Rachel Weisz hadn't even finished her piece of bread when the glass door leading to the terrace was suddenly thrown open with a bang. Both women looked up.
Bill Gates, storming into the room, paused briefly when he saw the two beautiful women inside. His expression shifted several times, as if trying to rein in his anger, but ultimately, he gave up and continued to stomp through the room, leaving in a fury.
A moment later, Simon entered the room. He didn't seem inclined to go after Gates, simply nodding at Rachel before heading over to the large sofa where Kate Beckinsale was lounging.
Kate put down her magazine and seductively crawled across the sofa to Simon's side. As Simon reached for her, she leaned back, resting her head on his lap. She gently placed her hand over his, smiling as she asked, "What happened just now?"
Simon smiled. "It's pretty obvious. The negotiations broke down."
Kate smiled back. "Then why are you so happy? Mr. Gates seemed furious just now."
Simon's fingers slid from Kate's smooth cheek to her neck as he replied, "Even though the negotiations failed, it's because I was pushing him around. You know, it always feels good to bully someone."
Kate playfully blocked Simon's hand while picking up on the hidden meaning behind his words, teasing in a lover's tone, "You really are a bad guy."
Gazing into Kate's beautiful eyes, Simon asked, "I'm heading back to California soon. Will you and Rachel come with me, or do you want to stay here for a few more days?"
"So soon? It's Saturday!" Kate was surprised, nearly sitting up.
Though she had no resistance to this legendary man, and even though he had been a bit forceful last night, the experience had been quite enjoyable for her. She had hoped to use the weekend to get closer to him, perhaps even becoming his lover, with the possibility of achieving her long-term goals.
Simon replied, "There are a lot of things to handle, so I have to leave immediately. You and Rachel can stay in Seattle for a few days. The cherry blossoms will bloom soon, and they're very beautiful this time of year."
Kate nodded but hesitated. "Simon, can we continue staying here?"
Simon smiled. "Of course. I'll leave a few people to act as your drivers and wallets. You can go anywhere and buy anything you want."
"Thank you, Simon. You're so considerate." Kate sat up and kissed him on the cheek, asking, "When will we see you again?"
"Probably very soon," Simon said as he pulled away from Kate and stood up. "Since that's settled, I'll be heading out."
Rachel, who had remained silent throughout the conversation, finally realized what was happening when the two got up to leave. She instinctively stood up and followed them outside. The entourage was already prepared, waiting for Simon's departure. Rachel watched as he boarded a speedboat bound for the airport on the other side of the lake, blinking in confusion.
Had she agreed to stay?
That domineering man…
She hadn't said she would remain in Seattle, let alone with Kate Beckinsale—someone she had fought with just last night.
As the speedboat quickly reached the opposite shore, Kate nudged Rachel. "Hey, are you that reluctant to leave?"
"Me? No," Rachel quickly denied. "Besides, I never agreed to stay. He just decided for me."
Kate shot her a mocking look. "Then why didn't you say anything earlier?"
Rachel protested, "He didn't give me a chance to speak."
"Your mouth is on your face, and Simon didn't tape it shut," Kate retorted, throwing her arm around Rachel's shoulder and leading her back toward the villa. "Come on, girl. We just need to plan how we'll spend the next few days. You heard him—there are drivers and wallets!"
"I don't think it's right," Rachel murmured, frowning slightly.
When she first met Kate, Rachel had liked her. Kate was open, charming, and intelligent, and they shared a common British background. But after a day and night together, Rachel's impression had soured a little. Kate was too free-spirited, a bit materialistic, and didn't always consider others' feelings. She also didn't bother hiding her attraction to Simon, even though he was a married man.
Back in the villa, Kate pulled Rachel into a study with a computer, and they began searching for ideas on how to spend their time in Seattle. Occasionally, Rachel glanced out the window at the lake, catching sight of a Boeing 767 taking off from the airport on the other side. She didn't suggest leaving after all.
In the end, Rachel couldn't help but admit to herself that she probably wanted to stay, too.
Fine.
She was a hypocritical woman, after all.
Whatever.
With that self-resigned attitude, the two women headed out for lunch at a well-known restaurant and spent the afternoon shopping and sightseeing. After all, Simon was paying for everything, and he had more money than he could ever spend. For the first time in her life, Rachel felt truly free to indulge.
Of course, both women were smart enough to set a personal spending limit of around $100,000.
