The entertainment empire began with Liu Yifei's premarital pregnancy.

The film "Lust, Caution" has been a box office hit, grossing over 100 million yuan in just two days, causing a sensation throughout the entertainment industry. This is not a commercial blockbuster, but an art film, yet it has achieved such success.

Although art films don't have the same staying power as commercial blockbusters at the box office, "Lust, Caution" has already grossed over 100 million yuan in just two days, so the film is expected to gross at least 300-400 million yuan, and may even surpass 500 million yuan.

Right now, all the entertainment reporters want to interview director Lin Bufan, but unfortunately, Lin Bufan has not returned to China at all. Instead, he took a private jet to Los Angeles with Liu Yifei.

……

The day after the film festival ended, Lin Bufan and Liang Jiahui parted ways at the airport, and Lin Bufan took Liu Yifei on a private jet to Los Angeles.

After a flight of more than ten hours, the plane landed at Los Angeles International Airport.

"BOSS!"

"Mr. Lin!"

As Lin Bufan and Liu Yifei walked out of the airport, Carter and Li Feng were waiting at the exit.

A week earlier, Li Feng had arrived in Los Angeles with a team of 12 bodyguards, ahead of Lin Bufan. Being abroad, especially in America where shootings happen every day, Lin Bufan was not going to entrust his life to the American police.

Even Carter wouldn't completely trust the other party, after all, he was a white man, and the old saying was right: those who are not of our race will surely have different hearts.

One of the reasons Lin Bufan chose Carter as the general manager of Extraordinary Pictures was that Carter had parents and was married with children, making him easier to control.

"I'm going to the company tomorrow, so I'll head back to Beverly Hills now!"

Lin Bufan glanced at Carter first, then turned to look at Li Feng.

"Yes, Mr. Lin (Boss!)"

Lin Bufan led Liu Yifei to the stretch Lincoln that was already parked nearby, with one of the 12 bodyguards serving as the driver.

Lin Bufan himself didn't mind the long flight, but Liu Yifei was quite tired and needed to rest and adjust to the time difference first, otherwise she simply couldn't handle the physical fatigue.

Although Lin Bufan didn't live in his Beverly Hills mansion, he still had servants to clean it regularly, and Carter naturally took care of such small matters.

Li Feng and his group arrived a week early, mainly for one reason: to thoroughly inspect the entire mansion inside and out to ensure there were no problems.

Lin Bufan's businesses in the United States are quite substantial now. Although his shares in Extraordinary Pictures are held by an institution on his behalf, those who are interested can probably guess a thing or two.

However, they would not consider Lin Bufan to be a major shareholder of Extraordinary Pictures.

The main one is Strong Wind Investment Company. Since acquiring Douglas Bank for $6000 million and renaming it Strong Wind Bank, this investment company has quickly gained a reputation on Wall Street.

Shortly after, Strong Wind Investment announced that it would acquire 1% of Facebook's shares for US$1 million. This acquisition was originally agreed upon by Lin Bufan.

Facebook's market capitalization exceeded one trillion dollars in later years. Even without further acquisitions, this 1% stake would still be worth more than 100 billion US dollars.

In March of this year, led by Bart Elvis, Strong Wind Investment successfully entered SpaceX's Series C funding round, acquiring a 5% stake in SpaceX for $20 million.

SpaceX was not publicly listed until Lin Bufan's time travel, but the company's valuation had already reached over 1.7 trillion.

In addition, it has invested in Theranos and Twitter.

Twitter, needless to say, was acquired by Musk around 2022 for $440 billion.

However, Twitter was only founded this year and its current valuation is only five million US dollars. Strong Wind Investment acquired a 35% stake in Twitter for a premium of 200 million US dollars.

Lin Bufan's idea about Twitter is simple: when Musk acquires it in the future, he will simply relinquish it and pocket tens of billions of dollars.

On the contrary, Theranos deserves more attention. It was a company that specialized in the medical industry. In 2014, its valuation was nearly 10 billion US dollars, but the following year, in 2015, it plummeted.

After the Wall Street Journal exposed its technical fraud, its valuation shrank rapidly.

By 2016, its valuation had plummeted to approximately $8 million, and ultimately, no one showed any interest in it.

Theranos is currently valued at $1.97 million. Strong Wind Capital also entered the company during its first round of financing, acquiring an 8% stake in Theranos for $1576 million.

In addition, there is Tesla, in which Strong Wind has invested.

In September 2006, Strong Wind Investment invested $10 million in Tesla, acquiring a 5% stake.

Tesla's valuation remained almost unchanged until its IPO, hovering around $2 million.

It wasn't until Tesla went public 10 years later that its market value, starting from $17 billion, eventually exceeded one trillion dollars.

……

The next day, Lin Bufan came downstairs and had just finished breakfast.

"Boss, Bart Elvis and his men are here!" Liu Chao, the deputy captain of the bodyguard team, came in and reported to Lin Bufan.

"Let him in!"

Lin Bufan nodded slightly.

Bart Elvis is the CEO of Strong Wind Investment. In addition to him, there are Gold Lister and Butler Miles, who are the CRO (Chief Risk Officer) and CCO (Chief Compliance Officer), respectively.

Both of these individuals were recruited by Lin Bufan through a headhunting firm.

Since Lin Bufan himself is not in the United States, Strong Wind Investment Company cannot have only one voice; otherwise, he could easily be misled by Bart Elvis.