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*****
Chapter 12 - Jumping To Yahoo
Grant couldn't help but laugh, a deep, resonant sound that filled the room. He wrapped his arms around his son, returning the tight embrace he had been giving Marvin since he was a toddler. For the past months, ever since Marvin's "illness" and miraculous recovery, the boy had been acting so astonishingly mature that Grant sometimes forgot he was still just a child. These moments—the pure, uncalculated affection—were what Grant lived for. He realized, with a sudden pang of bittersweet pride, that his son was growing up far faster than the world was ready for.
"It's your own money, kid," Grant murmured into Marvin's hair. "If the portfolio explodes, good for you. If it crashes, you'll learn an incredibly expensive life lesson. You don't need to get so emotional."
"Hey!" Linda protested, tapping her wine glass with her knife. "That is entirely unfair. Where is my hug, you little Daddy's boy?"
Marvin pulled back from his father with a cheeky grin, immediately marching over to his mother's side of the table. He threw his arms around her, burying his face in her shoulder as she rained a dozen loud, dramatic kisses onto his cheeks and forehead, leaving a faint smudge of lipstick near his ear.
After sufficiently returning his mother's affection, Marvin sauntered back to his seat. He picked up his napkin, casually wiping the lipstick from his cheek.
He looked across the table, his eyes gleaming with a mixture of childlike mischief and predator's calculation. "So, Dad..."
"Yes, Marvin?"
"Since you just admitted that losing this much money would be an 'inexpensive life lesson'..." Marvin's grin widened into a full, dimpled smirk. "...how about you double my principal? You know, just to make sure the lesson really sticks? After all I am a Meyer and it's just chump change for us."
Grant choked on his wine. He grabbed his napkin, coughing as Linda burst into a peel of bright, musical laughter.
"You little extortionist!" Grant wheezed, shaking his head in sheer disbelief. He looked at his son, seeing the brilliant, terrifying spark of a future titan sitting at his dinner table.
A few hundred thousand dollars was, in the grand scheme of the Meyers' wealth, a rounding error. But seeing his family like this—laughing, vibrant, and fiercely united—Grant realized he would gladly burn millions just to keep this specific energy alive in his home.
"Alright!" Grant threw his hands up in surrender, laughing helplessly. "Fine! I'll match your advance dollar-for-dollar in the trust. But that is my final offer, you shark, before I call my lawyers and have you evicted!"
"Deal!" Marvin cheered, raising his glass of sparkling cider.
The dining room echoed with the sounds of clinking glass, warm laughter, and the lively banter of a family that held the world in the palm of their hands. The City of Angels hummed outside their windows.
---
It took exactly twenty-four hours for the financial machinery of the Meyers family to grind into motion. By the following afternoon, a Uniform Gifts to Minors Act (UGMA) Trust account had been fully established and registered under Marvin's name at the Bank of America.
True to his word—and perhaps driven by the sheer, intoxicating novelty of seeing his eleven-year-old son act like a seasoned hedge fund manager—Grant transferred the full $1,000,000. He had doubled the Movie advance without a second thought. For a man who casually moved nine-figure sums before his morning coffee, a million dollars was a rounding error. But as seed capital for his son's dreams, it was everything.
The capital was immediately routed to a specialized trading account under the direct operational control of Grant's personal financial manager, Andrew Cohen.
Andrew was a quintessential Century City power-broker. A sharp-featured, meticulously groomed Jewish man in his early forties, he wore bespoke Italian suits and possessed a mind that functioned like a steel trap. He and Grant went back years, having originally met at a charity gala in Bel Air. Grant, representing "Old Money," had traditionally been a deeply conservative investor—parking the bulk of the Meyers' liquid wealth in impenetrable Treasury Bills, AAA Corporate Bonds, and blue-chip bank stocks.
To say Andrew was astonished when he was summoned to the Meyers estate to take investment orders from a middle-schooler would be the understatement of the fiscal year.
They sat in the Meyers' sprawling home library, the late afternoon sun cutting through the leaded glass windows. Andrew sat across the heavy oak desk from Marvin, while Grant leaned against the bookshelves, swirling a glass of sparkling water, entirely content to let his son run the meeting.
Under the terms of the ironclad agreement Grant had drawn up, Andrew would serve exclusively as Marvin's executing broker for this specific trust. He was explicitly prohibited from initiating any independent investments, hedging, or handling the portfolio with his own discretion.
Unlike traditional brokers who thrived on churning accounts to generate fees, Andrew would not earn commissions based on transaction volume. Instead, he was placed on a generous, fixed monthly retainer—an arrangement made possible by Grant's deep connections. The absolute absence of commission incentives ensured that Andrew would act as a precise, disciplined instrument of execution. His role was singular: follow Marvin's orders to the letter, offer market data when requested, and maintain absolute, airtight confidentiality. Ultimate control rested solely with the eleven-year-old sitting across from him.
Marvin folded his hands on the desk, his ocean-blue eyes locking onto the veteran broker. He didn't fidget. He didn't blink.
"Mr. Cohen," Marvin began, his voice smooth and carrying an unnerving authority. "Let us outline the strategy for the next six months. I am issuing a standing order. You will allocate exactly $600,000 to purchase underlying equity in Yahoo Inc. The remaining $400,000 will be deployed entirely into the options market. Specifically, you will split that four hundred thousand seventy-thirty. I want $280,000 used to buy six-month, at-the-money long calls. The remaining $120,000 will be used to buy aggressive, slightly out-of-the-money three-month long calls."
