Top of the Great Era

Chapter 1563 LinkedIn
The right to adapt the two novels "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" to TV series is in the hands of MGM, so if Ziwei Star Universal wants to adapt it into a TV series, theoretically, it does not need to seek permission from anyone or any organization.

However, the protection of intellectual property rights in the United States is too strict, and we must be cautious in this regard.

For example, the movie "Lord of the Rings" trilogy whose copyright is in the hands of Warner.

The actor image, prop design, scene design, line design, etc. in the movie are all copyrighted.If similar images and designs appear elsewhere, it is copyright infringement.Even if Ziwei Star Global is original, if there is even the slightest similarity, there may be a lawsuit.

This kind of thing is really too much in Hollywood.

Almost every time an original Hollywood commercial blockbuster is released, someone will touch porcelain last time.For example, the 3D blockbuster "Avatar" that shocked the world just released was touched by a small 20th-tier producer in Hollywood, saying that he once spent [-] US dollars to make a movie that was similar to "Avatar" The story ideas are very similar.

James Cameron this is plagiarism!

In order not to affect the film's release and public opinion, Fox had no choice but to admit it and pay a protection fee to settle the matter.

If Ziwei Star Global wants to prevent problems before they happen, it is best to get Warner in advance and get their authorization.

Both HBO and Warner are subsidiaries of Time Warner, and the current chairman and CEO of Time Warner, Jeffrey Bakers, was the chairman and CEO of HBO a few years ago.Because he led HBO to complete the strategic transformation, and the strategy of self-made boutique dramas was a great success, so he was promoted.

With this relationship, things are easy to handle.

The negotiation went smoothly. At 11 o'clock in the morning, the two parties initially signed the agreement, and determined the final plan around the cooperation of Ziweixing Global Investment "Game of Thrones".

Zhou Buqi got on the plane in the afternoon and flew to Silicon Valley to reunite with his family.

It will be New Year's Day soon.

It's meaningless to spend Christmas, but it's still necessary to spend New Year's Day together.

Soon, the time came to 2010.

On January 1, Ziwei Star Global and HBO signed a formal investment agreement.In the American TV series "Game of Thrones", Ziwei Star Global's investment share is 8%, and it will get all streaming media copyrights and a 40% share of DVD disc sales profits.

At the same time, Warner also wrote back, expressing their willingness to authorize the copyright of the actor roles, image design, prop design, and background design of the "Lord of the Rings" movie trilogy to Ziweixing Universal for a price of 3000 million US dollars.

This price is really expensive.

Send someone over to talk.

After three rounds of negotiations, the price was finally reduced to $1200 million.

Zhou Buqi has not been involved in these matters, and his energy is mainly in Silicon Valley, focusing on the field of investment, mainly in two aspects.

On the one hand, it is the cloud computing business. Kurian is now quite familiar with Ziwei Cloud, coupled with the dominance of the global business, his fighting spirit was high for a while, and then he started to play his inherent routine - mergers and acquisitions.

This guy is a super expert in mergers and acquisitions.

When he was at Oracle, he acquired an average of 7.6 companies per year, all of which were small and medium-sized companies or start-up companies that were not too expensive.

This is a very crude concept, which is typical of "Ellison management style".

Found a good item, buy it!

If you do well, you can merge with your own products and use them for your own use, forming a Matthew effect where the strong get stronger.

Another advantage is that start-up companies are generally full of outstanding talents. Buying a start-up company is equivalent to buying these talents.

Kurian has already started to get started, and will spend 840 million US dollars to buy a commercial social media analysis company, mainly for data analysis and data processing, which will be incorporated into Ziweiyun's system.

The application report had written a full 7 pages, and Zhou Buqi was dizzy after reading it, and there was no reason to refuse it.

This kind of professional business handling has become farther and farther away from him.

He's still better at making simple business investments.

This time, what he wants to participate in is one of the most popular investment projects in Silicon Valley-LinkedIn!
Why do you say the most popular?

Because LinkedIn has publicly stated its position, saying that this is the E round of financing, which is the last round of financing before listing.Moreover, in order to attract more investment institutions to actively participate, LinkedIn actively proposed a VAM.

The board of directors promised that LinkedIn will complete its IPO by 2012.If it fails to go public on time, the investors in this round will be compensated to a certain extent.

In short, all major institutions are actively entering the market.

vigorous.

LinkedIn is a business social networking platform, the main direction is workplace recruitment, and it is currently the most popular recruitment website in the world. It is said that the current valuation has been fired to 15 billion US dollars.

LinkedIn said they are willing to dilute their stake by up to 3% to 4%.

