Katzenberg nodded and continued, "Are you going to the Oscars tomorrow?"

"Not interested; there aren't any good films up for Oscars this year."

"Actually, I meant to say," Katzenberg said, "About the promotional efforts for Iron Man. Eric, everyone's feeling a bit lost right now. Ordinarily, a big-budget film would have its stars start doing various TV appearances to promote it by now."

"I'm starting to regret it, thinking I shouldn't have taken on this role," Eric sighed. "After all the media frenzy lately, people are likely hostile towards me as a billionaire. I'm not sure anyone will still want to see a movie that I star in. I've even thought about whether we should adjust the Marvel Cinematic Universe plan and marginalize Iron Man."

"If necessary, we might indeed have to make that adjustment," Katzenberg expressed his agreement, not echoing the regret in Eric's tone.

After all, Iron Man was originally a secondary superhero within Marvel. His original success stemmed from fortunate timing, and now, with so many changes occurring, an adjustment was warranted.

Eric hesitated for a moment, then said, "Alright, what needs to be done always gets done. I'll go to the Oscars tomorrow, and let Buena Vista start the regular promotional activities; I'll cooperate as much as I can."

"Okay," Katzenberg replied. As Amy brought their lunch, the conversation paused momentarily. Then Katzenberg added, "Do you have plans for tonight? If you're free, I'm hosting a small party at my place?"

Eric shook his head with a smile, "I need to head to San Francisco this afternoon to discuss the stock incentive plan for Firefly Electronics, so I probably won't be back tonight."

*****

https://www.patreon.com/Sayonara816.