Even though they knew that adding another zero wouldn't hurt Simon's wallet, they understood the importance of moderation. After all, it's one thing if a man offers you a mansion in Beverly Hills—Kate would gladly accept, while Rachel might hesitate but still take it. But when he leaves you to decide for yourself, spending recklessly would just show a lack of intelligence.
Besides, both women were still third-tier actresses in Hollywood. For them, $100,000 was already a substantial sum.
Kate, for instance, had returned to the UK last year to shoot a thriller, Uncovered, in which she played the lead role, with a significant amount of explicit content. Despite her status in the industry, her pay for the film was only £30,000.
The glitz of the entertainment industry is reserved for the very few at the top. That's why so many people are willing to sell everything just to climb the ladder.
Back to Microsoft.
After being a shareholder for many years, Simon had always hoped, up until the March 11 meeting, that Microsoft could become part of the Westeros system.
Microsoft, Intel, Igreat, Cisco, AOL, Oracle, and Sun Microsystems working together would allow the Westeros system to completely dominate the global information industry.
Unfortunately, that vision never materialized.
Simon felt a tinge of regret, but not enough to make him too disappointed.
People are unpredictable. The more outstanding—or self-perceived as outstanding—a person is, the more likely they are to prefer being the head of a chicken rather than the tail of a cow. Even if they know that collaboration would maximize profits, some would still choose to maintain absolute control over their own domain. They would rather face slower growth or risk decline than become someone else's subordinate, even nominally.
This is what caused the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Ukraine, for instance, inherited a significant amount of the Soviet Union's wealth and cast off its needy neighbors, yet still ended up as the poorest nation in Europe in Simon's memory. Too many people were unable to make the best decisions for the country, whether due to personal interests or being bound by public opinion.
Bill Gates, too, was a proud man. As Microsoft's dominance in the operating system market grew, Gates became more and more resistant to the idea of his software empire becoming part of a larger commercial system. Even though he knew this would benefit Microsoft, he preferred to keep absolute control, perhaps even harboring ambitions of challenging the Westeros system.
After the March 11 meeting, Simon realized that there was no room for compromise, and he gave up on making Microsoft a part of the Westeros system.
In fact, having such a rival wasn't a bad thing.
The Westeros system needed opponents to maintain internal drive and avoid causing fear or suspicion among the public.
However, like many great powers with economic ties despite actual hostilities, cooperation between Microsoft and the Westeros system wouldn't stop entirely.
Both sides had chips to play—mutual dependencies that could be leveraged.
Just like when Apple, at its peak, was forced to allow Gates to develop an independent operating system under the threat of losing access to Office software.
In the current situation, Microsoft held a similar advantage with its operating system, but the Westeros system's overall strength was even greater.
Following Saturday's meeting, Simon didn't expect Gates to cave immediately. However, he quickly contacted Westeros representatives on Microsoft's board and other key shareholders and executives. Even though Microsoft was often run as Gates' personal domain, Simon knew that when faced with his ultimatum, Microsoft would choose wisely.
On Sunday, March 12, Igreat unexpectedly released its full-year financial report for 1994.
Danelys Entertainment had set its fiscal year to run from October to September, in line with the Hollywood industry cycle, to better align with the summer box office and the fall TV season, optimizing financial reporting and even tax benefits.
Igreat, however, still followed the calendar year for financial reports, and this was unlikely to change after its IPO.
When Igreat's full-year 1994 financials were finally published, it caused a media sensation.
Last year's revenue of $5.41 billion had already been staggering.
This year, when the figure of $11.67 billion in total revenue appeared across major online platforms and North America's top newspapers, many people immediately expressed skepticism, thinking that Igreat had cooked the books to inflate its IPO valuation.
$11.67 billion?
How was that possible?
However, after digging into the detailed financial report posted on various platforms, everyone had to accept the truth.
First, advertising had been Igreat
's biggest revenue driver. Compared to $1.15 billion in ad revenue the previous year, a wild 179% increase pushed that figure to an astonishing $3.21 billion in 1994. The explosion of new tech companies and even traditional businesses recognizing the importance of online advertising had turned Igreat's ad platforms—its portal, social network, search engine, and ad network—into money machines.
Next was e-commerce.
Amazon's online store generated $2.59 billion in revenue, a 91% increase from the previous year's $1.36 billion. This near-doubling was impressive, though the aggressive expansion of the company, led by its workaholic manager, came at a cost. With e-commerce having a much lower gross margin than other sectors and facing huge expenses in R&D, infrastructure, marketing, and user subsidies, the e-commerce division reported a staggering $710 million loss.
