Inside the restaurant at Sony Columbia Studios.

Perhaps because it was lunch time, there were still quite a lot of customers. Looking around, you could see many familiar Hollywood stars.

Li Yishu asked Son Masayoshi what he wanted to eat, and the other party said it was up to the host, so he ordered a few dishes at random.

After the waiter brought three glasses of water, Son did not say any more polite words, but went straight to the point of his visit: “Mr. Li, I came here with full sincerity. I am willing to buy all of your Yahoo shares for $500 million.”

“Mr. Sun, regardless of whether I am willing to sell my Yahoo shares, I don’t think it is worth only $500 million just based on the price.”

Li Yishu shook his head. No one knew better than him how high Yahoo’s market value would be in the future. It could reach $100 billion.

Now the outside world’s valuation of Yahoo is only 20 billion US dollars.

The difference is 50 times!
As long as Li Yishu holds on to the shares and starts selling them off in 1999, before the Internet bubble bursts, she could earn back at least tens of billions of dollars.

If it goes well, one or two billion will be no problem.

Of course, this requires a long-term and slow reduction in holdings, and not too much at one time, otherwise it will be detrimental to the growth of Yahoo’s future market value.

When Son Masayoshi heard that the money was not enough, he quickly said, “I can increase the amount.”

“How much can you raise it? 600 million or 700 million?”

“So how much does Li Jun think Yahoo is worth?”

“My valuation of Yahoo is different from yours, so you will never agree to the price I’m talking about.”

Li Yishu didn’t wait for Son to continue speaking, and continued, “Mr. Sun, I told you to come here not to sell you my shares. I will definitely not reduce my holdings of Yahoo shares in the short term.”

Excluding the 5% stake he holds through an offshore company, Li Yishu currently holds nearly 20% of Yahoo’s shares, making him the largest individual shareholder of Yahoo.

However, after the listing, it will jointly invest a certain proportion of shares into the market together with other shareholders such as Qualcomm.

It is impossible for Li Yishu to sell these shares in a short period of time. She will wait until Yahoo goes public and a year after the ban on selling shares is set, and then she will start to slowly sell off her shares year by year.

Son Masayoshi frowned slightly: “Then why did Mr. Li ask me to come to the United States?”

If you’re not selling your shares, then why did you call me here? Are you trying to play tricks on me?
“Don’t be anxious, Mr. Sun.”

Li Yishu smiled and said, “Although I won’t sell my shares, I can introduce other Yahoo shareholders to Mr. Sun. Yahoo is about to go public, and some investors are happy to get their returns in advance.”

The concept of the Internet was actually born as early as the 1960s, but it has only developed into the current state of communication through invisible networks in just a few short years.

Although everyone knows that the Internet represents the future and the information age, no one can give an accurate answer to its true value.

This also leads to the fact that the value of Internet companies after listing is not high now, at least not as crazy as it will be in a few years, simply because the Internet’s profit model has not yet been completely liberated.

The first company to be listed on the NASDAQ in the United States was Netscape. The Netscape Navigator browser, which was first launched by Netscape, quickly gained widespread use among Internet users and became an important tool for people to access the Internet.

Its listing created the first Internet myth. Netscape’s issue price was US$28 when it went public, the opening price reached US$71, and the closing price on the same day was US$58.25, with a market value of over US$20 billion.

This successful listing attracted a large number of investors’ attention to the Internet industry and stimulated a boom in Internet entrepreneurship and investment.

By this year, Netscape’s market value had reached $38 billion, its revenue had reached $1.5 million before June, and its net profit was over tens of millions of dollars.

But not all Internet companies are Netscape. Yahoo’s market prospects are indeed very good, but at the same time other Internet companies are not vegetarians either.

Yahoo has not yet revealed its true value, and the valuation of $20 billion is already high overall.

Considering that shareholders are not allowed to sell their holdings one year after listing, I believe that many investment companies are willing to take the returns they should get after listing in advance so that they can invest in other Internet companies that have not yet been listed, thereby maximizing their profits.

They can use this money to invest in more new Internet companies. As long as one of them succeeds, the returns will double.

After all, Netscape’s market value has only increased by less than 100% in two years since its listing, and no one believes that Yahoo’s market value will reach hundreds of billions of dollars in the future.

Li Yishu’s words made Masayoshi Son’s eyes light up. He was optimistic about Yahoo’s business model and market prospects, so he decided to take a gamble and buy Li Yishu’s shares at a high price.

