Reborn in Hong Kong: The Tycoon Grows Up

After finishing the matter in Germany, Bao Zixuan went directly to England. This time he had a reason to go. With the rapid development of computers, the development of chips continued to accelerate. Bao Zixuan provided a lot of help, but Heiyun only occupies a small share now; and this share is still Low-end chips such as memory can be said to have made no achievements in CPU.

Currently, Heiyun uses chips from Motorola and Intel, and its own chip design capabilities are very weak. Not only is there no desire to expand development, but there is also the lack of top engineers in this area.

The purpose of Bao Zixuan's coming to the UK this time was to convince a newly established chip company in the UK to accept his investment and be one that he could control.

On December 5, 1978, physicist Hermann Hauser and engineer Chris Curry founded the CPU Company in Cambridge, England. Their main business was to supply electronic equipment to the local market. In 1979, CPU Company changed its name to Acorn Company.

Initially, Acorn planned to use Motorola's 16-bit chip, but found that the chip was too slow and expensive. "A machine that costs 500 pounds cannot use a CPU that costs 100 pounds!" They turned to Intel and asked for the design information of the 80286 chip, but were rejected, so they were forced to develop it themselves.

In 1985, Roger Wilson and Steve Furber designed their own first-generation 32-bit, 6MHz processor.

Use it to make a RISC instruction set computer, referred to as ARM (Acorn RISC Machine). This is where the name ARM comes from.

The full name of RISC is "reduced instruction set computer" (reduced instruction set computer). The instructions it supports are relatively simple, so it consumes little power and is cheap, especially suitable for mobile devices. A typical early device using ARM chips was Apple's Newton PDA.

In the late 1980s, ARM was quickly developed into Acorn's desktop products, forming the basis of computer education in the UK.

On November 27, 1990, Acorn Company was officially reorganized into ARM Computer Company. Apple invested 1.5 million pounds, chip manufacturer VLSI invested 250,000 pounds, and Acorn itself invested 1.5 million pounds in intellectual property rights and 12 engineers. The company's office is very simple, just a barn.

In the 1990s, ARM 32-bit embedded RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) processors expanded around the world, occupying a leading position in the field of low-power, low-cost and high-performance embedded system applications. ARM neither produces nor sells chips, it only sells chip technology licenses.

At present, this company is still in the start-up stage, and Bao Zixuan just wants to get started before others take him seriously. And it is not invested in the name of Heiyun, but in his own private name. Although the effect is the same, this way the black cloud will not be particularly large. Although it is already very large, if it can be reduced, it should be reduced accordingly!

When Bao Zixuan came to Cambridge, he met the two founders of Acorn. Hermann Hauser and Chris Curry were also very puzzled as to why Heiyun Group came to them. After all, this is the most popular company in recent years. And they are still a small company that cannot be smaller, and the strength of the two companies is completely unequal.

Now they see Heiyun founder Bao Zixuan coming in person, which makes them even more confused. After all, not everyone can make this young boss come forward in person, at least they think that their own strength is not up to it.

Hermann Hauser said excitedly: "I don't know what you want from us, Mr. Bao."

If Bao Zixuan cannot get such high respect just as an entrepreneur, he also has the status of being a Turing Award winner. Anyone who is engaged in the computer industry knows the importance of this award, so they cannot help but be excited.

Bao Zixuan: "It seems that Mr. Hauser is impatient, so I won't go around in circles. I want to invest in Acorn. I recognize your strength and I am very optimistic about the future of this company."

Hermann-Hauser: "But we are developing very well now, and the size of this company means that if Mr. Bao becomes a shareholder, we will basically not have many shares."

Bao Zixuan: "Then how do you look at this problem? The resources you will get after I join the shares will be unimaginable. And the company's current market value is 1 million pounds. If you follow your own development, it may reach 10 million pounds. But after I join the company It is possible that the market value will reach 100 million pounds or 1 billion pounds. Although you have fewer shares, the value of the shares in your hands has increased. Also, I am only investing and will not participate in the management of the company. The management rights of the company are still It’s up to you and you can develop it how you want.”

Chris Curry said: “I don’t know how much Mr. Bao values ​​Acorn and how many shares he hopes to get.”

Bao Zixuan: "It's up to you to decide the market value of Acorn. I don't like investing in companies. I prefer investors more often. Only in this way can I be invincible. A company can be established at any time, but it takes ten or dozens of years for talent to be available." It takes years, or even hundreds of years, to cultivate one. We need to take a longer-term view. My interest in Acorn is more because the two of them are still in this company."

Both of them were very happy to hear that Bao Zixuan valued them so much. In fact, when they first established the company, it was more out of interest, but now that it has developed to this stage, if they cannot make a profit, their lives will be affected.

They have invested a considerable amount of their savings in this company and have also taken out bank loans. Now that he heard that Bao Zixuan was willing to invest in their company, Chris Curry, who was an engineer by training, could say that the current situation was quite difficult. That's why he was so excited and hoped that Bao Zixuan would invest in their company, and he even asked how much the company was worth first.

Hermann-Hauser: "There were several investment institutions that wanted to invest in our company before, but they all considered the company's market value relatively low. Moreover, there was some conflict with our business philosophy, so the negotiation was not successful."

"Now that Mr. Bao can give up management rights, we are of course more interested, but we hope to value the company at 5 million pounds."

I wanted to laugh when I heard what Jorge Hauser said about Bao Zixuan. In his previous life, this company would not be worth so much money until 1990. It depends on whether he is young or stupid and easy to bully. How could he offer such a high price? But at the same time, he also understands that this price is really not expensive in the future. In the future, this company will be the only chip giant that can compete with Intel in the United States.

Bao Zixuan: "I'm not short of the money, but don't you think this valuation is too expensive! And can you guarantee that my investment is worth it!"

Jorge Hauser: "It seems that Mr. Bao has never missed the companies and industries he is optimistic about. This is where our confidence lies. And if I reveal the news that you came to negotiate with us, I think many venture capital companies will recognize this." price."

Indeed, Bao Zixuan’s current trends have become a benchmark in some industries. This was all due to his fame. Now that he saw that the two of them were confident, he knew that coming to negotiate would be counterproductive.

In the future, we still need to listen to the opinions of professionals and not act arbitrarily like this. So he said with a smile: "You are not afraid that I will set up a company next to you. It's not that I have no skills, I just don't have the time and energy to take care of these things."

Jorge Hauser: "You do have technology and strength. But your time and energy will not be wasted on a small company, and you will not lose money on your investment in us."

Bao Zixuan: "Okay! Just based on your valuation, there is really no need to worry about this little money."

In the end, Bao Zixuan invested 3.5 million pounds to occupy 70% of Acorn's shares. The rest depends on how the founder shareholders and other staff distribute it.

However, Bao Zixuan knew that he still had to develop slowly and not to rush things too hastily. Now we only need to establish the chip framework agreement. As for mass production, let’s leave it to the future!