Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 1557: Sharing Wealth Information

The counselor has been promoted and is very busy now, but when he heard that Ronald was looking for a bridge partner, he happened to have a candidate.

In China, bridge competitions are similar to other sports, with women's performance being higher than men's. In preparation for the World Cup, the women's national bridge team was invited by American Chinese bridge player Yang Xiaoyan to participate in the North American Bridge Championship.

Coincidentally, this year's North American Bridge Championship was also the trial for the American national team, so all the country's female bridge players were present to compete for the three pairs of places. So the quality of the competition was very high.

Chinese people have a championship complex for all competitions, and this time is no exception. After the women's team came, they also trained very hard. However, training and competition are two different things after all, and the intensity of training cannot be compared with that of competition.

The counselor knew that Ronald had provided logistical support to the Olympic champion women's volleyball team ten years ago, and this time he happened to be looking for a sponsor for the girls on the bridge team.

Bridge competitions are played in partnership, so many wealthy amateurs often find a professional player to partner with, which is traditionally allowed. This relationship is also known as a "sponsorship system" or a "client-professional player" relationship.

The expenses of professional players participating in the competition are borne by the "clients", who often also have to pay for some additional "gifts". Clients can also be taken by professional players to experience the atmosphere of a high-level competition.

Ronald thought it was a good idea as soon as he heard it, and as usual, he found an old restaurant in Chinatown and provided the women's team members and team leader with the best Chinese food, as well as a Toyota van for them to use when traveling.

The opportunity to participate in the competition is rare. The coach and leader of the women's team, Xu Zhenghong, is a gentleman. He drives the team members to training and invitational competitions every day. He also goes to the supermarket to buy ingredients every day and cooks for them on the induction cooker.

Now that there are professional people in charge of logistics, Xu Zhenghong is very grateful to Ronald. He finally has time to train. In order to thank Ronald, he said that he can choose any partner from the women's team.

As soon as Ronald saw the introduction of the players for the competition, he wanted to find the opposing top player Sun Ming as his partner. This player's style of playing cards is very aggressive, and most professional players who bring clients also have this style of playing cards.

Sometimes, as long as the client randomly calls a high contract, these offensive players can often play very well, either making a subscription that seems impossible to make, or snatching the other party's good contract and scoring points themselves.

However, Ronald saw that Coach Xu Zhenghong looked a little embarrassed, and he knew that if he chose their first main player, it might affect their results, so he asked him to choose a player who was suitable for him.

……

"Sister Wang, there are many well-known people participating in this competition, but they are actually very abiding by etiquette on the field. You can just treat them as rookies and don't show mercy."

Coach Xu recommended Wang Hongli, who played steadily but was very young, so accompanying Ronald to the competition would not affect the really important results. Seeing that she was a little nervous, Ronald comforted her. She came to America to compete at a young age and had not met many people, so there was a little language barrier, but after all, she was a professional player, so it was fine to participate in the competition.

"Brother Luo, I understand. You don't have to worry. I just need to be more stable when partnering with them. In fact, I know all these playing styles." Wang Hongli has a gentle personality and is good at thinking for her partners. Everyone calls her sister, so she and Ronald are brothers and sisters.

When they arrived at the competition venue, Gates and Buffy also found professional players to guide them. When they saw that Ronald's partner was a young girl, they smiled and wished them good luck. In fact, they were a little dissatisfied in their hearts. As people who were at the top of the wealth list, their partners were all top ten in the world competition.

Who would have thought that after one round of competition, Ronald and Wang Hongli ranked in the top three, Buffy's result was average in the middle, and Gates, perhaps because of bad luck, ranked very far behind.

"Hahaha, I am really lucky."

At lunch, everyone gathered together. Gates and Buffy looked unhappy. Seeing Ronald in the spotlight, they could only say a few perfunctory words.

In fact, Ronald's choice hit the nail on the head. The way a world champion plays cards is not something that ordinary people can understand. Seeing that their partner has an aura, Gates and Buffy sometimes think too much about calling cards and defending, always thinking that the other party has some deep meaning.

