Chapter 416: Jerry and David's guide to the World Wide Web

"Here for a vacation, huh? Quite sudden, don't you think?"

On the road from Los Angeles to Irvine, Arthur was driving Rosamund Kwan.

"What, you don't want me to come?" she asked.

"Of course not," Arthur smiled, patting the woman's thigh with his right hand. "Isn't it busy over there in Hong Kong?"

"I only make one movie a year now, so it's not as hectic."

"That's nice!"

Soon after, they arrived at a beachfront villa in Newport Beach, Irvine. It was a vacation home Arthur had prepared for Rosamund Kwan.

"This place is really beautiful. I love it!"

Rosamund admired the villa and seemed very pleased.

"Are you really just here for a vacation?" Arthur hugged Rosamund and kissed her.

"Mmm," Rosamund responded for a moment, "There's a movie that needs to shoot in the U.S., so I came here early. You know, after Hong Kong director John Woo came to Hollywood to make films, many other directors got the same idea."

"I see," said Arthur, holding Rosamund as they leaned on the balcony. "20th Century Fox in Hollywood hired Hong Kong director John Woo, investing 50 million dollars to shoot an action film, Broken Arrow. The lead actor is John Travolta, who made a comeback with Pulp Fiction. Maybe that's why so many Hong Kong directors are eager to give it a try?"

Rosamund nodded, "Pretty much, and the success of Farewell My Concubine also gave a lot of Hong Kong directors confidence."

"Where are they filming in the U.S.?" Arthur asked.

"Oh, in San Francisco!"

"Alright, I'll accompany you to San Francisco in a couple of days. I need to head up to Silicon Valley anyway," Arthur said, as a firm he'd been tracking was reaching out to Pacific California Company.

Jerry Yang and David Filo from Stanford University were seeking angel investors for venture capital!

"Great!" Rosamund was delighted and immediately burrowed under the covers. As a mature woman, Arthur quite enjoyed Rosamund's attention, and he gently touched her hair, "Whew..."

...

A few days later, Arthur and Rosamund took a private jet to San Francisco and checked into the JW Marriott Hotel in Union Square, San Francisco.

Afterward, Arthur went to Silicon Valley's Santa Clara to the Galaxy Business Park and met with Jerry Yang and David Filo at the California Pacific Investment Company's office.

"Providing online services, and for free!"

Arthur tapped on the table. The Yahoo brand wasn't even registered yet, and Jerry Yang and David Filo were still working on their Ph.D. dissertations at Stanford.

"So you want to exchange 30% of your shares for $750,000?"

Jerry Yang and David Filo nodded.

Valued at $2.5 million?

Arthur smiled, "How about $1.2 million for 40% of the shares? Go register the company and get started..."

Seeing Jerry Yang and David Filo leave happily, Arthur was a bit bemused. No wonder if you bet on one right, it doesn't matter if you get a hundred others wrong!

Emily Shead expressed some emotion, "Boss, do you really have that much faith in them? It doesn't seem to have much technical depth."

"Ah, but they're pioneers, and the concept is great," Arthur smiled. "Around a million dollars might last half a year, and next time they look for funding, make sure the valuation is high enough. I heard even Sequoia Capital has shown interest in them!"

For internet content providers, the key was quickly capturing the market and outpacing other competitors, which always required burning money.

Previously, the companies Emily Shead invested in usually only got tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Investing over a million dollars was a first.

...

In the San Francisco Bay, about 2 kilometers from the shore, lies a small island known as Alcatraz, commonly called Devil's Island. It covers an area of 0.09 square kilometers, with steep cliffs on all sides, making it difficult to access. It served as a federal prison from the 1930s to the 1960s, was later abandoned, and in the 1970s became a U.S. National Historic Landmark, opening to the public in the 1980s.

"Do tourists come here too?" Rosamund Kwan asked as she and Arthur took a boat to the island.

Arthur smiled and held her close. "Yeah, about a million tourists come every year. It's a pretty popular spot in San Francisco."

Currently, Galaxy was adapting Arthur's idea into a script for The Rock, with the main setting being Alcatraz Island.

"The Hong Kong film crew is coming over, and I'll need to report in. After filming in San Francisco, they'll head to Thailand, and finally back to Hong Kong," Rosamund said, wrapping her arms around Arthur's neck.

*****

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