Even if the competition is fierce, with Zhou Buqi's current contacts and status, he can easily get more investment shares.He and Reed Hoffman, the founder and chairman of LinkedIn, are old acquaintances.They are all early investors in Facebook and have had contacts very early.

Later, Musk encountered a career crisis, and Reid Hoffman also sent an email to Zhou Buqi, saying that he hoped that he would investigate and invest if he was interested.

Because when he was at PayPal, Musk was the CEO and Reed Hoffman was the senior vice president, both of whom were key members of the "PayPal Gang".

On this day, Zhou Buqi participated in LinkedIn's investment intention meeting, with as many as a dozen participants.The content of the meeting is that LinkedIn's board of directors will further disclose some data for investors' reference.

Zhou Buqi also got the materials and didn't even bother to read them at a glance.

In contrast, others are much more serious.

Reid Hoffman seemed to see his boredom, so he invited him to his office, and asked with a smile: "Zhou, why don't you read the materials? These are some very important company data, which cannot be seen outside .”

Zhou Buqi said indifferently: "My investment philosophy focuses on ideals and pursuits, rather than data and profits."

Hoffman especially empathized, "Zhou, we are in the same boat."

"is it?"

Zhou Buqi was a little funny, thinking that I just said it casually, do you take it seriously?
Hoffman said: "When I just graduated from college, I wanted to be a professor in school, or a public intellectual, to explore some propositions in social philosophy."

"Oh? Then why did you come out to start a company?"

"Maybe it's vanity."

"vanity?"

"Yes, vanity." Hoffman nodded, he is a big fat man, like obesity, "I found that as a professor or scholar, my research results can only have an impact in a small circle. I think This kind of life value is too small, I want to have a wider social influence. Then I came out to work, and the first company was Apple."

Zhou Buqi didn't know whether what he said was true or not, but he was never afraid of such a big topic, saying: "My ambition since I was a child was to be a doctor, to cure diseases and save lives. But as I grew older, I found that when I was The lives that doctors can save are too limited. From a social point of view, the length of life expectancy has little to do with the level of medical science, the most important thing is economic strength. Creating more social value is the most beneficial to ordinary people life and health."

"So you chose to start a business?"

"Correct."

"Very respectable."

"Each each other."

Zhou Buqi laughed haha.

Hoffman said: "By the way, Zhou, I invited you over because a friend wants to see you."

"Who?"

"Joe Lacob, he was an early venture capitalist at LinkedIn. He was at the meeting just now, sitting in the back row on the right."

"Did not notice."

Zhou Buqi is relatively flat.

Sitting in the last row, it seems that the strength is mediocre. In all likelihood, he is not qualified to participate in this E-round financing, so he just came to accompany him.Moreover, he has never heard of the name Joe Lacob, so he is not a big shot at first glance.

Hoffman tentatively suggested, "How about I let him come over and talk to you?"

Zhou Buqi didn't have this interest, "What's the matter?"

Hoffman said: "It seems to be about sports."

"Sports?" Zhou Buqi became more interested for a while, thinking that he wanted to invest in Ziweixing Digital Media, "Okay, let him come over."

Hoffman sent the secretary out, and within three minutes, a guy with the same build and appearance as Masayoshi Son came to the office.

Out of politeness, Zhou Buqi stood up to shake hands with him, and said with a smile, "Hi, I'm Zhou Buqi, you can call me 'Butch', or you can just call me 'Zhou'."

Zhoubuqi has an English name, which is the homonym of "Buqi" for "Buqi".

The other party was even more polite, shaking hands with him enthusiastically, and a string of compliments poured out.

Zhou Buqi beckoned and motioned him to sit down, "Reid said, you want to talk to me about some sports?"

Joe Raco said: "Yes, I am a sports fan, and my favorite football team is Manchester United. Manchester United's performance this season is awesome, thanks to your superb management art."

Zhou Buqi sighed, "It's far away. I want to use Silicon Valley's technological model to build Manchester United and use technology to make football more professional. But the reform of European football...it's not easy."

Joe Laco preached: "Yes, I have also heard that European football has always been very repulsive towards technology. For those of us in Silicon Valley, seeing them still use the old-fashioned The way behind, really anxious."

Zhou Buqi nodded, not knowing what this person wanted to do.

Joe Lacob hesitated and asked, "Mr. Zhou, besides football, do you like other sports?"

"I like it, a lot."

"What about basketball?"

"Uh..." Zhou Buqi looked at him strangely, "NBA? I used to watch Rockets games when I was in high school."

Joe Laco preached: "Now, the basketball team in San Francisco is about to be sold. I intend to take over and then follow the technological process of Silicon Valley to carry out a comprehensive transformation of this bottom basketball team. However, my personal funds may not be enough. , I hope to find a partner who can buy this team with me."

(End of this chapter)