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In the past few years in the United States, Zhou Buqi followed Boss Ma and built connections with his help, and he interacted with many technology companies.

It was different now. Zhou Buqi had come from behind and had more influence than him, so naturally he wanted to reciprocate the favor.

Boss Ma’s business trip is scheduled for 7-8 days.

Zhou Buqi plans to accompany him throughout the process, showing his pride and righteousness.

On August 22, we visited the Golden Gate Bridge, the Palace of Fine Arts, and the City Hall, and also visited the headquarters of Ziweixing International, the Intel Museum, and the Aotudesk Museum.

In the evening, take a flight to Las Vegas to watch a show.

There are many second- and third-tier film and television stars working part-time here, serving wealthy owners of shows or casinos.

On August 23, I returned to Silicon Valley in the morning, visited Google and Facebook in the morning, and attended the Technology Experience Innovation Conference held at the Stanford Graduate School of Design in the afternoon.

On August 24th, free time in the morning and return to Los Angeles at noon.

Zhou Buqi's little daughter has just been born and hasn't been named yet. She can't just run away and disappear. He has to go home and hug the child. Boss Ma understands.

However, in the afternoon, they still went to the Getty Art Center, Pantages Theater and the Los Angeles Museum of Modern Art. In the evening, they also had a small beach party at Santa Monica Beach under nightfall, and invited some Hollywood practitioners.

On August 25th, we went to visit Universal Studios together. Because of Zhou Buqi's relationship, a group of more than a dozen people visited the film production process in detail and reviewed many classic film clips from Universal Pictures.

However, Zhou Buqi did not participate much. He mainly asked Boss Ma to visit with the team. He mainly discussed some acquisitions with Smoke, the chairman of Universal Pictures.

The other party is looking forward to this transaction.

During the merger of Universal Pictures and NBC in the past few years, Universal was bullied a lot. After all, from the perspective of making money, NBC TV station is the core asset of NBCUniversal Group.

For this reason, Zhou Buqi decisively made a very important decision.

In the NBCUniversal Group, NBC has a cable TV entertainment department, and Universal Pictures also has a cable TV production department. Both departments have managers who must report to NBCUniversal Vice President Ms. Bonnie Heimer at the same time. report.

Bonnie is a ruthless character and an influential strong woman in the American business community, second only to Amy Pascal, the president of Sony Pictures, in Hollywood.

In the past decade or so, some of the most popular TV series in the United States have premiered on NBC, and the hero behind them is Bonnie Highmore.

She has a very unique eye for choosing TV series!

After the split of NBCUniversal, both sides will compete for such talents. But she has always worked at NBC, and she wants to stay with NBC.

Zhou Buqi did not hesitate and said decisively: "It's not sweet to be strong. At the worst, I will personally select the projects of Universal Television's production department in the future! Is my vision not as good as hers? Don't worry about these small things, the top priority is... It’s time to split it up as soon as possible! Except for the copyright, we can’t give up anything else!”

These words made these senior practitioners around the world stare blankly.

Zhou Buqi also knew that this was a bit exaggerated, so he went back to make amends and said with a smile: "The acquisition of MGM is almost over. It is estimated that it will be approved by the regulatory authorities at the beginning of next month or no later than the middle of the month."

After approval, MGM officially became a subsidiary of Ziweixing Universal.

"Congratulations!"

Mr. Smoak and several senior executives expressed their congratulations, but they were all a little flustered. Is this young boss reliable?

Zhou Buqi said: "I have stopped the cooperation between MGM and Warner."

"Warner..." Smoak immediately realized what he was talking about. It was a massive project that shocked Hollywood and even the world. "Is it a prequel to "Lord of the Rings"? "The Hobbit" trilogy?"

Zhou Buqi nodded and said calmly: "In the past, MGM wanted to cooperate with Warner. It was because the family was too weak and could not afford so much investment funds and could not bear such big risks. It won't happen anymore. MGM must make decisions that are in its best interest."

Smoke was surprised, "Aren't you going to do it? Even if you cooperate with Warner, you can make a lot of money, right?"

The film distribution rights for the "Lord of the Rings" series are in the hands of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

If MGM and Warner co-produce the "Hobbit" trilogy, they won't have to pay a penny. They will just rely on the dividend rights converted from the distribution rights... "The Hobbit" has a global value of nearly 3 billion US dollars. Judging from the box office, MGM will earn at least 300 million US dollars.

According to traditional Hollywood thinking, why not do this kind of business without capital?

Zero investment, high returns, professional managers like it the most.

People at Universal Pictures said they couldn't understand.

Zhou Buqi said with deep eyes: "MGM only sold the film adaptation and production rights, retained the film distribution rights, and also retained the production and distribution rights of the TV series."

"A TV series!" Smoke immediately grasped the key point, looking shocked and incredulous, "Making... a TV series?"

Could this fantasy masterpiece be made into a TV series?

Not showing in theaters?

Can I get my money back?

