I’m in Hollywood

Unlike the end-of-year blockbuster news that focuses on the media and entertainment version, Yahoo's IPO is a whole-of-society-level news event.

While the Nasdaq topped 2,500 this week, the market capitalization of major technology companies also hit a new high.

According to Eric's closing data when he arrived in New York on Wednesday, Microsoft, the well-deserved king of the Nasdaq, has a market value of a staggering $335.9 billion. In addition, among other star technology stocks, Intel has a market value of $157.2 billion, Cisco has a market value of $133.5 billion, AOL has a market value of $66.7 billion, and Sun has a market value of $38.6 billion...

Among them, even Microsoft, the most profitable company, has a price-earnings ratio of more than 100 times the bubble level. Therefore, the Nasdaq market at this time can only be described by the word crazy.

Although only in the first three quarters, Yahoo has achieved $1.296 billion in revenue, more than double the $636 million in last year's full year, and the company's full-year revenue growth rate is still expected to be close to 200%. However, even if it is only calculated based on the issue price of a single share of $33, Yahoo's market value of $33.7 billion, combined with the earnings expectations given by Yahoo, will still bring a price-earnings ratio of about 200 times.

Under normal circumstances, unless you are extremely optimistic about a company's development potential, if the price-earnings ratio exceeds 30 times, it will be difficult for the company to attract investors.

It is conceivable that there are basically not many rational investors in the current Nasdaq market. Lured by huge short-term arbitrage profits, everyone is betting wildly, and then secretly praying that they will not be the last to take over before the collapse of the Nasdaq.

Yahoo is listed in this state of nervousness, and the timing is extremely sensitive. Although in the early stage of the IPO process, more than 15% of the issued shares were subscribed successfully, but no one, even Eric himself, is too sure whether the official listing and trading of Yahoo's stock will be the last thing that crushes the camel. a straw.

Therefore, everyone has the mentality of doing their best and preparing for the worst. Approaching the last day of listing, the entire Firefly system is still making final preparations for Yahoo's listing at full speed.

After a non-stop busy day, in the evening, Eric originally planned to invite the senior executives of the Firefly system who came to the Yahoo bell ringing ceremony to have dinner together. He received a call temporarily and had to rush to Nasda in Midtown. Gram Exchange.

Although there are still more than 12 hours before the listing and trading tomorrow, the outside of the Nasdaq exchange on 42nd Street in Midtown is already packed with reporters from all sides.

Just as Eric's car stopped outside the exchange building, a group of sharp-eyed reporters immediately surrounded him frantically, and countless hands holding cameras and recorders stretched towards him over the bodyguards protecting Eric, with a loud voice. The very large reporter tried his best to stretch the tape recorder forward, suppressing all the noisy voices around, and said loudly: Mr. Williams, we just got the news that the Yahoo team in the exchange seems to have an affair with the top management of the Nasdaq Group. Are you here to resolve the conflict?

Hearing the reporter's sudden question, other media people around were stunned for a while, and then gave up the question just now, and at the same time even more madly hoped that Eric could answer the question just now.

After struggling through the siege of the reporters and entering the building, Eric pulled off the suit that had been ripped off, looked around, turned his head worriedly and asked his bodyguard captain Carter Moen, Where's Mary?

Carter said: Miss Mayer is still in the car, the crowd is too chaotic, I just suggested that she rush over after you come in.

Eric nodded, waved to Steve Mitnick's assistant who was approaching him, and then quickened his pace and walked straight to the Nasdaq exchange hall.

Unlike traditional stock exchanges such as the New York Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange, Nasdaq is actually the abbreviation of the National Association of Securities Dealers Automatic Quotation System.

It belongs to the world's first electronic stock securities trading platform, and users basically conduct stock transactions by telephone and computer.

Therefore, the Nasdaq exchange in the building on 42nd Street is more like a symbol. The exchange does not have the complete software and hardware securities trading facilities like the New York Stock Exchange. There are multiple sets of real-time dissemination of transactions around the world. The news camera equipment and live broadcast facilities look more like a TV studio.

Unlike the New York Stock Exchange, which is a non-profit social public service organization, although it has long been able to compete with the New York Stock Exchange in terms of the size and trading volume of listed companies, in fact, Nasdaq is a generalization of the Starq Group. All, belonging to a for-profit private company.

Seeing Eric appearing, the two parties who were originally facing each other immediately came over together.

