Chapter 153 Good News, Bad News
Chapter 153 Good News, Bad News
In the Songquandong mansion, An Rushong walked out of the kitchen carrying a tray and came to the dining table.
On the tray was a can of warmed milk, weighing about one pound. In fact, An Rusong didn't like hot milk, he preferred cold milk, but there was nothing he could do. Sun Manzhu had a bad stomach, and she always got upset after drinking cold milk. In order to accommodate her, An Rusong gradually got used to warming the milk.
In addition to milk, there were three freshly made sandwiches and three fried eggs on the table, all of which were made by An Rushong after he got up in the morning.
As men, you don't have to be too diligent, but you do need to show your consideration in front of women occasionally, even if it's just to give them a surprise.
After dividing a can of milk into three portions, An Rushong poked his head into the living room. He didn't see Sun Manzhu coming out, but only saw Li Caicao still doing yoga following the instructions on TV. A small brown dachshund was turning around her.
The dachshund is a female dog named "Andy". Sun Manzhu bought it not long ago, but she lost interest in it after less than a week. The reason is not because she spends little time at home, and Li Caicao stays at home all day. Andy is almost always taken care of by her, so in just a few days, the puppy and Li Caicao have become close.
Nowadays, the relationship between Sun Manzhu and Li Caicao is much more harmonious, but women are always jealous, and they are jealous of various kinds. So, now Sun Manzhu doesn't like this little dog anymore.
"Manzhu," An Rusong took a towel and wiped his hands while walking into the living room. He greeted Sun Manzhu and said, "Hurry up and eat quickly. Didn't you say you were going to have a meeting with Lotte's people this morning?"
As An Rushong expected, the two new stress-relieving toys launched by the toy factory were once again popular in the market. Sun Manzhu mentioned it last night, saying that she would meet with Lotte's purchasing manager today. The other party planned to purchase a batch of toys from the toy factory, but it was not known how large their purchase volume would be.
Sun Manzhu's voice came from the direction of the bathroom. I didn't know what she said. Her voice sounded a little unclear. She must be brushing her teeth.
An Rushong didn't urge her anymore and walked to the sofa by himself.
In front of the sofa, Li Caicao was doing the cat pose. An Rushong walked over to her, stretched out his hand, put his arms around her slender waist, and lifted her up from the yoga mat.
Li Caicao was not angry when her exercise was interrupted. She twisted her body like a water snake in An Rusong's arms and laughed. But the dachshund thought that its close master was bullied. It twisted its little butt and chased after An Rusong, barking continuously, and from time to time, it wanted to take a bite of his heels.
He carried Li Caicao into the dining room and placed her directly on a chair beside the dining table. An Rushong leaned over and nibbled her little mouth twice before speaking in Chinese: "Eat!"
Li Caicao smiled up at him, then turned around to comfort Andy who was barking on the ground.
Among the many women around An Rushong, Jiang Xiuyuan seems to have the simplest mind. As for whether Li Caicao is simple or not, An Rushong can't judge, because he can feel that this woman seems to be hiding many secrets.
But there is one thing that An Rusong can judge, that is, Li Caicao is a very optimistic woman. She does not have strong material desires. As long as she can eat and wear warm clothes, she will be happy every day. Sun Manzhu targeted her so much at the beginning, and even beat and scolded her at every turn, but she was full of grievances the moment before, and she didn't know what she saw the next moment, and she started to be silly and happy again.
An Rushong liked her personality, but he never told anyone.
Just as An Rushong sat down and had not yet had time to pick up his chopsticks, the cell phone he had placed on the table rang.
Reaching out for the phone and looking at the caller ID, he pressed the answer button without hesitation and pressed the speakerphone.
After a while, Macaulay's voice came from the phone. This guy seemed very excited and spoke loudly: "Hey, Ann, my friend, I hope my call didn't disturb your rest."
"Of course not, Macaulay, it's already morning in Seoul," An Rusong said with a smile, "I'm getting ready to have breakfast."
After saying this, he didn't wait for the other party to continue speaking, and asked first: "Why, my friend, you called me at this time, do you have any good news to tell me?"
