Rebirth as an American Tycoon

[Chapter 808: Leapfrog Development]

Everything that can be exploited will be used to make money. In the world of capital, nothing is right or wrong; people only care about profit.

The wave of tragic publicity from NBC clearly nauseated Nike and Adidas. Alright, it was simply envy and jealousy. That guy who took twelve shots -- shouldn't we promote him too?

If William White knew what Nike intended, he would have burst out laughing. Seriously, wearing a shirt full of bullet holes must be the most painful situation. Is this what they call a self-inflicted idiocy halo?

"Christopher, Starlink Plan has grown large; they say you're the star of tomorrow." While William White maintained a decent relationship with the Galvin family, he had no intention of digging himself deeper.

Here they had thirty seats on the board but needed to communicate in five different languages. It was just him; the others would require simultaneous translation.

"William, this plan is bigger than I imagined. To lower costs, we brought in Europeans, along with some from China and Russia."

"Alright, NASA truly is a cash cow. Their launch prices are outrageous; I wonder how they arrived at those figures."

Christopher Galvin felt quite helpless. He poured countless hours into this Starlink Plan. With the launch date drawing near, complications kept piling up.

Of course, the biggest headache was still funding. If he had a way, he wouldn't want to go to William White. Didn't they say kings shouldn't meet? At the very least, he believed his status was on par with White's.

"Barry, how's the development of the handheld units going? The antennas are too large; my goodness, they won't cause too much radiation, will they?"

Barry Bertiger was also troubled. This guy's standards for industrial products were ridiculously high. But this wasn't a mobile phone, alright? The maritime satellite phones today were the size of laptops.

"Ahem, Mr. White, we've already made significant progress. If we shrink it further, it may affect call quality. As for radiation, don't worry; we fully comply with the standards."

'I don't believe you,' William White thought to himself. This guy has been trying to dupe me. Yet, his ideas were indeed large-scale -- who'd have thought of making something as ridiculous as this?

"Well, Christopher, I'll commit another 100 million. By the way, if we could avoid using U.S. launches, that would be ideal."

"Haha, what's the matter? Did your satellite run into trouble as well?"

"Those damn bastards keep hiding behind national security. They're really getting on my nerves; I'll just start my own rocket company."

"Don't be like that, William; you already have plenty of money. By the way, what does national security have to do with a TV satellite?"

"You asking me?" William pointed at his nose, a pathetic expression on his face. These arms dealers have no idea what fair competition even is.

"Damn it, our plans will face issues too."

William shook his head, unconcerned. Yours is a low-earth orbit satellite; you could just use a bigger bottle rocket.

"Low-earth orbit, they don't really care. Not to mention Europe, even China has a high success rate. In fact, the U.S. has the highest failure rate. If you plan to launch here, you better buy extra insurance; I'll pay out of my pocket. Just in case it fails, that would still be a decent return."

Christopher Galvin was left speechless. Apparently, the richest man was done with American rockets. Not that their performance was as terrible as he made it out to be, but it was definitely more expensive.

Anyway, now that he had made headway, scoring another 100 million from William would make it much easier to raise funds elsewhere.

Someone might ask, why invest in projects destined for failure? Was this about dragging someone down with him or pretending to be foolish?

That claim was only partly true. With previous investments, he had already invested two hundred million. If he were merely trying to dig a pit, there would be no need to get involved this time.

The Starlink Plan?

Let's just say there was indeed significant technology involved, and William White needed that data. In the era of 4G and 5G, how could such things be brushed aside as useless?

Was it really that expensive?

It was just a couple billion dollars, paltry compared to the global communications market.

Take America, for instance; many places couldn't even guarantee any network. The subway hardly had any signals, and many large malls and supermarkets managed poorly in that regard. Just think if they launched 108 low-orbit satellites.

It was akin to a one-and-done deal.

Motorola's failure stemmed from being too forward-thinking. By the time Starlink Plan was about to fold, its communication costs would have dropped below a dollar.

How many users would they need to achieve profitability? Just 700,000.

As for the price of the terminals, they certainly wouldn't exceed Apple's.

William White doubted this venture was merely too ahead of its time. In the not-so-distant future, achieving implementation was indeed feasible. Even if it only provided data exchange, they wouldn't have to worry about business.

Looking at the self-important Christopher, William silently scoffed. Working on this venture would surely ruin him.

"William, I understand. I'll see who are interested in commercial launches."

After sending off the overconfident Galvin, William couldn't help but reflect. The man was well-known for saying, "I was fired by my own company."

So, when equity is excessively diluted, transcending boundaries becomes necessary. Or, you must stockpile resources.

Getting kicked out of your own company or getting managed by higher-ups through MBO -- such scenarios were commonplace.

William White had little faith in Motorola's extreme leapfrogging. Without absolute control of the company, pursuing such actions was downright foolish.

After the Galvin family was ousted from Motorola, the company entered mediocrity. If the semiconductor division wasn't profitable, they'd sell it. If the mobile division floundered, same deal -- sell it.

Basically, it just became a constant selling spree until they finally sold themselves into the ground. A bunch of oversized moles had emptied this once-great company.

Consider the division that lost 200 million on separation -- three years later, its valuation was 17 billion. Haha, what a massive pie that constituted.

Given the Galvin family's obstruction of others' fortunes, is it any surprise they were tossed out? Such occurrences happened frequently; it was just unavoidable.

It was said that Motorola lost its innovation drive, which led to its insignificance. But in reality, it was fundamentally dismantled. Professional managers often lacked long-term planning; they only managed to stay afloat for so long due to the company's solid foundation.

*****

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