America is in control

Chapter 326: Benchmark Capital and Hot Potato (will order tomorrow)

"John, your idea is good! Leave it to me to contact the top names in the San Fernando Valley!"

"Fxxk Off! What a beautiful idea you have! Boss, actually I am the best at this kind of thing! Let me do it!"

"Watch your image! John, do you still remember that box of "Plumbers vs. Housewives" video tape? In the end, I took a risk and helped you hide it."

Uncle, I really thank you! Can this kind of thing be brought out and discussed?
Liu Jiang's forehead was blackened and he almost died on the spot, but fortunately he was thick-skinned enough and got over it with a haha.

After roughly determining the future development strategy of the Blog, the meeting came to an end.

Liu Jiang left Silicon Valley and returned to Los Angeles with a group of confidants.

"John, another venture capital firm has clearly rejected us! The other party said they don't want to invest in an online flea market."

On this day, Liu Jiang suddenly received a call from Chris. eBay's search for venture capital was not going smoothly.

"What did Meg Whitman say? Didn't she contact several Silicon Valley venture capital firms?"

General Liu was not annoyed, he patiently asked the other party.

"Currently, Ms. Meg is still in contact with several Silicon Valley venture capital companies, but the valuation given by them is not very ideal."

Chris weighed his words and answered.

"OK, I know about this! I will find a way to solve the eBay financing issue as soon as possible."

General Liu took over this matter and gave the other party a reassurance.

This is what he considered, if eBay could not find a suitable venture capital company.

At worst, General Liu would have to go to Mr. Moritz of Sequoia Capital and ask him to invest some small money and take some shares.

Of course, he still takes the lead, and the matter of finding reliable allies is postponed to the next round of financing.

There is actually no solution! You can't keep spending it like this!

"John, I know an investor at a venture capital firm who might be interested in eBay. His name is Bob Kegel."

"He is a partner of Benchmark Capital, a venture capital firm that once invested in the eShop founded by Pier and his friends."

"Bob Kegel also wants to invest in Fatbrain, an online professional bookstore. Benchmark Capital has ample funds and a good investment vision."

After pondering for a moment, Chris suddenly recommended a venture capital company to General Liu.

"Oh? Have you figured out the details of this venture capital company? Have you done a background check on the investor Bob Kegel?"

Liu Jiang became interested and asked Chris to talk about it in detail.

"Benchmark Capital was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in San Francisco."

I learned from Chris that Benchmark Capital adopts a partnership system.

Except for a few necessary administrative positions, this venture capital company maintains 5-6 investors all year round.

Every investor is a partner of the company whose interests are equally divided.

Benchmark Capital believes in minimalism at the decision-making level. They believe that the secret of investment is not only that everyone on the team has a voice, but that everyone has an equal voice.

Every partner has an equal say and this is the philosophy that Benchmark Capital has always pursued.

Unlike most venture capital firms, Benchmark Capital is intentionally egalitarian.

Therefore, this venture capital company does not have junior and senior partners. Everyone is an equal partner, and no one is the CEO.

All profits from the company, including the 2.5% management fee and 30% of profits, are divided equally among each partner.

The reason why Bob Kegel became a partner of Benchmark Capital was mainly to invest in start-up companies in the consumer field.

He is a son of General Motors, and General Motors is like an independent kingdom, where Bob Kegel went to school and grew up.

After graduating from General Motors School, Bob Kegel came to Stanford Business School and met later Microsoft co-founder Steve Ballmer and SUN co-founder Scott McNeely. McNealy, TVI founder David Marquardt and other business elites.

When Bob Kegel graduated from Stanford Business School, unwilling to return to General Motors, he joined the Boston Consulting Group.

Because consulting work was difficult to land, Bob Kegel gradually became discouraged.

With the help of alumnus David Marquette, he turned around and joined TVI Fund to become a professional investor.

During his years at TVI Fund, Bob Kegel was mainly responsible for the technology field, but the area he was most interested in was the consumer field.

Bob Kegel once promoted the Starbucks project to alumnus David Marquette, but was rejected by the other party, which made him very disappointed.