Nasdaq Group CEO Frank Szabo was very excited, waving his arms and taking the lead: Eric, it's hard for me to understand your thoughts, why do you need to temporarily perform technical overhaul and stress test on Nasdaq's trading system. , this is simply vexatious. I know you take Yahoo's listing very seriously, but the Nasdaq platform has been established for 27 years, and we have never delayed the listing of any company due to technical reasons. Your request is completely unnecessary. And, taking a step back, even if we do this, it should be done by our company's own technical team, and we can't open the server to outsiders for testing.

Eric listened to Frank Szabo's complaint, raised his wrist and looked at his watch, interrupting the other party: How long does it take for your technical team to overhaul and test?

Frank Sabo waved his arms for a while before saying, Eric, this is completely unnecessary.

I insist, Eric's voice became cold, his eyes fixed on Frank Szabo: Or, you continue to refuse, and then I cancel the listing tomorrow, there is a large group of reporters outside, and now you can hold a press conference to announce this News. So, how long does it take for your technical team to overhaul and test?

Eric insisted that the Nasdaq exchange to conduct maintenance tests on the system equipment, which was naturally not vexatious or unfounded.

In the past, Facebook encountered a sudden failure of the Nasdaq system equipment on the day of its listing, which eventually caused the billions of dollars worth of Facebook stock trading orders to be unable to be successfully completed, and even caused the stock price to fall on the day of Facebook’s listing to a large extent. The 'tragedy' of breaking the issue price, because of the unfavorable start, Facebook's stock price continued to slump in the following year. At the lowest point, the company's market value was only more than 30 billion US dollars, which was less than one-third of the market value on the day of listing.

Therefore, if Frank Szabo really insists on not compromising on this matter, Eric doesn't mind holding an impromptu press conference to urgently cancel Yahoo's listing operation tomorrow.

Eric's sudden burst of pressure softened Frank Saab's momentum. If Yahoo's listing operation is really temporarily cancelled, although Firefly may face unpredictable losses, he, the CEO of Nasdaq Group, is absolutely Going to be kicked out by the board.

Subconsciously swallowed, Frank Sabo finally didn't dare to spit out a hard word.

However, as the head of the group, he really doesn't know how long it will take for the overhaul and test of the Nasdaq trading system platform. After hesitating for a moment, he reported an inaccurate time: Probably, it will take five or six hours.

Since the market closed at four o'clock in the afternoon, you have been delayed for an hour and a half. Eric raised his hand and knocked on his watch and said, So, call your technical team immediately, Steve and the others must also Assist me and provide necessary supervision, whether it is six hours or twelve hours for me, in short, before the transaction tomorrow, do this for me, is there any problem?

Frank Sabo shook his head in a difficult tone: No, no problem.

That's it, let's start, Eric said, looked around, walked to a chair next to the camera and sat down, raised his arms and looked at everyone in the arena.

Frank Sabo didn't dare to make any more sloppy calls, he took out his mobile phone and started dialing on the spot.

Steve Mitnick waved the crowd away, walked over to Eric, pulled a chair and sat down, and said with a wry smile: I quarreled with the original person in charge here for an hour, and Frank Szabo came over. , after arguing for another half an hour, I can only call you here.

Eric shook his head and said it didn't matter, and said, I'll have dinner with Ian and John later, so you can only stay here.

It's nothing, Steve Mitnick laughed. I can't believe I'm a billionaire all of a sudden. My parents never liked me studying computers. I often worry that I will end up on the streets in the future.

After the last stock split and the last stock incentive plan before the IPO, the two most important Yahoo veterans, Ian Gnear and Steve Mitnick, both hold 16 million shares. Just based on the issue price of $33, both of them are worth more than $500 million at this time. In addition, Tina Brown holds 6 million shares, which is also worth nearly $200 million.

In other words, before going public, Yahoo has created three billionaires. In addition to the three core executives, there are another 48.5 million shares distributed in the hands of Yahoo's management and elite employees at all levels. Once listed, Yahoo will create more than ten millionaires and hundreds of millionaires at one time. This kind of situation It is very rare in the entire history of the world's corporate development, and is also called by some media as one of the symbols of the technology stock bubble.

Looking at Steve Mitnick with a somewhat emotional expression, Eric smiled: Then, you can tell your parents about this now and surprise them.

My mother was taken aback, Steve said with a little more sarcasm in his smile, She thinks your boss must be out of his mind to distribute so much money to employees.

