Tao Liangchen

Chapter 481 Yang Zhiyuan Again

Google is in a period of expansion. As long as you do your job diligently, promotions and raises are easy, and business is relatively easy to conduct.

Looking at the overall environment of Silicon Valley, there has always been a shortage of talent, and the market size is constantly expanding with the addition of new Internet users. In addition, hot money from all over the world is constantly pouring in, so there are no internal or external troubles.

For a Silicon Valley superstar like Google, even if there are problems, they will be covered up by prosperity and become insignificant little troubles.

Sitting in the conference room with a group of executives, the atmosphere was harmonious and relaxed. They were mainly discussing subsequent development plans. There were not many problems to be solved, and basically, everything could be settled by throwing money at it.

Su Yehao doesn't plan to release too many shares too early, so he would rather give Google employees more bonuses than cater to the wishes of most people and take Google to Nasdaq for listing as soon as possible.

The Yanwenzi Group is even more valuable, with the opportunity to raise more than $1 billion, waiting to be used during the winter after the Internet bubble bursts.

And Google's development time is too short. It hasn't even been half a year since he acquired it.

If Google is listed now, the total market value will not exceed $200 million. The funds that can be raised during the IPO will be at most tens of millions of dollars. Su Yehao can easily take out this amount of money himself, and selling shares cheaply is obviously not in his interest.

As for stock option rewards, he can simply give more now and less when it goes public. Su Yehao doesn't feel any heartache...

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After the meeting.

Declining Danielle Kenning's suggestion to go to dinner together, Su Yehao returned home to pick up Yin Liuli and drove straight to San Francisco.

The venue for the Christie's auction was set at the St. Francis Hotel, a historic hotel located next to Union Square, which is already considered one of San Francisco's landmarks and has hosted many prominent figures.

After getting out of the car by the roadside, Su Yehao said to Yin Liuli:

"Once I've auctioned off what I want, we can leave early. Do you want to stroll around nearby tonight? Or stay in this hotel for the night and go back to Silicon Valley after shopping tomorrow morning? I have a lot of business to discuss this time, and if I miss it, I may not have time to take you out again."

Yin Liuli has always been a Buddhist, and she said with a smile, "I'm fine with anything, just arrange it as you like. The temperature here is colder than I expected, so it's best to buy some thicker clothes."

"Okay, let Linda Yun help you with recommendations. She's a local and knows the area much better than I do."

Su Yehao entered the hotel and saw many familiar Silicon Valley tycoons as soon as he arrived at the auction venue with his invitation.

Yahoo founder Jerry Yang was standing there alone, flipping through the catalog. After seeing Su Yehao, he smiled and raised his hand to signal, taking the initiative to say hello, "So, Mr. Su is here too. And with such a beautiful companion again. I know you have good taste. When will you arrange one for me?"

"Sure, as long as your wife doesn't mind, I'll arrange it for you."

Su Yehao walked up to him and introduced them to each other, "Yin Liuli, my girlfriend. Her hometown is in Hualien. This is Mr. Jerry Yang, one of the richest super-rich in Silicon Valley. A large part of my wealth was earned thanks to him."

Yin Liuli smiled and shook hands with Jerry Yang.

Jerry Yang is already married. His wife is a Costa Rican woman of Japanese descent. Su Yehao had seen her in Silicon Valley before.

After saying hello, Jerry Yang said to Yin Liuli, "Hualien is a great place, with beautiful scenery and is especially nourishing, no wonder Miss Yin is so beautiful. Young Mr. Su is promising, so you have to hold on tight."

Yin Liuli continued to smile, took Su Yehao's arm, and replied, "I will."

At this moment, Su Yehao changed the subject and asked, "Mr. Yang, what treasures have you taken a fancy to today? Let's communicate in advance to avoid competition between the two of us, which would only benefit the sellers."

Jerry Yang said with a smile:

"How dare I compete with you? iCQ is about to go public, with billions of dollars backing it. I can't afford to offend you. Tonight, you're here for that Van Gogh painting, right? Van Gogh's works are not rare, but most of them are in museums. It's rare for even one work to come out in a year. The last time *Sunflowers* appeared was more than ten years ago, and you couldn't buy it even with money."