At this time, his friends Bruce Dunlevie (Bruce Dunlevie) and Andy Rachleff (Andy Rachleff) decided to leave their jobs and go it alone.

They persuaded Bob Kegel, and the three young men decided to join forces and form a new venture capital company.

Kevin Harvey, an entrepreneur who had previously invested in Bruce Denlevy, also decided to join the team at this time.

The four young people had dreams and hoped to set a new benchmark in the Silicon Valley investment community, so they named the new company Benchmark Capital.

After listening to Chris's introduction, Liu Jiang thought for a long time, and finally made up his mind to let the other party contact Bob Kegel, an investor at Benchmark Capital.

Not long after, Chris made an appointment with Bob Kegel, who would come to visit eBay to inspect the specific situation of eBay.

As a result, the day of the on-site inspection did not go well. eBay had a slight problem during the demonstration.

Although Bob Kegel didn't say anything at the time, he still said a few words to Chris when he left.

He thinks eBay's website interface is too rough, founder Pearl is a bit uncanny, and CEO Meg Whitman is quite capable.
In short, the online auction site didn't make a special impression on Bob Kegel.

Chris originally thought there was no chance, but who knew that Bob Kegel browsed the eBay website several times after finishing the inspection.

What really got Bob Kegel hooked was a fishing bait. This guy actually had a weird habit of collecting fishing baits.

When he browsed eBay, he discovered all kinds of bizarre fishing lures.

This made Bob Kegel a little bit interested in this online auction website. As he learned more about eBay, he became more and more appreciative of eBay's community-based operation model.

After repeated evaluations, Bob Kegel finally made up his mind and extended an olive branch to eBay on behalf of Benchmark Capital.

Chris immediately reported the good news to General Liu. After hearing this, General Liu was overjoyed. He immediately rushed to Silicon Valley with a group of confidants and started negotiations with Bob Kegel.

After several rounds of bickering, Benchmark Capital finally decided to invest US$600 million to acquire 10% of eBay's shares, and then loaned US$200 million to eBay at extremely low interest rates.

The Sopno Family Foundation also invested $300 million in eBay, acquiring a 5% stake in the company.

After the completion of this round of financing, eBay's equity distribution is as follows: New Caesar Investment Company 53.55%, Pier 22.95%, Sopno Family Foundation 5%, Benchmark Capital 10%, and the option pool 8.5%.

The US$1100 million was quickly received. With such a large capital injection, Meg Whitman will surely be able to promote various plans much more smoothly.

Bob Kegel made a small suggestion to eBay's management.

He hopes to hire a top creative design company like Frog Design to develop a new website interface for eBay.

eBay's management readily agreed to Bob Kegel's suggestion.

After completing the eBay financing, Liu Jiang finally felt a little more relaxed.

In addition to daily training, he puts most of his energy into supervising the filming of "Death is Coming" and "Charlie's Angels".

On this day, General Liu, who had just finished inspecting the two crews, came to the New Caesar Entertainment Company and was ready to handle some of the accumulated affairs. Unexpectedly, Jonathan suddenly came over.

"Boss, last time you asked me to investigate the copyright related to the full-length fantasy novel "The Lord of the Rings", I have already investigated it clearly. This is the relevant information."

Jonathan walked quickly to the desk, put down a document, and pushed it in front of General Liu.

Last time he attended the premiere of "Batman and Robin," Liu met the tall beauty Liv Tyler, who has plump lips no less than those of Angelina Jolie.

Remembering that the other party was the Elf Princess in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, he immediately became interested.

After finding some free time, Liu Jiang called Jonathan and arranged for him to investigate the copyright situation of the long fantasy novel "The Lord of the Rings".

After a period of careful investigation, Jonathan finally figured out the twists and turns behind the copyright related to "Lord of the Rings".

Liu Jiang picked up the information on his desk and looked through it carefully.

As early as 1969, United Artists Entertainment, then one of the eight largest companies in Hollywood, bought the rights to "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" from Tolkien for £1.

The copyright here includes film adaptation rights and operating rights for related products, etc.

