Global monopoly of technology

Chapter 82 [Takes from the Industry]

Company lounge.

Luo Sheng, Xu Yong and others from the company sat around and chatted together. They didn't have to talk about specific agendas. It was just a simple chat, exchange of ideas, and the collision of inspiration, and perhaps sparks could be collided.

This culture has been passed down from the company's studio era to the present, and will continue to be passed on. It has also become a manifestation of Bluestar's engineer culture. Basically, there will be about half an hour to 45 minutes of communication time every day.

Every company has its own unique corporate culture.

For example, Google’s one-fifth of its free time, Google’s company allows its engineers to spend 20% of their time to research their favorite projects, which is equivalent to one day a week, and this approach also makes Google successful Exchange 20% of free time for 120% of performance.

Google's approach is in fact similar to the "departmental company system" formulated by Qin Weimu, so that the fertilizer does not flow to outsiders.

In addition to "chat stream", the corporate culture of Bluestar Technology also has another unique corporate culture-gourmet food.

At Bluestar Technology, it’s not a big deal to provide free food and drinks in the kitchen. In addition, it also provides a variety of healthy and delicious snacks for employees to enjoy for free.

In this world where everyone is a foodie, you can eat so many delicious snacks even during work, which can satisfy your appetite and relieve work pressure without worrying about unhealthy eating.

Because the company has also hired professional health care personnel to carry out matching and food security inspections, the company has not been stingy with the money, and it is the core starting point for employees to eat healthy food.

It's just that investors feel a little pain after seeing it...

Bluestar Technology’s expenditure on food purchases is more than five times that of other companies of the same magnitude. It can be seen that food culture is a trick in North America. For many employees, Luo Sheng failed to capture them with high salaries. But they accidentally grabbed their stomachs with Chinese delicacies, then grabbed their hearts, and finally grabbed their people.

The company specially hired a top-notch chef class from a high salary in China to the Menlo Park branch in California. The eight major cuisines can be eaten without heavy samples every day with only one Sichuan cuisine. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is 365 days a year. , It can be done every day without repetition.

After the news spread, engineers from other technology companies in Silicon Valley came to Menlo Park to eat and drink, and even because of the company's food culture, it attracted many outstanding Silicon Valley engineers.

It is a happy anecdote to "rebel" for the sake of delicious food by automatically bringing engineers from other technology companies.

Silicon Valley is just a general term. It is not rigorous to say that Menlo Park is also part of Silicon Valley.

At this point, even Luo Sheng did not expect that the Bluestar North American Film Director, the most famous in Silicon Valley is actually the company’s canteen...

It can only be said that food is borderless.

At the moment, everyone in the company’s lounge was chatting while eating snacks.

"The boss's trip to North America this time, after the copyright cooperation agreement reached with several major record companies was passed back to China, it shocked countless people." Feng Yi changed the conversation and added: "But most of the comments seem to be We see that adults have a lot of silly money, and they were ridiculed by people in the industry. After spending several hundred million to buy copyright, there is nowhere to spend more money."

Indeed, after the news came back to China, many people were shocked. In addition to feeling that Bluestar Technology has money to spend blindly, it was just mocking.

Many people don't understand at all, what is the meaning of Luo Sheng spending this money?

The domestic version of the online music player is called [Blue Star Music]. When it was launched, the slogan was the genuine authorization of 2.25 million popular songs at home and abroad, free listening, free download...

Is it free?

Is it possible that you want to charge?

This is the true portrayal of the moment.

Originally, people in the industry thought that Bluestar Music would charge for the copyright after spending a lot of money, but it was still free.

Suddenly I felt that Luo Sheng was spending money stupidly, but people weren't being spent stupidly, and they really had to charge. Bluestar Music is definitely a must die in China. You must know that Baidu mp3 music search is now dominating the list.

"We seem to lose in the present, but we will eventually win the future." Luo Sheng said with a smile, and then shrugged indifferently.