Andrew stopped writing on his legal pad. He lowered his Montblanc pen, staring at the boy for a long, heavy moment. He looked up at Grant, who simply offered a faint, proud shrug, before turning his attention back to Marvin.
Andrew offered a tight, professional smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Aren't you being a little too ambitious, kid? Let's look at the tape. The current price of Yahoo is hovering around $33 a share. It has suffered a sharp, double-digit pullback in the last week alone. The implied volatility is through the roof, which means the premiums on those call options you want are going to be obscenely expensive."
Andrew leaned forward, shifting into his element, treating Marvin not as a child, but as a recklessly aggressive client. "You're aiming for a highly leveraged, bullish boost on three-month paper when the broader market sentiment is showing severe bearish divergence. The institutional shorts are piling on. Wall Street is betting the stock will bleed out over the winter. If Yahoo trades sideways, let alone drops, theta decay is going to eat those short-term options alive. You could lose that entire $400,000 position before Valentine's Day."
Inside his mind, Marvin was practically giddy with joy. 'Thirty-three dollars? It dropped further since last Friday? More profit for me, baby.' He knew the history. He knew the dot-com bubble was only just beginning to inflate. The market was panicking over short-term noise, completely blind to the macro shift in global infrastructure. But more importantly, Marvin needed this aggressive leverage.
'I am betting the house on Yahoo,' Marvin thought, keeping his face perfectly neutral. 'If this works, it establishes absolute financial supremacy within the family. I need this to multiply exponentially, because I have massive plans for next July. When the Asian Financial Crisis hits and the Thai Baht collapses, I need a war chest big enough to short the currency markets. That is how I fund my studio. That is how I buy the world's entertainment.'
Outwardly, Marvin tilted his head, allowing a perfectly crafted, innocent smile to break through his shark-like demeanor. "But Mr. Cohen... if the institutional shorts are piling on, and the price is dropping, doesn't that just mean I'm buying the dip? The more it falls before you execute my block order, the cheaper my entry point is. I want to catch the falling knife."
'I was betting everything I had on Yahoo. Hopefully, things will go in a similar direction as I had expected or my grandpa will never trust me with anything else money-related. Especially since I had big plans to make big money from the Asian financial crisis in July for my world expansion plans..' Marvin thought.
Andrew stared at him. Then, a sharp, barking laugh escaped the broker's chest. He shook his head in disbelief, turning to look at Grant.
"You've got a terrifyingly sharp kid here, Grant," Andrew chuckled, the professional skepticism giving way to genuine respect. "He understands market contrarianism better than half the analysts on my floor."
"Don't I know it," Grant grinned back, stepping away from the bookshelf. "As per Marvin's directive, Andrew. Deploy the full million into Yahoo equities and derivatives. Deduct your setup fees from the cash position and put the rest to work."
Andrew picked up his pen, tapping it against a silver desktop calculator. "Understood. Our standard institutional setup fee of $50 has already been deducted from the cash balance. I will execute a block purchase of Yahoo equities worth $599,950 within the hour to avoid slippage. The remaining $400,000 will be routed to the options desk for the three-month and six-month calls. Is this acceptable, Marvin?"
Marvin nodded once, a gesture of absolute finality. "Yes. Execute the trade."
"Perfect," Andrew said, gathering his files and slipping them into his leather briefcase. He stood up, buttoning his suit jacket, and extended a hand across the desk to the eleven-year-old. "I have to admit, Marvin, it is always a pleasure to do business with smart people. Even when those smart people happen to be young sharks."
Marvin stood up and shook the man's hand, his grip firm and dry. "Thank you, Andrew. Keep your eyes on the board. When those three-month calls go into the money, I'll be calling you to roll them over."
As Andrew left the library, Grant walked over and ruffled Marvin's neatly combed hair. "Well, Mr. Wolf of Wall Street. The die is cast. Now, we wait."
"We don't wait, Dad," Marvin corrected, looking out the window toward the glittering Los Angeles skyline. "We just prepare for the harvest."
---
So, for a brief moment, Marvin became a meaningful shareholder in Yahoo.
An initial block of approximately 18,400 shares was accumulated at an average price of $32.60, held securely under his trust Scarlet Capitals account. It wasn't a controlling stake by any means, but it was more than enough to ensure he had real exposure to the company's explosive upside.
But equities were only part of the play.
Alongside his core position, Marvin committed $400,000 into leveraged long exposure through call options—with $280,000 positioned in six-month calls to ride the sustained upward trend, and $120,000 allocated to three-month calls aimed at capturing short-term acceleration.
Together, the structure formed a layered bullish position—grounded in equity, yet amplified through calculated leverage.
Another thing noteworthy in October was Marvin came to understand, over the weeks that followed, was that a film studio at the scale of Disney was not, functionally, a single organization pursuing a shared goal.
It was a collection of adjacent organizations, each with its own budget, its own leadership, its own historical grievances, its own definition of success, and its own finely calibrated understanding of where its interests ended and someone else's began. These organizations cooperated — mostly, sufficiently — when it served them to do so, and competed — quietly, relentlessly — when it did not.
The production side had its hierarchy. At the top, theoretically, sat the studio chairman. Below him was the president of production. Below her were the senior vice presidents of production, each overseeing a slate of projects. Below them were the vice presidents, the directors of development, the creative executives, the junior executives, the readers, the assistants.
Each level performed a function. Each level also performed the secondary function of justifying its own existence to the level above it, which required the generation of opinions, notes, concerns, and questions that demonstrated engagement with the material.
*****
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