At the same time, United Artists Entertainment will also pay 7.5% of the operating income related to the two books as royalties to Tolkien and Tolkien's beneficiaries.

In 1976, United Artists sold the rights to producer Saul Zaentz.

Later, the visionary producer obtained the trademark rights to all characters, scenes and objects in the two novels from the descendants of the original author Tolkien.

In 1978, Sal Zaenz established a company called Tolkien Enterprises to sell licenses related to Tolkien's works.

To this day, the rights to "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" are still firmly in the hands of this extremely shrewd producer.

Currently, Miramax's Harvey Weinstein and emerging director Peter Jackson are negotiating with Sal Zaenz, and they want to obtain the film adaptation rights of "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit".

According to reliable sources, the negotiations between the two parties were not smooth. It is not that Sal Zaenz does not want to sell the license. The problem mainly lies with Harvey Weinstein and Peter Jackson.

Speaking of which, Harvey Weinstein is also Sal Zaenz’s benefactor!
As early as 1995, when Sal Zaenz was preparing to film "The British Patient", he completely fell out with the Hollywood giant Fox Pictures due to irreconcilable differences.

Fox Studios angrily announced it was withdrawing from the project and immediately withdrew most of the funds.

Seeing that the crew of "The British Patient" was about to fall into a situation where there was nothing to eat, Harvey Weinstein appeared like a savior.

Miramax financed The British Patient, which went on to become a success and made Harvey Weinstein a fortune.

After experiencing this incident, Sal Zaenz is very grateful to Harvey Weinstein. As long as the price is right, he does not mind licensing the film adaptation rights of "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" to him.

That's too far! That's too far! Back to the issue between Harvey Weinstein and Peter Jackson.

The two had considerable differences over filmmaking, and initially Peter Jackson planned to make three films.

The first is "The Lord of the Rings", the second is "The Hobbit" and the third is "The Hobbit".

Harvey Weinstein initially agreed to Peter Jackson's plan, but later due to various reasons, the boss who likes to invite Hollywood female stars to sit on the red sofa regretted it!
The film production plan changed again and again. First, "The Hobbit" was not made, and it was changed to making two "Lord of the Rings" movies.

Later, because filming two "Lord of the Rings" movies required too much money, the budget Miramax gave Peter Jackson for the project was completely insufficient.

It’s not a matter of a slight difference, but a huge difference! The kind that makes people despair!

I have no choice, I am short of money and can’t play anymore! Harvey Weinstein had no choice but to turn to Disney, the parent company of Miramax.

Disney-related experts conducted research and called him "good guy" three times!

As a well-known fantasy masterpiece, "The Lord of the Rings" is notoriously difficult to adapt! The production cost is extremely high! It takes a long time to make!

To put it simply, the original work is too majestic and magnificent to make a good movie.

Moreover, the production cost is too high, it takes too long, and the project risks are too great. When the movie is produced, there may be another "Future Water World".

Therefore, Disney executives did not hesitate to reject Harvey Weinstein's request for help. They did not believe that "Lord of the Rings" could be a box office hit.

As a result, Harvey Weinstein could only turn around and continue to PUA Peter Jackson, once again changed the film production plan, asking the other party to make only one film.

At the same time, the film's script must be drastically changed, to compress the duration as much as possible, merge famous cities from the novel, and cut off some characters who don't have many roles.

In this case, wouldn’t one movie handle all the plot?

Peter Jackson went numb after hearing Harvey Weinstein’s request!

Play like this? Is the movie still called "The Lord of the Rings"?

If I really agree to Harvey Weinstein's request, he will not only destroy the well-known masterpiece "The Lord of the Rings", but also firmly nail himself to the pillar of shame in history!

no! Absolutely not!
Peter Jackson expresses his firm opposition to Harvey Weinstein.

After several talks, Harvey Weinstein became impatient and issued an ultimatum to Peter Jackson.

Give the other party three weeks to find a company willing to invest in the project.

Peter Jackson didn't want to give up on his dream, so he had no choice but to take the "Lord of the Rings" project plan and raise investment in Hollywood.

(End of this chapter)