My Lord, you need to stand up!

Chapter 972 Don't Take Yourself Too Seriously
Sure enough, when Wei Dong visited the computer OEM factory, he discovered some clues.

It's almost May, and as a contract manufacturer on par with Citibank's local factory, the Shanghai plant can produce 200,000 computers every month!

Roughly one-third is produced in North America, Europe, and here.

Among them, Airland's European factory is only a component assembly plant, which is far behind Shanghai Haier, which supplies 700,000 monitors per month.

In contrast to Europeans' reluctance to produce such equipment, Shanghai Hai even halted one-third of its domestic TV production capacity to fully guarantee the production of OEM monitors.

Isn't earning US dollars and foreign exchange a better option?

Therefore, both state-owned and foreign-invested enterprises in Shanghai are unhesitatingly increasing and expanding their production lines.

Because the Shanghai factory clearly has the lowest cost and the quality is reliable.

It is clear that it is about to surpass Apple's domestic market to become the largest contract manufacturer.

But the routine work orders that came in this time didn't show any changes to the products from June or July.

Especially the changes on the motherboard.

Still the same as always?!

Apple's motherboards have a very different form factor from IBM's.

IBM's approach is to set industry standards, and then all overseas brands, including Toshiba and Fuji, as well as various domestic computer brands like Citibank, must follow IBM's standards.

Even if we don't dominate the market share, we can still keep track of all industry standards at any time.

With one change, other brands have no choice but to follow suit.

Apple doesn't do that.

Since Steve Jobs introduced this thing in the 1970s, he has emphasized innovation and creativity, so it is completely exclusive.

I'm all about artistic flair; take it or leave it. Other manufacturers can follow my lead if they want, but I don't care if you use my standards.

To hell with IBM's standards, I'm just a dazzling firework.

Therefore, IBM released motherboard interface mainlines and slots, which Apple disdained to use.

Last year, sound cards had to be released in two models: one with an internal slot for IBM computers and the other with an external serial port for Apple computers.

Finally, Apple acquired all the internal slot cards, ensuring that only Apple computers had sound cards.

This is largely the main reason why Apple sold more than eight million computers last year.

But now it's 1988, and a new model is about to be released.

Even if the main chip architecture remains unchanged, incremental changes still need to be made; at the very least, a new slot interface needs to be added.

This year, Wei Dong and Lin Wangfu changed their supplier, specifically the optical drive.

This thing needs an additional interface to prevent external attachments; Apple computers only have a few interfaces on the back right now.

A mouse, keyboard, sound card—you can't even use a printer at the same time if you have a sound card installed.

Why aren't you making any changes?
Instruct Wei Dong to immediately contact Lin Wangfu at the OEM factory using the long-distance line specially approved by the foreign-invested enterprise.

Some of our Singaporean employees are already based in Silicon Valley and treated the chairman very well.

After several attempts, the deliveryman from Singapore finally got through, sounding somewhat helpless: "I couldn't see Steve. I heard he's recently become obsessed with some kind of technology and doesn't seem to care much about new product launches. There's even a saying within the company that since it sold so well last year, it wouldn't hurt to continue selling it for another year..."

It sounds like the emperor is so engrossed in the Leopard Chamber that the civil and military officials outside can no longer report it.

Wei Dong almost chuckled, but then a sudden weight settled in his heart.

Apple's sales methods also differ from those of IBM and Toshiba.

These brands have a strong sales network with branches and sales personnel all over the world.

Marketing costs may be higher, but they can generate continuous sales. The basic sales skills of visiting, promoting, and demonstrating are always in use.

Apple computers were more like a later live-streamed sales phenomenon. Every year, Steve Jobs, the big anchor, would gather various TV networks to broadcast the launch event, release a new model, and have it sell like hotcakes. Then, the orders would slowly be cleared out in the afterglow of the hype.

Last year's sales were so good that we didn't even hold a press conference before Christmas, the traditional peak shipping season.

There is no production capacity to supply consumers even if we sell more.

I never imagined that this mindset would continue to this day.

It's certain that Wei Dong and his group still made a profit, but they could have earned hundreds of millions of US dollars last June, and over the next two or three months, they received a total of one billion US dollars.

Now, the pay has been cut in half, and they might only be making tens of millions of US dollars a month...

The word "only" sounds good, but the psychological expectations have already been raised and can't be lowered.

For example, if someone really uses this as a backup plan and goes on a crazy leveraged ride, placing orders for a lot of ships, but then external revenue changes and they can't afford the large amount of net repayment period fees before the ships are launched, wouldn't that lead to bankruptcy?

Later, many Hong Kong celebrities and tycoons went bankrupt in the same way.

That's why Wei Dong is so determined to oppose increasing leverage in his own businesses.

He has plenty of ways to make money steadily, why be so aggressive?

I just invested several hundred million dollars in a shipbuilding business, and haven't even leveraged it yet, but I'm already feeling uneasy. And with Shanghai Shipping investing so heavily to increase production capacity, if you suddenly decide not to hold a press conference or launch new products, production could plummet.

What should we do here?
If Wei Dong hadn't known that Steve disliked China, he would have suspected that the US was setting a trap for him.

What technology is he obsessed with?

Lin Wangfu was also a little annoyed: "I don't know. He doesn't really talk to me anyway. Maybe you should come instead; he trusts you."