But in fact, most of the cards in this kind of amateur bridge competition are not that tricky. On the contrary, Ronald was in a relaxed mood and played quite standardly. In addition, Wang Hongli's calculation skills were definitely far beyond those of an amateur, and for a while they cooperated very well.

In the afternoon game, they were calm and focused, and they became more confident as they won more games. Ronald continued his efforts and completed a difficult double press in the crucial round, defeating the popular player who was highly favored before the game, and finally won the championship.

After the game, of course they didn't have an ordinary meal. Ronald took Gates and Buffy to a Japanese restaurant that had booked the venue in advance. The airlifted ingredients and chefs were already waiting and ready to show their skills.

Everyone talked about the game for a while and praised Wang Hongli highly, saying that Ronald actually won the championship because of her.

After some laughter, Gates first sat next to Ronald and started a private chat.

"Your last reminder was very timely. Our Microsoft's new browser will be beta tested soon. Would you like to try it out when the official version comes out?"

"Of course..." Ronald put down his chopsticks. Netscape has been making more and more moves recently. In addition to Anderson being on the cover of a financial magazine, the calls for an IPO are getting louder and louder, making Ronald's resentment about not being able to invest even stronger.

Now that Microsoft's new browser has come out, won't it deal a heavy blow to Netscape and cause their IPO valuation to drop significantly?

"Tell me the truth, what do you think of the World Wide Web today?" Gates' voice sounded a little worried. He was actually furious in his internal speech. The Beta version of the browser was really bad, and many people inside Microsoft didn't seem to realize the impact of this war. Many people still thought that it was because it was Gates' personal opinion that they were lazy about doing it. In fact, Gates already regarded the browser as a matter of life and death.

However, the direction of development of the Internet is still not very clear. Now that Ronald has reminded himself of the existence of browsers, I wonder if there will be any new ideas to inspire myself?

"This is something very different. How should I put it? My former secretary spent a lot of effort to build a Hollywood movie database and some actor resume databases, but it was very troublesome to collect them. Even with the help of an agent, there were still many things that I didn't expect or couldn't find the information.

But after the Internet came along, a fan created a website about Hollywood movies. With the help of the World Wide Web protocol and browsers, information can be collected very quickly, because every fan who browses the website can submit the information they know, and the website has become more complete than the database I invested money to maintain, and that website is completely free.”

Ronald told Gates about the recent developments of IMDb. He said that the Internet has the ability to gather the wisdom of everyone. No matter how omniscient a person is, it is impossible for him to know all the movies and actors in Hollywood. However, millions of fans can find each other's information and fill in the gaps.

However, this method also produces information of varying quality, and requires a team to identify and check it.

"That's really interesting. Do you think that in the future, the Internet will be more convenient for searching for information than the encyclopedia?" Gates thought of the CD commercial that Ronald had shot for him. He never thought that after a few years, there would be another carrier that would be more convenient than the CD.
"Well, this is still a bit difficult," Ronald thought for a moment, "Even on this website, it's not particularly convenient to find information. I have to search slowly based on the first letter of the alphabet because there is so much film information. The film list included is several times the database we maintain ourselves."

This is the difficulty with the Internet. Although the information is very comprehensive, if you want to find what you want, you still have to spend several times more time searching than going to the library.

Gates was very happy. He felt that communicating with Ronald had indeed given him some new inspiration. They were in different industries, but it was rare that they could talk to each other. There was always something to gain from communicating with Ronald. This year's list of the richest people might have him at the top. As a wealthy man, there were only a few people like Buffett and Ronald who could communicate with him on an equal footing. This was a good addition for him.

"Bill, does Microsoft have any new products this year? I am a loyal user of your software. I always buy new products as soon as they are released. Of course, besides Word, I am still used to using WordStar when writing scripts..."

Now that he had come to this, Ronald also wanted to find out about Microsoft's business. The browser they developed was like a defense, which could defend against the aggressive Netscape, but their revenue still depended on their main products. If there were new products that he could use, it might be a good opportunity to increase his stock holdings.

"Yes, this year our operating system has a groundbreaking update. I'll ask them to make a beta version for you to try. With this new operating system, you don't need to type win in DOS to start the Windows system. You can directly enter the graphical interface when you turn on the computer. Even a child can use it..."

