Google.
When Larry Page told all the board members about Li Mu's latest asking price, the meeting room was filled with curses.
In front of these American capitalists, Li Mu had become an evil capitalist who bullied the market, coerced and bribed, and raised the price at the last minute.
Larry Page understood these people's feelings very well. Asking them to dilute their shares by 15% was indeed unacceptable. Moreover, after the dilution, Li Mu would become a new shareholder of Google, a new shareholder who owned 15% of Google's shares and had a net worth of tens of billions of dollars. Such a shareholder was actually very important and could even have a long-term and far-reaching impact on the whole of Google in the future.
Although these people could see the benefits of Li Mu investing in Google, they could not make an accurate judgment. Which was greater, the direct loss of letting Li Mu invest in Google at a low price, or the net profit of letting Li Mu invest in Google? Larry Page insisted that the latter was greater, but some shareholders did not think so.
They felt that it was fine for Li Mu to want benefits, but there must be a limit. Even if he built a highway, the toll fee should not be 15% of the whole car. This was no longer cooperation, it was robbery.
After that, the first voting result was 78% against. The new offer was not approved by the board of directors.
Larry Page hurriedly explained to the board members present, "Although Makino Technology's way of raising the price is hateful, we must be aware of the potential threat of Makino Technology. If Makino Technology enters the search engine market, our future will be greatly affected!"
A shareholder said, "Makino Technology is about to complete the private acquisition of Apple. Li Mu will have to invest a lot in the integration of the company. Under such circumstances, I don't think Li Mu has the time to develop a search engine. We are experts in the search engine field, and we know very well how strong technical support and development cycle a good search engine needs. When Li Mu launches his first search product, I believe we will have successfully launched it."
This view was agreed by many people. Someone echoed, "I admit that Makino Technology is very powerful, but he is not omnipotent. Even if he is omnipotent, his energy and physical strength are also limited. If Makino Technology wants to form a positive competition with Google in the search engine market, it will take at least one or two years."
Larry Page shook his head and said, "If Li Mu wants to make a search engine, he will never develop a new one from scratch. He said last time that he can let Baidu's Robin open up all Baidu's technology and patents to him at any time, and then split the market with Baidu. Baidu will be in Hua Xia's domestic market, and Makino Technology will be in the overseas market. In this way, Li Mu can directly have his own search engine in the core overnight. The next day, he can embed it into all of his products and carry out rapid traffic. You must know that Baidu's technology is not too far off from ours."
"Hahaha!" A shareholder laughed and said, "Larry, aren't you too easy to be cheated? Will Baidu open up its technology and patents to Makino Technology? Why is Li Mu so confident? This is the core wealth of an Internet company. How can he give it away so easily? As for the matter of splitting the market, it is even more ridiculous. Is Baidu willing to be a local search engine in Hua Xia for the rest of its life? As long as they cooperate with Makino Technology, it is equivalent to directly locking themselves in the Hua Xia market. If it were you, would you agree? "
Larry Page explained, "You have ignored Li Mu's influence in the Internet industry in Hua Xia, and he is a shareholder of Baidu."
The shareholder curled his lips and said disdainfully, "I am a shareholder of Google, but at the same time, I also invest in many Silicon Valley companies. Does this mean that one day I will have to ask Google for Google's patents and technology?"
Larry Page retorted, "As I said just now, you have ignored Li Mu's influence in the Internet industry in Hua Xia."
The shareholder asked again, "Let's put Li Mu's influence aside and talk about the possibilities first. As far as I know, Baidu itself is also a company invested by Silicon Valley capital. The purpose of capital is development and expansion. Baidu's shareholders must also expect Baidu to be able to walk out of the door of the Hua Xia market and seek a breakthrough in the overseas market. Under this premise, why would they be willing to limit their scope of activities in Hua Xia? Don't they want to develop overseas? "
Larry Page said, "I think the character of Baidu's Robin should be like what Li Mu said, more stable."
At this time, a board member frowned and said, "Larry, do you know Robin?"
Larry Page said, "Strictly speaking, I don't know him."