Yeah, I'm actually very distressed too, Eric joked while covering his chest with a gesture.

Having said that, Eric has never been reluctant to give up such a large-scale equity incentive plan, and high equity incentives will naturally be tied to strict competition agreement restrictions.

In this era when Internet companies are springing up like mushrooms after rain, the elites within the Yahoo Group who have been in the Internet industry since Eric established the three companies can easily get the Venture capital and quickly accumulate enough wealth through an IPO to even become a competitor to Yahoo.

But in fact, this did not happen, Yahoo has maintained the absolute dominance of mainstream Internet businesses such as portal websites, e-mails, instant messaging, browser software, and most recently search engines. Except for Jeff Locke and others who left when the first equity incentive plan was launched three years ago, in recent years, few core executives have left the Yahoo Group. The main reason is the company's generous and strict equity incentives. Non-compete regulations.

Although the book value of the equity incentive plan with a total of 96.5 million shares so far exceeds 3 billion US dollars, Eric has gained 30 billion US dollars. How to choose the pros and cons of this, I think corporate investors with a little vision can understand .

Chatting with Steve, and staring at the exchange for a while, Eric didn't leave until Mayer came over with his phone and received a call from Ian Grenier and others from the Plaza Hotel. Banquet tonight.

Early the next morning, Eric woke up at seven o'clock in his Sixth Avenue penthouse.

When I came to the restaurant downstairs, Mayer had already prepared breakfast. Seeing Eric sitting down at the dining table, the female assistant handed over a stack of sorted newspapers.

I won't watch it today, Eric shook his head and said, We'll be at 42nd Street before eight o'clock.

Mayer put away the newspaper, served breakfast for the two of them, sat down opposite, and said, Mr. Mitnick sent a message at four o'clock in the morning that they have completed the overhaul of the Nasdaq trading system and Testing, Yahoo and Nasdaq's technical teams are still there to ensure that there will be no surprises in today's transaction. In addition, Mr. Katzenberg arrived in New York at nine o'clock last night, and you were still there. After dinner with everyone, Katzenberg said that he would go directly to the Nasdaq exchange today.

Eric added some milk to the oatmeal, nodded and said, Well, is there any more?

Mayer continued: Mission: Impossible 3's midnight box office, which is about $9.2 million, is lower than that of Charlie's Angels 3 and The Matrix 2 in the summer.

It's been good.

Eric didn't feel any disappointment. North America has just experienced a large-scale cooling in recent days. It has already snowed in many places on the east coast. Many people are reluctant to go out during the day, let alone watch a midnight movie in the early morning. Under this circumstance, the midnight box office of Mission Impossible 3 can still be maintained at more than 9 million US dollars, and it has even performed somewhat exceptionally.

After listening to Mayer report a few more things, Eric looked at the girl opposite and said, Speaking of which, it's Thanksgiving soon. I'll give you a day off after I'm done with my work. Let's go back and spend Thanksgiving with my family. Next week, Well, just come back next week.

Caroline was still recovering, and Mayer subconsciously wanted to ask Eric what he would do if he left him, but suddenly remembered something, closed his mouth again, and just nodded slightly.

After breakfast, Eric took Mayer to the Nasdaq exchange on 42nd Street. Compared with yesterday afternoon, although it was not yet eight o'clock, today's Nasdaq exchange was more lively inside and out. Many guests who came to the Yahoo listing platform even came out earlier than Eric. Now in the exchange hall.

Greeting the crowd warmly, Eric then unexpectedly found two beautiful figures in the crowd, and said a little surprised: Why are you two here?

Cindy picked up her badge and shook it at Eric, saying, I'm a star user of Yahoo Blog. Ms. Brown personally called and invited me to stand for Yahoo.

Eric smiled and looked at Linda next to Cindy: Where's your brand?

Linda stretched out her hand to grab Cindy's badge, but was opened, she raised her chin dejectedly, and said, No, just drive me out.

Cindy came over and gently took Eric's arm, leaned into his ear and smiled and whispered: She subscribed for 1.5 million shares, and she has invested in her savings over the past few years.

Big client, Eric reached out and grabbed Linda, who was in a small mood, and said, Okay, accompany me on stage to ring the bell later. However, let's talk first, I don't care if I'm stuck.

I've seen through you a long time ago, Linda leaned over reluctantly, pinched Eric's waist lightly, and said, Irresponsible man.