"One billion US dollars. Is Chen Yu crazy?"
Bill clenched his fists. He felt insulted by Chen Yu.
When he said that 100 million US dollars was a big number, he did not expect him to start with one billion US dollars.
Of course.
One billion US dollars was an astronomical number for many people. But for Bill, it was not that big.
Although it was not big, one billion US dollars was still a terrifying number.
Especially when one billion US dollars was spent on operations alone. This number seemed even bigger.
And this operation was not an ordinary operation.
If one billion US dollars was used for operating expenses for a year, it would be understandable.
However, based on his familiarity with Huanyu Technologies, Bill knew that this one billion US dollars would be spent in a few days.
So.
This became a money throwing game.
Did Bill lack this one billion US dollars?
Of course not.
But did Bill have as much money as Chen Yu?
Of course not.
Not only not, but far from it.
Bill could match this one billion US dollars now. What about the next time? Could he match it?
Besides.
Microsoft did not belong to Bill alone. He did not have the final say.
Even if Bill was willing, some other shareholders would not.
Besides.
Microsoft's core business was the operating system and the series of businesses around the operating system, such as Word.
As for MSN, to put it bluntly, it was a peripheral business.
If it was for the operating system, perhaps Bill could match it.
But to spend one billion US dollars for MSN, Bill really did not want to do so.
"Bill, do you think we should match it?"
Steve asked weakly.
"You're the CEO. You decide."
Bill did not know how to answer. He threw the question back to Steve.
"I want to match it, but the main thing is that we can't spend money for nothing. It's obvious that Huanyu Technologies got a big bargain. "
Although the MSN business was developing well, it had actually developed to the limit.
Those who needed to grow had all grown, and those who needed to use MSN had also used it.
Even if they spent one billion USD, it would be difficult for them to attract many registrations.
However, WeChat was different.
WeChat was a new software, and it was a global instant messaging app.
He still had a lot of potential to be unearthed.
Huanyu Technologies had spent one billion USD, and the results were definitely better than MSN's.
"Steve, you're right."
Bill nodded. "That's what I think too."
The two of them were a little embarrassed, but they were also very helpless.
However …
AOL was even more helpless than Microsoft.
ICQ was obviously AOL's core business.
When the media reported that Huanyu Technologies was going to spend another billion USD, AOL went silent.
The CEO of AOL was very bold. He shouted at the company meeting that he was going to spend one billion USD too.
But …
What happened after that?
Microsoft can spend 1 billion USD, but AOL can't.
It wasn't that he didn't want to, but he didn't have the money to do so.
In the end …
AOL was just a portal. Looking at its name, AOL was a portal that only belonged to the United States. In terms of status, it was equivalent to Sina in China, or even worse. That was because there was Yahoo in front of AOL.
It's just a portal. How much money do you think he can earn from it?
They might not even be able to fork out 100 million USD, let alone 1 billion USD.
Alright.
They could fork out 100 million USD, but they really didn't have the ability to spend 100 million USD for fun.
If that was all, it wouldn't be enough to explain AOL's tragedy.
AOL was actually an Internet giant like Yahoo. In fact, they were even older than Yahoo.
In the early days of the Internet, they were the pioneer of the Internet in the United States and even the world.
They merged with Warner in 2000, and their market value reached a terrifying 350 billion USD. Alright, that was a bluff. The highest market value reached 160 billion USD. However, two years after the merger, AOL lost 54 billion USD.
That wasn't all. In 2003, they lost more than 90 billion USD.
Yes.
You didn't see wrong.
The losses added up to more than 140 billion USD, which was equivalent to the losses of a few super companies.
Until now, AOL's market value was less than 10 billion USD.
In a few more years …
According to history, AOL's market value would drop to 3 billion USD in 2009.
In 2016, AOL, like Yahoo, was acquired by Verizon for 4.4 billion USD.
Can you imagine how AOL was feeling right now?
"Son of a b * tch, this son of a b * tch."
"This guy is using money to kill us."
"This is cheating, this is cheating."
In AOL's CEO's office, Arms roared again and again.
He scolded Huanyu Technologies like a madman.
He even scolded them on Weibo.
Yes.
This Weibo was created by Huanyu Technologies.
But Arms didn't care anymore.
He was about to vomit blood because of Huanyu Technologies.
1 billion USD, how are we going to play?
Did the rich have the final say in this world?
In this world, one could get anything they wanted with money, right?
Later on, Arms even said on his Weibo that he was going to sue Huanyu Technologies for monopoly.
"F * ck, Arms is crazy."
"Yes, I can see that. He is indeed crazy."
"He has to be crazy. Huanyu Technologies is doing this to him. If I were him, I would go crazy too."
The netizens who were watching the show were dumbfounded.
They didn't expect the CEO of a large corporation to be driven crazy by Huanyu Technologies.
However …
Who was to blame?
In the past, AOL used to spend money whenever it wanted. They even bought Warner for more than 100 billion USD.
But the result was crazy squandering.
They lost tens of billions of USD in one year and more than 100 billion USD in two years.
Even if you were the world's largest company by market value, you couldn't afford to lose money like this.
As for Huanyu Technologies's monopoly …
It was very unfortunate.
Huanyu Technologies was involved in a lot of businesses, but not many of them were monopolized.
Not to mention the instant messaging business.
Logically speaking, ICQ had more registered users than WeChat. How could this be considered a monopoly?
"AOL used to be the seventh largest company in the world. Its market value was the sum of the GDP of Mexico and Brazil. But I didn't expect it to end up like this today. "
"Yeah, speaking of which, I do miss AOL a little. His email, his chat room, his instant messaging …"
"Sigh, an era is about to pass."
For some reason, the netizens sighed when they saw AOL's current state.
But in the internet market, you would only see the newcomers smile. You wouldn't hear the old people cry.
Lamentation was only temporary.
Soon, they would forget about AOL, forget about ICQ, and forget that AOL used to be the representative of America's "new economy."
As for why they would forget so quickly …
That was …
At this moment, everyone was thinking about how they were going to split the 100 million USD event.
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