Wall Street Legend

Chapter 170 Lobbyist (23)

In Washington, there is a place called "K Street", where there are at least 2,000 lobbying companies, which mainly cooperate with certain institutions in Washington to provide consulting services. Their profit-oriented development model has enabled some powerful people to Powerful businessmen also maintain close contact with them, trying to spend money to obtain a business environment that is favorable to them.

Mr. Heath Quinn is one of them. He is a relatively powerful one. He usually works in Washington. However, the price of the person behind him is relatively high this time, so he doesn’t mind coming to New York to find Ye Dongqing to discuss some matters. Things, make a quick buck out of it.

Ye Dongqing knew nothing about this guy. When the two met, he got straight to the point and asked: "Just now the assistant told me that you represent several companies and wanted to talk to me face to face. Until now, I still don't know who you are. Do you mind?" Do you want to talk about it first?”

"...Verizon, Sprint, and AT\u0026amp;T, these three companies are my employers. Since you like to be direct, I will be direct. Some people don't like the company you have called Skype." , it is infringing on the rights of our employers, like a parasite attached to the communication network that has been built at great cost.

I have a court summons in my hand, and a check for $40 million. You can choose to be our enemy, but I want to remind you that each of them is difficult to deal with, and they have joined forces on this matter. up, so I suggest you pick up this check and sell Skype to us. "

Quinn is not handsome, and his height of over 1.6 meters is obviously a bit short for white people. He has a Mediterranean hairstyle and black-rimmed glasses. He looks like a very capable, highly educated, smart person.

He had already sent someone to investigate Ye Dongqing before arriving, and he didn't know much, such as having only been in business for more than half a year, being unsociable when he was in Manhattan International High School, etc. Quinn even personally talked to one of Ye Dongqing's teachers. However, after summarizing the information collected, I subconsciously thought that this little guy who had just left school would be easy to deal with, which was why he hit Ye Dongqing on the head with a big stick.

Quinn thought he already understood Ye Dongqing's character. In fact, there was a big difference between him today and the person he was a few months ago. If he was really a young boy, he might be worth as much as 400 billion U.S. dollars by these three companies combined. The giants are scared, but this is not the case.

After hearing these words, Ye Dongqing felt unhappy and happy at the same time, because this was the first time in his life that he had been warned by so many oligarchs. He felt that he had some strength for some reason, and he had a strange mentality. He put his hands behind his head, Finding a comfortable position and lying on the chair, he said: "It doesn't matter. If I want to litigate, I have enough money to hire a lawyer for help. Even if I spend 200 million US dollars, I think Skype is worth it." Spend so much money.

As a weak yet righteous party, I believe that the vast majority of people will choose to side with me. You should know better than me how much the phone bill is. The lawsuit will only make Skype more famous. Anyway, big companies are used to bullying vulnerable groups, right? Well, I knew this day would come sooner or later, but I didn’t expect to pay attention to Skype so quickly. "

Today at the end of May, Facebook has more than 21 million registered users, and it is still growing at an explosive rate, and active users account for 70% of the total number of registered users. This is a very scary number, which means that very Nearly 1 in 10 Americans will soon be using the app.

It has been promoted several times by Facebook, causing the number of registered users of Skype to successfully exceed the six million mark. A group of chatty users have used up the free call time and have begun to obtain some negligible income. As long as there are no problems in development, success is Sooner or later.

I heard that these companies are only willing to offer 40 million U.S. dollars. This figure is simply humiliating in Ye Dongqing's opinion. The friendship between those communication operators is not worth letting Ye Dongqing give up more than one billion or even billions of dollars. With the potential benefits, it would be surprising if he agreed.

Quinn immediately knew that something was bad. Judging from Ye Dongqing's attitude and tone of voice, it seemed impossible to solve the problem easily, so he slowed down and said, "The $40 million is just to show our sincerity, you can I'll give you a quote and I'll talk to my employers. I think there must be a way to resolve the dispute amicably, right?"

"It does exist, but you can't afford it. To be honest, a mere US$40 million cannot show any sincerity. If it is sold to the Japanese or Silicon Valley technology giants, they will probably spend ten times that amount to acquire it. I don't think so. No need to keep talking because I have no intention of selling it at all.”

It would be better to resolve some conflicts. Ye Dongqing added: "Your employers make money through mobile phones, and I make money through the Internet. It's not like users haven't paid high Internet fees. According to your concept, isn't it best to connect a fax machine?" There is no need to use , email, instant messaging and other methods, just make phone calls?

Times have changed, sir. As far as I know, video communication technology is about to be born. Don’t try to stop the progress of society, because you can’t stop it at all. Even if I sell Skype to you, soon other countries, such as China, will also Similar technologies will be born, even better. "

He really wanted to say something, but Quinn, who was usually eloquent, was speechless for a while by these words. He also believed that even if there was no Skype, there would still be things like Skype or Bkype.

After quickly organizing his words, he hurriedly said: "But at least you should raise the charging standards upwards, for example, to double the current level, 1.2 times, etc., to achieve fair competition. In order to save that little money, I think users I will still choose to use your company’s products.”

"That's my company's business. You don't need to intervene in these decisions. In order to show sincerity, don't give unjust money to the law firm. I can even promise you to release some patents and let you develop similar products. That is called fairness." compete."

Skype and Facebook have been partially bundled, and technologies such as instant text messaging and video communication have been put on the agenda. Ye Dongqing does not think that communication operators, who are already despised by users, can successfully win their favor and combine their Considering the interests, it is almost impossible for a price war to occur. Ye Dongqing would only be happy to see Ye Dongqing increase the price and narrow the cost gap between the two technologies.

Communication operators invest in infrastructure, install optical cables, etc. The investment is not small, but Ye Dongqing can make a lot of money at a very small cost based on this network, and the cost is pitifully low.

From this point of view, he is indeed exploiting loopholes openly, but doing business is a matter of life and death...