He wished to be ridiculed just like this, so he made a fortune in a dull voice. Then he could easily wipe out one of the nets with a piece of copyright. After more than ten years, he will eventually be liquidated, and his peers in the industry will certainly not pay attention to copyright. The problem pays.

However, it is worth mentioning that the domestic version of [Blue Star Music] is free, but the overseas version of [MusicSpace] music store is paid. After all, the market environment is different, and the two have huge differences.

However, when people in the domestic Internet community spent 1.64 billion yuan (US$199.2 million) in copyright fees for Luo Sheng and reached digital copyright cooperation with the world’s five major recording giants, they couldn’t understand, and even ridicule, there were two technology giants on the other side of the ocean. The company took it seriously because of Luo Sheng's move.

One is Apple, and the other is Microsoft.

In front of Bluestar Technology, there are all giants. Before the Internet bubble burst, Microsoft's market value once rushed to 583 billion U.S. dollars, becoming the world's number one at the time. After the bubble burst, it was 2004 technology company. In fact, most of them have not regained their vitality. Bluestar Technology is just a special case, and Microsoft's market value has almost been cut in half, and now it still has 282 billion US dollars, ranking third in the world.

After Microsoft fell from the altar, General Electric is now the world's most valuable company with $319 billion.

And there is another unusual phenomenon that not many people care about. At this time, the status of global financial companies is climbing wildly. Citi, AIG, and Bank of America have squeezed into the world's top ten listed companies. It seems that it has been several years. The subsequent financial crisis paved the way.

And another technology giant, Apple, which is eyeing Luo Sheng, only completed its turnaround last year. Until 2003, Apple was still a technology company respected by “non-mainstream” users, although the public knows that Apple’s products are very good. Not bad, but not many people are willing to pay for it.

Prior to 2003, Apple's market value plunged all the way to 4 billion U.S. dollars, and Joe's gang returned to control Apple for a few years without much improvement.

But all this, from March 2003, that is, a month after the establishment of Bluestar Technology, Apple began to take off.

Jobs launched iTunes, which is probably the most revolutionary innovative product in Apple's history, and it has also driven the market value soaring.

The emergence of iTunes has changed everything. This is the big move of the Qiao Gang for five years. With the emergence of iTunes, Apple has been able to enter the music market, not only by selling products to make money, but also by selling music to make money. Since the launch of the iPod, in just three years, the iPod+iTunes combination has generated nearly $10 billion in revenue for Apple, accounting for almost half of the company's total revenue.

iTunes has received extensive support from users and partners. Because of the existence of iTunes, more people can download and organize music more conveniently, which also greatly promoted iPod sales and made this electronic product popular in North America. Up.

Those record companies also welcome the emergence of iTunes. Prior to this, record companies could not do anything against the flood of pirated music. The Napster website alone almost gave record companies a layer of skin, but iTunes showed them the possibility of digital music profitability. Sex.

Of course, the happiest thing is Apple, which makes money for hardware through selling iPods and money for music through iTunes.

In fact, Luo Sheng discussed copyright cooperation with the five major record companies so smoothly this time. Those record giants also saw that iTunes has a dominant position in the field of digital music. The record company once wanted to operate digital music, but changed it. The industry found that it was impossible to play in the science and technology world, and the products launched were criticized by users, so they gave up.

But obviously, iTunes dominance in the field of digital music is not good for record companies, so Luo Sheng came to talk about copyright cooperation this time, it was quite smooth, and it was reasonable.

Because from the perspective of record companies, as music service manufacturers, they have mastered the copyright. [MusicSpace] and [iTunes] will even have more online music store platforms in the future. These platforms must be high-priced cooperation in order to compete for digital copyright. Obviously beneficial to the record company.

Anyway, I feel that I am a winner now, and Luo Sheng or Jobs, in a sense, are just "middlemen" who make the difference. They have built an online platform to combine the digital copyright of the music under the record company with the online Of consumers connected, and Luo Sheng drew 40% of the share. In fact, he was even harder than Jobs, taking 5% more.

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