Wei Dong reassured him, "There are still almost two months left. Okay, I'll try to contact him. Relax, the fiber optic project on my end is progressing well."

Lin Wangfu still smiled: "I feel more at ease working with you. The main reason is that we have already produced and stockpiled 200,000 optical drives and secretly accumulated about one million laser heads. I still feel a lot of pressure."

That's the difference. Wei Dong was convinced that the optical drive was the right direction, so he trusted his partner to handle it.

Lin Wangfu, however, had a "wishful thinking".

If there isn't a large-scale installation that leads to the trend of using optical drives in personal computers, and if some other drive emerges to lead the way, wouldn't that lead to bankruptcy and ruin?

Even though they have reduced the unit cost of mass-produced innovative optical drives to around $300, with 200,000 units plus the main cost of the laser heads being outsourced, the entire optical drive project has already cost over $200 million!

Moreover, Lin Wangfu wanted to continue last year's practice of secretly stockpiling goods to supply Apple at the last minute, so as to prevent other competitors from following suit.

You know, Philips doesn't mass-produce optical drives, and each one can cost as much as three thousand dollars. Now, taking advantage of the lack of competitors, they can sell a bunch of them for seven or eight hundred dollars each. Wouldn't that easily generate hundreds of millions of dollars?!

How could Po-zai not be nervous and uneasy?

Moreover, as a technical officer responsible for the product's technical roadmap, and given that he was the one who chose the optical drive as the direction, he felt even more pressure.

No one dared to approach Wei Dong to complain.
Haha, he confidently assured everyone: "Once I'm done here, I'll definitely be in Silicon Valley by May. I still need to share the profits with Brother Fa, they should be playing their warm-up matches in North America by now."

Lin Wangfu then jokingly said that he would play basketball with him when he came, as he had already practiced a few moves.

After hanging up the phone, Wei Dong couldn't help but think that he had been back in the mainland for almost two months, and his wife had been in North America for two months, and they hadn't been busy with their business in Silicon Valley at all. Wei Dong had gone there for nothing!

What a joke! She's the wife of a billionaire, yet she still controls billions of dollars in assets.

If Qin Yuye hadn't grown up with Qin Zhiming and had some upbringing, and had seen money and knew what it was all about, a young woman in her early twenties might have already gone astray.

So when she went to North America, she took Zou Huimin, who didn't need to film, with her to travel around. Anyway, as long as the Taoist nun was with her, she could be sure of safety and not just messing around.

From the basketball team in Hawaii to Vancouver where my parents and relatives live, to Los Angeles with its finance and business companies, and even San Francisco, which is separated from Silicon Valley by a canyon, I've traveled all over the world, but I haven't been to Apple.

What's so fun about hanging out with those tech geeks?

So, it's quite an achievement that the senior executive director didn't break down.

Together we admired the international community with its cool and elegant Hui-style architecture.

The secretary, who specializes in stage design, and the administrative director, who genuinely loves drawing, were both amazed that this was the boss's doing.

Yu Xiaoqiu even wondered if this was his level of appreciation, since she hadn't noticed it before.

Zou Huimin immediately observed that this beautiful woman didn't even try to hide her true feelings in front of the wife.

His wife mainly flaunted their wealth: "We've already sold HK$4 billion worth of real estate, two million square meters! And that's just part of our real estate projects in Shanghai. We just acquired 600,000 square meters in Jiangzhou. We have two real estate companies in Pingjing alone!"

She doesn't have the habit of hiding her talents and abilities.

He even deliberately went to extremes to see just how much he could torment the other women's mentality.

She was also trying to test where her husband's moral bottom line was.

He felt guilty because he felt his position was illegitimate.

As a result, the secretary and the executive director were somewhat distracted, and their minds were quite calm.

In the last two or three years, Sister Qing thought she had become rich overnight, but she was mistakenly hurt and riddled with holes.

My eyes were completely red!

They sold it for HK$4 billion in a legitimate and legal manner!

Compared to that, my own little thing is nothing, I'm practically a beggar!
The three women, all in their early twenties, were all beautiful young women (or married women). They could all see the beautiful woman affectionately linking arms with the other woman, and couldn't help but inquire about the real estate deal. Wei Dong said the risks were still very high, and how could he dare to take it on…

Zou Huimin couldn't help but make a gossipy face at Yu Xiaoqiu.

She was beautiful, and her style was completely non-aggressive, like a fairy. Yu Meiren liked her so much that she took her arm and whispered to her.

Qin Yuye didn't feel any aura towards this middle-aged woman who was admired throughout the mainland, and he was too lazy to be on guard.

She chuckled and said, "It's very simple. Even the most knowledgeable Hong Kong businessmen in real estate need to team up with my husband to succeed in the mainland real estate market. Just ask him."

Sister Qing's warm and caring older sister act was completely useless: "Do you have to partner with Hong Kong businessmen to do real estate? I heard he's already a Hong Kong businessman. Is that what he got?"

Oh dear, even Sister Qing, who is so shrewd and diplomatic on the Spring Festival Gala, has her moments of saying the wrong thing.

This is what annoys Qin Yuye the most: Who are you?

So when they finally met at the upscale restaurant in Building 5 that evening, Wei Dong and his wife both felt an urge to interrogate him about what he was doing.

But at this point, the focus was still on the president of Chrysler.

(End of this chapter)