But now Li Yishu is not willing to sell and can introduce other investment companies to sell Yahoo shares, which is not something that Masayoshi Son would be unable to accept.

Son thought for a moment and asked, “Thank you very much, Mr. Li, for introducing me to other Yahoo shareholders. But what do I need to pay?”

As a successful businessman, he naturally understood that when the other party offered to help him, there were definitely conditions attached.

“Mr. Sun is a straightforward person, so I’ll just say it straight.”

Li Yishu didn’t expect the other party to be so straightforward, but it was fine. They both got what they needed, so he put forward his own request: “Mr. Sun must know that I am engaged in the entertainment media industry and have established an art media group. The Internet is still a little unfamiliar to me. Investing in Yahoo is just because I am optimistic about its future. I am more willing to invest in the media industry that I am familiar with.”

Masayoshi Son is not surprised that Li Yishu has such an idea. People often like to invest in areas they are familiar with. An occasional success does not mean success every time.

After experiencing the huge profits brought by investing in Yahoo, Li Yishu was able to keep a clear head and did not get lost in the wealth that came from investing in the Internet industry. This gave Masayoshi Son a clearer understanding of this world-class director from China.

No wonder he became the first director in the world to win the gold medal at the four major European film festivals, as well as the Best Director Award and Best Picture Award at the Tokyo International Film Festival, as well as the American Academy Award for Best Picture.

Son asked, “Mr. Li wants to buy my shares in Ziff-Davis Group?”

The Ziff-Davis Group is a giant American publishing company that owns numerous magazines and newspapers, including various science and technology magazines, humanities magazines, geography magazines, etc. It is a veritable giant in the media field.

Last year, Masayoshi Son successfully reached a cooperation with the Ziff-Davis Group and bought a portion of the group’s shares for US$21 billion.

Li Yishu asked Monica to check Son’s information and knew about his great achievements last year. He was also very envious of this publishing giant, but the price was too high. With his existing funds, even if he could buy some shares from Son, he would not be able to own even a seat on the board of directors. It was worthless.

If we look at it from a purely investment perspective, the next ten years will be the last glorious years for media, newspapers and magazines, and it is not cost-effective at all.

So he shook his head and refused: “No, I want to buy the shares of TV Asahi held by Mr. Sun!”

“TV Asahi…”

Masayoshi Son did not expect that Lee Yi-shu wanted to acquire shares of TV Asahi. He did have some shares on hand, but not much, only about 1.5%. For him, something was better than nothing. It was not impossible to sell it to Lee Yi-shu, but the other party’s identity as a Chinese made it difficult to deal with.

Sun Zhengyi thought for a moment and said, “Mr. Li, I can transfer the shares of the TV station to you, but your identity is a problem…” Li Yishu smiled and said, “Don’t worry about this, Mr. Sun, I will take care of it. Besides, I also have an investment company in Japan. Since the shares of the TV station I hold are not high, I don’t think there should be any big trouble.”

Seeing that the other party had considered it, Son Masayoshi nodded and said, “That’s no problem.”

As for the price, neither Li Yishu nor Masayoshi Son mentioned it. Both parties will naturally send people to negotiate later.

It’s a bit cheap for the big boss to negotiate the price in person.

The two sides chatted while eating, and without any business disputes, they had a very good chat.

Masayoshi Son admires Lee Yi-su’s artistic achievements very much. He not only praises Lee Yi-su as a world-class director, but also as the light of East Asia and a role model in the field of yellow race art.

Lee Yi-shu was a little flattered by the praise, but he also praised Masayoshi Son in return, praising Son, a Korean-Japanese who is said to have Chinese ancestry, as the next Japanese Kazuo Inamori.

“Director Li!”

Just as the two sides were praising each other, Cheng Long came over with the black actor Chris Tucker. They had just taken off their makeup and came to eat. When they saw Li Yishu eating, they naturally came over to say hello.

After chatting for a while, Li Yishu saw that Son Masayoshi seemed very interested in Cheng Long, so she introduced them to each other: “Along, let me introduce you, this is Masayoshi Son, the chairman of Japan’s SoftBank Group.”

When Cheng Long heard that he was the chairman of a large Japanese group, he said enthusiastically, “Hello, Mr. Sun.”

Son Masayoshi smiled and said, “Hello, Mr. Cheng. I am a fan of yours. I really like watching the movies you have shot before, such as Drunken Master and Rumble in the Bronx.”

“Really? I’m so honored to have a fan like Mr. Sun, a big boss of a group…”

In addition to his personal abilities, Cheng Long’s eloquence is also an indispensable skill for him to have reached his current position.