"Oh oh..." Ronald listened to Gates introduce the features of the new operating system. It fully supports sound and video playback, as well as the so-called start menu... But what attracted Ronald the most was probably the so-called plug-and-play. Previously, some professional equipment had to be installed on the computer, and maintenance engineers had to be hired to install drivers and deal with conflicts. If you were not careful, errors would occur and the computer would not be able to be used, which was very frustrating.

Ronald and Gates chatted for a long time. Buffy looked over there and Ronald responded with a smile.

After another round of food, Ronald took the initiative to go over and sit next to Buffy.

"I'm curious, Ronald, how different are the live-action movies you make from Disney cartoons?"

"That's a huge difference. It takes Disney three years to make an animated feature film, and it takes us only half a year at most to make a live-action film. Normally, including post-editing, it takes a whole year. If it's a commercial work, it can actually be done very quickly."

"No wonder. I looked at Disney's financial statements and the labor costs are not as low as I imagined. Isn't it said that celebrities are paid a lot? It seems that the cost of animators is relatively low..."

Buffy nodded. Recently, someone approached him to acquire ABC TV station, in which he held shares, so he specifically sought out Ronald, an insider in the industry, to discuss the matter.

Ronald asked for a cup of cherry-flavored Coca-Cola and handed it to him. These investors have some moral codes. For example, if they buy stocks, they must be loyal to the brand. If they invest in Coca-Cola, they usually drink their drinks.

Ronald ordered himself a glass of iced Calpis, which suited his taste very well. He didn't have such a quirk. He advertised for Pepsi, but he still bought Coca-Cola stocks.

"So they say that the copyrights of cartoons belong to the companies, while the copyrights of live-action movies belong to the stars? Is this true?"

Buffy took a sip of cherry cola and asked again. Chatting with these top smart people is a good window to gain knowledge. Investors always contact with their peers, and sometimes they have blind spots in their vision.

"It's theoretically true, but in reality there are many details that are not conducive to animation. Otherwise, why didn't I unify all the studios after Disney was established for so many years?"

Ronald smiled. This statement was only one side of the truth. Although the copyright of the cartoons belonged to the company, the production cycle and cost were very high. Not every animation company could make a profit on every work like Disney did.

Warner Bros. and Paramount both had their own animation studios back then, but they all encountered a situation where a certain high-investment work did not perform well at the box office, and they eventually had to close down.

Today's animation works have to invite top singers like Elton John to write lyrics, compose music and sing. It's not like in the past that you can just find a random band to perform.

We have all seen that Disney is very happy with the income from peripheral products and amusement parks. However, for such a large-investment, long-cycle business, if a film becomes a Waterloo, then the entire investment will be wasted and the loss will be greater than that of an ordinary movie.

Besides, the entire animation market has its upper limit. With Disney, there is not much room for other companies, unless you innovate and create a new type of animation to challenge.

The computer-generated 3D animations such as Pixar's "Toy Story" are just emerging recently, which is the case. But their life may not be as easy as Disney's.

The cost would be even higher. Ronald privately calculated for them that this kind of animation studio is doing a tightrope business. If a movie fails or the development cycle is extended too long, resulting in poor distribution and remittance, the company will end up bankrupt.

"It seems that since I last bought Disney, the industry has not changed much. It is still so unpredictable."

Ronald said, "Oh!" He didn't know that Buffy had bought Disney's stock before. It was in 1966, when Walt, the founder of Disney, personally promoted it. Buffy bought 400% of Disney's stock for $5 million, but he sold it for $1000 million a year later.

The main concern is that Disney's revenue is too affected by a single movie, and this time he may have to passively become a shareholder of Disney... However, the fundamentals of the company and the industry have not changed much, and are even worse than before.

"I still like simple businesses, such as Coca-Cola, which is very simple and people still like to drink Coke, so it is a good business. Take Gillette razors for example, as long as we men still need to shave..."

……

"Buy me some Microsoft and Coca-Cola. Oh, and buy some Gillette. Oh, and buy some Berkshire. Buffett can't tell me so many good stocks. I'll just buy some of his companies."

Ronald came back and quickly arranged to buy. He also got a lot of money-making information from this meeting. These were the second and third richest people on the Forbes list last year...