Even if you can make money, can the rate of return be as high as making a movie?

Zhou Buqi waved his hand and said with a smile: "This is a temporary plan. Maybe Warner is very sincere and can restart cooperation? But Universal must also be prepared. The level of MGM's film and television production department is too high." Worse, if TV series like The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings are really going to be produced, then Universal’s TV production department will be the main one.”

"hiss!"

Universal executives, including Smoak, were shocked.

I can feel the great courage of the new boss.

Zhou Buqi made a big deal, and he wasn't afraid of a traitor present to tip off the news. Whether the news is leaked or not, Warner will also feel some pressure.

Want to work with MGM to develop movies in the "Hobbit" series?

Please show more sincerity!

On August 26, Zhou Buqi, accompanied by Xue Baoshan, Sun Wanran and Ning Lu, as well as two bodyguards, and Boss Ma's three assistants who always accompany him, went to the Los Angeles studio of Continuum, an innovative design consulting agency.

This is a design company.

Covering all aspects, including the design of clothes and shoes, the design of company icons, and website page UI design, etc. This is a partner of Ziweixing International. During the development process of the English version of Helo, they paid US$1.8 million in design fees and produced a total of 13 plans.

As a foreign company, it is best to cooperate with local design companies to complete cultural integration.

If AliExpress wants to focus on the US market, it is necessary to come and investigate.

Boss Ma was very happy.

In the afternoon, I went to Silicon Valley again and visited a new small company - Evernote.

"Ziweixing has acquired this company and holds 80% of the shares."

"Isn't this...isn't it the same as your micro-dot notes?"

Because it is a small company, Boss Ma quickly understood the company's business and was surprised. Ziweixing obviously already has Weidian Notes, so why did it go to the United States to acquire a company with similar business?

Zhou Buqi joked: "Nip your competitors in the cradle. If you can't kill them, buy them."

Boss Ma didn't quite believe it and asked, "Is there an internal competition system?"

Zhou Buqi nodded, "Absolutely. This field is relatively new and there are relatively few competitors. Domestically, we use micro-notes. There is nothing to say about this. There are no competitors. For overseas markets, striving for it is to walk on two legs together and put this The market is also doing it.”

"The additional cost, is it a good deal?"

"Zhongtai!"

"Zhongtai?" Boss Ma was very interested in this topic and said with a smile, "I've heard a long time ago that Ziweixing is working on a middle-stage strategy. Tell me, what kind of idea is this?"

On this topic, Zhou Buqi could only tell everything.

In the previous life, the concept of "big middle desk, small front desk" was proposed by Boss Ma. Once launched, it immediately caused a sensation in the Internet industry, and major companies followed suit. Then the circle was broken, and many non-Internet companies also followed suit.

This enterprise system model can really greatly reduce operating expenses.

Later, geographical restrictions were broken, and Silicon Valley giants also began to try to introduce the "large, middle office, small front office" enterprise system launched by Alibaba.

This kind of innovation in the company's system, system and structure has further enhanced Boss Ma's status in the world business community.

However, it won't happen in this life, and the halo will be snatched away by Zhou Buqi.

Zhou Buqi felt a little embarrassed and could only explain to him frankly, "The middle office is the buffer zone between the front office and the back office. For example, Micro Notes and Evernote have some common needs, such as login, authentication, payment, storage, etc. Cloud services, risk control, etc., package these general requirements and turn them into middle-end capabilities, which are uniformly output to the front-end. The front-end product manager can obtain login components, risk control components, payment components, and storage components from the middle-end. etc."

Boss Ma had known about it before and agreed very much, "Just like cooking, you need to buy vegetables, side dishes, and stir-fry vegetables. The general capability in the middle is the side dish center, which uniformly supplies the food to the front-end chef, and Instead of having the chef personally wash and prepare the dishes in the traditional model, the chef can only focus on cooking, which can greatly save efficiency and expenses."

Zhou Buqi laughed and said, "Yes! That's what it means! The middle office business can provide Ziweixing with the opportunity to create enough small front desks. For example, in this kind of network notebook business, the front desk may only have a few or a dozen people. The expense is not too big. If you support a few front desks and produce a few different types of products, there will always be one that can stand out in the market."

"Is it done yet?"

"Not yet. We will first experiment and explore in China, summarize the experience and rules, and create a complete salary and performance incentive system that is satisfactory to the front, middle and back offices, and then fully promote it. Currently, Evernote is still operated independently. status, it will be integrated when the time is right.”

"Been taught a lesson."

Boss Ma hugged his fist sincerely, like a knight.

I was moved and admired in my heart.

I felt that Boss Xiao Zhou was really generous. He didn’t hide anything, he really knew everything and answered everything. He treats people with such sincerity, and it seems that Alibaba can really cooperate with Ziweixing in depth to make use of their cloud computing platform.

Logically speaking, there are specialties in the art industry, so it is best not to conduct cross-border orders.

But this guy is different. He is really a business wizard!