Looking at all the Chinese people working in Hollywood, none of them can compare to Cheng Long, who speaks differently to different people.

After a few words, he started chatting enthusiastically with Masayoshi Son.

Li Yishu also asked someone to add seats and arranged for Cheng Long and Chris Tucker to sit together.

After sitting down, Chris Tucker suddenly said, “Li, can you come out and talk alone?”

“no problem.”

Li Yishu just thought it was something related to the filming of the crew, so she said something to Monica and walked out of the restaurant with Chris Tucker.

After leaving the restaurant, at the door, Li Yishu asked, “What’s wrong, Tucker? Was there any problem during the filming?”

“No, no, no, Li, there is no problem with the filming. I have learned a lot from working with you these days. Although you scolded me harshly, I can feel that you want to make our film better…”

It seems that all black people have a natural talent for rap. After listening to all this, Li Yishu couldn’t keep up with the rhythm and interrupted, “OK, Tucker, stop talking about this. Just tell me what you want me to do.”

Chris Tucker said, “Lee, do you know director Luc Besson?”

“The director of ‘Léon: The Professional’?”

Of course Lee Yi-su knows Luc Besson.

He remembered that when he first attended the Venice Film Festival, the documentary “Atlantis” directed by Luc Besson was the opening film at that time. He was deeply impressed by the beauty of the underwater world.

“Yes, I took on a new movie of his last year. The part I played wasn’t that big. It was supposed to start filming in August, but he changed his schedule and will be filming at Columbia Studios next month…”

Chris Tucker didn’t want to offend Li Yishu because of this matter, but he didn’t want to give up Luc Besson’s movie, so he thought of coming to Li Yishu to ask if it was possible to arrange his scenes in advance and concentrate on filming.

Li Yishu didn’t give him a chance to speak and interrupted, “So you came to me because you are planning to quit the crew?”

Chris Tucker immediately shook his head: “No, no, no, Li, you misunderstood me. How could I quit your crew? I love this script so much, I promise I will finish the performance.”

Li Yishu glanced at him, said nothing, turned around and went back to the restaurant.

Looking at his departing back, Chris Tucker scratched his head, with a hint of distress on his dark face.

“Oh no, I guess I’ve offended Li. Aren’t Chinese people said to be easy to talk to?”

If it was an unknown director’s new film that needed to be rescheduled, Tucker would definitely not come to Li Yishu, but if the target was Luc Besson, that’s a different story.

Luc Besson became a little famous in North America with the movie “Léon: The Professional”, and it is said that the sales of his video tapes took off.

Of course, if that were all, Chris Tucker would have just pushed it.

How can a new director compare to Lee Ye-soo, a famous director who is well-known all over the world?

But who can blame Luc Besson’s new film “The Fifth Element”, which is jointly produced by Columbia Pictures and French Gaumont Films, with a production cost of as much as 9000 million US dollars!
This amount of money is definitely an A-level production in Hollywood.

Even playing a supporting actor role is a very rare and valuable qualification for Chris Tucker.

Tucker is one of the two male protagonists in Rush Hour, but he is only a supporting actor in The Fifth Element. However, the production cost is high and the director has made many good films.

These two movies were released together, and he doesn’t want to miss either one.

In the restaurant, Li Yishu was chatting and laughing with Masayoshi Son. When she saw Chris Tucker coming over, she didn’t say anything, but continued to chat about Asian movies with Masayoshi Son and Jackie Chan.

Seeing Tucker hesitate to speak, Li Yishu sneered in her heart.

Do you really think he couldn’t understand what the other person wanted to express before?
If it weren’t for the fact that the filming had already started, Lee Yi-su would have replaced Tucker without hesitation.

Luc Besson is indeed an excellent director, and Li Yishu also likes several of the movies he has made. If Luc Besson comes to him in person to coordinate Tucker’s filming schedule, he will definitely give him this face.

But now Tucker came to him himself, and his words and deeds seemed to indicate that he wanted Li Yishu to take the initiative to help coordinate the schedule.

what is this?
Do you think Lee Yi-su is not as good as Luc Besson?
Or are you just a small actor, and you come here to act like a big shot with a famous director like him?
No matter which one it was, Li Yishu decided to teach Tucker a lesson.

Black Lives Matter is not popular now, and Lee Ye-su is not a white director, so he is naturally not afraid of the big stick of racial discrimination, which is one of the political correctness. (End of this chapter)