The board member said, "If you don't know him, how can you be sure what kind of character he is? Just because Li Mu said that he is more stable, you believe him? "
Larry Page was speechless. He really didn't know much about Robin, and he believed that what Li Mu said was mostly based on his own intuition and judgment. However, such words were obviously not convincing. Instead of saying it out loud, it was better to keep it to himself.
Seeing that Larry Page was speechless, the board member pressed on, "Larry, in my opinion, you are completely frightened by Li Mu. Not only is the gun in Li Mu's hand not loaded, it might even be just a fake gun. It's just like the trick that high school dropouts often use to rob convenience stores. A fake gun, a mask, and pointing the gun at your head, threatening that if you don't take out the money, he will blow your head off! In fact, Li Mu only used a set of threatening words to scare you, and after you came back, you exaggerated Li Mu's threat, and then helped Li Mu to scare us. "
Speaking up to this point, the board member hurriedly said, "Of course, I'm not saying that you have the intention to harm Google's interests. It's just that your personal judgment has been somewhat affected by Li Mu."
Larry Page said angrily, "Jesse, what you said is really irresponsible. Everything I'm doing is for Google's development. Otherwise, I wouldn't have to bow down to Li Mu again and again, hoping for a chance to cooperate with him. What I want to make clear today is that all of you should not be influenced by the other party's offer. When we were going to offer five points to Li Mu, all of you thought that it was a good idea and agreed with it very much. At the same time, all of you acknowledged Li Mu's strength and thought that if Li Mu invested in Google, it would bring great improvement to Google. But now, when Li Mu asked for 15%, not only did all of you reject it, but you also started to subconsciously look down on Li Mu's actual ability. This is contradictory!"
One of the shareholders said, "We were influenced by you previously, so our subjective judgment was affected. Actually, now that we think about it, Li Mu can't do anything to us in the short term. As long as we seize the opportunity and charge forward, Li Mu won't be able to catch up with us in the next two to three years. Why not?"
Larry Page felt despair. He kept shaking his head and said, "In the end, all of you are just unwilling to make sacrifices for your own interests. It's normal to be unwilling, but I still hope that everyone can face reality. Think about it carefully. Because of the increase in the other party's offer, you start to think that the other party's offer must be a pile of useless rubbish. This is a standard self-deception."
"Let's vote again." The person in charge of the board of directors said, "There will be no result even if we continue to argue. Let's vote again. If everyone still refuses to support the majority this time, then we will reject it. If everyone thinks that the contract brought back by Larry is acceptable, then we will sign it. The voting will be a best-of-three system."
Larry Page rubbed his temples. He was not confident about voting at all.
But in this situation, voting was the best solution.
A few minutes later, the voting results were out: 73% of the people opposed.
Larry Page did not expect that after he said so much, the number of people opposed was only reduced from 78% to 73%. It had no effect on the result at all.
Since the previous two results were very similar, the board of directors immediately announced: Reject Li Mu's request to buy 15% of Google's shares.
Larry Page shook his head helplessly and warned, "Everyone, Li Mu has given us 24 hours, which means we have at least one afternoon and one night to change our decision. I still hope that everyone can accept Li Mu's offer. Although it looks like we are losing a lot, in fact …"
Before Larry Page could finish, the director just now curled his lips and said, "Larry, please don't be alarmist here. We have already given the final result regarding the Makino Technology, and the final result is:" No! "
…
The agreed 24 hours with Larry Page was about to pass, and Li Mu still did not receive any news about him. Li Mu had a rough idea of Google's decision.
Just 10 minutes to 24 hours, Larry Page called Li Mu. As soon as the call was connected, he said dejectedly, "Mr. Li, I'm really sorry. I'm very sorry, after a day and a night of negotiation, our company's board of directors is unable to accept your offer of 15%. I think we have to terminate our cooperation in advance. "
Li Mu nodded slightly and said, "It's okay, Larry. Hua Xia has an old saying, 'Even if we can't do business, we can still be friends.' Although we can't cooperate this time, I'm still very happy to be friends with you."
Larry Page smiled bitterly in his heart. Since when did you treat me as a friend? I'm almost going crazy because of you. But he said, "Li Zong, I hope we can have a chance to cooperate in the future."
Li Mu nodded and said with a smile, "Yes, I hope it's as soon as possible!"
Larry Page said, "I hope so!"
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