I am Hollywood

[Chapter 1075: Thanksgiving]

Thanksgiving quickly approached, yet the media buzz from The New York Times interview showed no signs of cooling off.

With such intense attention, Eric felt if he stayed in East Hampton for Thanksgiving, the media spotlight would likely shift to the women and children. To avoid unnecessary trouble, he decided to fly with everyone to Maryland to join Chris and his family.

At the end of November, Frederick County in Maryland still hadn't seen any snow, but the rolling hills had long lost the vibrant life of summer. However, looking out at the vast expanse of gray and desolate scenery under the high sky made those who lived in the city feel a special sense of relaxation.

At four in the afternoon, a large group emerged from the woods, about ten kilometers west of Jeffrey Hensen's farm, with a couple of hounds still bounding around, barking excitedly every now and then.

The increasingly robust Jeffrey carried a wild deer on his back, a result of the day's efforts.

It was Thanksgiving, and the women had already started preparing the Thanksgiving dinner at the farm. Enjoying everyone's visit, Jeffrey decided early on that dinner must include roasted venison, so he went hunting.

Initially, he only planned to bring Chris and Eric along, but when Emma heard grandpa Jeffrey was going hunting, she was the first to insist on joining, while Kevin looked on hopefully. Hawaii clearly wasn't interested in hunting, but to escape the "terrifying Aunt Drew," the little girl joined in anyway.

What was originally planned as a quick couple of hours of hunting turned into a full day of more like an outing.

Joanna and Virginia were initially very reluctant, worried about the safety of the little ones. However, after Eric nodded in agreement, the two women had no choice but to consent, insisting the twins accompany them to help out, as women always tended to be more attentive.

As the three little ones followed, Jeffrey naturally took it all in stride, even wanting to take his grandson along to "see the world." Unfortunately, Emily staunchly refused to let Daniel, who had just barely learned to walk, join in.

On the little path through the woods, Jeffrey led the way with the deer on his back, surrounded by Kevin, Emma, and Hawaii. The twins kept a careful watch around them.

Eric and Chris followed behind, each carrying a rifle; with the three little ones around, the guns stayed locked up all day. The unlucky deer was entirely the result of a few hounds chasing it down. Bringing the guns was merely a precaution against encountering bears or other dangerous wildlife.

Watching the group ahead, Eric's gaze eventually settled on the twins, who wore simple athletic gear. Their tall figures and light, blonde ponytails occasionally revealed pale necks.

For some reason, Eric felt the twins' demeanor perfectly matched the stark and cold landscape surrounding them. Upon reflection, he mused it must have been because both hail from the perpetually icy realms of Russia.

Once the deer was loaded onto the SUV, Jeffrey took the wheel, while the twins helped load the little ones into the backseat, and they headed off to the farm.

...

Eric and Chris drove a second SUV, with the hounds effortlessly managing to find their way back to the farm, even if they couldn't keep up with the vehicles.

Gripping the steering wheel, Chris slightly increased their speed and glanced at Eric in the passenger seat, grinning, "This kind of life isn't too bad, right?"

"Yeah," Eric nodded and replied, "But we can only experience it occasionally. We can't enjoy it like Jeffrey does for long. When we went to New Zealand, you know, the scenery was stunning, but there's an adage that says staying a week is paradise, but a year turns it into hell. It's the same in many places."

Chris nodded thoughtfully, adding, "Ian and the team have complained to me more than once in private. You've put a lot of pressure on them for that $3 billion annual profit over five years."

Eric shook his head, laughing, "Clearly, they misunderstood, or perhaps didn't read the interview closely. What I meant was Yahoo only needs five years to match its current market value, not five years to hit a $3 billion annual profit goal -- that was Judith Miller's statement. In fact, as long as Yahoo maintains its high growth rate, a price-to-earnings ratio within 100 times is acceptable to the market. Many investors don't lack long-term vision."

Chris nodded slightly, then asked, "So, how long do you think Yahoo would really need to hit that $3 billion annual profit goal?"

"I really don't know," Eric replied, shaking his head again. "But it shouldn't take too long. This year, Yahoo's revenue should exceed $1.6 billion, and in the last two years, their growth rate has far surpassed 100%. If they can keep that up in the next few years, theoretically, Yahoo's revenue could be around $50 billion in five years. If we calculate a 20% profit margin, then Yahoo's annual profit should be around $10 billion."

"Ten billion dollars? That's impossible," Chris chuckled, shaking his head. "According to last year's Forbes 500 list, there aren't that many companies making $10 billion annually."

Eric smiled, "It truly seems unlikely."

In reality, the reason Yahoo could exceed the $1.6 billion revenue this year was partly due to its impending IPO, leading the associated companies in the Firefly Group to funnel some profits to make Yahoo's financial report more appealing.

Moreover, the current tech wave had the entire industry investing heavily.

Yahoo's advertising platform was the most prominent and mature channel for online promotion. Many internet companies heavily invested in advertising on Yahoo's platform to promote their websites. As demand increased, the rates for Yahoo's advertising also rose accordingly, which contributed to Yahoo's impressive revenue figures.

Unless something drastic changed in history, this favorable trend was expected to continue into the following year.

However, if the internet bubble burst, the entire industry would undoubtedly face a long winter period where investments in internet companies shrank drastically and numerous companies went bankrupt. At that point, it was uncertain whether Yahoo could maintain its current revenue levels, let alone continue yearly growth of over 100%.

