Seattle.
Amazon Company, Chairman's Office.
"Boss, if I may voice a doubt, Kyle Page is not a guy worthy of trust," Andy Jassy said.
"I know!"
Sitting behind the desk, Amazon Chairman Jeff Bezos nodded and smiled. "Others might be fooled by his age, but I've known him for several years. You could say I have an extremely deep understanding of him. Well, let's put it this way: he is someone with an incredibly keen awareness of situations, analysis, and trends!"
He paused and then added, "Most importantly, his bottom line is extremely low... lower than many can imagine. In a business environment, this kind of person is particularly terrifying."
As those words fell,
Andy Jassy truly breathed a sigh of relief.
He knew his boss and Kyle were very good friends, and it was precisely because of this that he was worried.
After all, the person who stabs you in the back is often the very person you consider a good friend.
"Don't worry."
"Though he is very cunning, he is also extremely particular about integrity."
"Well, at least in the matter of lending me $500 million, he helped me out in a big way. Otherwise, my plan to buy back Amazon stock definitely wouldn't have happened overnight."
"Of course, I also know that by lending me $500 million, he wanted me to stand at the front and share the heat for him."
"Otherwise, if he alone absorbed that much Amazon stock, he would inevitably become a public target. Now it's different! I've also bought back a large amount of stock, so the internal shareholders and those investment institutions desperate to invest in us will inevitably focus their attention on me, Jeff Bezos."
Sharing the risk and the heat!
From the moment he borrowed $500 million from Kyle, Jeff knew that Kyle was very greedy for Amazon shares.
Jeff also wanted to buy back more shares;
The two of them were a perfect match!
Recently,
After Kyle and Jeff gobbled up a wave of shares, they very intelligently brought in a group of shareholders and management to share a portion. Only by bringing in more allies could Kyle and Bezos sit securely on their thrones.
"Boss, I still think we need to maintain some vigilance toward Kyle Page. Even if not for now, we must consider the future," Andy Jassy continued.
He was a cautious man and a sharp blade in Jeff's hand.
Recently, Kyle had taken control of McAfee Company, kicked out the founder and chairman, Sarmenuk, stripped him of all positions, and carried out a massive purge of veteran figures, causing no small stir in the outside world.
Seizing someone else's company?
It might be easy to do, but it doesn't sound good!
Because of this incident, the companies Kyle had invested in were now all on high alert, fearing they would follow in Sarmenuk's footsteps.
"Hahaha~"
Bezos laughed loudly. "Sarmenuk can be considered a shrewd guy, but... I am not him!"
"McAfee Company can still run without him, but... if Amazon Company leaves me, you see if it can still turn!"
As he spoke, Bezos was filled with intense self-confidence.
While many enterprises viewed Kyle as a predatory beast, Bezos didn't worry about Kyle usurping his position at all.
"I might not know others, but I understand Kyle Page all too well. He seized power at McAfee not just for the value of McAfee itself; a large part of it was a deliberate move against Sarmenuk personally!" Bezos laughed.
Deliberately targeting Sarmenuk?
"Isn't that the act of a petty man?!" Andy Jassy exclaimed.
Spending such huge sums of money mainly to target one person—that was the behavior of a total spendthrift.
Bezos glanced at Andy Jassy and said solemnly, "Rather than calling him a petty man, it's more accurate to say he is a petty man who seeks revenge for the smallest grievance. But there is one thing: he is also a person with very utilitarian goals. If McAfee were not profitable, then even if he wanted to retaliate against Sarmenuk, he would never spend an extra cent."
A contradiction!
Yes, Kyle was sometimes a very contradictory person.
Vindictive;
But the premise was that it had to be profitable. Otherwise, Kyle would definitely choose to endure, keeping the resentment in his heart and waiting for the opportunity to strike back relentlessly.
For example: Kyle's conflict with Time Warner.
Time Warner is very powerful now. Even if Kyle has the heart for revenge, it definitely won't be now.
Striking a stone with an egg is the most inadvisable method.
Kyle is waiting... waiting for the split between Time Warner and America Online. When the time comes, Kyle will definitely give it a hard push from behind.
"Boss, that's breathtaking! Your depth of understanding of Kyle Page is probably clearer than he is of himself," Andy Jassy praised.
Hearing this, Bezos couldn't help but look pleased.
Bezos would likely snort in disdain at praise from others.
However, he found Andy Jassy's praise very rewarding.
The composition of the executive team at Amazon, founded by Bezos, had always been a subject of much speculation by the outside world.
—The S-Team!
Bezos had an executive team of about 17 people, known within Amazon as the 'S-Team'.
Members of the S-Team would collaborate on major decisions, strategic issues, and so on. After reaching a decision, the members of this team would act as 'apostles' of the strategy, leading their respective departments forward.
Although Amazon was a public company, the management structure, including the 'S-Team', was not widely known to the outside world. Amazon's public filings only listed a few company executives; insiders said that even internally, there was no official list for the S-Team.
There was no doubt that the S-Team had performed great service for Bezos himself and for Amazon Company.
Andy Jassy was one of the members of the S-Team.
In the future, the immense success of Amazon's cloud computing business would be led by Andy Jassy...
Meanwhile.
At home, Kyle was also thinking and contemplating.
"Taking over McAfee Company and turning the tables was indeed satisfying for me, but it also brought quite a few negative effects." Kyle knew this deeply.
Usurping power and turning the tables is often criticized, even in the money-oriented United States. Especially for those companies where Kyle had already invested and held a significant number of shares, their founders would increase their vigilance toward him.
However, Kyle was not particularly worried.
"Microsoft—has it done few things like turning the tables on its hosts?"
"Will it be criticized?"
"No!"
"Big fish eat small fish!"
"As long as your strength is sufficient, your capital is large enough, and you have enough money, then even if you turn the tables on ten or twenty companies, people won't criticize. They will only say those companies were lucky to be acquired by Microsoft."
"Similarly, time will smooth everything over!"
After thinking everything through, Kyle's mood improved significantly.
As of now, since crossing over, Kyle had already achieved a modest level of success.
In the fields of the internet, film, television, radio, real estate, and financial investment... Kyle possessed formidable strength in all of them. The prototype of a capital empire had impressively been completed.
"What's lacking now is stability!"
"As long as I can stabilize and integrate the series of companies I've recently acquired and cultivate them for a while—not too long, just another three to five years—I can then take advantage of the situation to expand and merge in a wave. Before the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, I will be able to complete the construction of my capital empire."
Kyle was greedy, stingy, and vindictive—a whole host of flaws—but at the same time, he was a man with very clear goals!
Kyle didn't dare say his enterprises would prosper forever, but he could guarantee that in terms of risk resistance, his companies would definitely be among the first-class in the entire U.S.
"I'm just that confident!" Kyle thought to himself.