Still, nobody could ignore its massive growth potential.
While software and advertising primarily catered to businesses, e-commerce was aimed at the general public, representing a far larger market.
In Simon's memory, Amazon eventually became an e-commerce titan by following a cautious growth strategy. However, Bezos had been forced into that conservative approach due to the bursting of the dot-com bubble in the early 2000s, which wiped out 90% of Amazon's value at one point. During those key years, Bezos simply didn't have the funds to burn.
Simon had initially hoped that Igreat's e-commerce business could grow at a steady pace. But things didn't go as planned.
Every manager has their own style, and Simon couldn't just remove Alice, who had taken control of the entire operation, and replace her with Bezos.
However, the results were still good.
Amazon's later success proved that its development strategy was correct, but that didn't mean other approaches wouldn't work.
Alice's aggressive expansion resembled the strategy employed by many tech unicorns that emerged after 2010.
The key? Burning cash.
And Simon didn't view this negatively.
He recalled reading an article about the ride-sharing industry.
The internet is never short on ideas.
Before Uber became a giant, many people had come up with similar plans. But most were stuck on a crucial challenge: how to break people's traditional habits and get them to use ride-hailing apps.
Ultimately, the solution was simple yet brutal.
Subsidies.
Throwing money at the problem until it was solved.
Once this strategy proved effective, internet companies across the board—old and new, from ride-sharing to e-commerce—launched into a full-blown subsidy war. Coupons and discounts flooded the market, and the giants quietly amassed a huge user base.
Once those habits were formed, the subsidies vanished, but customers remained reliant on the services.
Simon had used the same cash-burning strategy to jumpstart the internet age. AOL, for example, had used massive subsidies and discounts to promote its services.
At the time, he hadn't given it much thought.
But Alice's aggressive approach to e-commerce expansion showed Simon the future potential of such strategies.
With ample capital and favorable conditions, there was no harm in accelerating the e-commerce market's growth, in Simon's view.
Late last year, during planning for the new fiscal year, Simon personally approved a proposal for Igreat's e-commerce business to incur up to $1 billion in losses in 1995, mostly for product discounts and shipping subsidies aimed at users.
Online shopping, after all, could be addictive.
Once the habit formed, it was hard to break.
As long as users got hooked, all the investments would pay off many times over in the future.
Beyond e-commerce, software was another key revenue source. With the growing range of Igreat's internet-related software products and the fees from its enterprise services for IE after the browser became free, Igreat's software division generated $1.99 billion in revenue for 1994, a 145% increase.
This single sector alone put Igreat on par with Microsoft, which had reported $5.63 billion in total revenue the previous year.
In Simon's memory, Microsoft's later shift away from operating systems toward Office and other software had been critical to its success. Office, in particular, became a revenue powerhouse, driven by its move to cloud-based subscription models.
Igreat's suite of internet tools had already begun transitioning to a subscription model.
Over the past year, in addition to its core products like the web development trio and Ygritte Photoshop for image editing, Igreat had rolled out new software for audio editing, web documents, and typesetting, all tied to internet services.
Moreover, to preempt the emergence of other 3D software, Simon had decided to have Igreat's software division develop and commercialize Maya, the 3D modeling and animation software used by Danelys Special Effects and Pixar Studios. While the public version would be limited in functionality, Simon had an ulterior motive: to push the development of 3D gaming.
With hardware and software capabilities rapidly improving, the dawn of 3D gaming had arrived.
Compared to animation and visual effects, the gaming market for 3D software was even larger.
Alongside software, the YWS data center business, also led by Carol Bartz, achieved a staggering 118% growth in 1994, generating $1.73 billion in revenue.
Adding up these core segments—advertising, e-commerce, software, and YWS—Igreat's total revenue had reached $9.52 billion.
Additional contributions from the Ystore software store, Steam game store, online gaming, solutions, and patent licensing brought in another $2.15 billion.
In total, for 1994, Igreat's revenue hit a colossal $11.67 billion.
As some media had predicted, with annual revenues exceeding $10 billion, Igreat was now making money faster than it could spend it. Despite heavy investments in various areas, the company still managed to post a net profit of $790 million.
While the financials stunned the media and the public, they posed a direct and immense pressure on Microsoft.
Faced with Simon's ultimatum and after being lobbied by Microsoft's board members, shareholders, and executives, Bill Gates ultimately chose to compromise on Monday, March 13. He agreed to Simon's demand that the overseas versions of Windows come pre-installed with the IE browser.
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