Eric recalled the winter following the internet bubble burst didn't last long -- only about two to three years. By around 2005, the global spread of broadband and significant increases in internet users led to a rapid recovery for the internet industry.

Yet, even if the internet industry entered a downturn, the large and steadily growing user base remained. As long as Yahoo steered clear of catastrophic missteps in direction, even if it couldn't reach the annual profit scale of $3 billion by 2005, it should be very close.

After a brief pause, Chris suddenly smiled again, saying, "Honestly, if I weren't very familiar with your long-term plans for Yahoo, I'd almost feel inclined to agree with your arguments about the importance of portal sites. Over the next few years, many will undoubtedly follow your lead in developing their companies; it's just uncertain what the outcomes will be."

Years prior, Eric and Chris had devised a "strategic misdirection" approach for Yahoo's development, publicly emphasizing their focus on portal business while touting its importance.

However, behind the scenes, Eric's primary focus remained on the search engine and social networking sectors.

Memory served him that aside from e-commerce, and perhaps adding online gaming, only these two segments could yield stable, large-scale revenue for the internet industry.

Though Google's search engine had launched, Yahoo would not publicly disclose its user and revenue data separately in the upcoming years, incorporating it into the overall financial reports of Yahoo's portal.

"Nobody can predict the future, but judging by the user growth data of Google's search engine over the past six months, my strategy hasn't been misguided. No matter how large a portal site grows, it still can't satisfy the diversified needs of hundreds of millions of users. The internet content market is bound to trend toward more refinement -- automobile websites dedicated to car news, electronic sites for electronics. All we need to do is provide users with tools to easily find that content."

"However, Eric, have you thought about what would happen to Yahoo's large registered user base if we pivoted to search engine business?" Chris countered. "With estimates of 300 million internet users globally by 2000, Yahoo was confident of growing its registered users to over 200 million. In the future, that number would balloon even further. It would be a shame to just discard all that."

"Of course, the focus would shift to social networking," Eric replied decisively. "Now that we have sufficient development funds, we don't need to wait several years to expand in social networking; we can advance in tandem with search engine development."

According to Eric's original plan, the expansion of social networking was supposed to peak when the mobile internet era arrived.

However, the rapid growth of Yahoo's blogging services in recent years had also unveiled prospects for alternative possibilities.

Markets are ultimately created, and history shows that the explosion of social networking arose after many years of industry development that established a stable business model.

But now, knowing the correct path from the start, Yahoo had every opportunity to carve out a brand-new social networking model exclusive to the PC age.

Furthermore, as long as the Firefly Electronics tablet smoothly launched, Eric planned to make the mobile adaptation of social networking a relatively simple endeavor.

...

As they chatted, the two vehicles quickly returned to Jeffrey's farm.

Joanna and Virginia were waiting outside the villa, greeting them as they spotted the lively trio of little ones surrounding Jeffrey, which put their minds at ease.

However, noticing the dirty appearances of the little ones compared to Eric, who still looked somewhat put together, Virginia couldn't help but cast a disapproving glare at him.

Jeffrey dragged the deer inside, intending to clean it himself, with Emma and Kevin following eagerly.

Hawaii, however, clung tightly to her father's side when she caught sight of Drew, not relaxing until she saw the girl again follow Joanna back to the villa to help with dinner preparations.

Over the years, Drew had cast a long shadow in Hawaii's heart. The poor girl was astute, yet she couldn't understand why Aunt Drew seemed so frightening. More disturbingly, her parents, and even Aunt Virginia, seemed to enjoy watching her being bullied by Drew.

Goodness, how could such illogical scenarios exist in the world?

...

While everyone busied themselves, Eric and Chris had nothing much to do. Eric picked up his precious daughter, who was trying to snuggle against him, and, along with Chris, walked over to the fireplace in the living room, warming themselves while resuming their earlier conversation.

Chris remarked, "I think if we simply pivot toward social networking, it would certainly be a loss. A large part of the audience isn't very interested in online socializing."

"Interest can be cultivated," Eric stated. "We might even develop social networking into an indispensable tool in people's lives, just like search engines," he recalled. "Imagine if one day, people could send party invitations through their social circle online, turning it into a trend. If someone doesn't want to be excluded from social circles, they'd have to have a social account. Once they have that, they wouldn't just focus on practical functions like invitations; undoubtedly, they would start interacting with those around them. This is driven by the inherent group mentality of humans. Once they start engaging, over time, they would inevitably develop dependency on social networking."

Chris listened intently to Eric's words, nodding, then suddenly laughed, "Network party invitations -- it's a pretty good idea! But I don't recall you ever proposing it before. If you told Ian and the team this now, they might have already made it happen."

"That's a point worth discussing with Ian and the others when possible. They could even run some promotional events for party invitations -- Hollywood certainly has plenty of dream opportunities for fans," Eric said as he pulled his daughter closer, "However, while I have a lot of these innovative ideas, I can't devote too much energy to these minutiae. Yahoo already has over 6,000 employees, and they should be the ones generating various creative ideas. If I were to do everything, then what's the point of hiring so many people?"

"You make a great point, but it's undeniable that even if Yahoo's regular employees or lower-level management can come up with similar ideas or detailed project proposals, it's just not going to grab Ian and his team's attention as much as your say-so will."

"That's unavoidable," Eric thought for a moment. "How about this -- I'll have my assistant set up a dedicated channel to accept creative proposals from Yahoo employees, and I'll try to spend a few hours on this each week."

*****

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