"You can say that, but it's not entirely true," Macaulay said with a smile, "I have bad news and good news." He paused and continued, "The bad news is that I'm afraid I won't be able to get back to Seoul before the 15th, but the good news is that when I go back to Seoul this time, John Fisher and Eddy Cue will go to Korea with me. By then, you will need to receive a large negotiation team."
An Rusong knew who John Fisher was. He was one of the three core partners of DFJ and one of the founders of this venture capital firm. The "F" in "DFJ" stood for him. DFJ's investment in Baidu was also led by this man.
As for the name Eddy Cue, An Rushong would not feel unfamiliar with it. However, the Eddy Cue he knew was not from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, but from Apple. He was in charge of the software service business in Apple and later became the vice president of Apple. The launch of things like iTunes Store and iCloud were all related to this person.
"Eddy Cue, is that Eddy Cue from Apple?" An Rushong asked on the phone.
"You know him?" Macaulay said in surprise, "Oh, Ann, it seems that you really did a lot of work. Now, I am not surprised at your success at all."
"But I still want to remind you," he added, "If Eddy Cue makes an offer, even if it's hard for you to refuse, don't accept it. You have to understand that Fisher is very optimistic about you, your NGN, and especially your photo wall application. He thinks NGN will be the next Facebook."
"You mean, Apple wants to acquire my NGN?" An Rushong asked in surprise.
"Yes, they will definitely do that," Macaulay said without hesitation, "Those people in Apple are the most cunning and greedy. They don't like to share, they only like to monopolize. So, if there is a chance, they will definitely buy your company first."
As if to strengthen the persuasiveness of his words, he added: "In addition, Apple has already felt the challenge from Google, and they are now doing their best to enrich the application library of the Apple system. Coincidentally, they now have a large amount of cash and can use financial offensive. Therefore, my judgment is that they will first ask to acquire your company, and secondly, they will ask you to sign a completely exclusive cooperation agreement. Both of these requests will kill your company, so you must not accept them."
"Macauley, you brought me two pieces of bad news," An Rusong thought for a moment and said with a smile, "Then correspondingly, you should also bring me two pieces of good news."
"Haha, of course," Macaulay laughed. We are all smart people, and some things don't need to be said so clearly.
Since Apple is planning to acquire NGN or sign an exclusive agreement, An Rusong, who intends to move his applications to the Apple system, will naturally be under certain pressure. After all, Apple is a platform and he only provides applications. If Apple does not accept him, he will have no choice.
So, Macaulay obviously reminded him not to accept Apple's two conditions, and correspondingly, Draper Fisher Jurvetson should have given him the confidence to reject Apple.
Where does this confidence come from? Without a doubt, it can only be Google, which is gearing up to compete with Apple and Symbian.
"Ann, I'm not on vacation in the United States these days. I've done a lot of work for you," Macaulay said on the phone. "I've helped you get through the Google channel. As long as you can pass the subsequent careful investigation by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, you will receive an invitation letter from Google and become a member of Google's mobile alliance."
The so-called due diligence is an economic term. It roughly means that during the process of investment, financing or acquisition, the investor needs to understand the actual operating conditions of the target company, including whether there are any legal disputes, how much debt there is, how efficient the company is, and so on.
This prudent investigation is not conducted casually. Only after both parties have reached a preliminary investment intention will the target company allow the investor to send an additional team to investigate its own company.
Since DFJ has already made arrangements to conduct a prudent investigation of NGN, it means that they are determined to get this investment. In addition, with Apple's acquisition intention in mind, it is estimated that the financing plan that DFJ comes up with this time must be very generous to An Rusong.
As for prudent investigation, An Rusong didn't care. How many people did his NGN company have now? How much was the financial expenditure? As for legal disputes, there was none at all. Well, there was only one thing that could be related to the law, which was a few patents that were still in the application process, such as various filter effects.
To be honest, applying for a patent for the filter effect does not actually provide any protection. However, for an Internet company like NGN, this patent must be applied for because at some critical moment in the future, An Rushong can use patent prosecution to delay the entry of competitors into the market.
Just like Apple, if it wants to launch its own "Photo Wall" application, An Rusong can sue it, and then delay the launch of similar applications from Apple to buy time for himself to seize the market.
(End of this chapter)