Reborn in 2010, the AI ​​in my mind is too powerful.

Chen Yiran's idea of ​​investing in an aircraft manufacturer didn't come out of nowhere; he actually had ideas about all manufacturing industries.

After his trip to South Korea, he had already developed a preliminary idea for his future business model.

He needs to increase investment in the SEELE R&D platform, and even gradually turn it into a public platform, no longer limited to the Aurora Group.

Of course, you can't just let others use it for free; you have to pay them, a lot of money.

Moreover, given the current shortage of chip production capacity, simply providing funds is not enough to reap the initial benefits of technological advancements; ideally, Chen Yiran should also become a shareholder or even join the board of directors.

Only in this way can we form a bond of shared interests and even enable deeper collaboration across various industries in the future.

When it comes to manufacturing, the first industry that comes to mind is aircraft manufacturing. This industry is relatively undefined, with only two players: Airbus and Boeing.

Based on Chen Yiran's intuition, he would definitely choose Airbus. Even though he wasn't a seasoned aviation enthusiast and didn't know much about the aviation industry, he followed several captains on Bilibili who liked to make sarcastic comments, and he knew about Boeing's Doraemon.

But when he finally received the more detailed business report, he realized that he didn't actually have a choice; he could only choose Boeing.

I received the business report on New Year's Day, the official start of 2014, with a grand fireworks display across Hawaii. Surprisingly, the Chase team didn't take a day off; they sent the documents to his email address.

Chase knew what he was going to do, and they gave him the conclusion right at the very beginning of the business report.

Airbus is not a purely public company. France and Germany each hold 11% of the shares, and Spain holds 4%, making them the largest shareholder group with a combined 26%.

That's not the most annoying thing. The most annoying thing is that their investment is not a conventional state capital investment; they are actually involved in the operation.

Airbus has long maintained a political balance where French and Germans take turns holding key positions, alternating as CEO and chairman, and strategic matters require multilateral agreement.

To put it bluntly, Airbus is a quasi-national team with deep government involvement, and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that it's a state-owned enterprise disguised as a private enterprise.

Chen Yiran immediately put the Airbus aside and started looking at Boeing's information.

In terms of stock price, Boeing currently appears to be in good health, still boasting a market capitalization of nearly $100 billion. Even later, when Boeing's business was completely surpassed by Airbus, its market capitalization never fell behind.

This may be a benefit Boeing reaped from changing its culture after 1997. However, the cost of this benefit was far too great.

To understand this change, we must mention McDonnell Douglas, a frequent source of air crash videos.

McDonnell Douglas was a huge menace, with its planes frequently involved in all sorts of bizarre air disasters, and its management was one of the most outrageous in the world.

They are a group of people whose actual jobs are average, but whose ability to engage in palace intrigue is off the charts.

In 1997, McDonnell Douglas began frequent contact with Airbus. Under pressure, Boeing acquired McDonnell Douglas through a stock swap, a deal valued at $133 billion. In the short term, this deal was not a loss; strategically, it was even very profitable.

Boeing acquired the license of the U.S. aerospace defense national team, McDonnell Douglas's cash cow in U.S. military defense, and severed the alliance between Airbus and McDonnell Douglas.

Everyone thought Boeing would take the opportunity to kill McDonnell Douglas and completely withdraw the brand from the market.

But what people didn't expect was a complete reversal of fortune. McDonnell Douglas's top executives took over Boeing directly, and the entire acquisition may have been a scheme by McDonnell Douglas CEO Harry Stonesea.

Although Boeing was stronger, its shareholding was highly dispersed, with no single shareholder holding more than 3% of the shares at the time. In contrast, McDonnell Douglas's shareholding was very concentrated, and there was clearly a prior agreement between them.

After merging through a share swap, the original McDonnell Douglas employees united and began to erode Boeing's influence.

After the dust settled, Boeing's 18-person executive team consisted of 10 external professional managers, 7 from McDonnell Douglas, and only one from Boeing.

Moreover, Phil Condit from Boeing, despite holding the highest position as Chairman and CEO, was an outlier carefully selected by Harry Stonesea.

Phil Condit's engineering background is exceptionally high, a rarity in Boeing's history. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley, a Master of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Princeton University, and even a Ph.D. in Engineering from Tokyo University of Science in 1997.

The problem is that his experience studying management at MIT in 1975 is his true belief.

He was directly persuaded by senior executives from McDonnell Douglas and completely adopted many of McDonnell Douglas's ideas, such as increasing shareholder dividends, using corporate cash reserves to repurchase company stock to reduce the number of outstanding shares and thus increase the stock price, and drastically cutting R&D expenses.

In addition, Boeing began to suffer losses in 1997, setting a record for losses in nearly 40 years, leading to serious short-term performance anxiety.

Boeing ultimately chose to take a shortcut, shifting from an engineer-led to a finance-driven approach, with its core objective changing from building the best aircraft to satisfying shareholder returns.

Phil Condit even publicly declared that Boeing's primary task was no longer to manufacture new aircraft that were ahead of the competition, but rather to strive to create a development environment based on stable stock prices.

In the short term, these factors did not cause any harm. By 2014, Boeing had reached a quadruple historical peak in terms of finances, deliveries, orders, and stock price.

However, this strategy only works when they have an advantage. Airbus has already announced the construction of the A320neo model, which will be their most important aircraft to surpass Boeing.

Boeing chose to continue saving money by modifying the 737 to compete. The consequences were quite dire.

Chen Yiran was familiar with the 737 MAX; it had been involved in several air crashes, and its side doors would often mysteriously fall off during flights.

No one knows yet that Boeing is about to enter an exceptionally long downturn, and Chen Yiran has decided to change history and become a white knight.

He contacted Chase directly and asked them to arrange a meeting with Boeing executives to discuss potential collaborations.