"*Under a Stormy Sky*, this Van Gogh painting looks more comfortable, but it's not my target. The Doucai (a type of Chinese porcelain) bottle from the Qianlong period is. I plan to give it to my grandfather. The old man at home should like this kind of thing."

After hearing Su Yehao's words, Jerry Yang nodded and said:

"That's great. My target is neither Van Gogh nor the bottle you're interested in. My wife likes Jeff Koons' giant artwork *Balloon Dog*, and I plan to buy it secretly and put it in the warehouse, to give it to her for our anniversary."

"Is this the romance of married men?"

Su Yehao joked, then added:

"That balloon dog thing, I seem to have some impression of it. Isn't it a very large, very valuable stainless steel sculpture? It comes in several colors? If there are others, I'd also like to buy one and put it at home. It feels very interesting."

Whether it's interesting or not is another matter, but Su Yehao remembers seeing this thing in the news, selling for sky-high prices.

At the time, he was thinking that rich people's money was so easy to earn, that stainless steel could sell for so much, so he had some impression of it.

Jerry Yang said with a smile:

"What romance or not, two people living together, your life is much more nourishing. My wife likes magenta. If you really want to buy one, you can ask Jeff Koons. He told me that the orange and blue big dogs are in his hands. The magenta one today was bought by a gallery. I had to pinch my nose and spend more money to come and participate in the auction. I'll have my assistant send you Jeff's number later."

"Then you really need to send it to me quickly, otherwise, if you buy it at a high price later, wouldn't I be spending more money for nothing?"

"Mr. Su is just joking. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are just a drop in the bucket, as you people from Hong Kong Island say. I feel that someone is promoting this sculptor, and the value of his works is likely to rise. It's also quite interesting to buy it back and gamble on it."

Jerry Yang had obviously researched Jeff Koons, but Su Yehao knew nothing about him.

However, judging from the future sky-high prices of his works, it is indeed very likely that he is being promoted. According to conventional operations, it is generally to buy a large number of works by an artist, then promote them wildly, and transfer them from the left hand to the right hand at auctions to increase their auction value.

For example, buy ten paintings for 100,000 each, spending a total of one million, then auction off one of them for one million, and the remaining nine will also increase in value.

Of course, if you want to promote something, you also need to have a basis for promotion.

Jeff Koons' stainless steel oversized balloon dog sculpture undoubtedly has an eye-catching effect, and there is indeed a basis for promotion...

Before the auction started, other familiar people from Silicon Valley came to say hello to Jerry Yang and Su Yehao.

There were many strangers that Su Yehao didn't recognize, but most people who ventured into Silicon Valley knew him, including a senior vice president of BlackRock and a head of SoftBank Japan's Silicon Valley investment department.

Seeming to think of something, Jerry Yang suddenly asked him, "That Google of yours, it's developing very strongly. What are your future plans?"

As early as when he saw Jerry Yang, Su Yehao guessed that he would talk about this, so he calmly replied:

"The fact that such a small company I invested in can even be noticed by you, doesn't that mean it's going to be a hit? The market is so big, and it will be even bigger in the future. Even if I don't invest, others will enter the search engine field. It's just a normal business investment."

Jerry Yang didn't care too much and sighed with a smile, "Yes, Yahoo's return rate is no longer as good as those small start-ups, which increase by hundreds or thousands of times, it's too scary."

Hearing this, Su Yehao didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and said to him, "Isn't Yahoo's return rate also thousands of times? When you started your business, you didn't have much start-up capital, did you?"

"Yeah, but it's definitely not as good as you. If I want to develop, I have to look for funds from outside, and I cheaply released a large part of the shares, which has led to me being a little uncomfortable in the board of directors now," Jerry Yang said.

Su Yehao looked around.

He lowered his voice and said with a smile, "You can't say that kind of thing casually, if someone hears it, the stock price might fall..."